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<\/a><\/p>\nDoes the following story sound vaguely familiar to any of you? You wake up and look in the mirror. You are delighted to find that your physique is looking very good. Your see that your body is leaning out nicely and your muscles are shaping up well. You put your workout attire on and pleasantly discover that the clothes are fitting you very well \u2013 snug in all the right places and loose where it matters. You hit the gym and kick some serious butt, setting strength records in multiple exercises. A couple of gym members pay you compliments, informing you that you are looking fantastic. Everything is going great, and your day is off to an excellent start. Then, you step on the scale, and all of your glee comes to a screeching halt. You\u2019ve gained a few pounds, and knowing this absolutely ruins your day.<\/p>\n
In the past, I have heard (mainly female) clients say similar things. After telling them how great they looked or how well they\u2019re doing, they mentioned that although they\u2019re happy with their strength gains and physique improvements, they\u2019ve packed on a few pounds since they started training and are therefore disappointed and discouraged with their training.<\/p>\n
Some people don\u2019t care so much about what the scale says \u2013 they\u2019re more influenced by other parameters such as how they look in the mirror, how their clothes feel, what the body fat results show. However, others are laser-focused on scale weight. Anecdotally, this scenario applies to a higher percentage of women than men, but some men will certainly be able to relate. It seems that many individuals have a target weight that they\u2019re aspiring to reach, and they just cannot be content knowing that the scale isn\u2019t congruent with this ideal notion (or moving toward this ideal notion), regardless of whether other forms of feedback appear to be promising.<\/p>\n
Perhaps this number represents the body weight that the individual was at when they felt they looked their all-time best (an example being wedding day). Or maybe the number represents the body weight of their favourite celebrity, model, or athlete. Nevertheless, allow me to explain you why you might indeed gain bodyweight following resistance training, but this is not necessarily a bad thing.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s All About the Diet<\/strong> <\/p>\n Click on the picture and look at women; each of these athletes exercise a lot, but when adjusting for height, we find that the smaller women consume much less calories than the larger women.<\/p>\n Intracellular Water Gain: Pumping Up the Muscles<\/strong> Here\u2019s how it works. Your body contains a lot of water. Males possess a range of 38.5 \u2013 73.5% water content, with an average water content of 58.3%, whereas females possess a range of 27.4 \u2013 70.9% water content, with an average water content of 48.5%. So in general, humans are around 50% water. How is this so? The increased water storage is highly related to increased muscle glycogen. Following 5 months of heavy resistance training, muscle glycogen increases by 66%. It is thought that every gram of glycogen stored in the muscles will bring along 2.7 grams of water along with it, with other estimates as high as 3-4 grams. Interestingly, after just 3 days on a very low carbohydrate diet, glycogen stores in the body can decrease to 1\/3rd of their initial values, and following this up with a high carbohydrate diet will cause these same individuals\u2019 glycogen levels to rise by a factor of 6, essentially doubling their initial values. These fluctuating glycogen levels create the illusion of rapid fat loss and regain, but it\u2019s really mostly water level fluctuation. And though most estimates put total body glycogen levels at approximately 400 grams, some individuals possess over 1,000 grams of glycogen in their bodies. This information helps provide clarity as to why individuals subjected to ketogenic very low calorie diets tend to lose 4.5kg\u2019s in just 4 days, with the top responder losing 8kg\u2019s (in other words; the effects of \u2018crash diets\u2019)<\/p>\n Strength Training Makes You Denser, Up to a Point<\/strong> When you strength train, weight tends to be subtracted from \u201cbad\u201d areas and added to \u201cgood\u201d areas, and this shift in body composition makes a huge positive difference in your physique. And since muscle is 18% more dense than fat, improving body composition will decrease your overall volume. Since density equals mass divided by volume, you can see that increasing density without increasing mass can only be achieved by decreasing volume. Check out this 6 year progression of a female\u2019s body shape during training, you\u2019ll note that after just over a year, her weight didn\u2019t change drastically, but she got smaller in overall size due to body re-compositioning.<\/p>\n
\nLet\u2019s start with the obvious: when you start lifting weights, you can either lose weight, maintain weight, or gain weight. How your body responds to strength training is largely influenced by your diet. If you\u2019re eating like a bird, you\u2019ll lose weight, and if you\u2019re eating like a horse, you\u2019ll gain weight. However, lifting weights will cause you to retain more muscle while you lose weight on a caloric deficit, and it will cause you to build more muscle while you gain weight on a caloric surplus. If you want to lose weight but find yourself gaining weight, then you\u2019re eating too much. If you want to gain weight but find yourself losing weight, then you\u2019re not eating enough. Got it? Good! Let\u2019s move on.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\nWhat if we said that we possessed a syringe filled with a special fluid that when injected into the muscles, would immediately improve their body shape? This special fluid would have no negative side effects and is legal. Would you consider using it? Luckily, that\u2019s not necessary. There is indeed a special fluid that does precisely this, and its name is water. But instead of injecting water into the muscles, all you have to do is lift weights. This causes intracellular water gain (the body\u2019s reaction to strength training).
\nYes I know most of our female readers seeing the term \u201cwater gain\u201d and associating it with bloating, such as that experienced during pre-menstruation. However, the location of water storage largely determines whether the water retention positively or negatively impacts the physique \u2013 not all water retention is equal. There is no doubt that bloating, characterised by increases in extracellular water storage, negatively alters appearance. However, the opposite is true with regards to intracellular water storage.
\nPerhaps you\u2019ve heard of bodybuilders describing how their muscles were flat. Much of what they do during the peaking phase prior to competition is designed to make the muscles appear full and the rest of the body appear dry. This is achieved by directing some of the body\u2019s water content out of the interstitial space and into the muscle cells, which greatly enhances appearance. But this doesn\u2019t just apply to bodybuilders. Think about the look of your favourite athletes \u2013 their muscles are probably full and shapely. As it turns out, this enhanced shape isn\u2019t just attributable to increased muscle proteins; increased water also influences the size and shape of your muscles.<\/p>\n
\nImmediately following a strength training workout, your muscles will acutely retain water. In fact, 4 and 52 hours following a workout, your muscles will store 7 and 8% more water, respectively, and this increased water storage is associated with a 13 and 16% increase in cross sectional area, respectively. This is in line with longitudinal research which shows that total body training performed 3 times per week for 16 weeks leads to 7.5% and 7.6% increases in total body water content for men and women, respectively. Furthermore, athletes that regularly perform resistance training tend to have lower densities of fat-free mass due to the increased water storage in their muscles. What\u2019s fascinating is that extracellular water content doesn\u2019t increase; only intracellular water content does, by 8.2% for men and 11.0% for women, respectively. The concurrent increases in skeletal muscle mass were 4.2 and 3.9% in men and women, respectively.<\/p>\n
\nLet\u2019s put this into perspective. Let\u2019s say a 65kg woman undergoes a 3-month resistance training regimen. During this time, her weight stays the same; she doesn\u2019t lose any weight or gain any weight. But she looks markedly different in the mirror. How can this be? If she trained properly, she would have likely gained a few pounds of muscle mass, she would be storing more water in her muscles due to the increased glycogen, she would have lost several pounds of fat, and other small changes will have taken place such as increased bone density. Powerlifters tend to have the highest bone densities ever recorded, but this would be a minor factor in this example. Maybe she lost 3kg\u2019s of fat, gained 1.5kg\u2019s of muscle, and is storing 1.5kg\u2019s more water in her muscles. This will markedly influence aesthetics, despite zero change in body weight.<\/p>\n