Maximizing Muscle Growth: Fuelling Strategies for Hypertrophy

In my November workshop, I talked about fuelling for hypertrophy. What is hypertrophy? In simple terms, it is the growth of muscle or enlargement of the cells within the muscle. Why is muscle growth and the maintenance of muscle important?

As we age, our muscle mass begins to decrease as much as 3-8% per decade over the age of 30. Have you ever heard the phrase break a hip , die of pneumonia? If you haven't heard of that phrase, maybe you know of someone like a grandparent or a grandparent of a friend, who in the later stages of life maybe took a fall, broke a hip, never recovered and was hospitalized and potentially got sick and never fully recovered or maybe that fall led to them being put into a nursing home or requiring home care until end of life. This is directly related to the loss of muscle, which in turn decreases bone density. When bone density decreases that makes us vulnerable to Osteopenia, which is the precursor to Osteoporosis, which means brittle bones that are more likely to break. So, what can we do now in our younger years to prevent Osteoporosis in our future? Simply by maintaining muscle mass as we age. How do we do that? There are a few things that we can do to maintain muscle mass. One thing would be to strength train, and another would be to increase our daily quality protein intake as we age.

Strength training (or resistance training), particularly as we age offers an array of benefits related to maintaining muscle mass and bone density including improved muscle strength and function, range of motion, prevention of injury, overall physical function such as bending down to tie your shoes, or reaching up to a high cupboard to grab something.

Regular strength training is associated with increased bone density which is crucial to preventing the onset of Osteoporosis and fractures especially in post menopausal women. There are many meta-analysis studies to support this including PMID: 35742181- The Effect of Resistant Training on Bone Mineral Density in Older Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

So, now that we know that resistance or strength training can help us maintain muscle mass, and therefore maintain bone density to prevent the future onset of Osteopenia or Osteoporosis, how do we fuel our bodies to help support building that muscle?

Well first thing is first, and this is a hard pill to swallow for some, especially the person who is used to "eating less and moving more", but in order to build muscle you have to be eating at minimum in your maintenance calories, but ideally in a caloric surplus. Yes, you heard me right, you need to eat food! Good quality food of course, primarily focusing on protein, but you need to eat enough in order to build muscle. Something that I have learned when working with nutrition coaching clients, is that 80% of the time when a client starts working with me and I have them start tracking, they are WAY under-consuming protein and calories in general. This is because the fitness industry has misled and confused the average individual to believe that you need to eat less and move more, primarily doing cardio in order to lose fat. Fat loss is the primary goal of most clients that come to me for nutrition coaching or personal training, but most times they are restricting calories so much, they have become what is known as fat adapted, which means their bodies are storing fat in their adipose tissue because it's holding on to whatever few calories they are consuming preparing for famine. Your body doesn't realize that you're restricting because you don't want to gain weight, it's just going into survival mode. The reality is, you need to fuel your body in order for it to thrive and function optimally, including eating adequate protein to promote protein synthesis which is the process of the body generating new protein cells. What is the building blocks of life? Protein! So, if we are not consuming enough protein, the first place it goes to is the organs to keep them functioning and only if there is some left over, it then goes to the muscles. If we are not consuming enough protein, some of the symptoms may include fatigue, brittle hair and nails, poor skin, low energy, or you might get sick often and just feel run down. Over time, this could be detrimental to your overall health.

Let's get back to maintenance calories for a minute before we move on to how much protein we should consume. Maintenance calories are the daily calories you need to intake to maintain the current weight you are at, hence the term "maintenance calories" also known as Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE). This is something that a nutrition coach or personal training can calculate for you, or you can do on your own using one of the common formulas such as the Harris- Benedict Equation or the Mifflin-St Jeor Equation. The calculations are based on age, weight, height, lifestyle factors and exercise activity. This is why there is not a one size fits all approach to weighloss/weight gain. Every individual is different and there are many factors that can affect this including environment and habits. When I start working with clients, I either see them either side of the maintenance calories spectrum, either over or under consuming calories, which can both be a detriment to ones health. Rarely do I meet a client who is hitting their targets right away. This is where using tracking tools such as Cronometer or MyFitnessPal can be useful tools, even if only using to get a better understanding where you are at on a daily basis. I highly recommend using a food tracking tool if you never have before to see the quality and quantity of the foods you are eating to educate yourself better.

Let's get back to Protein! It's the most important macronutrient out of the 3 main macronutrients, which also includes fats and carbohydrates. Without protein, we would cease to exist. We need it in our diets, as it is the building blocks of life, and we need to consume enough, not just for adequate organ function, but we need it to provide muscle protein synthesis, the building and replacing of cells. So, how much protein should we consume in a day? The recommended daily intake (RDA) of protein is .8g/kg of body weight which works out to approximately .36g/lb of body weight, therefore if you are a 150lb individual the bare minimum you should consume just to avoid deficiency is 54g of protein a day. If you are trying to build or maintain muscle this number should be increased to 1-1.2g/lb of body weight. In extreme cases such as body builders or strength althetes, protein intake can go up to 2.2g/lb of body weight. As long as you do not diagnosed kidney issues there is no reason that you cannot consume more protein in your diet. The biggest struggle someone who increases protein may face is the feeling of being full. There is also the possibility of constipation, but if you are consuming adequate fiber in your diet (25 g for women, 30g for men) then you should not have issues here. The benefits of increasing protein are exponential including increased energy, increased strength and muscle growth, feeling satiated, better hair, skin, and nails, improved immunity, and the more protein you eat the chances of decreasing cravings and reaching for the ultra processed foods will blow your mind! From an evidenced based perspective, the more protein you eat, the more lean body mass you build in your body, in combination with proper exercise the more fat you'll lose as the muslce will need to replace it.

So in a nutshell, if you eat plenty of protein combined with whole food quality fats and carbohydrates, and incorporate strength and resistance training into your daily routines, with consistency the ability to shed body fat and gain muscle will not only improve how you look and feel, it will also provide insurance for your future self, by maintaining muscle mass and in turn bone density so you can live your best functional life well into advanced age. Just because we age, doesn't mean we have to accept getting old and frail. We can age with strength!