What Happens When You Begin Strength Training
As January comes to a close and February begins, many of us have tackled our first 4 weeks of fitness goals. Whether you set out to increase your max squat or improve your consistency with weight training, it’s likely you are starting to see and feel the effects of your hard work.
Of course, we all know that strength training increases your strength, but what exactly is happening on a physiological level when we resistance train? Today we break down both the macro and micro impacts that pumping iron has on our bodies and how these changes can keep us strong and protected for years to come.
Initial adaptations
When an individual first begins strength training, it’s not out of the ordinary to experience a pretty significant jump in strength in a short period of time. Interestingly, this strength gain is not directly correlated to an increase in cross sectional muscle size and instead can be attributed to neural adaptations. In layman’s terms, this means you’re getting stronger but your muscles aren’t necessarily growing at a rate to support that strength gain. Instead of actual muscle hypertrophy, neural adaptations occur improving the body’s ability to recruit muscle fibers.
Neural adaptations tend to be the primary contributor to strength gains in the first 6-8 weeks of resistance training. During this time, the brain is building stronger connections to the muscle cells, improving timing, activation patterns and overall efficiencies. As familiarity with a specific movement improves, so too will the brain’s ability to effectively activate different muscles to produce force.
What’s happening during the neural adaptation phase?
Let’s get a little scientific, shall we? During the neural adaptation phase, there are various events occurring within the neuromuscular system that contribute to initial strength gains. The first of these involves an increase in motor unit recruitment. A motor unit refers to a specific alpha motor unit and all of the muscle fibers it innervates. Motor units are activated in an “all or nothing” manner meaning if you activate a specific motor neuron, all of its fibers will concurrently activate. These motor units are also activated in a low to high threshold manner with load directly impacting which units are recruited when. As you begin training a specific muscle or pattern, your brain reacts by recruiting additional motor units with every attempt. In doing so, your body is able to produce force, enhance the speed of motor unit recruitment and maximize overall movement efficiency.
Besides increased motor unit recruitment, enhanced coordination of nerve signaling also occurs making muscle activation patterns more timely and efficient. As this coordination progresses, synergistic muscles experience an increase in activation, while antagonistic muscle activation decreases.
A third contributor to neural adaptations is a process termed synchronization. This concept involves the timing of motor unit recruitment and contributes to enhanced muscular force production.
A final concept to touch on is the cross-education phenomenon. A phenomenon indeed, this describes the ability of the body to increase strength on an untrained side simply by training the contralateral or opposite limb. Although the exact mechanism of cross education is debated, it likely occurs as a result of communication within various neural pathways from the muscle to the spinal cord and brain.
Subsequent adaptations
Following the initial 8 or so weeks of neural adaptations, additional strength gains are increasingly attributed to muscle hypertrophy. During this phase, increases in strength will generally be slower and require more optimized training to promote quantifiable improvements. As opposed to hyperplasia, which refers to an increase in the number of muscle cells, hypertrophy, or an increase in the size of muscle cells, is the primary mechanism for enhanced strength following resistance training.
In order for hypertrophy to occur, the muscle must experience a high enough load to trigger an anabolic response. This means in order to reap the most benefits, it’s important you have a well designed program with sufficient volume and load to induce physiological change. As strength development requires a process of breakdown to rebuild, proper nutrition, sleep and hydration are all essential to evoke change.
Use it or lose it
Once strength adaptations occur, the job isn’t over. Unfortunately, for how long it takes to gain strength, atrophy can occur as quickly as 4-6 weeks following inactivity. Without question, strength training is an integral component to healthy living, functional prowess, fall prevention and quality of life and including it within our weekly fitness regimen is a must.
Regardless of your goals, remember the incredible changes that are occurring within the body every time you pick up a weight. Keep up the hard work, challenge your body and witness the changes first hand.
If you or someone you love would like guidance in your strength training journey, set up a consultation today and get ready to reap the innumerable benefits that resistance training offers.
