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?

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.

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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

Do not think for a minute that doing bicep curls and having huge biceps is key to eliminating that huge waist.

Do not think for a minute that working your chest muscles forever will pack on the muscle gain you want.

Do not think that crunching and crunching, involving very little muscle mass will melt off the fat around your middle.

Do not think for a minute that lifting too much weight in bad form or lifting too little weight on machines will help you with your muscle gain goals.

None of the above will do any good. Believe what you want to believe about machines at the gym…..they are in no way as effective in gaining muscle mass as the following movements.

Fast Fact: A certain number of men find themselves obsessed with going to the gym, even giving up jobs or relationships. They may never be happy with how they look no matter how huge they get. They experiment with dangerous supplements. If this sounds like someone you know, they may be suffering from the male equivalent of anorexia called muscle dysmorphia.

6 key movements for maximum muscle gain:

Squats

Squats use just about every muscle in your lower body in one movement the most challenged muscles being the quadriceps. The exercise also works the gluteals and hamstrings. The lower you go, the more the muscles are engaged.

Deadlift

This movement also uses almost all of your lower body muscles with the emphasis on the gluteal and hamstring muscles. It also works your abdominal muscles and trapezius as you pull your shoulder blades together.

Lunge

This movement again uses the same muscles as the squat and deadlift, however it also stretches the hip flexors which increase the flexibility of your muscles and keeps them strong. Push It can be a push up, bench press, or shoulder press. All of these exercises use your chest muscles along with the front shoulders. All use the triceps to straighten the arms.

Pull

Lat pull-down, rowing exercises, pull-ups, are all a form of pull movements. The two major upper back muscle groups used are the “lats”, shoulder joint muscles and the “traps”, shoulder blade muscles. In these exercises, your biceps and forearms are also used.

Twist

Works the external and internal obliques. Some lower back muscles along with the most important six-pack muscle also assist in the bending and twisting. No machines in the gym can come close to mimicking the above exercises with the exception of the back extension (dead lift) and pulling machines. Bottom line: skip them; most machines found in the gym prevent you from doing the most useful muscle gain movements. Movements that our bodies were designed to do.

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