1.
Evaluate
Your Body
By evaluating
your current body composition, body weight and body measurements, you give
yourself a starting point. This will be very important in deciding what your
nutritional and weight lifting goals will be. We suggest you record these body
statistics on a weekly basis for the best results:
Body Weight
Body Fat
Body
Measurements
By recording
these figures, you will know if you are on track with your goals. Remember to
record these numbers and update them on a weekly basis.
2.
Use
Basic Compound Movements
The best way
to train for optimal strength gains and muscle mass is to use basic core weight
training exercises which work many different muscle groups. These movements are
considered the true mass builders and will stimulate muscular growth and
strength gains in individuals who consistently use them in their overall
strength training workout plan. These core exercises consist of:
Barbell Squats
Power Cleans
Barbell Bench Press
Barbell Rows
Military
Presses
It's very
important to always have a training partner/spotter when doing these compound,
core exercises and focus on really working hard by going to positive failure on
every set (after warming up). This will really initiate muscle growth and
provide the strength gains you're after!
Here is sample workout routine to really add some muscle mass
and strength to your physique! Make sure to get a full 3 minutes of rest
between each set and fully recover after your intense workouts.
Monday -
Legs
Barbell Squats (3 sets of 8-12 reps) (3 minutes rest between
sets)
Power Cleans
(3 sets of 8-12 reps) (3 minutes rest between sets)
Tuesday -
Shoulders
Military
Presses (5 sets of 8-12 reps) (3 minutes rest between sets)
Thursday -
Back
Barbell Rows
(5 sets of 8-12 reps) (3 minutes rest between sets)
Friday -
Chest
Barbell Bench
Press (5 sets of 8-12 reps) (3 minutes rest between sets)
3.
Prime
Your Body With A Pre-Workout Meal
Always eat a
small pre-workout meal consisting of some low glycemic carbs and a quality
protein. A good meal is a half cup of rolled oats and a scoop of whey protein.
This provides you with a sustained carb source to provide energy through your
workout and a quality protein source to support muscle repair and growth.
4.
Keep
A Detailed Journal
Keep a
detailed weight training journal. This way you will be able to record all of
your sets, reps and poundages for every exercise. You will have a record to
look back on so you can see your overall strength gains and make changes if
needed. You can access our FREE weight training journal here:
5.
Use
Periodization Techniques
Periodization
is a concept where you use cycles to break up your training. Regardless of your
ultimate goal you should have a plan, and this plan needs to be broken up into
your daily, weekly, and monthly workouts. So, you may have a week of heavy
intense training, then a maintenance week of lighter training, the light week
allows the muscles to recuperate, yet because they’re still being trained
atrophy will not occur from disuse. In order to avoid a state of over training,
and continue to grow, we need to recover. Remember your muscles do not grow in
the gym, they grow when at rest. Many factors contribute to over training,
including inadequate rest, continued heavy training, and deficiencies in diet
& nutrition. By using periodization to map out your training you will avoid
over training and keep your muscles in a state of continued adaption.
Principles
That Can Be Used When Planning Your Training Cycles:
Cycle
Training: this is
where you break up your training into bulk cycles, strength cycles and cutting
cycles; which will help keep your muscles in a responsive state.
Split
Training: this is
breaking up your training into separate body parts each work-out which allows
for shorter and more intense sessions.
Muscle
Confusion: your
muscles adapt to stress, and ultimately you can reach a plateau. By constantly
varying the exercises, weights, sets and reps you can ensure continued
adaption.
Progressive
Overload: continue
to increase different parameters in your training, whether it be more weight,
increasing sets and reps, etc.
Eclectic
Training: using a
variety of methods in your training, combining numerous techniques such as
compound and isolation exercises.
Principles That Can Assist You In Arranging Each
Workout:
Supersets: alternating two opposing muscle
groups with little rest in between sets.
Giant Sets: performing several exercises for a
single muscle group with little rest in between sets.
Muscle
Priority: training a
weaker body part first in your work out.
Pre-Exhaustion: this is where you perform an
isolation exercise preceding a compound exercise, e.g. leg extensions before
squats.
Pyramiding: beginning with a lighter weight,
gradually increasing weight and lowering reps, then work backwards, decreasing
weight and increasing reps.
Stripping: going from a heavy weight, and
stripping off weight each set as fatigue sets in.
Principles
That Can Be Used With Each Exercise:
Forced Reps: once failure has been reached on a
set, your partner assists you in performing additional reps that could not be
performed alone.
Continuous
Tension: maintaining
slow continuous tension thru out the rep, which will maximize red muscle fiber
recruitment.
Cheating: once failure is reached the weight
is swung past your sticking point to complete the movement (useful when you do
not have a spotter).
Partial
Reps: as the name
implies only part of the full movement is performed, e.g. only curling a
barbell half way up, which can be effective due to the varying points of
leverage.
Peak
Contraction: at the
completion of a set holding the weight fully contracted for a few seconds.
Super Speed: using a lighter weight, reps are
performed explosively yet controlled, called “compensatory acceleration”, which
can help with white fiber recruitment.
6.
Recover
Properly With A Post-Workout Meal
Always eat a
post-workout meal consisting of a high quality protein and a high glycemic
carbohydrate. After your workout is the ideal time to spike your insulin levels
and re-supply your body with glycogen. A great post-workout meal consists of 2
scoops of high quality whey protein powder (I recommend Optimum Nutrition) and
about 35-50 grams of carbs coming from either dextrose or maltodextrin. MRP's
like Myoplex or MetRX work great in this situation. Liquid meals are great
after your workout because you don't have to deal with the heavy digestion
which real foods takes. The goal post workout is to maintain a prompt digestion
rate so nutrients can transport swiftly and efficiently to our muscles.
