How To Gain Weight And Increase Muscle Mass

If you want to increase muscle mass and gain weight, remember that in order to effectively bulk up, you will need to be persistent in your efforts. Increasing your caloric intake is an important part of gaining weight and building new muscle tissue. When you feed your body more food than it can burn, you gain weight. Weight training is also an important part of gaining weight and increasing your muscle mass. Weight training stimulates the muscles and promotes growth. The combination of weight training and proper diet is the best, most effective way to gain weight and increase muscle mass.

Failure to eat properly while weight training could result in loss of muscle tissue. Make certain you get plenty of protein, fats, and carbs and in large enough quantities to allow your body to gain weight. Supplements can play a role in building body mass if taken while adjusting your diet and training with weights. Meal replacement bars, powders, and protein drinks can be an excellent way to increase your daily caloric intake. In order to increase muscle mass, you must give your body approximately 500 more calories per day than the number of calories your body uses.

Exercise and diet are the most important things to consider when attempting to gain weight and increase muscle mass. Weight training and the adequate food intake will leave your body with no choice but to gain weight and add mass. Make sure to get enough rest between workouts to give your body time to recuperate and build new muscle tissue.

If you want to get the maximum benefit from your mass building routine, you must avoid the most common reasons that cause people to fail at building muscle and gaining weight. A quality mass building routine combined with proper nutrition and plenty of rest can produce results that you never dreamed possible. Consistency, smart eating habits, the proper weight lifting techniques, and lots of rest are the common elements shared by every successful body builder.

Building muscle is a slow process and it could possibly take several months before you see noticeable results. If you are determined and consistent in your muscle mass building routine and your eating habits, you efforts will pay off in time. Nutrition is also crucial in building muscle mass. The right amounts of protein, carbohydrates, and fats must be included in your diet in order to give your body the fuel it needs to add muscle tissue. The trick to building muscle is to find the combination of foods that allow you to add new muscle mass. Trial and error combined with sound dietary guidelines will allow you to find just the right nutritional plan for you.

The proper weight lifting techniques are a very important part of a muscle mass building routine. If you don’t work your muscles, they won’t grow. You will need to find the right amount of weight and the right weight lifting exercises for your body. Determination, trial and error, and a consistent effort will eventually give you the results you want. The most important thing is to stay focused and realize your reward is waiting for you down the line.

Fitness – Anaerobic Training

Anaerobic fitness is the force component of fitness in general, which also contains at least two other essential components: aerobic fitness (the part of cardio-vascular resistance) and joint mobility. Speed and skill are native qualities and they are not very relevant for the health state – which is the main concern in mass fitness, the one meant to keep the body in good shape.

The purpose of anaerobic training programs is developing the force, the fortifying of the body or the muscular mass. There are situations when only force or muscle fortifying is intended. The typical example for these situations is given by the sports organized in categories, in which physical force (with the interdiction of going over a certain limit of weight) is tested. Growth of muscular mass determines increase of force and fortifying of the skeletal muscles. In this case, the fitness programs are very similar to body building trainings, without being followed by the spectacular, yet dangerous changes, specific to body building.

The purpose of anaerobic fitness is uniform, balanced and harmonious development of all the muscles, without ignoring their functionality. This last idea is important for making a clear difference between fitness and the tendencies, many times narcissistic, manifested by body building practitioners. The sportsman who takes up fitness wants to be able to and is able to do something with his muscles, more than showing them in contests or in different other occasions and places (disco, swimming pool, clubs, etc.).

One of the important characteristics of anaerobic fitness trainings is the use of general programs, during which all or almost all the muscles are worked out in one training session. In body building the programs are divided and trainings are focused every time on one, two or at most three groups of muscles; while in fitness one training can be focused on a certain area, but it does not exclude the other muscles, which will benefit, directly or indirectly, of at most one exercise for each group of muscles. This way, the programs are not excessively long; they take an average of one hour and fifteen minutes; thus the catabolic faze is avoided; this usually appears in very long training sessions (two hours or even more).

Another modality of reducing the time of training is doing super-series whose object is to train two antagonistic groups of muscles (chest and back or biceps and triceps, etc.). Thus, for each group of muscles must be performed a series of exercises, without a break in between; the break is taken only at the end of this double effort. The programs can also contain triple series or even giant-series (more than three exercises one after the other). The intensity of the training can be considerably increased: many muscles can be trained in a short time.

