5 Keys To Building Maximum Muscle Mass

Posted on April 2, 2013 by Doug Champigny

Building muscles quickly and achieving maximum muscle mass based on your genetic potential is not an art, it’s a science. And some of the most important key steps are simple to implement. Here are the 5 most-important steps for muscle-building success…

1) Get Enough Sleep
It may seem strange to see getting enough sleep at the start of the list, but it’s one of the biggest differences between natural bodybuilders with bulging muscles and the bodybuilders that train week after week with little or no gains. When you lift weights, you create minor tears in your muscles that need to be repaired and your body responds by building the muscles bigger and stronger in anticipation of further heavy lifts. But most of this repair is only done when the body is at rest.

As a result, if you don’t get enough sleep, 7-8 hours a night, you’re not fully repairing the muscles after each workout. And if you don’t recover fully you’re obviously either preventing or at least delaying your mission to build maximum muscle mass.

2) Eat Enough Healthy Food
Most serious bodybuilders eat fairly clean – just not enough. Most of today’s obesity epidemic comes from people over-eating poor food choices, especially excessive simple carbs. If you started your bodybuilding to burn bodyfat, you gave up all or most of that and watched your bodyfat levels drop and drop. But now that you’re trying to build muscles and have your maximum muscle mass, you need to get back to that caloric intake using only healthy nutritional choices.

But that’s not just true for those who became bodybuilders to lose weight – it applies to every bodybuilder. You need more protein than those who don’t lift weights, but most bodybuilders also need a lot of carbs as well. Not enough to start adding fat again, but enough to fuel your body throughout your day and night. If your body doesn’t have enough carbs and/or bodyfat it will cannibalize your proteins, including your current muscle mass, for the energy it needs.

If you’re eating healthy choices with the right balance of protein, carbs and healthy fat, how do you know if you’re eating enough? Forget the charts and calorie recommendations they publish for bodybuilders – those are averages and YOU aren’t average, right? So slowly increase your intake until you notice a bit of added bodyfat, then tone it down a touch. Your body will only store bodyfat once it’s used all it needs, so that’s the ONLY way to know how much is right for you, with your genetics, your activity level and your current bodyweight. And every time you’ve gained another 10 pounds of muscle, test your intake again so you know how much more to eat each day.

3) Exercise Effectively
Every bodybuilder looking to build maximum muscle mass exercises regularly – but only a small percentage of them exercise effectively. There are many ways to improve your muscle-building workouts – starting with the fact that strength training and muscle building are two different strategies with different workouts required. If your goal is building maximum muscle mass, always keep your reps in the 10 and up range, using as much weight as you can while still maintaining perfect form and going fairly slow on each rep.

Two principles rule when the goal is building maximum muscle mass – Time Under Tension and Slow Negatives. The former refers to how long each set lasts because the longer you keep the muscle under constant tension the greater the damage you’re doing, creating those micro-tears that lead to muscle building. The latter is simply science – those micro-tears occur on the negative stroke of each exercise. So for maximum effect from your workouts use a 1-2 cadence for each rep – lift in 1 second and lower in 2, or lift in 2 seconds and lower in 4 seconds.

4) Improve Your Workouts
How many bodybuilders have you seen at the gym doing the same workout week in and week out, never making much progress, never building much lean muscle mass? Bodybuilding relies on progressive resistance… Both your overall workout and the weights you’re lifting need to progress regularly. Change up the exercises and order of them every 4-6 weeks. Start each new cycle with 3 exercises per bodypart, then each week add 1 more per bodypart. Start back at 3 exercises when you go into the next cycle. And anytime you get all your reps in for your last set of an exercise while maintaining proper form, raise the weight a bit at your next workout – just don’t sacrifice safety and good form to cheat up a weight you’re not ready for yet.

5) Supplement Intelligently
You aren’t building maximum muscle mass if you’re not using supplements, but you don’t need to rush out and break the bank taking every new supplement that comes along. You’ll see an awful lot of talk about whey protein, and it IS important – but only after your workouts. The rest of the time, especially before bed, use casein protein instead. Whey protein is absorbed very quickly and clears your system in about 90 minutes, so it’s perfect for right after your workouts. Casein protein absorbs more slowly and stays in the system for about 4 hours, so it continues to deliver needed protein much longer during the crucial overnight rebuilding period.

Also look into creatine, l-glutamine and a nitrous oxide booster – each can help you build bigger muscles and/or give you more energy for better workouts. And, of course, take a multivitamin daily along with additional B, C + D-3 vitamins. These not only aid in the muscle-building process but help with your overall health as well.

