Cambridge researchers have created a math model for getting swole

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• “Surprisingly, not very much is known about why or how exercise builds muscles: there’s a lot of anecdotal knowledge and acquired wisdom, but very little in the way of hard or proven data,” said University of Cambridge physicist Eugene Terentjev.

• Still, even with centuries of experience and knowledge under our weightlifting belts, there’s two big questions we’ve yet to answer, Terentjev and co-author Neil Ibata wrote: How do the muscles know they’re being exercised? And what signals do they give off to cause their physiological change?

• When put under a lot of force, or worked for a prolonged amount of time, the growth signals have more time to bind, so titin can tell your cells to get to work building muscle.

• Their model predicted that the best amount of force for building muscle is around 70% of your maximum load

• Lift below 70%, and you may not keep that titin window open long enough for optimal muscle building; go higher, and “rapid exhaustion prevents a good outcome, which our model has quantitatively predicted,” Terentjev said.

• more research needs to be done