why you lift weights influences muscle gain more than you think

Understanding how your body works and the movements it makes when your exercise is important to make more gains. Every weightlifting you do has two main phases: the concentric phase and the eccentric phase. Knowing how each phase works and the difference between them is essential to boost your muscle gains and unlocking new sensations. Understand each of the phases Concentric phase: there is a shortening of the muscle, it is the part where the weight is lifted, for example in a biceps curl, as you bend the elbow and lift the weight towards the shoulder, the biceps brachii shortens while contracts. Eccentric phase: in this phase, the muscle returns to its initial position, and there is lengthening. Taking the example above, it is when the mitten moves away from the shoulder and the arm straightened. Or, for instance, in the descent of a squat. The importance of the eccentric phase Although it may seem that the concentric phase is where the muscle does the vast majority of its work, the eccentric component is actually where there is more demand on the muscles. Controlling the eccentric phase and doing it slowly, instead of dropping it quickly, is a good way to overload the muscle and lead to growth. This phase is more efficient from the neuromuscular point of view and has less metabolic demand, thus producing greater muscle contraction. How to use phases to reach your goals depending on the exercise you want to perform, you start with the concentric or eccentric phase, for example, in the biceps curl, the concentric is the first phase that is performed; instead in the squats, the first phase is eccentric, which is the descent. The concentric phase has to be fast and explosive, this way it will help you train and develop power from it. When this phase is carried out, the muscle is in full contraction, since it goes against gravity, which is why it must be carried out explosively and thus take advantage of greater muscle gain. Taking advantage of the eccentric phase and performing the movement slowly requires more concentration and adaptation of the muscle, thus improving its strength. When going in favor of gravity, the movement must be slowed down, to prevent it from doing the muscular work. Bulgarian squats: this is how you should position yourself to harden your glutes The Bulgarian split squat or also commonly called Bulgarian squats, is a unilateral exercise that generates a great activation of the legs, both the quadriceps and the femoral and gluteal muscles, making it a great exercise to gain muscle mass. This exercise is very hard to perform but, as I mentioned before, it is very useful if you want to have big and strong legs. How to perform Bulgarian squats It should be clarified that Bulgarian squats can be performed in several ways: with a dumbbell in multipower with an open bar, The way to perform the Bulgarian squats will depend on how the person likes it, since each method has its pros and cons. To give an example, performing Bulgarian squats with a dumbbell or free bar will mean that we cannot move as much weight, but the strength of our core will improve a lot. On the other hand, if it is done in multipower (as I like best) you will be able to move more weight but the core will not activate as much. After choosing a way to do it, we will have to put a box, bench, or any other raised surface behind us to support the instep of our back leg. Next, activating our core as much as possible, we will go down with the lead leg as far as our mobility allows us, and we will push up with the other leg. How to do it to stimulate the gluteus more One of the functions of the gluteus is to extend the hip, so when executing the Bulgarian squat, what we have to do is start the movement with the hip flexed and, when we go up, extend it completely. The greater the flexion and extension of the hip, the greater the stimulus we will be giving to the gluteus, so if you want to have a strong gluteus, it is time to give the Bulgarian squats.