Before going on to any more advanced concepts or experimental programs, make sure you have these 5 basic keys in place – they unlock almost all the secrets to building maximum muscle mass and getting the most out of your workouts and genetics!


 

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Nutrition For Lifting Weights

Posted on March 30, 2013 by Doug Champigny

Lifting weights is great for building muscles, but it’s really only 1/3 of the task – and you won’t build much muscle from lifting weights if you don’t cover the other two areas too. Just as important are your nutrition and getting sufficient rest between workouts.

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Ask even the newest weightlifter and they can probably tell you all about lifting weights, what reps & sets mix to use and what every piece of equipment in the gym is for – but very few can give you informed information about nutrition and what they should be eating to grow those big muscles they’re so fervently working towards.

In the 1960′s and 1970′s bodybuilders would eat a healthy, nutritious diet in preparation for, and during, their contest season and then ‘bulk up’ during the off-season. The idea was to ensure you ate as much as you could, regardless of the quality of food, in the hope that their body would have all the nutrients it needed at any given time to build maximum muscle. So they would put on 30 – 50 pounds of bodyweight, only to then diet off the extra 20 – 40 pounds of fat included in their extra mass.

Nutrition For Lifting Weights

Proper Nutrition For Lifting Weights Is Mandatory For Maximum Muscle Mass!

Nowadays, though, it’s understood that one can build maximum muscle mass while staying fairly lean, with little extra bodyfat to burn off at competition time. No longer do they consume massive amounts of pasta and white potatoes, but instead they’ve reduced their carbohydrate intake, upped their protein intake and replaced the simple carbohydrates they were eating with complex carbs like steel-cut oats, sweet potatoes (yams), brown rice, etc.

So what should your nutrition look like for lifting weights? First you need to know the total number of calories you’ll need, and that varies from person to person, even if you’re lifting weights together. The calories you need are based on your metabolism more than your gym sessions, so start with what you’re currently eating – after all, your current caloric intake got you to your current weight and is maintaining it, right?

Start by dropping soda and alcohol from your routine and replace those calories with protein sources. Carbs and protein each contain 4 calories per gram, so it’s a straight swap. Replace your remaining simple carbs with complex carbs – most of your carbohydrates should come from sources like the steel-cut oats, brown rice and yams mentioned above plus vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, tomatoes and apples.

Do not try to lower your intake of fats, just make sure they come from healthy choices like fish oil, krill oil, eggs and nuts. It’s especially important to make sure you’re getting enough Omega-3 and Omega-6 from your fats, on a ratio of 2:1 or 3:1 – getting your fats from the sources mentioned will go a long way towards meeting those goals, but you might want to consider an Omega-3 supplement as well.

At this point you’re getting your carbs and fats from healthy sources, and that just leaves your protein. The are a great number of protein sources readily available. Some of the best are milk, eggs (especially egg whites), salmon, tuna & other fish, chicken, lean red meat, etc. Fortunately there is enough variety that you can easily vary your diet to keep it interesting while staying compliant with good nutrition practices.

You won’t need to count calories and be very vigilant for long – repetition week after week will make eating this way a habit before long and you’ll be able to maintain your eating habits automatically then. But make sure you DO stick to your new eating patterns long enough for it to become habit before you ease up at all.

From that point on, your nutrition for lifting weights depends on your personal goals. If you want to maintain lean muscle mass while burning off bodyfat, lower your daily carb intake by 10%. If you want to build more lean muscle, up your daily protein intake by 10%. In either case, note the effect it has and adjust your levels accordingly. Continue adjusting your nutrition as you go along, keeping the changes small and noting the effects. Healthy nutrition for lifting weights really is that simple, so there’s no reason to let poor nutritional habits sabotage your efforts in the gym!


 

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Body Building Schedule – How to Organize Lifting Sessions

Posted on March 27, 2013 by Doug Champigny

Body building requires a lot of time and effort on your part, so you always want to get the maximum muscle gains from each visit to the gym. So it’s important to understand how to organize your lifting sessions. If you don’t, you probably won’t get the optimal results from your body building schedule.

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Take the standard full-body workout, done 2 or 3 times per week. To maximize your results from your weight lifting you want to put most of your efforts into the biggest muscle groups, since that is where your greatest muscle gains will come from. And because they’re your biggest muscles, you need to hit them when your energy levels are highest – at the beginning of each weight lifting session.

