How to build muscle? Is the question that I am often asked
about. While most people want the magic pill, what they
really need are a few simple tweaks to their training
programs that I am about to outline.
1) There are two things that people can do immediately to
build muscle
A) People can focus on both full body training and body
part splits. We've knocked training "arms" for too long but
the only thing that will make us grow is training a muscle
with a big amount of volume. At that same time, we can also
use an upper body day to get stronger. It is the best of
both worlds B) People can sleep more. It sounds simple but
going to bed by 10:30 and not getting up before 6 am will
go a long way in helping us build muscle.
2) Train your legs more. Leg training is so essential for
growing muscle everywhere. By training your legs hard you
raise the anabolic signals in your body that tell you to
grow. Nothing stimulates more muscle heavy squats or
deadlifts. They raise your natural muscle building
hormones, which cause you to grow
3) Use the correct sets and reps. To build muscle we need
to realize that, we have to perform enough volume so we
breakdown muscle then build new muscle. So that being said
I usually advise sets and reps like 4 sets of 8 reps or 6
sets of 4 reps. Remember, low reps can make us grow to
simple because our body adapts to whatever we do for awhile
so we need to change it up.
4) Use this secret trick. First, if everyone isn't doing
pull-ups or squats then they need to do it right now. My
best piece of advice is to tell everyone to do a back off
set per exercise. For example, if you are training on the
bench press and doing 4 sets of 8 reps then do a 5th set of
20-25 reps. This will push more blood into the muscle which
will force more grow.
Building muscle is all about the quality of your workouts.
Most people get caught up in the typical 3 sets of 10 reps
dogma. While that will work for a certain period of time,
it won't work forever. In my opinion, the best way to
design your training for growth is to use 4-6 week spurts
of volume phases where you train with sets of 3-4 and reps
of 8-15. For the next 4-6 weeks, you should go with more
sets of 4-6 and lower reps of 5-8. Both of these methods
will lay you to have both muscle and strength gains.
Jimmy Smith is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist and writes for Men's Fitness, Maximum Fitness, Natural Bodybuilding and Fitness , and Best Body magazines.
His "The Muscle Bible" workouts have been featured multiple times in Men’s Fitness and Maximum Fitness magazines and all over the Internet on t-nation.com and bodybuilding.com and his workouts have help thousands of men and women around the world lose fat, and gain muscle. For information on the The Muscle Bible visit www.ineedmuscle.com
