The Four Most Important Factors To Build Muscle Fast!
First, I want to make sure there is no confusion with the title of the article. When I say “build muscle fast,” fast is relative compared to the rate at which you’ll build muscle if the muscle-building factors I’m going to discuss aren’t in place. The fact is that building new muscle is NOT a quick process. It takes weeks, months, and years of hard work and dedication, both in and out of the weight room. This slow “rate of return” in building muscle is one of the main reasons people give up on building muscle altogether.
We live in a society where if we want something we want it RIGHT NOW. Well, a lean muscular body just can’t be obtained that fast. Building your ultimate physics is like an ongoing art project that takes years and years to complete. However, the time and effort required are far outweighed by the masterpieces we are capable of creating.
So, while it’s going to take some time to build your masterpiece, stick to these four essential muscle-building ingredients so you can get the job done most effectively and efficiently as a natural bodybuilder.
1) Train heavy and with the highest intensity possible
If you want to build the most muscle in the least amount of time, stick to the basics and train heavy! We’ve all seen the guy at the gym lugging the machines around until they just can’t take any more weight. He goes through his workout swinging the weights like crazy using terrible form and too much momentum. Almost everyone stars and some of the faint of heart even leave the weight room in fear. This guy obviously 1) has no idea what he’s doing or 2) has an ego that’s further along in development than his muscles. But you know what? I bet you a box of meal replacements the guy has some pretty decent muscles.
Even though your form is very poor, lifting all that weight forces you to overload your muscles, and overload is the single most important factor in stimulating muscle growth in the weight room. Now, before you go out there and try to do a 100lb dumbbell one arm curl (unless you’re Skip LaCour, who can actually do this), let me make it clear that I’m NOT advocating that you train like our friend I described above. . . The point is that even with less than perfect form, heavy lifting with intensity will lead to muscle overload and muscle growth. Your goal should be to train heavy while using proper execution and allowing a bit of momentum. The best muscle-building exercises for heavy training are the basic ones, such as squats, deadlifts, barbell bench presses, and barbell curls.
The best training program I have found that allows you to continue to make gains by overloading your muscles is the Max-OT or Maximum Overload Training Program, created by Paul Delia, President of AST Sports Science. Max-OT focuses on basic compound exercises that use a lot of weight and progressive overload. The workouts are relatively short (30-45 minutes) so INTENSITY is very important. These short, intense workouts build muscle more efficiently compared to longer workouts, and also eliminate the concern about low testosterone and increased cortisol levels that can occur with longer workouts. You can enroll in the free Max-OT training course on the AST website (www.ast-ss.com).
2) Feed your body to grow all day
Very good, we have stimulated our muscles to grow in the most effective and efficient way with heavy weight training. However, that is only half the battle. No, actually that’s only about 20% of the battle. At least 80% of your success in an attempt to build muscle is based on how well you fuel your body the 23 hours you’re not in the gym. Science has shown it, I’ve seen it in myself, I’ve seen it in my clients, and anyone else who’s committed to making nutrition a priority has seen it too. Once you start practicing proper nutritional habits consistently, your workout results will improve by leaps and bounds. The keyword here is consistency. You can’t eat right for a couple of days and then you have a day where you skip two meals and eat junk food for a few others. You need to eat right on a consistent basis to really reap the powerful benefits that proper nutrition offers.
There are many different nutrition plans that can help you build muscle, and I’m not going to go into the details of any specific plan. However, I will give some general guidelines for eating to build muscle.
o Include a source of lean protein with each meal
High-quality protein provides your muscles with the proper nutrients to build muscle. Examples include chicken, turkey, egg whites, lean beef, tuna, and meal replacements such as Ny-Tro Pro 40.
o Eat enough calories to put your body in a positive nitrogen balance
A positive nitrogen balance is needed to build muscle. This is achieved by consuming enough high-quality protein (at least 1 gram per pound of body weight) and enough carbohydrates so that the protein you eat goes toward building muscle and not being converted to glucose for energy. Just because you need a lot of nutrients to build muscle doesn’t mean you have to eat large amounts of food. Eating nutrient-dense, high-fat foods just because you’re “bulking” will do nothing to build muscle and everything to make any definition you have go away fast!