That gives you the order the exercises are to be performed in:

  • Legs
  • Back
  • Chest
  • Shoulders
  • Triceps
  • Biceps
  • Abs

Since the goal in body building is to build lean muscles proportionately, the bulk of the exercises performed at each weight lifting session should be compound exercises. A compound exercise is one that focuses on one main muscle group, but rather than isolate that group it also involves 2 or more of your joints and 1 or more additional muscle groups to a lesser extent.

This lets us organize our weight lifting session even further by adding in the exercises for each bodypart:

  • Legs – Squats
  • Back – Bent Rows
  • Chest – Bench Press
  • Shoulders – Overhead Press
  • Triceps – Lying Triceps Extensions (skullcrushers)
  • Biceps – Standing Barbell Curls
  • Abs – Weighted Situps

Be sure to check with your doctor and get the go-ahead before starting any exercise program, and discuss the specific exercises you’ll be doing in case any existing conditions would be compromised. And whenever possible, always train with free weights. The machines in most commercial gyms may look enticing and you may be able to use heavier weights, but most have the weight traveling along a fixed path.

Because it’s the machine, not you, keeping it to the proper path, your supporting muscles aren’t involved. This builds ‘gym strength’, not functional strength. When called upon to use those major muscles outside the gym you stand a much better chance of being injured, since your smaller supporting muscles haven’t developed equally on those machines.

There two other factors that enter into body building you’ll need to discover to organize your weight lifting sessions, but both are dependent on your own personal physiology. First is the number of sets and repetitions you’ll perform for each exercise. Your rep scheme should be based on the type of results you want – lower reps with heavier weights to build strength vs. higher reps with somewhat lighter weights to build muscle mass. Then you can set the number of sets once you know how many reps are in each set.

Second is the number of days per week you’ll work out. If you’re doing full-body workouts you’ll want to hit the gym 2 or 3 times per week, always on non-consecutive days. If your body heals quickly after each workout you may want to go Monday – Wednesday – Friday, while if you find that’s too much and you’re staying sore between workouts you might want to hit the gym on Mondays & Thursdays.

If you’re not doing full-body workouts but doing some type of split-routine instead, again you’ll have to figure out what works best for your own body. In any case, by paying attention to what works for your own body, you’ll soon know how to organize lifting sessions to meet your body building schedule and goals, getting maximum muscle gains from every weight lifting session you do!


 

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What A Certified Personal Trainer Does – And Doesn’t – Know About You

Posted on March 24, 2013 by Doug Champigny

Most people who are serious about weightlifting or bodybuilding will hire a personal trainer at some point. Personal training helps in a lot of ways, so let’s take a look at what your new certified personal trainer already knows and what you need to tell them about yourself.

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When a man or woman gets certified as a personal trainer they learn a lot about body composition, weight loss, nutrition and, of course, the effects of weightlifting on the body. So just by looking at you they have some clues as to your current state of health and your nutritional habits. What they can’t tell is what medical conditions you have. But then again, unless you’ve been to your doctor recently neither can you.

What A Certified Personal Trainer Does – And Doesn’t – Know Abou

Medical conditions like high blood pressure (hypertension) and diabetes are often present with no external indications, so you need to have a recent checkup and pass that information on to your person trainer. The former affects the type and intensity of exercises you should be starting with while the latter will affect your nutrition plans. By not knowing about these and/or not telling your certified personal trainer you’re risking complications and even possible death. That’s why you so often hear about the necessity of having a full physical with your doctor before beginning any exercise program, including personal training.

A good trainer also knows a lot about maximizing nutrition to see that you get the right number of calories and the correct balance of macro- and micro-nutrients to safely and effectively lose weight or build lean muscle mass. But what they don’t know when first starting with you is your personal metabolism – that is, the rate your body burns through it’s fuel. Your body type and body composition will provide some clues, but it will take a bit of time for your certified personal trainer to observe the results of the diet he or she proposes for you.

If you’re considering personal training you can speed up that process by keeping a food diary for a couple of weeks before you start. That will give your trainer a better starting point, as they’ll know roughly how many calories you’ve been consuming to this point and what type of food you’ve been eating. This makes it much easier for them to evaluate what changes to make to help you lose weight or build muscles more efficiently.

