A few other pointers before you start…

-Take a good look at your diet, and fix it.
-Workout within the 8-12 rep range without going overboard on the sets.
-Gradually increase the amount of weight lifted or resistance week after week.
-Allow two days for recovery before working the same muscle grouping again.
-Do not workout more than five days a week, three being preferred.

I know all this seems like alot, but I didn’t come here to give you the easy way out…

In order to BUILD MUSCLE, you HAVE TO (and I mean this is an absolute must!) consume more calories than you expell. Yes, this means you have to go on a weight gain diet!

Simply enough, muscles CANNOT GROW without a calorie surplus! Muscular hypertrophy occurs only when a calorie surplus is presented to the bodybuilder. You see, when you weight train, small micro-tears are produced throughout the muscle, and alongside an adequate diet, these tears are somewhat “filled” with new muscle tissue. Try to imagine the excess food you consume turning into muscle.

Furthermore, a calorie surplus means you have to expell LESS calories than you intake. This is why you are unable to put some meat on your bones DAVE, you mountain bike! This kind of long endurance activity only diminishes muscle tissue and does not encourage hypertrophy in any which way.

To start off, monitor your daily calorie intake. From there on, add on another 300-500 calories a day. Now, I’m not saying your not going to gain a little bit of fat with this diet, because simply enough, you are. Suck it up until you have gained a desired amount of muscle, THEN, burn it off.

Oh no, we’re not done yet. Don’t think that you can get away with just eating another fruit rollup bar and thats it. YOU HAVE TO EAT PROTEIN! If you do not get over 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight a day, you will not see any gains in muscle. Infact, you will only lose muscle. This means get a complete protein source in each of your meals.

This new diet will also require 5-6 meals a day! Yeah, 5-6! You see, proteins (amino acids) only stay in the blood system for 3 hours maximum, and then, it is stored as fat. During this time, the amino acids are supplied to muscles in order to promote hypertrophy. Though it isn’t completely neccessary, this way of eating has many positives:
1) No storage of fat
2) More gains in muscular strength and size

With the rest of the calories not mentioned, try to focus on starchy carbs and healthy fats. Nothing more, nothing less.

From my experience as a hardgainer, about 50% of your gains lies in your diet. The other 50% is your routine and resting habits (8 hours a day!). This does’t mean that if you exercise well and rest properly, you will gain 50% as much muscle. NO! Without any of these critical factors, YOU WILL, WITH NO DOUBT IN MY MIND, FAIL.

There isn’t much that I can say about the routine itself that nobody else knows. My only concern with you all is your rep ranges…

1) If you want to become stronger…
KEEP YOUR REP RANGES WITHIN THE 1-6 REP RANGE

2***) If you want to build muscle AND gain strength…
KEEP YOUR REP RANGES WITHIN THE 8-12 REP RANGE

Why? It is in this rep range that most micro-tears in the muscle are produced. This, in turn, means much, much more muscular hypertrophy.

3) If you want to increase muscular endurance with no strength gains and minimum muscle gains
DOING MORE THAN 15 REPS IS IDEAL FOR YOU

I do not know what else to say :P. I gained 16 LB of PURE muscle mass in 12 weeks by doing the above. How did I figure this out? I was searching around one day and found a site which I still use today… http://www.gain-weight-muscle-fast.com
Probably the best website in existince.

Training to failure simply means you can’t do another repetition with that weight while maintaining good form. Failure could be the 75th push-up or the third squat at 275. Whichever regimen you choose, your goal is to convince your muscles that they are not yet strong enough to complete the task. Given rest and nutrition, your genes will express themselves by increasing strength, and/or size and/or endurance depending on the different weight/rep/set variables. If you want more sinewy tone, I’d say go with the lower weights, higher reps for now…plus you won’t get injured. But you still fight to get that last rep done. If it’s too easy, your muscles say: that was too easy, no reason to waste valuable energy getting stronger…I can already do this.

Don’t overthink this.

I don’t have tons of research to back up what I’ve written. All I have is my personal experience and observations—admittedly anecdotal evidence. Take it or leave it.

Maybe you can get away with not going to muscle exhaustion, but going to exhaustion (often at much higher reps) seems to work for me.

When I was younger I used to do as many push-ups as possible right before I went to bed. I got rapidly stronger and noticeably more muscular over a period of only six months (that winter I wrestled in the 110-pound weight class, so you can imagine how small I was before). Then I got into bench press and set a goal to put up 185. It actually took me a few years, and it only happened when I incorporated a set where I would max out with 105 pounds each week (I got up to 35 reps with that weight).

I suppose if I were to amend my advice above, I’d recommend that my fellow scrawny guys go for even higher reps with lower weight (again, that’s what type I muscle fiber responds to best), but it’s the pushing for one more rep—whether that constitutes failure or not—that produced the strength for me.

These days, I’m more into mountain biking than weightlifting. My regimen nowadays (which does not involve visiting the gym) consists of squats with 45-pound water storage jugs in my kitchen (2-3 sets of 50), chin-ups at the local playground, clap push-ups in my living room, stadium stair sprints, some plyometrics, and lots of cycling/mountain biking otherwise.

When I had my bodyfat checked this past fall, I had 8% bodyfat (my all-time low was 6.6 in 2004). But I should mention, I’m also not gaining muscle like I used to—I currently weigh only 135 (I’ve been as heavy as 155).

If you really really want strength, quit your desk job and become a concrete laborer—and I know this from experience as well.

Marc

I just want to make sure I’m getting this right. This is advice geared towards who want to add weight in the form of muscle, correct? I ask because I’ve read of lifting regimens in more than one case where they advise against training to failure (assuming that means the same as exhaustion–if not, please explain the difference). I’m training for functional strength that will hopefully last a lifetime. I’ll be quite happy with the “wiry but strong” look.

Dave
DaveGetsFit