The weekly frequency of the training remains the same (three sessions); so the aerobic phase can be covered in the free days. If only three or even two weekly sessions are possible, mixed programs can be adopted: after the anaerobic fitness, always done at the beginning of the session, 15-20 minutes of aerobic fitness are added for balancing the two phases (anaerobic and aerobic). In this case, also, training must not take longer than one hour and a half; otherwise the phase of catabolic processes is initiated – a phase in which muscles ‘self-cannibalize’.

Anaerobic fitness is recommended to all somatic types, with specific differences of modality of training.

In the cases of ectomorphic and mezomorphic types, all the series (3 or 4) performed on the same machine must be finished, and then the machine and the group of muscles which is trained must be changed at the same time. This system is also called ‘workshop training’.

In the case of the endomorphic type (the overweight), circuit training is preferred: the group of muscles trained is changed after every series and the whole circuit must be repeated three or four times. This type of training consumes more calories because an aerobic component is introduced by not having breaks between series and slightly increasing the cardiac frequency.

Growth of muscular mass through fitness programs can’t exceed one weight category (5-6 kg), but they do not misbalance the other motion parameters.

Creating An Anabolic State That Supports Muscle Growth

You can only build muscle if your body is in the correct anabolic balance to allow growth to take place. Intensive exercise is clearly an important part of the muscle building process but achieving the maximum muscle mass depends on putting the building blocks in place. This is achieved through sound nutritional practices so you need to be aware of the following anabolic enhancing principles:

1. Protein is the basic raw material needed to build muscle. Protein supplies the amino acids that the body uses to repair and build muscle following intensive exercise. Aim to consume 1 to 1.5 grams of protein per pound of body weight each day from food like beef, fish, poultry, eggs, milk and whey. Spread the load over at least six meals to derive the optimum benefit and avoid overloading the liver.

2. Carbohydrates are needed to energize the muscle building process. Carbohydrates stimulate the release of insulin which pushes the amino acids into muscle cells to begin the process of repair. The body uses carbohydrates as a source of energy – consume too little and the body will steal protein that would otherwise be used for repairing and building muscle. Aim to consume 1.5 to 2 grams of carbohydrate per pound of body weight each day from foods like potatoes, pasta, rice, vegetables and whole wheat bread.

3. Boost your calories. Unless your main aim is to reduce fat you need a positive caloric balance if you want to build muscle. Make sure that your daily calorie intake is 10% higher than your energy expenditure for daily maintenance and that the calories are acquired from a diet characterized by a ratio of 50% carbohydrates, 40% proteins and 10% fat.

4. Get plenty of rest both in terms of adequate rest days between training sessions and sufficient sleep. Your muscles won’t grow if you don’t build adequate recovery time into your training program. Similarly, you can only optimize your body’s levels of testosterone and growth hormone if you spend enough time sleeping.

5. Consume quality supplements to support a sound nutritious diet. For most people it should be enough to add whey protein, creatine and l-glutamine to your daily diet.

6. Don’t overdo the aerobic exercise. Your aim is to increase muscle mass therefore you don’t want to burn excessive calories that could be utilized for bulking up.

7. Drink plenty of water. Failure to drink sufficient quantities of water will lead to dehydration and adversely affect your muscle mass. Don’t forget that muscle is 70% water so a generous intake will maintain muscle volume and help growth.

Choosing The Right Bodybuilding Supplement

Before wasting your money on a pile of bodybuilding supplements you really need to work out what you are hoping to achieve. Don’t lose sight of the fact that sound nutrition forms the basis of any muscle building program and no amount of supplementation with the latest and greatest products will make up for bad eating habits. The bottom line is, bodybuilding supplements should be used IN ADDITION to regular food, not INSTEAD OF it.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s go on to think about what supplements could be of use and this is something that can only be determined by your physical and performance goals. Don’t make the mistake of copying your training partners or believing all the garbage spouted in magazine ads. Decide first what you want to achieve and then choose the supplements that will help you reach your goals.

To help you make an informed choice, the most popular and useful bodybuilding supplements available today are listed below, broadly divided into two goal-related categories.

Determined to build muscle? This cannot be achieved without dedication, sheer hard work and sound nutrition. With a solid foundation in place you can help the process along with supplements like creatine, whey protein, prohormones, testosterone boosters and amino acids.

Need to lose fat? There is no point in building awesome muscles if they’re covered by layers of fat. Once again, the key to success is hard work but you can boost fat loss by using products from supplement categories that include fat burners, stimulant-free products, appetite suppressants and carb blockers.

Many more supplements are available to support your bodybuilding endeavors. These include energy boosters and products aimed at enhancing the condition of your mind and body. As we progress through this series of articles we’ll look at each of these in turn.

Can You Build Muscle And Lose Body Fat At The Same Time?

