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Adding muscle seems
to be a mystery to most, yet if you
pick up a copy of any fitness or
bodybuilding magazine and you’ll
almost always see a headline like
this: “Gain 15 Pounds of Muscle in 6
Weeks.”
If it were so easy you’d have
millions of muscle-heads running
around. Even though building muscle
tissue can be a challenge, I’m going
to outline some very specific
principles that can pack on the
muscle faster than you can throw
away that copy of “Muscle and
Fiction”!
Before we get started though I want
to clarify a few points.
The ridiculous claims made by most
fitness and bodybuilding magazines
are only there to get you to buy
that issue – nothing more!
If you are serious about strength
training you need to be reading
books and NOT cheesy fitness
magazines
Ok… here we go.
In order to add muscle tissue you
must force the body to add it. Your
body won’t just add a pound of
muscle just because you followed a
3-set workout that you read about in
Muscle + Fitness. You need to give
the body a reason to make
improvements – in this case add
muscle tissue.
You have to provide what I call a
“stimulus”. This can be done in many
ways and I’ll address a few in just
a moment. Basically, you need to
force the body to add muscle by
subjecting it to levels of stress it
is not used to. Some methods are
more obvious than others but all can
work. Here are a few examples of how
this can be done effectively.
First, the basic and common methods:
Increase weight or resistance
Perform more repetitions
Perform more sets
Move the resistance slower
Rest less between sets and exercises
Now for the more advanced methods:
Pre-exhaust (perform an isolation
exercise first and immediately
continue with no rest on a compound
movement. ex. chest flye and then
chest press)
Static holds (hold the resistance in
the hardest position of the range of
motion. ex. the top position during
a leg extension)
Partial reps in weak range (perform
a portion of the rep where you are
weakest. ex. the top half of a rep
of leg extensions)
Strip-set (after a warm-up set,
perform 3 sets back to back with no
rest while starting with the
heaviest weight possible and each
time strip off some weight to allow
you to continue)
1 ½ reps (perform one full rep and
then on the second rep only perform
half the normal range of motion and
then return to starting position to
begin the next rep. ex. one full rep
of lat pulldowns, pull second rep
all the way down, resist weight back
up but only half way and then pull
back down)
These are just a few examples of
methods of increasing intensity to
ensure progress. The key point to
remember is that whatever you do it
must be progressive in order for it
to elicit a physical change. This is
even more critical for those looking
to add muscle size.
Although this article is geared
towards individuals who are
interested in gaining muscle size,
the principles can also be used for
individuals who want to build
strength, increase metabolism, or
tighten and tone muscles.
Here are some general
recommendations for different goals…
If your goal is to tighten and tone
muscles:
· Focus on increasing reps,
decreasing rest, and changing
exercises frequently
· Train each muscle group twice per
week
· Perform fewer sets of many
different exercises (1-2 sets per
exercise)
If your goal is to increase strength
and power:
Focus on increasing weight
Train each muscle group once every
7-10 days
Perform multiple sets of each
exercise (2-5 sets per exercise)
If your goal is to increase muscle
size:
Focus on shocking muscles by
changing variables frequently
(exercises, set and rep schemes,
rest time, etc)
Train each muscle group on a
variable schedule (experiment by
training a muscle group 3 times a
week and then once every ten days)
Perform multiple sets for a while
and the perform single sets for a
week or two
Some final reminders:
The recommendations above are
general and of course would need to
be adapted and adjusted for your
personal goals and experience. For
those of you who are advanced and
may be thinking there’s no way you
can build strength by training once
every 10 days I challenge you to try
it for at least 4 weeks, or those of
you who think that you need to stick
to the same basic movements like
bench to build size I challenge you
to try shocking the muscles by
changing the exercises you perform
each week for 4 weeks, and those of
you with little experience I hope
that you’ll throw away the fitness
magazines and learn what really
works.
For more great muscle building
information visit
Achieve Fitness
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