How lazy can I be?

Purpose:  Can you get stronger and grow new muscle by simply cutting yourself?

Background:  How does all this weight lifting make us stronger?  Supposedly the answer is you microly tear (microtear) your muscle when you use it, then new muscle grows on top of it.  So if you combine this "fact" with the another fact that 'bigger is better', if I just knife my arm and make a huge tear, I'll have accomplished weeks of lifting in one day, right?

Methods:  Internet

Results:  False  :-(

Discussion:  Muscle grows from protein synthesis - but what triggers it?  Muscle tear?  As it turns out, muscle tearing is just the result of using muscle.  That's it.  The actual trigger for protein synthesis is the neural drive that stimulates muscle contraction.  The more that pathway is used, the more some chemicals are released and those activate the genes for protein synthesis.  So ends up, there's no short cut for this.  Boo.  (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_hypertrophy)

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