Muscle Size!
Building Muscle Tips Newsletter #2
Dear Fellow Muscle-Builder,
In Lesson #1 we talked about the importance
of tracking your progress in the gym and why this is the most critical
overall factor when it comes to gaining muscular body weight.
You absolutely will not experience any appreciable
gains in muscle size unless you place the majority of your focus on
moving more weight for more reps
each week. If you aren’t tracking each and every workout in detail
then you’re flat-out ignoring the very foundation of the
muscle growth process.
But that’s only part of the story in
terms of the workouts that you perform in the gym…
In this week’s installment we’ll be
going a bit more indepth and addressing the specific aspects
of how to plan out a proper workout schedule.
The manner in which you construct your
workout routine will make the difference between success and failure,
and you must make sure that you are following all of the proper guidelines
if you want to see significant results.
The reality of it all is that most people
have no idea how to structure an effective workout and severely
limit their gains as a result. Most people simply enter the gym with
only a rough plan in mind and aimlessly toss weights around for an
hour or two without any sound logic or reasoning behind what they’re
doing.
In fact, some people design their workouts in such a manner that they
actually lose muscle mass and strength.
I receive hundreds of emails each and
every week from aspiring trainees all over the world, and when I see
the workout routines that the vast majority of them are using it literally
makes me cringe in my seat.
I would guess that around 95% of lifters make at
least one or more of the following mistakes when planning out their
routine…
- They choose the wrong exercises
- They spend too many days in the gym
- They training each muscle group too frequently
- They perform too many total sets per workout
and per muscle group - They fail to execute the workout with a sufficient
level of intensity - They training for excessive periods of time
The list goes on and on.
out requires real effort, and it’s only fair that
all of your effort is put to the best use possible. So that being
said, here are a few sure-fire guidelines that you should follow in
the gym in order to achieve the best gains you possibly can…
Focus on compound, free-weight exercises.
There are two main types of exercises
you can perform in the gym: compound exercises and isolation
exercises. Compound exercises are those that involve the use
of multiple muscle groups, while isolation exercises only involve
the use of a single muscle group.
For example, a bench press is a compound
exercise because it stimulates the chest as well as the shoulders
and triceps. An example of an isolation exercise would be a bicep
curl, as this exercise stimulates only the biceps.
In order to achieve the greatest gains
in overall muscle size and strength, you should be putting most of
your focus on basic, freeweight compound exercises. Forget about wimpy
little pec-deck machines and tricep kickbacks.
If you want to see BIG gains you must perform the
BIG lifts. Here are the basic movements that you
should be focusing on…
| - Squats – Deadlifts – Bench Presses – Barbell Rows – Overhead Presses |
- Chin-ups – Dips – Stiff-Legged Deadlifts – Lunges – Leg Presses |
These movements will stimulate the greatest total amount of muscle
fiber and will have the greatest overall anabolic effect on your body.
They should form the cornerstone of any effective workout routine.
Isolation lifts can still have their place (movements such as barbell
curls or tricep extensions) but certainly not in place of these proven
compound lifts.
Train with 100% intensity on every single set.
Your muscles grow by adapting to stress,
plain and simple. When you lift weights, you create small micro-tears
within the muscle tissue, and your body responds by rebuilding the
muscles larger and stronger in preparation for the next workout.
In order to achieve the most dramatic
response from the muscles possible, you must always train with full
effort and intensity. This means that for every set you perform in
the gym, you must continue until the point of concentric muscular
failure.
Concentric Muscular Failure:
The point at which no additional positive repetitions can be completed
using proper form despite your greatest efforts.
In other words, you must perform each
set until you are physically unable to complete any additional reps
using proper form. In doing this you will place your muscles under
the greatest amount of stress possible and the body will respond in
the most dramatic fashion.
“going through the motions” will NOT get the job done. You have to
earn your muscle gains, and the truth is that most people just plain
don’t train hard enough.
Train each individual muscle only once per week.
When it comes to training for muscular
size, more is certainly not better! You must let
go of this traditional way of thinking and realize that in order for
your muscles to grow, they must be given proper recovery time.
prevent your body from rebuilding your damaged muscles, and you will
interfere with the muscle-growth process as a result. Because of this,
you should only train each individual muscle group once per week.
As long as you train with 100% intensity
and effort you will not require any more than this.
Do not spend excessive periods of time in the gym.
As far as each individual workout is
concerned, you should always try to complete it within one hour. This
doesn’t include warm-ups, but comes into play beginning with your
first high-intensity set and ends with your final high-intensity set.
As your workout drifts beyond the one-hour mark, your mental focus
and intensity will rapidly decline. Your body will also secrete a
powerful catabolic hormone called “cortisol” which will stimulate
the breakdown of muscle tissue for energy.
maintain as much lean muscle mass as you possibly can, you must avoid
cortisol at all costs. By completing your workout within one hour
you will keep your body in an optimal hormonal state and will prevent
yourself from overtraining.
Do not go overboard on training volume.
The reality is that most people train
with far too much volume by performing way more sets than they really
need to. Your goal in the gym is to simply “spark” the muscle growth
process, and this can be accomplished without performing endless,
unnecessary sets.
If you always train to muscular failure, you simply do not need to
perform very many sets in order to stimulate new muscle growth. If
you perform too many sets you’ll simply be eating into your all-too
important recovery time, and this will be counterproductive to your
gains.
Let go of the “more-is-better”
mentality. Building muscle is about quality, not
quantity.
I would recommend that you perform no more than 7 total sets for major
muscle groups (like the chest, back and thighs) and no more than 4
total sets for the smaller muscle groups (the shoulders, biceps, triceps,
abs and calves). And remember, this is total sets per workout,
NOT total sets per exercise.
Wrapping It Up
Those are some basic, highly important
guidelines to follow in the gym in order to see the best results that
you possibly can.
This lesson has given you a basic overview
of proper workout structure, but if you’re interested in learning
the exact step-by-step details including the optimal
sequence of specific exercises, which muscle groups to train and on
which days as well as the exact of number of sets, reps and rest periods
to perform for maximum results, then check out my highly popular program,
The
Muscle Gain Truth No-Fail System.
It can be downloaded in less than 5
minutes and literally covers everything you’ll ever need to know to
build muscle mass and strength as quickly as you possibly can.
The package comes with a ton of incredibly
valuable bonus items, and you’ll also gain instant access to my Online
Muscle-Building Video Lesson Series where you’ll learn the
most effective ways to train your chest,
back, shoulders, arms,
legs and abs with a special online video
lesson specifically dedicated to each muscle group.
Click Here
for more details and get started right away.
So, when structuring your workout routine,
always remember to:
- Focus on basic, freeweight compound exercises
- Take all sets to positive muscular failure
- Train each individual muscle group only once
per week - Complete your workout within one hour
- Perform no more than 7 total sets for large
muscle groups and no more than 4 sets for small muscle groups
Keep an eye out for the next lesson
in this series where I’ll teach you about one absolutely critical
aspect of building muscle, and why it will literally make
or break your success. That lesson will arrive in 2 days,
so stay tuned!
Best regards,
 |
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