Muscle Mass and Training Basics
As we continue our conversations about building long term health, we turn to another metric that is trackable and significantly reduces all cause mortality. This is your total amount of lean mass. Total lean mass is the amount of mass on the body that is bone, muscle, organs, some water and other soft tissues. Of these, the most modifiable is muscle. In short terms, it appears that having a higher amount of muscle mass reduces your risk of dying from anything and thus increases life span. This makes intuitive sense. First, we know that when we see strength starting to drop, specifically in your toes and hips, we see fall risk rapidly increase and associated mortality issues. Secondly when we inevitably fall, because we all fall some, muscle acts as body armor, shielding us and absorbing impact forces. Lastly, we can’t “hack” high muscle mass. It requires training consistently, with intention, over many many years, if not decades.
So, in my opinion and view of the literature, everyone should be resistance training in some capacity. I don’t want this to be conflated with bodybuilding culture. That is a very specific type of training for a very specific goal. Don’t think you need to be doing three hour lifting sessions six days a week like Arnold did. Two sessions of about thirty minutes a week is enough to maintain strength and muscle mass with three sessions being more ideal for building muscle. Now there is a growing body of literature looking at lifting volume and muscle mass. It does appear that the more lifting volume someone can tolerate the more muscle mass they will build. This is assuming they train correctly and not get injured and can recover from their workouts. This does not mean you have to be doing 25 sets per muscle group per week. Three full body days a week is sufficient stimulus to grow more muscle.
With weight lifting, there are more programs than one can count. However, the principles for building muscle mass are as follows. First, training must be hard, doing sets with two or three repetitions in reserve which means within two or three reps of absolute failure. This is usually somewhere around eight to fifteen repetitions per set. This should be done for eight to twelve sets per week. Some programs like to split training up into specific muscle groups, I prefer thinking in movement patterns. Neither is more correct than the other, I have found for myself, training in planes of movement has better carry over into my day to day life. Eat enough protein to be able to recover from your training as well and be in a calorie surplus.
This training style has infinite variations with each variation having its own cult like following who will die defending their hill. If you follow the basic principles of training hard (with good technique) consistently, with sufficient volume, you will build muscle, end of story. It doesn’t need to be more complicated than that. Making it sustainable for yourself is the biggest gift you can give your health because then you will do it, and will reap the rewards.
