Muscle Gaining

How do you know when you have reached your muscle gain plateau? You’ve been consistently adding weight to your routine over the past month or two and now you can’t seem to get to the next level. You are still lifting the same amount of weight with the same amount of reps as the previous months and you just can’t add any more. You have definitely reached a plateau.

How do you make sure you don’t get to these frustrating plateaus?

Change it up! If you don’t alter your workouts, the plateaus are most certainly guaranteed. Reaching a plateau means that your body and muscles have adapted. As your muscles get stronger, fewer fibers are needed to lift the same load. If you can’t increase the weight, these fibers get lazy and you must do something to shock and stimulate them. A successful muscle gain routine will have variation.

Change the order in which you do your routines, vary your exercises, lower the weight and do more repetitions, or try to do your lifting more slowly.

Another cause of reaching a plateau may be over training. Too many people work the same muscle groups daily and do not allow for rest. It is imperative for muscle gain that no muscle group be trained on consecutive days.

Did you know that wearing weight belts inhibit the strengthening of your lower back and abdominal muscles?

For anyone starting a muscle gaining routine, it is important to start with light weights. Mastering technique and form should be first priority. Never use more weight than you can handle.

For example, so many beginners doing bicep curls with the barbell, try to lift so much weight that they actually rock forward and swing the bar up. This is the wrong way to work those biceps. I see this every day. It is important for beginners to start with light weights and focus on proper technique in order to see results within a few short weeks. If six hard working weeks later, you are not seeing the muscle gains, you may want a trainer to keep an eye on your form.

How do you know how much weight you can handle?

If you start with a weight and are fatigued quickly, say less than 6 reps, drop the weight. If you choose a weight and can do over 10 reps right away, you should increase the weight. The first step is to get to 10 reps with a weight that will fatigue your muscles. Stay with this weight until you can complete several sets of 10 reps. It is now time to increase the weight. Again, you should only be able to do 10 reps in the beginning, working up to several sets of 10. Once again, increase the weight. When training, I usually increase the weight load by ten percent each time.

I can’t stress this enough: proper form and technique are the key to reaching your muscle gaining  goals.

A healthy diet, rich in protein is just as important as lifting for muscle weight gain. After spending all those hours at the gym, building muscle, your body must replenish good quality proteins quickly to repair and rebuild muscle. Do not let your protein levels become depleted.

You must have adequate protein in your diet for maximum muscle weight gain. Ideally, protein should be consumed within 90 minutes after a high intensity workout in addition to including it in every single meal including snacks.

You need to consume 1.5g of good quality protein per pound of body weight. So if you weigh 200 lbs, for example, you need to eat about 300g of protein a day.

To keep your body in an anabolic state to promote muscle, add various protein sources to each meal such as animal protein (lean red meat, poultry, fish or eggs), nuts, beans and vegetables.

Drink your milk. Milk is often overlooked and is actually a source of complete protein and excellent nutrition for muscle weight gain.

Finally, supplement with a high quality whey protein powder, one that is quickly metabolized by muscle tissue. Look for protein products that have at least 50g of protein per serving, include BCAA’s and are low carb.

Bottom line: in order to gain good quality muscle, you must train right, eat several times a day, and pay close attention to the quality of your calorie intake and mix of proteins, carbs and fats.

Bulk up the healthy way with Muscle Advance Weight Gainer

Many people can somehow fit the gym into their busy schedules several times a week. Some of us must go to the gym to stay motivated. But what about those that just can’t seem to squeeze in the extra time it takes to get there and back?

If you are strength training to gain muscle fast, working out at home can still give you the results you are looking for. Unfortunately, bodybuilding magazines have made weight training so complicated, making you think that it takes 6 different exercises to work just one muscle group. As I mentioned in the past, you can get a total body workout with just six muscle movements using basic dumbbells or barbells in a short period of time.

Thirty minutes, at least three times a week will help you gain muscle fast  naturally.

To gain muscle at home using weights, start off with lower intensity, high volume workouts and gradually push toward heavier weights and lower repetitions. Eventually you will need to shake up your metabolism and change it up. Increase weights, drop reps or decrease weights, add reps or change the exercises slightly.

6 Key Movements For Maximum Muscle Gain

Building bigger muscles isn’t at all that difficult. You must train right, eat lots of protein and stick to high quality foods. The problem is that most body builders don’t realize just how much food they must eat to reach their muscle gain goals.

When you start adding huge amounts of protein and calories to your diet, it is important to know that your body is digesting it. If not, all of this extra food will do nothing to help you gain muscle.

Complete digestion and assimilation of protein and other nutrients is needed for muscle gain and to obtain this you must have the right combination of enzymes. The digestive enzymes in particular break down the food you eat allowing these nutrients to enter the bloodstream.

Bottom Line

You may be eating to promote muscle gain, however if there are not enough enzymes for proper digestion, you may not see these gains as you should. All the food will pass through your body unused. If you are over the age of 25, it becomes even worse. Research proves that as we get older we have lower quantities of natural digestive enzymes.

If the enzymes are not there, all of this won’t matter.

You are doing everything you were told to do to gain muscle: working hard at the gym, eating all of the right amounts of food daily including sucking down protein shakes, and you are still not seeing the results you were hoping for.

So, what can you do to ensure the proper amount of enzymes?

Supplement with a high quality digestive enzyme. This will guarantee that your body is actually using all of that protein you may be loading up on. It is critical that this condition be met in order to achieve significant muscle gains.

Finally start seeing results and start packing on muscle in the fastest time possible naturally.