One question I am continually asked is, “Is it possible to lose body fat and gain muscle at the same time?” My answer is an emphatic YES!

First of all, to build muscle, you must constantly overload the muscles in the gym. Heavy training is of utmost importance. Even when you are on a calorie-deprived diet to lose body fat, you must be mentally tough and continue to train heavily to preserve-and even build-muscle mass. And, as I’ve discussed several times already, back up heavy training by eating high-quality protein on a consistent basis.

To lose body fat and still gain muscle, you must really watch your diet closely. Keep your daily caloric intake below your maintenance level. When you reduce your calories, be sure to keep your diet high in quality protein. Most of your calories should come from your carbohydrate consumption. Of course, watch your fat intake.

Here is how I suggest you manipulate your carbohydrate consumption: For a couple of days, eat only vegetables for carbohydrates then go back to grains like rice, potatoes, and pasta for a couple of days. Rotate in this manner and see how quickly you start melting the fat. Because carbohydrates give you energy, this may become difficult at times. Nevertheless, it is a very effective strategy.

Body Building Basics Building a better body you can be proud of

There are as many varied opinions on what plan one should follow to build muscle, as there are people who have those opinions. On one thing they do agree, however. You must have a regimen.

╖ You can begin by defining your objective.
╖ Why are you interested in body building?
╖ What do you hope to accomplish?
╖ What is your ultimate goal?

It`s all about commitment and belief. There is an abundance of information about how to begin and conduct your journey, but without a burning desire to achieve, you are doomed to inevitable failure.

The following tips are not intended to be a one size fits all. Take from it what you will. In that light, consider the following list:

1.Before beginning any serious weight lifting or body building regimen, consult your physician.

2.Set your goals. Define what you expect to achieve with your new bodybuilding campaign within a realistic time frame. If you create goals that are unattainable you are setting yourself up for failure. You can become bored, disappointed and disillusioned to the point where you may give up. This is a very sad outcome to what might have been the best decision of your life. Don`t sell yourself short. Set your long-term goals, of course, but also set short-term goals that are achievable. And, don`t forget to reward yourself when you do achieve them.

3.Consider the costs. If you don`t already have a budget, create one. Then, determine what amount of discretionary funds you have available for your bodybuilding program. This will determine whether you can afford to have a home gym or if your needs would better be served by joining a club. Joining a club is still a good short-term introduction before spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on equipment that might not be appropriate for your needs.

4.Don`t forget some of the low cost alternatives to purchasing your bodybuilding equipment. If used equipment is still functional why spend the extra dollars just for a little glitz! Good, brand name used equipment is every bit as functional as something right off a showroom floor.

5.Consider combining a home gym along with a membership in a public facility. Purchase less expensive free weight equipment for use at home and join a gym to have access to the more expensive equipment. You can design your entire workout routines around a combination such as this.

6.Eat healthy! This can`t be stressed enough. The only true bodybuilding aids are good nutrition. Consult a licensed dietician. Watch your local community calendar for free seminars on diet and nutrition. Learn all you can about what nature freely provides that can help you to develop a healthy diet.

7.If you choose to use dietary supplements, make certain that you know what you are putting in your body. Follow the packaging guidelines we outlined above. Ask your physician for his/her recommendations based on the regimen you have selected. No friend, coach or acquaintance can take the place of your physician. In fact, you may even investigate finding a physician who specializes in sports wellness.

8.Be kind to yourself. Yes, it`s important to push to achieve your goals, but it`s very easy to tip the scales in the other direction and create a nightmare for yourself. Obsessive, compulsive behaviors are not conducive to a healthy bodybuilding lifestyle.

15 Muscle Building Rules For Skinny Guys And Gals Part 2

In part 1, I touched on general weight gain rules and reasons why you can’t gain weight. Now it’s time to get into workout specifics…

WORKOUT RULES

4. Stop listening to every ridiculous piece of advice you hear in the gym or read on a message board.

Recently a client of mine informed me that someone in the gym stated that he was training all wrong and he needed to train 5-6 days a week, and aim for more reps during his workout. Somewhere in the range of 15-20 reps per set.

The person giving the advice was quite confident about his recommendations, and he had an impressive physique that typically elevates him to the elusive “listen to me if you want to look like me” level in the gym. He was bigger than my client, so even though my client’s “intellectual” mind knows that advice is absurd; his “unrealistic dreamer” mind took this information very seriously. So seriously that he changed his program and didn’t inform me until a week or so later. This particular person had been making great progress on his current program, yet he allowed this one person’s comment to overshadow that progress and convince him that his program was inadequate. This is a mistake and it showed in his lack of further progress.

