How To Gain Muscle Mass

Ask the average guy in the average gym how to build bigger muscles, and chances are he’ll tell you to do exactly what he’s doing: lots of sets and reps of lots of redundant exercises. Except . . . well, you notice it’s not working particularly well for him. Worse, you realize you’re already doing workouts similar to his, and it’s not happening for you, either.

1. Lift Big to Grow Big

The longer you’ve been lifting weights, the heavier the weights need to be in order for you to see results. On one hand, it’s a stupidly obvious point—of course you use bigger weights as you become stronger. But that’s not exactly what I’m talking about.

When you were a beginner, you could gain size and strength as long as the weight you used on any given exercise was at least 60 percent of the amount you could lift for a single max-effort repetition. It’s a weight you could lift 15 to 20 times in a single set. By any definition, that’s pretty light.

2. Lift Fast to Get Big

You know you’re supposed to lift weights slowly and deliberately and under control. I have no problem with the “under control” part—good form requires it. But I want to take serious issue with “slowly and deliberately.”

The faster you lift, the better the results. If you’re trying to increase size, fast lifts activate more of the muscle fibers that have the most potential to grow. If you’re trying to become leaner, fast lifts do more to crank up your heart rate–and by extension your metabolism—than anything else. And if you’re trying to grow stronger . . . well, how many feats of strength can you list that are performed slowly and deliberately? Even if something looks slow from the outside, you can bet that the guy performing the feat is trying like hell to get it done as fast as possible.

3. Quit When You’re Ahead

A fast lift with a heavy weight uses more muscle fibers than a slower lift with a lighter weight. But those big, strong muscle fibers poop out really fast—usually in 15 seconds or less. Once they’ve quit on you, you’re left to struggle with the weight using fibers that aren’t up to the task.

Your body has two ways of tipping you off:

1. The speed of your repetitions slows.
2. Your form changes, and you either shorten your range of motion or have to cheat to accomplish the full range.

At that point, it makes more sense to end the set than to keep going with compromised speed or bad form. I say that knowing it’s one of the most unnatural things I could ask you to do in the weight room. After all, if the goal is to do sets of 8 reps and your speed slows down on the sixth, it takes discipline to end the set before grinding and shaking through those seventh and eighth reps. And it works only if you’re also willing to follow Principle 4.

4. Don’t Sweat the Small Sets

Every page of the old muscle-building playbook includes some prescription for sets and reps: a fixed number of sets of each exercise and a fixed number of reps in each set.

But if you follow Principle 3 and quit each set when your speed slows down or your form changes, you can’t complete a fixed number of repetitions.

The new playbook says this: Focus on total reps for each exercise, and let the sets take care of themselves. Say you’re doing a workout that specifies 5 sets of 5 reps. That’s 25 reps total. Now let’s say you use my method of doing all your reps perfectly: It might take you 6 sets instead of 5 to hit your 25-rep goal. The reward is a better workout, because you’re doing more work with your biggest, strongest muscle fibers.

5. Think Big to Grow Big

My final revision of the weight-lifting playbook makes it dramatically shorter and lighter: I’ve eliminated almost all the exercises that work only small muscles or single muscle groups in isolation. Instead, my workouts begin and end with the exercises that work your biggest muscles, with the goal of working as many of them as possible every time you lift.

Each workout is built around one lower-body exercise—squats, deadlifts, lunges, or stepups—and two upper-body exercises, one for pushing and one for pulling. Gone are the leg extensions and biceps curls.

If you’re wondering how you’re supposed to build big arms without curls, I have a simple assignment for you: Grab a chinup bar and try to pull yourself up without using your biceps. Impossible, right? So if you work your biceps with chinups or lat pulldowns, using an underhand grip, or any type of rowing exercise, why would you need to do curls? What benefit does a curl offer that you can’t achieve with a chinup or row? As a bonus, you burn a lot more calories when you train your biggest muscles.

6. The World’s Smartest Workout

If you want to pack on muscle fast, the old saying is true: You need to train smarter, not harder. Using my five new principles of size, all it takes is 3 exercises, 3 days a week.

Monday

1. Bench press
2. Chinup
3. Deadlift

Do 25 total reps of each exercise, using a weight you can lift 4 to 6 times before your speed slows down or your form changes. Rest about 60 seconds between sets.

(Tuesday: Rest)

Wednesday

1. Dumbbell single-arm shoulder press
2. Dumbbell single-arm row
3. Dumbbell lunge or stepup

Do 40 total reps of each exercise with each arm or each leg, using a weight you can lift 10 to 12 times before your speed slows down or your form changes. Do all the reps of each exercise before resting. Rest 45 seconds between sets.

