How To Tell If Your Muscles Are Growing

Many of you will be aware that hard training is required in order for the muscles to respond by growing, but how do you know when your muscles are actually growing after a training session?

Many weight trainers do a great job at stimulating the growth of the muscle but, what if they don’t consume enough calories and nutrients for the body to build the muscle to its maximum potential. This is where many fail and end up throwing away the good work done at the gym. You need to get the most out of all your hard workouts or it'll be wasted effort. The way to ensure good growth for every workout is to provide the body with sufficient energy and nutrition, and then the muscle can grow fully. If the body’s needs are NOT met then all it will do is recover the muscle back to its pre-workout state. Once you have achieved all your body’s needs, you’ll want to know if your muscles are growing.

How can you tell if the muscles are getting bigger?

There are some signs that indicate whether the muscles are actually growing or not. They are:

Increased strength
Increased thirst
Decrease in urinating under normal conditions
Tightening of the skin in certain areas
Stretch marks
Muscle spasms

Each Sign of Muscle Growth Explained

If you are stronger at the next workout, then your muscles have become bigger. It is fact that strength and muscular size are related, in other words, if you’re stronger then the muscle is bigger. If you could only manage 8 repetitions with 100 pounds on the barbell curl, then the next session you manage to get 10 reps, then your biceps have become stronger. Ninety percent of the time it's that simple.

Sometimes the weights will just seem easier during a workout, and this could also be a good sign that your muscles are larger than before. The only exception to this rule is if you’re new to training as there is often a nervous system development where the nerves innervate the muscles cells more proficiently. This usually results in the ability to push more weight even if the muscle hasn’t grown. However, this often happens within the first 3 or 4 workouts.

Our muscles largely consist of water, so any type of anabolic processes such as muscular growth, will require additional intake of fluid from the diet. Therefore, a good indication that the muscles are growing is if you’re consistently thirsty during the day. This is not always a particularly accurate way to assess growth because you may simply be a little dehydrated, especially if you’ve been physical or not drank much during the day. However, if you haven’t been active, plus you’ve consumed your normal fluid intake and you can rule out normal dehydration from high dietary salt intakes, or any other possibilities, then it could indicate that your muscles are growing well.

A similar sign associated with fluid balance is fewer visits to the toilet for urination. If you’re drinking enough normally and you don’t feel thirsty, think about if you’re urinating less than normal. If your muscles are growing, then the growing cells will require more fluid, and if you’re consuming your normal amounts of food and drink, then the body must gain fluid from elsewhere. It will have to obtain it by reabsorbing it back from the kidneys as it excretes toxins. The result means less fluid to flush the kidneys out so you end up using the toilet less often.

Beginners to weight training should notice the first 3 signs more if they’re training correctly and NOT spending too much time in the gym. More training equals more sweating which could lead to dehydration, and thus can explain the increased thirst and less urinating in this case!

Another sign of muscle growth that may occur within a day or two after training is a tight feeling in the skin or at certain areas of the body. This is where the muscles are pushing more against the skin as they grow. It is a subtle feeling as growth is relatively small, so you’ll only feel it occasionally and not all the time. I used to know if a chest training session had gone well because within a few days after the session I could feel a stretch near my armpit, where the chest muscle originates from. The growth of my chest muscles would be confirmed at the following workout when I was stronger at bench pressing!

I also started to see signs of stretch marks, which is a classic sign of fast, and big muscular growth rates. In fact, many guys taking steroids for the first time often experience stretch marks, and this is simply because steroids cause very fast muscle growth, although, I do NOT recommend taking steroids or any drugs for muscle building purposes!

Occasionally, fast muscle growth results in certain types of muscle spasms. You'll probably experience signs of muscle growth spasms during rest days, as this is the only period when muscles actually grow. I used to get them in my shoulders quite regularly, and the following workout I would be able to press more weight!

A muscle growth secret which many people are unaware of, is that you shouldn't train if you are experiencing any signs of your muscles growing. This is because the muscles are actually growing right there! If you go to the gym and train then you're not giving the muscles chance to fill out to their maximum at that stage. The best thing to do when you feel any of the growth signs is to rest and EAT - don't go to the gym!!

Better, faster muscle growth can be achieved with one key secret!

The best way to ensure fast muscular growth is to train the whole body as a unit in one single workout. The workout must also be brief (an hour at most) so you’ll only have chance to perform a few exercises per major muscle group. When you train all the basic muscle groups together using compound exercises alone, you’ll see much faster results because your body goes through intense physical stress as a whole, and this causes the release of hormones like testosterone and growth hormone which both help set up the body’s physiology towards anabolism. An anabolic state produces more lean muscular gains in weight. This is when you’ll notice more of the signs of muscle growth revealed above!

Training in a way that helps produce more of your body's muscle building hormones is one of the secrets to ultra-fast growth. Jason Ferruggia's new eBook "Muscle Gaining Secrets" reveals how to maximize your body's natural testosterone production. This is his number 2 biggest mistake weight trainers make. Jason is a world renowned strength and conditioning coach and he reveals more to help hard gainers build muscle fast to really impress their friends!

Check out his site below:

www.musclegainingsecrets.com

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