In addition, don’t judge the validity of what a person says by how they look. Just because the guy is huge doesn’t mean he is spewing pertinent advice for you. Many people that have big physiques are big despite of their training, not because of it. I know some huge guys that know very little about training and dieting correctly. They can do whatever and still gain muscle; unfortunately we are not that way, so we much approach things in a more intelligent way.

5. Workout Infrequently

This is the most difficult concept for many to grasp simply because it involves less action, instead of more. When we get motivated and start a new program, it’s natural to want to do something. We want to train and train and train. Thinking all along that the more you train, the more muscle you will build. Unfortunately, this could not be farther from the truth.

More training does not equal more muscle growth. Understand that the purpose of weight training is to stimulate muscle growth. That takes very little time. Once that has been done, the muscle needs to be repaired and new muscle needs to be built. That only happens when you are resting. You do not build muscle in the gym, you build muscle when resting! If you never give your body any essential “non active” time, when will it have a chance to build muscle? Think about that.

Now, add in the fact that you have a difficult time gaining weight and the importance of rest increases. Individuals who are naturally thin and have difficulty building muscle tend to require less training and more rest.

6. Focus on Multi-Jointed Lifts

Multi-jointed exercises are those that stimulate the most amounts of muscle fibers. Unlike isolation exercises which only work individual muscles, multi-jointed lifts work many different muscle groups simultaneously. For those needing to gain weight, this is ideal because these lifts put your body under the most amount of stress. This is the stress that will shock your nervous system and cause the greatest release of muscle building hormones. This results in increased muscle gain all over the body.

You can still do some isolation work; however it should not be the focus of your workouts, and should only come after your multi-jointed lifting is complete.

7. Focus on Using Free Weights

Free weights are preferred over machines for many reasons, but most importantly because they allow the stimulation of certain supporting muscle groups when training. Stimulating these stabilizer and synergistic muscles will allow you go get stronger, and ultimately build more muscle faster. Yes, some can most likely still build large amounts of muscle using machines, but why make it more difficult if you already have a difficult time gaining weight?

8. Lift a weight that is challenging for you

Building mass involves lifting relatively heavy weight. This is necessary because the muscle fibers that cause the most amount of muscle size growth (called Type IIB) are best stimulated by the lifting of heavy weight. A heavy weight as one that only allows you to perform 4-8 reps before your muscles fail.

Using a lighter weight and doing more reps can stimulate some Type IIB fibers, but again if you have a difficult time gaining weight, why make it more difficult? You need to try and stimulate as many as you can with the use of heavy weights.

9. Focus more on the eccentric portion of the exercise.

When you lift a weight, it can be divided into three distinct periods. The positive, the negative and midpoint. The concentric or “positive” motion usually involves the initial push or effort when you begin the rep. The midpoint is signaled by a short pause before reversing and returning to the starting position. The eccentric, or “negative” portion of each lift is characterized by your resistance against then natural pull of the weight.

For example, when doing push-ups, the positive motion is the actual pushing up motion. Once you have pushed all the way up, you hit the mid point. The negative motion begins when you start to lower yourself back down. Most would simply lower themselves as fast as they pushed up, but I recommend extending and slowing down this portion. Slowing down the eccentric part of the lift will help to stimulate more muscle growth. It actually activates more of the Type IIB fibers mentioned about in Rule 7.

10. Keep your workout short but intense.

Your goal should be to get in, stimulate your muscles and then get out as quickly as possible. It is not necessary to do large amounts of exercisers per body part trying to target every muscle and hit every “angle”. This should only be a concern of someone with an already developed, mature physique who is trying to improve weak areas.

If you have no pec, don’t concern yourself with trying to target inner, outer, upper, lower or whatever. Just work your chest. You should do no more than 2-3 exercises per body part. That’s it. Doing more than that won’t build more muscle, faster. In fact it could possibly lead to muscle loss. Long training sessions cause catabolic hormone levels to rise dramatically. Catabolic hormones are responsible for breaking down muscle tissue resulting in MUSCLE LOSS. While at the same time, long training sessions suppress the hormones that actually build muscle.

If you don’t want to lose muscle during your workouts, I suggest limiting your sessions to no more than 60-75 minutes MAXIMUM. Less if you can.

11. Limit your aerobic activity and training

Honestly, I do not do any aerobic activity when I am trying to gain weight. This is mainly because it interferes with the important “non-active” time my body needs for muscle building and recovery. I do understand that people have lives and other activities that they don’t want to give up, so it must be kept to a minimum. It won’t hurt your progress as long as you don’t over do it. If you find that you are doing more aerobic activity weight training, that’s overdoing it.

