There’s so much contradictory information out there about building muscle, and determining where to focus can be quite a challenge. If you’re new to the gym with no idea where to start, the following 8 tips will get you on the right track to maximum muscle gains.
Make sure you are lifting free weights and focusing on compound movements if you want to make significant gains in muscle size and strength. Exercises that involve multiple muscle groups are called compound exercises. Examples of these lifts are the squat, deadlift, bench press, chin up, barbell row, overhead press, dip, and lunge. Compound exercises enable you to handle a greater amount of weight and will stimulate a larger number of muscle fibers.
The intensity of training is one of the big factors that separates those who make modest gains from those who make maximum muscle gains. You must be willing to push your muscles to the limit in the gym so that your muscle fibers are stimulated to the maximum extent possible. Muscular Failure: The point at which no further repetitions can be completed using proper form. Pure and simple, sub-maximal training intensity will lead to sub-maximal results.
Our bodies build muscle because of a body’s adaptive response to the environment. When you go to the gym, you will breakdown your muscle fiber with weight training. The body interprets this as a potential threat to its survival and will therefore react by regrowing the damaged tissues into a larger and stronger structure to prepare for any future threat. Therefore, to make maximum muscle gains, it’s important to progress in the gym from week to week. This may mean doing one or two more reps for each exercise or adding weight to the bar. Maintain a detailed training log for tracking your progress as you gain strength.
Overtraining is your number one enemy when it comes to maximum muscle gains. Most people have the misguided belief that more is better when they begin a workout program. These people presume that the more they spend in the gym, the better their results will be. Nothing could be further from the truth as far as maximum muscle gain goes! If you spend too much time in the gym, you will take yourself further away from goals rather than closer to them. It is important to remember that your muscles don’t grow in the gym, they grow out of the gym while you are eating and sleeping. Muscle recovery is critical to the muscle growth process. Your muscles will not have a chance to build if you don’t provide your body with the proper recovery time in between workouts.
Most people fail miserably to maximize their muscle gains because they don’t pay attention to the all-important necessity of proper nutrition. Training with weights is only half of the equation! After you train in the gym, you begin to breakdown your muscle fibers, however if your body isn’t provided with the necessary nutrients at the proper time, muscle growth is nearly impossible. It’s recommended to eat anywhere from 5-7 meals per day, spaced every 2-3 hours, to keep your body in an anabolic, muscle-building state at all times. There should be a balance of protein and complex carbohydrates.
Protein is without a doubt the most essential of the 3 major nutrients (protein, carbohydrates, and fats) for anyone looking to maximize muscle size and strength. Every one of the 30 trillion cells in your body contains protein that helps build and repair cells. It is physically impossible for your body to synthesize a significant amount of lean muscle mass without adequate protein intake. Protein acts as the building blocks of our bodies. According to general guidelines, a person ought to consume 1-1.5 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight daily from sources of high quality, such as fish, poultry, eggs, beef, milk, peanut butter, and cottage cheese.
Drinking more water is a simple, easy, and highly effective way to maximize your muscle gains. Water plays so many vital roles in the body and cannot be underestimated for its importance. Your muscles alone are made up of 70% water! Drinking more water will not only make your muscles appear fuller and more vascular, but it will also improve your strength as well. Most studies have found that a drop of only 3-4 percent in body water can affect muscle contractions by 10-20%! For maximum muscle gains, aim for 0.6 ounces per pound of body weight in a single day.
Consistency is everything. A person who can consistently execute the proper techniques will make maximum muscle gains and add strength. Simply knowing is not enough, you must apply!
Muscle building occurs as a result of small incremental steps. Indeed, doing one more rep on the bench press will not make a big difference to your overall performance, and neither will consuming a single meal make a significant difference either. Over the long term, all of those extra reps and all of those small meals you consume will determine your overall success. As long as you work hard and accomplish your muscle-building tasks consistently, these individual steps should equate to maximum muscle and strength gains.
Leave a comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.