Another thing your certified personal trainer needs to hear from you is any history of chronic aches and pains you’ve endured, whether they are currently affecting you or not. This helps them to evaluate any weaknesses in your current condition and to design a workout program for you that lessens the chances of aggravating any existing injuries. This may not seem like a big deal to you but remember that all progress stops if you need to take a few weeks off training to allow your body to heal from a serious injury.

And finally, you need to describe your current lifestyle openly and honestly with your trainer. As part of their personal training certification they’ve learned the importance of sufficient rest and recovery between workouts and the physiological effects of stress on the body. Your workouts need to be tailored to match the stress levels already existing in your daily lifestyle and the amount of effective sleep you’re getting each night. The better your sleeping habits and lower your stress levels, the more intense workouts you can safely perform and the better and sooner you can see your desired results. Conversely, if you’re in highly-stressed situations regularly or aren’t willing to get 7 – 8 hours of sleep a night, your exercise load needs to be lessened, even if you think you could be handling more weight or longer sessions.

You’re going to be investing a lot of effort into working out and eating right, and personal training will help you maximize your returns from those efforts. Just be sure you’re open and honest with your certified personal trainer so you can work harmoniously to achieve your weightlifting and/or bodybuilding goals.

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Skip The ‘Macho’ And Go Straight To Maximum Muscle Building

Posted on March 18, 2013 by Doug Champigny

From the earliest days of commercial gyms, young men have flocked to the iron game to combat their insecurities and weaknesses – if you’re old enough you’ll remember all those Charles Atlas ads on the back of comic books suggesting fitness and strength to keep bullies from ‘kicking sand in your face’. So it’s no wonder that to this day macho posturing often precludes maximum muscle building.

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Even many of the greatest pro bodybuilders started lifting due to real or perceived inadequacies or because they were being bullied or teased and felt the need to be bigger and stronger and display a more ‘manly’ persona. Nimrod King, former Canadian bodybuilding champion, was moved to Canada at the age of seven. While Nimrod was a common name in Africa, he quickly became the victim of abuse from his new schoolmates because of his name. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the best-known bodybuilder of all time, was bullied by his older brother & his father, who referred to Arnold as his ‘daughter’. The result? By 19 he was a European powerlifting champion.

From those days til today, unfortunately, that macho posturing still exists in most gyms – and now both women and men practice it and fall victim to it. One of the most common examples revolves around doing squats…

Build Maximum Muscle Safely

Let’s take a look at the dynamics of a proper squat: After placing hundreds of pounds on the bar you position yourself under it so that it rests where your back and shoulders meet your neck at the top of your spine. Then keeping toes, knees and shoulders in a vertical line, you squat down til your hamstrings touch your calves and rise back up again. Now think of the physiology – all of your nerves run up through your spine to eventually reach the brain stem.

So unless you’ve already built up an inch or two of thick muscle at the top of your back, you’re putting hundreds of pounds of weight on one of the most delicate – yet important – areas of your body. When you consider that spinal damage is a leading cause of paralysis and that the neck-back tie-in is a common site for arthritis, you realize that padding the bar where it makes contact with the area is a wise idea – and bar pads made just for this are readily available. Yet gyms and the online weightlifting forums are full of slurs against their use and nasty comments about those who use them.

But that’s not the worst of it… What’s worse is the drive to use as much weight as possible, regardless of range of motion or proper form. The need to brag about how much one curls leads many to swing up the weights using momentum and an awful lot of ‘body English’. How often have you seen someone twist their body through unnatural and dangerous positions just to curl a weight that’s obviously too heavy for them? Or overload the bar and then only do the top 6 – 12″ of a squat?

And how many athletes, including powerlifters and pro bodybuilders, have been hurt while trying to set a new one-rep max? None of this is what building muscles is all about… Yes, strength training will help build muscle, but unless one is truly genetically gifted it’s a minor growth at that. To truly build maximum muscle mass your workouts need to incorporate full range-of-motion reps, done with increasing intensity.

How do you increase that intensity? Not by struggling and cheating your reps due to an overly-heavy weight load. You do it by slowing down your movements, by adding more controlled reps, by shortening the rest time between sets, by adding in new exercises, by changing your exercise routine regularly and by combining any two or more of these progressions.

So when you hit the gym for your next weightlifting session, stay safe, be smart and work in your own best interest. Be sure your brain is engaged throughout every exercise, take your time and ignore the comments of the immature and insecure. Keep your maximum muscle building goals front-of-mind and work out in a controlled, disciplined and intelligent manner. Rest easy in the knowledge that you’re building maximum muscle mass while they’re just feeding their bloated egos.


 

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