Gaining Muscle Mass
Nutrition is a crucial element when you want to gain mass from training. Most people think you need to have a high calorie diet in order to gain mass. You need to have a decent amount of calories, but you should get the majority of them from protein. Remember this: Protein intake is very important. Eat at least 30-40 grams of protein every one-and-a-half hours. Carbs are important but they are mainly just energy for your day and your workouts. Aim to have around three grams of protein per kilogram of your weight, and eat a minimum of 8-10 meals per day. Also, try to work a decent amount of red meat into your diet. I believe the iron in red meat and the meat itself really lends itself well to helping gain mass.
Another key component to your nutritional plan is protein shakes. Protein drinks are a great way to get amino acids into your system, so drink one 90 minutes before you train, another right after you train, and one more before you go to bed. When you sleep, your body is trying to rest and recover. This is the best time to get a good protein drink into your system. You want to have those amino acids there to help repair and build your muscle tissue.
People tend to forget the importance of sleep and rest. If you’re not sleeping enough during the night, or resting enough between your training sessions, you will not grow as well as you should. Your goal should be to get at least eight hours of sleep every night. I know this is hard for most people to aim for. It’s very easy to get caught up in going out too much or enjoying yourself too much. Try not to get into this habit or you will not grow as fast as you could be. This doesn’t mean that you can’t go out every now and then, but stay committed to your training routine and make it a priority.
You need to aim for high weights, low repetition sets when trying to gain muscle mass. I always recommend using free weights. Aim to do four sets of 6-8 reps on your heavy sets. Try not to do too many exercises; you should do a maximum of three exercises per day. Any more than three and you’re overtraining. You only need to be in the gym for one hour at a time. Any more than that, and again, you’re overtraining. Get into the gym and go hard, but get out of there after one hour. Another training tip: It’s very important to always have a training partner available. You can’t expect to get out that extra rep or lift that extra bit of weight if you don’t have someone there to spot you. You can’t push yourself to the extreme limits that are needed to gain extra mass without a training partner.
What I Do To Pack On Masses Of Muscle
To round up the muscle building section, I though I’d give you a real gem, a booster starter to get your muscle growth booming. I call this my “Natural Anabolic Boost Period” . Why ? Because when I suggest most of my clients go onto this diet then on average they pack on 20lbs.
Do I have your attention ?
Now in order to do this naturally you are going to need to really shock your body into action. Your body gets too familiar with the norm and stops growing if you stick with the same things over and over again. This diet, because it is a mass gain diet, is ideal for skinny guys looking to pack on as much as possible in a short period of time but…..you are going to gain fat. You need to forget about that though and focus on how much muscle you are going to build. In general unless your diet is perfect and you have some amazing genetics, you are going to put on fat when you bulk up. You see the bodybuilders off season right ? When I bulk I’m no different, I want to put as much muscle on my frame as possible so I basically turn into a water buffalo a few times each year, I like to think of it as 2 steps forward 1 step back. It is worth it though.
So now that we have made that clear, how are we going to do it?
For starters you need to shock your body into action so for 15 days you need to stuff yourself with all the food you can get into you. I would recommend at least 5000 calories a day making sure that this includes at least 250 grams of protein so you can pack on that muscle.
You need to eat like I do !
Get food into your belly every 2 hours that you are awake.
Raise your water intake to about 12-15 cups of water a day at least and make sure you stock up on a good multi– vitamin supplement, Creatine and a good protein supplement.
Train 5 times a week and stay away from the treadmill ! When you’re training, make sure that you carry round a bag of jelly lollies or marshmallows to keep your natural insulin levels high. You really want to maximize your potential growth over the 2 weeks period that you’re consuming all of those calories.
I would also recommend that if you are having trouble getting 5000 calories into your diet use a mass gainer such as mutant mass (This period is the only time that I would ever recommend this product).
Now after around that 2 week period your body is going to be reaching a plateau and if everything was done correctly you should have put on at least 5lbs of bodyweight.
At this time you are now going to want to cut back on the food for a week. Stop the supplements; don’t exceed 2000 calories in one day. This is to get your body ready for its next shock. You must also make sure that the protein you consume is as lean as possible. Yes that does mean sticking with chicken and fish for a week. You also want to make your carbohydrates nothing major either, stick to veggies and fruit. This is basically just a maintenance phase. We are not looking to gain any more weight but we are certainly not trying to loose any either. I would recommend training just 3 – 4 times for that week.
It is normal in this week to notice a little bit of size coming off you when you look in the mirror. Don’t worry it’s just water leaving your system because your calorie intake is much less then before.
After that week we are back on it again eating like a horse for the next 2 weeks. At this stage your body’s hormones will be creating an anabolic muscle building effect. It’s basically the closest thing to being on steroids you can get without being on them. You are going to notice that your pumps at the gym get much bigger, you’re packing on size with ease and that your strength is going through the roof.
Then just repeat these 2 weeks on 1 week off cycles for about 6 months.
If you do, you can expect to pack on about 14kgs if not more. I know when I do this I can put on up to 20kgs. After that 6 month period you will have grown much noticeably bigger. Probably to the size where your friends start accusing you of being on steroids. You will have still a fair amount of body fat to get off to let all your work really shine through. At this time you start your cutting phase lowering your body fat till you can go another 6 months of bulking again. This is the only way to pack on ‘real size’; this is what the professionals use as well. You see them off season quite chubby then suddenly they get lean again then go at it again.
Give it a go see what happens ! *
Training
One of the most important parts to training is not understood and barely taught by trainers. The magazines on the shelves certainly don’t mention it and thus it is never truly understood by a lot of the people you see in the gyms where you workout. The big guys and the bodybuilders of course understand this concept though and it is a concept and practice that takes awhile to make automatic but is the only true way to guarantee you keep growing and packing on the pounds. I call this “The Feel” and as random as it sounds this is what I always keep in my mind when I’m lifting my weights day after day.
So what is “The Feel”? And why on earth is something so important not done by so many?
The Feel has been around from the start of course and it is not anything scientific but more common sense. It is very easy in the gym to go day after day and do the motions, lift the weights and get the food down you after. But when you are doing your exercises what are you thinking about? What are you doing with your body? And is there any connection? Because there should be! This is where it goes wrong. There is a huge difference to the results got when someone lifts the weights and goes through the motions and the person that lifts the weights with the intention to tear as many fibres in the muscle as possible.
With that being said your compete focus when working a muscle should not be on how heavy you are lifting and not how many reps you are doing but making sure that you are feeling the maximum amount of tension possible on the muscle. This will guarantee that you are going to tear muscle fibres and you will know that what you have done has been useful. Early on in my weight training program I had no idea what I was doing and it was not until a bodybuilder at the gym I was at took me aside and told me how to actually build muscle that I starting going in the right direction. This tip was one of the most valuable I have learnt and its forgotten to often by gym goers.
Now when you are at the gym doing your workout there will be no excuses. Don’t think about or focus on anything else but correct technique and feeling the maximum effects of the exercise in your muscle and you will grow !