I also don’t recommend it because people tend do it for the wrong reasons. Many start aerobic activity because they believe it will help them to lose fat. While that is true, it won’t do so on a high calorie mass diet. To lose fat, you need to be eating fewer calories.

12. Don’t program hop

Here’s how it usually happens. You’ve just read about a new exercise or workout that is supposed to pack on the mass. Now, even though you had already started another training program a few weeks ago, you are tired of it and really want to start this routine instead because it sounds better.

I call these people, “program hoppers”. They are very enthusiastic when starting a new program, but they never follow it long enough to actually see any results. They are easily distracted and love to drop whatever they may be doing to follow the latest “hot” workout or exercise.

My advice is don’t do it. This is a bad habit that never leads to a positive outcome. Understand that it takes time for any program to work. To be successful, you must follow your program consistently. Yes, there are many different training methods and interesting routines out there, but you can’t do them all at the same time and jumping around won’t allow enough time for any of them to actually be effective for you. Pick one that is focused on your current goal and stick with it. There will be plenty of time to try the others later, but NOT NOW.

In Part 3 of this article, I will cover your eating rules and guidelines to MAKE SURE you know how AND what to eat to build muscle mass.

15 Muscle Building Rules For Skinny Guys And Gals Part 1

WHY CAN’T YOU GAIN WEIGHT?

Though there may be many reasons why you may be thin, the most apparent reason is because of your genetics. If your parents are naturally thin or have a small body frame, then you will most likely have the same small body type.

To some degree, your size can also be controlled by your metabolism. If you have a difficult time gaining weight of any kind (fat or muscle) then you most likely have a fast metabolism. That simply means that your body burns calories at a faster than normal rate. You must take this into account whenever you are considering a particular diet or training program. Is it geared towards someone with your metabolism and goal?

Now as you know, there are many ways to train. Hundreds, thousands even. Some work and some do not, but for the specific goal of gaining weight, there are a few UNIVERSAL things that all skinny guys must do.

Though much of the information I cover here is not as “magical” as you may like, I consider these rules to be the basics with regard to weight gain. These are not all of the answers, but they are definite elements that MUST be addressed in any successful weight gain program.

You should be able to easily integrate these rules into your current program to make it more suitable for your particular body and goals.

GENERAL RULES

1.Get the proper information that pertains to your SPECIFIC condition and goals.

The first big problem I find in most people is the lack of correct information. Yes you are motivated and doing things, but your effort is wasted on incorrect dieting and training information. Basically, skinny guys are taking advice from people who have never had a weight gain problem. Want to know how to gain weight? Then find someone who has walked your shoes. Someone who has been where you are.

2.Set a specific goal and create a plan of attack.

If you were to drive cross country to another city, would you just start driving randomly, or would you plan a route that would get you quickly and efficiently?

Think of your plan as a road map and your goal as your destination. Without a plan and a specific goal you will be without focus and can easily get lost or side tracked. This happens more often than you know. I see many people in the gym just doing whatever, or just eating whatever — no plan or specific goal. They wonder why they don’t make progress. They have no focus.

Having a specific program to follow allows you to take action each day. This action is focused on specifically getting you to your destination quickly. There is no thinking, debating or guessing. You just do it. A specific plan provides necessary daily structure that not only keeps you on the road moving forward, it also helps to develop good eating and training habits that will benefit you long after you have reached your destination.

3.Have confidence in yourself and belief in what you are doing.

Let’s face it; we live in a cruel world. Hate and jealously is everywhere. For most people who begin a fitness program to improve themselves, getting started will be half the battle. The other half will be staying motivated throughout the constant onslaught of negativity from others. A few negative words can do serious damage if you allow it.

The most insulting things you hear may be from friends, co-workers and acquaintances at the gym. People hate change. It makes them insecure, because they suddenly discover there’s more to you than they were probably willing to admit. They fear that you may actually achieve your goal. It makes them look less “superior”.

Once you have begun your plan, you must have faith and believe in what you are doing. Stay focused and avoid overly critical or negative people. If you have to, keep your business to yourself. When I first began my program, I stopped talking about what I was doing because I got tired of hearing things like “you can’t do that”, “that’s impossible”, “you’re wasting your time and money”. Funny thing is, now those people are constantly bugging me for advice.

It’s your life. It’s your body. It’s your dream. Don’t allow your success or failure to rest in the hands of others.

In Part 2 of this article, I will cover your workout rules and guidelines to MAKE SURE you gain muscle.