{"id":13416,"date":"2026-01-26T10:43:43","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T10:43:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldbodybuildingnews.com\/?p=13416"},"modified":"2026-01-26T10:43:43","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T10:43:43","slug":"strong-v-swole-the-surprising-truth-about-building-muscle-fitness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldbodybuildingnews.com\/?p=13416","title":{"rendered":"Strong v swole: the surprising truth about building muscle | Fitness"},"content":{"rendered":"


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U<\/span>ntil pretty recently, the conventional wisdom about building muscle was that it worked via a system you might think of as \u201ctear and repair\u201d \u2013 the idea being that working out causes microtears in the muscle fibres, which trigger the body\u2019s repair processes, encouraging the muscles to come back bigger and stronger.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why many old-school trainers will tell you that there\u2019s no gain without pain, and why a lot of bodybuilding advice includes increasingly byzantine ways of pushing your biceps and triceps to the point where you can\u2019t do another repetition: the more trauma you can cause, the thinking goes, the more \u201cswole\u201d you can become.<\/p>\n

To be clear, this has worked for plenty of lifters \u2013 especially ones aided by under-the-counter performance enhancers, which can help recovery from even the most arduous workouts. But the current science suggests that there\u2019s a better way to think about things.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe best evidence now suggests that the primary driver of muscle hypertrophy \u2013 the technical term for an increase in size of the muscle cells \u2013 is mechanical tension,\u201d says Dr Anne Brady, a kinesiology professor who specialises in muscle quality, physical function and body composition. \u201cMuscle damage certainly contributes, but it\u2019s not the main factor. Typically, it\u2019s more of a side-effect.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/svg><\/span>Burn those biceps?<\/span> Photograph: PeopleImages\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To explain this a bit more: when you lift a weight that\u2019s heavy enough (or you perform enough repetitions of a movement to reach near-failure, which you\u2019ll recognise from the fact that your reps slow down and feel more \u201cgrindy\u201d), the resulting physical tension stretches the membrane that encases your muscle cells. From there, specialised sensors called mechanoreceptors detect that stretch and turn on what\u2019s known as the mTOR pathway, a sort of master regulator that listens to various signals and \u201cdecides\u201d whether your body should be building new tissue or breaking down old parts for energy. From there, the mTOR pathway signals to the cell to start muscle protein synthesis (MPS) \u2013 the process of adding new protein to the muscle fibres to make them thicker and stronger.<\/p>\n