(Thursday: Rest)

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gain muscle mass

How to build muscle mass fast is just like a sport involving muscles building activity. Building body mass is a great experience involving a perfect blend of discipline and technique. Adding mass muscle is not a one time job though, instead you need more efforts to retain the achieved shape of muscle. Some people think that adding mass muscle will increase their fat also which is totally wrong. After getting some experience, you can do many fat burning workouts without affecting your muscle shape. Some people also think that building body mass at the young age will stop their overall growth but it is also a myth.

There are 3 factors that you MUST HAVE in order to build muscle mass and quickly at that. And here they are:

#1 – More Protein

If you want to build muscle mass quickly then this is a “must”. Just remember, the only thing that can build muscle in your body is Protein. So if you’re not consuming enough protein it’s IMPOSSIBLE to build lean muscle mass and stack on the pounds.

In order to maintain your weight, you should be consuming 1 gram of protein for each pound of body weight. So if you’re a 150 lb. guy then in order to maintain your muscle mass at that weight you need to consume 150 grams of protein each day. And if you want to build muscle mass, you’re going to have to consume “more” protein, to not only maintain the muscles you have now but to build more.

So if you want to build muscle mass quickly and safely a general rule of thumb is to consume 1 – 2 grams of protein for each pound of body weight. So if you’re a 150lb. guy you’d want to consume at least 150 grams of protein upward to 300 grams of protein a day.

#2 – More Carbs

Despite what Dr. Atkins said, for all us skinny guys “Carbs are GOOD”. We need carbs as a source of energy. But you don’t want to consume just any ‘ol carbs. You want to consume a lot of complex carbs rather than simple carbs.

In other words, you still want to stay away from the sweets and simple sugars that are found in a lot of our junk food, and you want to consume more complex carbs like those found in whole wheat bread, brown rice, sweet potatoes, whole grain cereals, yams, spinach etc.

Why complex carbs? Because unlike simple carbs (sugars) it’s virtually impossible to turn complex carbs into fat – which means more energy to burn (work out with) and less fat to deal with in the end.

If you want to build muscle mass fast, ideally you’d want to consume 2 – 3 grams of carbs for each pound of bodyweight a day.

#3 – Heavy Weight Training

You cannot build muscle mass without “Heavy weight training“. Let’s just put it this way “the more stress (heavy weight) you put on your muscles, the more it will grow”. And it’s simply because when you put extreme stress on your muscle by lifting heavy weights, your body responds (builds more muscle) so that next time it won’t be as hard or strenuous on your body to lift the same weight.

Ideally, if you want to build muscle mass – lean muscle mass to be more specific, you’d want to lift weights that allow you to do 6-8 reps and no more.

Of course there’s a whole lot more to building muscle mass, but if you follow these 3 key ingredients you’ll be on the road to building lean muscle mass quickly and a whole lot easier than you ever thought possible. Good luck and grow “Massive”.

3 Simple Steps to Gain Muscle Mass Fast

Despite all the hard work, protein shakes, gym visits, calories of chicken and tuna are you still struggling to gain muscle mass fast? Well lucky for you I have discovered 3 of the best ways to gain muscle mass quickly. Follow these simple steps and you will start building big muscles all over your body. So let’s get started.

1. Squats and Dead lifts. These 2 big “animal exercises” are crucial for gaining muscle mass quickly. In fact squats and dead lifts workout over 75% of your musculature, including your back, shoulders, arms, gluts, hams, calves and core muscles. Truly an all in one workout exercise. Moreover these 2 exercises also result in greater levels of growth hormones being produced which means you will gain muscle mass fast all over your body. This is because squats and dead lifts have a strong level of intensity which other exercises don’t. This is particularly relevant for skinny guys and hard gainers. The best way to gain muscle mass.

2. Focus on compound exercises such as squats, leg presses, dead lifts, bench presses, barbell rows, pull ups, chin ups, over head presses, and dips. These exercises are must do’s if you want to gain muscle mass fast because they focus on the strong muscles. A lot of people who want to know how to gain muscle mass quickly focus on things like calves and arms and wonder why they never get really bulked up. Focus on weak muscles and that’s exactly what you will get.

3. Time your rest periods. A key aspect of gaining muscle mass quickly is using a stopwatch and timing your rest periods properly. The higher the number of reps, the shorter the rest period and the lower the number of reps the longer the rest period. If you are training for maximum strength then you need to take between 3-5 minutes break between each set. If you are taking a shorter period then you are not working out properly. Further if you are trying to get maximum muscle gain this requires shorter break times of 30-90 seconds. Also if you rest times are not the same, you cannot monitor your true improvement.

Building body mass primarily needs firm determination, commitment, a well defined target and the right approach. Before you start though you need to know how to apply the right approach for gaining lean muscle or adding muscle mass without knowing the basic factors involved in building body mass.

You may want to check out my other articles on: Building Muscle and Lifetime Fitness