7.
Eat More Calories
The most
important thing that cannot be emphasized enough is that you NEED TO EAT to
gain weight. You need to eat like you’ve never eaten before. If you are not
eating enough calories, you will NEVER gain weight, no matter what you do. In
order to build new muscle, you must eat more calories than your body burns off,
creating what is called a caloric surplus. To gain mass, you should strive to
eat at least 500 calories above your BMR every day. The extra calories will be
used by your body to repair muscle tissue that is damaged during the heavy
workouts, and to build new muscle.
Make sure that
your diet consists of nutrient dense foods. All calories are not created equal!
In other words, some types of calories are not equal to others for gaining
muscle. For example, if I said that you need to eat 2,000 calories per day to
gain weight, and you eat 4 bags of potato chips each day, do you think you
would gain muscle? Not likely. The majority of your weight would be fat. Why?
Because potato chips, like most processed junk food, contains empty, totally
nutritionless calories. These foods do not provide you with the correct
nutrient breakdown essential for gaining muscle.
8.
Always
Switch Your Training Up
Add
"periodization" training routines to shock the muscle. Focus on
different rep ranges on each workout. Switch from high reps (12-20) for the
first workout. Then to medium range (8-12) for the second and finally the power
reps (3-8) for the last workout. The major factor in gaining quality muscle is
intensity and switching up your training exercises, rep ranges and sets to
shock the body into growth.
9.
Learn
To Perform Each Exercise Correctly
Before you lift
even one weight, you'd better know what you are doing. Learning the correct
form for each exercise is crucial. You'll increase your muscle building
results, and greatly reduce your chance for injury.
10.
Use
Photos To See Your Progress
Keep a
detailed photo gallery of your progress. Pictures don't lie. Buy an inexpensive
digital camera and take pictures of yourself every week in your bikini or
swimsuit. Snap 3 pictures ever week including a profile shot, frontal shot and
rear shot. Include these with your diet diary and journal so you can see how
your body looks each week while you make changes to your diet and exercise
program. Remember, sometimes the scale does lie. Even though your scale may
read that you have gained 2 pounds over the last 3 weeks, this could very
easily be 2 pounds of lean muscle. Lean muscle is an extremely metabolic tissue
and the more you have, the more calories you burn even when you're just sitting
around! By adding photos of yourself, you will be able to reference your
physical appearance from week to week. This basically takes the guess work out
of getting into shape and is crucial for any fitness plan. Use FitTracker to
start tracking your physique photos!
11.
Try
Different Forms of Exercise
If you have
always used free weights, then switch it up and try training with machines like
"Hammer Strength". These are excellent weight resistance machines and
they will really work your muscles from different angles and different
intensities. You should always strive to find new and exciting ways to workout
and create resistance for muscle growth.
12.
Track
Your Nutrition For Gains
Keep a
detailed diet journal of all the foods you eat and how you feel at each meal.
Were you extremely hungry? Were you tempted to grab that amazing looking Krispy
Kream donut? Write it down and you will have a wealth of knowledge to look back
on.
13.
Consistency
For Growth
A very
important aspect of being able to build muscle, aside from doing the exercise,
is to be consistent in your efforts. On again off again exercising proves to be
more disappointing than anything else. To truly get results, you need to commit
yourself to daily exercise! Human history has us in the fields chopping trees,
plowing fields, planting food, hunting animals. We have come a long way from
that, but our bodies still need the level of movement that was associated with
those times. Get up from that computer, away from that desk, out from behind
that steering wheel and spend some time doing some vigorous basic movements for
the chest, back and legs! That in itself seems out of reach for a lot of
people. The problem is that we tend to think about how much work it will be and
how much time it will take and those numbers are too big. Instead, do this.
Plan to do 15 minutes. That's all. You will find that once you start, and 15
minutes have passed, you can easily do 10 or 15 more. The trick is to initially
think small. Trick your brain into thinking of it as a small event. The second
part is to continue with this daily. Well almost daily. Time off to recover is
important too. In order to maintain consistency, choose a routine that you will
be able to continue with. Plan to do a small routine daily. The small amounts,
compounded daily, and then monthly produces results. If this means just using
dumbbells then that is fine. The point is to stick with it. If lack of
consistency sounds like your problem, then put this into practice and see how
you improve. Think smaller, become more muscular. Remember, being lean is the
body's natural state. It strives for it.
14.
Have
a Detailed Exercise Plan
You would
never build a house without a site plan, would you? You would never just pick
up a hammer, some nails and start pounding away hoping your dream home will be
built perfectly. Just like building a house, when you build your body up, you
need a plan to adhere to and follow.
Don't just
wander in and pick out the first five exercises you see. Have a detailed plan
of action and know which body part you will be training, which exercises you
will use and a specific repetition and set range you will implement. When you
have a good exercise plan, you will know exactly what you need to do and your
training session will have a smooth flow with no wasted time looking for
exercises to perform.
15.
Pre-Workout
Mental Priming
This exercise
will help you stimulate your nervous system with the kind and quality of effort
you want to generate while you train. Before your workout, clearly visualize
yourself performing one set for each of the muscles you'll be training. And
experience yourself generating superior effort by pushing yourself, driving
yourself, contracting to the max, and blasting ever fiber to the bone. Take
your time here since each time you perform this process, your visualizations
will become more lifelike and positively emotionally activating.
2 Comments