The more the better, it means that the more you have something the better you are. There are things like reading that the more you read the better it is. However, there are counterexamples. One of things is exercise. Many people think that the more they exercise the more effective it is. Are they doing correct exercise? To tell the conclusion first, the answer about the question is “No.” With exercise having enough rest, muscles can grow healthier.
First, to inquiry about the principle of muscle growth, I met professor Woo Jin-hee from Physical Education Department of College of Sport Sciences in Donga University. He compared the principle of muscle growth to the building after an earthquake. When an earthquake happens, it makes building crack and the building should be repaired. The building will be repaired so that it wouldn’t be destroyed easily by the former magnitude later. Professor Woo Jin-hee explained “with exercise lifting heavy Babel and Dumbbell, muscles are damaged by being torn and cut and it is represented by muscle pain.” He said “our body recovers damaged muscles taking some rest like taking sleep and nourishing supplement, and in this step muscles grow stronger.”
However, if we exercise again before muscles recovered completely, damaged muscles would get damaged once again so they wouldn’t operate well. Professor Woo Jin-hee said “although it has differences with every muscle in recovery time, according to research it takes about 48 hours on average.” And he said “during 48 hours, muscles become bigger and muscular strength gets stronger to adapt intensity of previous stimulation.” This principle is same as after workout. Athletes don’t have any further things like exercise and take a rest for a while. Athletes should have time recovering damaged muscles during the exercise. If they have another event before their muscles recovered completely, they couldn’t run with best condition.
Then what are ideal ways of muscle recovery? Muscle recovery is conducted when you don’t use muscles. Watching TV on the sofa can be an example of muscle recovery. We can learn another example when exercising. ‘Split Routine’ is a way of exercise that is conducted by exercising body part separately. This way of exercise is like that if you exercised upper body today, lower body should be exercised tomorrow. With this method, upper body muscles can be relaxed because upper body don’t’ need to move while lower body muscles are exercised.
Taking sleep and nourishing supplement are also way of muscle recovery. Professor Woo Jin-hee emphasized nourishing supplement more than taking sleep. He said “taking amino acids in 1~3 hours after the exercise helps grow muscles because it encourages synthesis of protein.” And “it is better to take carbohydrate and protein with 1:3~4 ratio more than taking protein only. One typical way of the diets is eating protein food like chicken breast, tuna and eggs with carbohydrate food like bread.
Despite hard exercise, it is hard to make muscle growth without enough rest. For efficient muscle growth, rest is necessary.
[Today’s Training]
Today’s exercise I want to introduce is ‘Dumbbell Curl’. This exercise helps grow ‘Biceps Brachii’ muscle. Following is the method of the exercise.
1. Hold dumbbells putting legs in shoulder width.
2. With putting both elbows on your side, lift dumbbells slowly to contract muscle.
3. Put down dumbbells slowly to relax muscle.
4. Repeat alternately to each arm.