o Limit saturated fats but include some “good” fats in your diet
Diets low in saturated fat protect against many problems, such as heart disease and high cholesterol. However, if your total fat intake is too low, testosterone levels will drop and your body will become less efficient at performing many required functions. You need a certain level of “good” fats that contain Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids. Examples of foods that contain these “good fats” include flax seed and flax seed oil, olive oil, canola oil, and CLA or conjugated linoleic acid.
o Eat smaller, more frequent meals throughout the day.
Eating small, frequent meals throughout the day ensures that your muscles are constantly getting the proper nutrients they need to grow. Dividing your normal 3 daily meals into 6-8 smaller meals per day is the nutritional strategy that will have the biggest impact on the amount of muscle you can build. Eating this way also increases your metabolic rate helping you stay leaner, keeps blood insulin levels stable, and increases energy levels throughout the day.
o Drink plenty of pure water throughout the day
Our bodies are made of 1/3 water and our muscles are 70% water! Water plays a vital role in proper hydration, transporting nutrients through the body, digestion, flushing toxins from the body, and other important bodily functions. All of these things help equal more efficient muscle growth.
3) Get plenty of rest between workouts
New muscle tissue is not formed from weight training unless proper nutrients are provided to the body as mentioned above AND sufficient recovery time occurs before the muscle is again under the stress of intense training. In addition to recovery time between workouts, your body needs sleep to allow your muscles and all other functions in your body to function properly.
How much sleep is enough and what is the optimal waiting time before working on the same body part? There are many different opinions and theories on these two topics, and the “correct” answer can be debated all day long. I would say the “right” amount of sleep each night is the amount of sleep it takes to have enough energy to train hard and stay awake and alert to perform all of your daily tasks. As for the optimal time to wait before training the same body part again, it will vary based on a number of factors including how long you’ve been training, how many sets and reps you did during your last workout, and at what intensity. you trained during your last workout, just to name a few.
Personally, I have found that I perform and feel best when I get 7-8 hours of sleep a night. I have also had very good results training each body part very hard once a week as prescribed in the Max-OT program.
4) Live a healthy lifestyle and provide the right environment for muscle growth.
If you are serious about building muscle, then you need to structure your lifestyle in a certain way. This isn’t always easy because many of the normal activities in society involve things that can sabotage your muscle building efforts. With office parties, lunches and dinners, family cookouts, happy hours, etc. it can be difficult to stay on your bodybuilding diet plan. Eating unhealthy foods and drinking with your friends are nice activities, but they won’t help you in your muscle-building efforts.
Sure, it’s hard to give up these activities, but everything worth having in life has a “price” and the “price” for having a lean, muscular body is training when you’re supposed to train, eating when and whatever you want. you are supposed to eat and rest when you are supposed to rest. It would be great if we could exercise whenever we felt like it, try to eat pretty well most of the time, go out drinking on the weekends, and still build muscle and stay lean, but life just doesn’t work that way.
The good news is that you don’t have to become a boring hermit who never does anything fun. Go out and do things with your friends. As long as you train, eat, and rest like you’re supposed to, there’s no problem. It helps to find people who have similar interests and healthy goals as yours. Instead of others trying to tempt you off your training or nutrition plan, you will be able to encourage each other and help each other succeed.
Conclusion:
Follow the above rules with consistency and dedication and you will build muscle. Even if you only build 4 pounds of solid muscle a year, which is very reasonable, after 10 years of training it’s 40 pounds and after 15 years it’s 60 pounds! It won’t happen overnight, but if you are patient and persistent enough, you can build your own physical masterpiece. Train hard, eat right, rest and reap the benefits of not only more muscle but also a healthy life.
© Russ Yeager’s Health and Fitness 2006 All rights reserved. Use of this article for your newsletter, website, or other publication is permitted as long as the content is not altered, including all active links.
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http://www.completaphysicaltransformation.com
