Will fitness make you gain weight?

Many people have the habit of fitness. Some people do not lose weight but gain weight after a period of fitness, while some people lose weight. It is like in life, thin people want to gain weight, but become thinner, and fat people want to lose weight, but become fatter. Many people have heard that fitness can make you gain weight. In fact, whether fitness can make you gain weight depends on your physical condition. The following introduces whether fitness can make you gain weight.

Can fitness help you gain weight?

From a scientific point of view, fitness and weight gain are effective for some people. Because moderate fitness can not only stimulate gastrointestinal motility, but also stimulate muscle growth. However, in actual practice, fitness and weight gain are relatively complicated. Everyone knows a popular saying in the fitness circle: 70% diet and 30% exercise. In other words, in order to be successful in fitness and weight gain, both aspects must be done well, and diet is relatively more important.

The scientific basis of fitness and weight gain:

The logic behind weight gain through fitness is to stimulate muscle growth, making our muscles thicker and bigger, thereby increasing our overall weight. To thoroughly understand the principles of fitness and weight gain, we must first understand the principles of muscle growth, and then follow the principles of muscle growth and continuously stimulate muscle growth to achieve the purpose of weight gain.

The secret to muscle growth lies in the process of breakdown and reconstruction. After the muscles are overloaded with weight, tiny cracks will appear in the muscle fibers, which is called muscle fiber ultrastructural damage. When the body senses this damage, it releases a substance called cytokines to direct muscle repair. In the process of muscle strengthening and repair, our muscles eventually become thicker; in physiology, this process is called muscle growth.

After figuring out the secret of muscle growth, bodybuilders have designed a series of training methods based on the principle of muscle growth. The purpose is to overload the muscles and put them into a cycle of damage and repair to stimulate muscle growth. This training method is called: training to exhaustion.

Key points for fitness and weight gain:

1. High-intensity anaerobic training:

To gain weight through fitness, the first thing you need is high-intensity anaerobic training, preferably exhaustion training, to fully damage muscle fibers, thereby stimulating the body's self-protection mechanism and promoting muscle repair, growth, and strengthening;

2. High-density nutrient intake:

In the process of fitness and weight gain, when the human muscle fibers are fully damaged and the body's self-repair mechanism is induced, we need to provide the body with more nutrients for the body to repair muscle tissue; therefore, in the process of fitness and weight gain, dietary adjustment is a key link.

3. Ensure adequate rest and sleep time:

Since the muscle repair process mainly takes place during sleep at night, ensuring adequate sleep can provide a better environment for the body to repair itself. Therefore, during the fitness and weight gain process, we recommend that thin friends ensure at least 8 hours of sleep a day, and if conditions permit, it can be extended to 10 hours of sleep. In addition, in order to ensure that the muscles can be repaired thoroughly, it is generally recommended that the training frequency should not be too high, and generally 2-3 exhaustion training sessions per week are sufficient.

Why do many thin people fail to gain weight through fitness?

The first possibility: incorrect fitness methods, or too high exercise frequency, or insufficient exercise intensity, or insufficient nutritional intake, or insufficient sleep time, all of which can lead to failure in fitness and weight gain. Relatively speaking, if thin friends go to the gym and train with a fitness coach, the probability of the first two mistakes is lower; however, since fitness coaches are not very good at dietary intervention, insufficient nutritional intake is the most common reason for failure in fitness and weight gain.

The second possibility: thin friends are not suitable for fitness and weight gain. Fitness and weight gain is actually a type of exercise-based weight gain, and it also has its own limitations and suitable groups of people. For some people who have poor food digestion, suboptimal nutrient absorption, and excessive calorie consumption, there is a more than 90% chance that fitness and weight gain will end in failure.

Which group of people are suitable for fitness and weight gain?

Fitness and weight gain are mainly suitable for people who are simply thin, that is, those who have normal digestive and absorption functions and do not have any underlying diseases. For other types of thin friends, the effect of weight gain through fitness alone will not be particularly ideal. They can only use fitness as an auxiliary means, combined with other weight gain methods, to achieve the goal of better and faster weight gain.