The Difference - Real vs. Fake Muscle | Lifting 101 | Forum

This is a guest article by Adrian Bryant, who has an interesting take on "real" muscle vs. "fake muscle".  I'd love to hear what you think of this!

So What is Real Muscle & How Do You Build It?

Real muscle or what is technically called myofibrillar hypertrophy is what you get when your actual muscles get bigger and you can expect to gain 1-to-5 pounds of real muscle each month and…

The best way to build more real muscle is to Do compound exercises with heavy weights that are over 80% of your 1-rep max for about 3-to-8 reps to tear down your muscles to make your body have to repair and rebuild your "real" muscles into bigger and stronger ones but…

To Look Your Best You Also Need To Build Fake Muscle

Fake muscle or what is technically called sarcoplasmic hypertrophy is what you get when your muscles get pumped up BIG real fast (just like a balloon) by being able to hold more water weight and other stuff in it like carbs (glycogen),  creatine,  blood and other energy sources and…

To build more fake muscle…

You just need to do a lot of reps (usually more than 8-to-12) using weights that are at least  60% of your 1-rep max because when you do a lot of reps you completely wear out your muscles and when you wear out your muscles doing lots of reps…

Your muscles will adapt to your high rep muscle building workouts by storing more energy (and that energy is basically just water weight, carbs, blood, creatine & other stuff) and the more energy you can store in your muscles means your muscles will get bigger so look at this way…

• Real muscle is the muscle that actually contracts or moves the weights you lift when you workout and…
• Fake muscle is what gives your real muscles the energy it needs to lift the weights you're using.

You’ll Build Fake Muscle Faster Than Real Muscle

If you want to instantly get bigger arms and chest then get on the floor right now and do 50 pushups and watch your chest & arms swell up instantly. That’s a very basic example of building fake muscle or pumping up real fast but…

You'll lose your fake muscles faster than your real muscles because when you don't workout for a long period of time there is no need for your muscles to hold onto to all that energy (or all the water weight, blood, carbs and other stuff) but…

Real Muscle Takes Longer To Build But It Last Longer

Real muscle will not go away unless you become inactive for a REAL LONG TIME but even if you do stop working out for a long time you can quickly rebuild your REAL muscle due to muscle memory without having to start all over again building lots of muscle and even though you’ll only build 1-to-5 pounds of real muscle a month…

Just 1 pound of real muscle gain is enough to cause a big difference in the way you look and if you think 1 pound of muscle is not much then look at a 1 lb. steak and multiply that by 1-to-5.

You’ll always build Real & Fake muscles at the same time when you workout and…

To look your very best it’s important to mix up your workouts to focus more on real or fake muscle by…

• Using heavy weights that are over 80% of your 1-rep max and low reps to build more real muscle and…
• Using weights that are at least 60% of your 1-rep max and doing lots of reps to build more fake muscle or…

You can build lots of real and fake muscle at the same time by doing 5-10 reps per set.

About the Author
Adrian Bryant helps people build muscle fast at Nowloss.com, his personal hobby blog focused on tips to help you look better by burning fat and building muscle.

Read original blog post

Adrian was just using the word "fake" as a way to make his point.  It's all muscle tissue, but different types/quality.