eli5: why do we need to workout to be jacked, why cant our bodies make us naturally shredded

Question

eli5: why do we need to workout to be jacked, why cant our bodies make us naturally shredded

In: 90

Answer 1

Because of two factors:

* Building and even just maintaining existing muscles uses a ton of calories. A jacked athlete’s muscles would burn thousands of extra calories a day just sitting on the couch vs a non-muscular person.
* We evolved in an environment where calories were scarce and unpredictable, so it was dangerously wasteful to be carrying more muscle than you absolutely needed.

So that’s the system we developed – your body will develop an amount of muscle that matches how much strength you seem to typically need. It adds more muscle if it’s getting used to full capacity often enough, and will remove muscle that’s not getting used for the sake of energy savings.