Why Gain Muscle Mass?

Muscles are the important cells of your body that cause your body to move about and allow you to carry out the thoughts of your mind. Muscles are essential to read this article, to enter a message on your keyboard, to get the mail, and even to move food all the way through the digestive track. Muscles move you in the direction of what you want to obtain and away from what you wish to stay away from. Without muscles, you wouldn't be alive.

Muscles help you maintain your balance, hold your body together and let your joints operate so you can move about. Muscles also serve as added padding that guards the bones from injury when you bump into things as you go about your every day activities.

Muscles are composed primarily of water (70%) and protein (22%). Muscle mass will decline or atrophy as a result of medical conditions (for example, cancer, AIDS, congestive hear disease), aging (called sarcopenia), or lack of use (many people lead a sedentary life). The body normally balances the processes of protein synthesis and protein degradation. When a reason for muscle atrophy is prevalent, the balance is missing and the magnitude of the synthesis of proteins is exceed by the degradation of proteins.

Lack of exercise is not only a consideration in muscle atrophy, but also in loss of bone density. Like muscle tissue, healthy bones experience an equilibrium between bone resorption and bone formation. Up to 10% of your bone mass may be experiencing this process at any time. Inactivity is a risk factor that accents bone resorption and diminishes bone formation and can lead to osteoporosis. Exercise that places stress on bones (weight bearing exercises) helps encourage bone formation, thus reducing the probability of osteoporosis.

Exercise is the best way for most people with sedentary jobs to build up or tone the muscles and maintain healthy bones. It will augment muscle strength by promoting protein synthesis and decreasing protein degradation. Because of the reduced activity of people in the developed world and their longer lifespan, exercise and muscle building exercises are more and more essential.

Here are the facts about your need for protein supplements.

Through effective resistance training, skilled athletes can add up to 2/3 of a pound of lean muscle mass in a week. Athletes taking steroids may be able to gain about 1.1 pounds of muscle mass per week.

While many people advocate the use of costly protein supplements to help build muscle mass, the real increased daily protein needed to add 2/3 of a pound of muscle in a week (22% of which is protein) is just around 15 grams This can simply be accomplished with a daily addition of a couple glasses of non-fat milk or a mere 3 ounces of chicken. Pricey protein products are not normally required.

Exercise that produces toning or building of muscle mass is an obligation for everybody who desires to remain vigorous long into their retirement years. Exercises that build muscle help counteract muscle atrophy and bone density loss, both factors in a reduced quality of life. So, stay physically active and build your muscles.

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