If building muscle mass is a goal of yours, this is your lucky day because I am about to simplify the process down to 3 easy to follow steps. The challenge of building muscle mass in this day and age is there is so much bogus information floating around out there that it is difficult to know what is fact and what is fiction. You start to follow one piece of advice and when that doesn’t work you move on to the next, and the vicious cycle begins. As I pointed out earlier, building muscle mass can actually be broken down into 3 simple to follow steps, so let’s get to them.
1. Dedication and Proper Mindset
The first step in building muscle mass is having dedication and the proper mindset to start with. Without this, you’re destined for failure. Your probably asking yourself this question right now, “Sure, that’s easier said than done”. Guess what, you’re exactly right. However, there are many ways you can help get yourself into the proper mindset to succeed in your muscle building endeavors.
The first thing you must do is set goals for yourself, but make these goals specific. Don’t just write, “I want to build muscle mass,” but instead write, “I want to build 8 pounds of muscle mass in 1 month.” Do you see how much more specific that is? You will feel much more compelled to work towards that specific goal than for the more general one. Once you have written your goals, post them in a place where you will see them everyday, and be forced to read through them. This will keep you focused on a daily basis.
The day-to-day process of building muscle mass can become mundane, so it’s important to have a strategy to raise your intensity level before entering the gym. Visualization is a great tool to use to raise your focus and intensity. Throughout your day or before you workout, visualize yourself having success in the gym. That may be you see yourself finally getting that 7th rep of 235# on the bench press on your last set or reach a new max on the squat. Whatever you visualize, be very specific. Visualize every detail about the situation. The more detailed you can be in your visualizations the more success you will have with this technique. Pro athletes in every sport utilize this technique to reach their goals, so there is no reason why you shouldn’t be using it either.
Building muscle mass can be achieved while training by yourself, but it is much easier to maintain your focus and dedication if you have a training partner that is counting on you being at every workout. The trick is picking a good partner because if you pick a bad one this can have negative effects on your muscle building quest, as well. The most important thing you must look for in a partner is that they have the same dedication and desire towards building muscle mass, as you do.
These techniques should help you maintain your motivation towards building muscle mass. Now that you have step 1 mastered, let’s move on to step 2.
2. Proper Weight Lifting Program
The second step in building muscle mass is to follow a proper weight lifting program. If you do a search on any of the popular internet search engines, you can easily find a dozen or more weight lifting programs that all claim to pack pounds of muscle on your frame. Some of these programs may work, but many do not because they forget to focus on one simple principle. In order to build muscle mass, you must build strength. Think about it; have you ever seen a 225# bodybuilder maxing out on the bench at 150 pounds? I didn’t think so. As your strength improves, your muscles adapt by growing bigger.
The best way to increase your strength and therefore build muscle mass is to ensure the core of your weight lifting program consists of compound lifts such as the bench press, squat, dead lift, chin-ups, dips, etc. These lifts will allow you to lift the maximum amount of weight which will in turn recruit the most muscle fibers resulting in greater improvements in strength and muscle mass.
To achieve the greatest improvement in strength and therefore muscle mass, you should do all your lifts for 2-3 sets of 5-7 reps. This rep range has been shown to maximize strength and muscle mass gains. For your main muscle groups such as your legs, chest, and back, you should do about 3-4 exercises for a total of 6-8 sets for each muscle group. For your abs, triceps, shoulders, and biceps, you should do an additional 2 exercises for a total of 3-4 sets for each muscle group. The reason we do less exercises for the latter is that they have already received some work during the compound movements we did. A good workout split would be to train three days per week with day 1 being Legs/Abs, day 2 being chest/shoulders/triceps, and day 3 being back/biceps/forearms. This should be all the training you need to reach your goal of building muscle mass.
Now that you know how to develop a proper weight lifting program for building muscle mass, it is time to move on to the last and final step.
3. Proper Muscle Building Nutrition
The third and final step in building muscle mass is ensuring you eat correctly to maximize your muscle building potential. Without proper nutrition, you will never reach your full potential. You must feed your muscle with enough nutrients for them to grow.
In order to build muscle mass, you have to create a calorie surplus of between 300-500 calories above your maintenance level. This simply means you must eat more calories than you burn, so there is enough energy left over for building muscle mass. The simplest method for calculating your caloric requirements is the basic multiplier. For this method, you simply multiply your bodyweight by 17-20 to give you the amount of calories you will need to consume to create a calorie surplus within your body. This will work fairly well for the majority of people with average body types. There are other methods, but they are beyond the scope of this article.
The timing of your meals is also very important because you are going to need to eat every 2-3 hours your awake for a total of 5-7 meals per day. Each meal should consist of approximately 40% lean protein, 40% complex carbohydrate, and 20% fat. Your muscles require protein to grow, so eating every 2-3 hours ensures that there is always a good supply of protein to fuel muscle growth and keep you in an anabolic (muscle building) state. If you don’t supply your body with all of its protein requirements, it starts breaking down your muscle tissue to get this protein, which is exactly what you don’t want to happen.
I hope you can see that nutrition is a vitally important component of building muscle mass.
Well, there you have it. These 3 steps of dedication, proper weight lifting program, and proper muscle building nutrition are all that is required to start building muscle mass. Now all you have to do is hit the gym and put what you’ve learned here about building muscle mass to use. Good luck!
Mark Petersen is a healthcare professional who specializes in sports medicine and physical fitness. To get more information about building muscle and to sign-up for our free muscle building email course, please visit [http://www.MuscleGainTruth.net] Also, to discover which muscle building program Mark and his online team ranks above all others, please visit http://www.MuscleProgramReview.com
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