Posts Tagged ‘gain weight and build muscle’

Gain Weight And Build Muscle - Basic Principles For Success

Saturday, December 26th, 2009

Bodybuilders and weightlifters alike often put forth a great deal of effort to gain weight and build muscle.  This can be much more difficult for some than for others.  Genetics can play a role in a persons difficulty in gaining weight but often times they are overlooking the basic principles of weight training.  This article will discuss the various aspects of how to gain weight and build muscle.

Muscles that aren’t stimulated to do more than they can will not improve, get stronger or grow.  They will stay in their current state.  In order to make your muscles grow bigger and therefore gain weight you must push yourself with each workout to lift heavier weights than you did before.

Many are under the misconception that they can gain weight and build muscle because they have achieved a “muscle pump” during their workout.  This isn’t true.  You can get a muscle pump if you curl a can of soup enough times but that will do little to help your bicep grow.  Your muscles feel pumped because the exercise has increased blood flow to that area.  The pumped feeling will fade as blood flow returns to normal.  If you want that muscle to grow you have to add progressive resistance.

This principle we are discussing here is called progressive overload.  In a nutshell it means taxing your muscles with each and every workout.  Your focus should be to increase the resistive load on your exercises at least once a week, even if it is only by 2.5 pounds.  As long as the weight you are lifting forces you to work harder than you did before then you are on the right track to gain weight and build muscle.

So what happens when you force your muscles to work harder?  One thing is that as your muscles become more and more conditioned to lifting heavier weights you are recruiting a greater number of muscle fibers to help with the task.  This means that more of your muscle fibers “fire” and contract under the stress to help you complete the lift.  The more muscle fibers that are involved the bigger your muscles will grow.

Another tip you should practice if your goal is to gain weight and build muscle is to keep your workouts short and basic.  By this I mean no longer than an hour and minimize the number of exercises, sets and reps that you do.  A program consisting of 1 to 2 exercises per body part, performing 2 to 3 sets of 4 to 6 reps 1 to 2 days per week should be sufficient.  There is no need to work a body part more than that in any given week.  This will tax your muscles to the max and allow sufficient rest in between workouts so your muscles can repair, recover and grow.

The biggest problems that most people that are challenged to gain weight and build muscle is that they simply do to much of the wrong stuff and not enough of the right stuff.  Cut back on your workouts to avoid overtraining.  Apply the principle of progressive overload to challenge your muscles to grow.

To gain weight and build muscle may seem impossible for some and you may think you are cursed because of your genetics but you aren’t.  Anyone can build bigger muscles but you need the information on this page…Click here now:

Gain Weight and Build Muscle

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Posted in Muscle Mass | 23 Comments »

How To Gain Weight With A Fast Metabolism - Success vs. Failure Depends On This

Friday, December 25th, 2009

Gaining weight is something that most people don’t want to do.  In fact, the majority of the population is overweight and should be trying to lose weight.  If you are the so called “hardgainer” then you likely want to know how to gain weight with a fast metabolism. This article can help.

To gain weight and build muscle, in principle is really very simple.  You have to consume more calories than you burn off and you have to lift weights using the principle of progressive overload and avoid overtraining.  How simple is that?  Sounds good on paper but how can you do this?

The first thing to do when answering how to gain weight with a fast metabolism is to eat more calories per day than you burn off.  Not just any calories though.  Just because you have a tendency to burn off fat doesn’t mean you should eat whatever you want (I’m talking about fast food, chips, candy, etc).  Your diet needs to consist of high quality carbs, proteins and healthy fats.  These are the nutrients that will support healthy weight gain and keep you from getting ill in the long run.

1.  In order to start you need to determine how many calories you burn per day.  Do this by searching the web for a calorie calculator or counter.  There are many free ones available.  Go through the process and once you have the number of calories burned per day plan your diet to consume 300 to 500 extra calories per day.  So if the calculator gave you a number of 2000 then you want to eat 2500 calories per day.

2.  To eat that many calories you will need to space your meals out every 2 to 3 hours.  You have to eat 6 small meals per day, not three huge ones.  A meal could consist of a piece of fruit or a protein shake.  It doesn’t have to be a sit down dinner.  The point is eat frequently throughout the day so your body has an adequate supply of nutrients to feed off of. If you skip a meal your body will need to get nutrients somewhere.  It will usually go after fat and muscle tissue then.  You don’t want this to happen.  Keep eating.

3.  You have to get into the habit of counting your calories and checking your weight.  Once you’ve increased your caloric intake by 300 to 500 calories per day weigh yourself once a week.  If you haven’t gained any weight after a week or two then add another 300 to 500 calories until you do gain weight.

4.  You will need to add weight training to your routine if you haven’t already.  This is critical for building muscle mass and adding pounds.  Your workouts should be kept to three times per week, 45 minutes to an hour and should consist of basic, mass building exercises.  These types of exercises include squats, deadlifts, bench press, military press, bent over rows, biceps and tricep curls.  Certainly add in calf raises and abdominal work.  Eliminate “shaping” type exercises until you achieve the desired weight and size you are looking for.

That is the answer to how to gain weight with a fast metabolism.  It’s really not that complicated.  Where most people fail is with their follow through.  They don’t see results as quickly as they like so they give up or they don’t make the necessary adjustments to their diet or workouts.  This process is an ever changing one and you have to monitor the effects of what you are doing.  If they aren’t working you must change something.

Finding the right system regarding how to gain weight with a fast metabolism is imperative if you want to gain weight and build muscle. See how “Skinny Vinny” overcame his horrible genes and packed on over 41 pounds of rock hard muscle in 6 months:

Gain Weight With A Fast Metabolism

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Posted in Weight Gain/Loss | 37 Comments »