What is it about exercise that makes a muscle grow? Intensity! Weak effort produces little growth. Maximum effort produces maximum growth, all other factors being equal. So that means you should always lift the heaviest weight in strict controlled form, right?

Wrong! The idea that you need to lift heavy weights to maximise intensity may be a great way to sell you lots of weights and machines to store in your basement (my basement certainly was filled with this merchandise at one time). But the truth is, lifting heavy is not always the best way to increase intensity!

Lifting heavy weights is intense, and for strength building, lifting heavy is essential. There's no doubt that muscle growth will occur while training heavy, but training exclusively with heavy weights may actually slow down your progress. Regardless of how intensely you think you are working, there is one sign that will never fail to tell you if you are working intensely enough: increased blood flow into the muscle, physiologically called hyperaemia, a.k.a. "THE PUMP"! The pump is not just a "side effect" of exercise. For muscle-building purposes, the pump is the main goal of exercise.

Testosterone is not necessary for this type of muscle growth to occur. Testosterone is a hormone that creates new muscle fibres in boys as they develop into adults. These new fibres are made out of permanent structural proteins. Testosterone has little effect in creating new fibres in adults.

Achieving a pump requires strict attention to timing. Filling up your muscles with extra blood is like filling up a bucket with a hole in the bottom. Fluid has to flow into the vessel at a faster rate than flows out of it. That means you can't take a break and start socialising while in the middle of working toward a pump.

Protein is important for building muscle, but you could eat 100% of your calories from protein and you won't gain an ounce of muscle - if your daily total calorie intake isn't greater than your daily calorie output. To build muscle, you require a balanced diet.

Infancy is the time of a human's life when growth is the most rapid, and when protein needs are the highest. Yet, human breast milk contains only 10% protein by calories (versus about 30% for cow's milk). This is more than adequate to meet the needs of a growing human infant who doubles its weight in 6 months and triples its weight in a year.

You aren't going to grow new lean tissue nearly as fast, so forget about stuffing yourself with protein ... just eat a balanced diet.