Muscles are meant to be worked, and if they aren't, they feel unappreciated, if not downright useless. And if you're not careful, they might just fade away.

        To make matters worse, the body has a hostile attitude toward muscles and would just as soon rid itself of them if it could. Thus, as the years roll by, your strength and muscle mass can easily slip through your fingers if you don't take steps to prevent it.

        Why the hostile attitude? Eons ago when food was scarce, the body's survival depended upon minimizing energy outflow and maximizing energy storage. Muscle gobbles energy — a threat to survival. Thus, the body learned to love body fat (stored energy) and hate muscles.

        In today's society, survival generally is not threatened by lack of food, but the body stubbornly refuses to accept this.

        To get extra muscle, you have to convince the body that this is a necessity. This is where resistance training comes in.

        When you engage in resistance training, you send a message to your body that you want to increase strength and add muscle. To do this, you must overload the muscles, forcing them to do much more than they are accustomed to doing. Lifting weights that become progressively heavier is the tried and true path.

        But even if you work hard, your body can still outwit you and resist your efforts. Ironically, in the early stages of a resistance-training program you may become much stronger, perhaps even doubling the amount of weight you can lift, without gaining any muscle. This is because the body will first maximize all of its existing resources to cope with the stress of lifting weights, before begrudgingly adding muscle mass.

        It makes the existing muscles more efficient by enhancing the power of the nerves that control them. Thus, the increased strength early in training is purely a neuromuscular adaptation.

        Eventually, if you keep pushing the muscles to work harder, they will be forced to increase in size to cope with the ever increasing stress.

        If you decide you want to add muscle, prepare for a battle that is not only physical, but mental as well. When you exercise a muscle hard enough to force it to grow, you will experience pain. The harder you work, the greater the pain. The body hopes the pain will force you to stop before pushing it so hard that it has to add muscle. Only the most determined are able to push through the pain zone.

        Don't misunderstand. This means “normal” muscle pain that occurs in response to exercise stress — not pain from injury or strain. Obviously, if the pain is from strain or injury, you must stop immediately and take time off from training to heal.

        For most of us, maintaining the amount of muscle mass we have is sufficient. This is particularly important for older folks, because beyond age 50 the body begins tearing down muscle unless you counteract this natural process.

        Fortunately, to maintain muscle all you have to do is let the muscles know you still care. Exercise them regularly, and you don't have to push hard. Climbing stairs several times a day won't build muscle, but it provides enough exercise stress to maintain them. They get the message that they are needed and must be prepared to perform.

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