Bodybuilders have to train hard and frequently or their muscles quickly lose mass and become softer
© Alamy
When you exercise a muscle rigorously, your muscles achieve what is known among bodybuilders as ‘the pump’: your heart pumps extra blood to the muscle, giving the muscle tissue the extra nutrients and oxygen it needs to perform. The increased blood flow causes the muscle to swell up and become much harder than before, like a football that has been fully pumped up. ‘The pump’ only lasts for around 20 minutes after a workout, but if you don’t exercise that muscle again for a long time then it will atrophy. This is when the muscle shrinks, loses strength and becomes softer, and is common in older bodybuilders who have stopped lifting heavy weights.