You always want to make sure that you don’t overdo your muscle gain training. You want to make sure that you never train more than two days in a row. Preferable is to do the ‘every second day training’, but if it fits better into your schedule, two days in a row with a day’s rest afterwards works too.  It is very important to let your body recover fully after a work-out session, and I’ll talk more about this in the chapter ‘recovery and resting.’

When it comes to muscle gain, the rule goes something like this; less time and more intensity. This means; don’t spend hours at the gym; it serves your purpose not at all. You should spend no more than 45 minutes at the most each session. However, while you’re there it is in your best interest to work out with great intensity, to lift weights that are just as much as you’re able to lift and that’s it.

As I said, the time spent at the gym should be less than 45 minutes. This is due to the fact that your body otherwise won’t have more stored energy to supply you with to perform the work-out. Instead, it will begin to use the energy that’s stored within the muscles, which means that those last 15 minutes that you spend to make it an hour actually are counter-productive to what it is you want. Professional bodybuilders don’t waste their energy, they do their training and then they allow the result to come to them.

There is another reason why this is the optimum time to spend at the gym. Studies have shown that the muscle building hormones begin to spike after about 30-45 minutes into your training. After that, they will decrease and there will not be as much effect as you would like. By Stopping when they’re spiking, you’ll ensure that they are able to perform their tasks in the most efficient way. By doing a lot of intense workouts and exercises that increases the testosterone naturally in the 45 minutes you’re training, you’ll be able to create the best conditions for your muscle building hormones to work properly.

If you like to go on really long vacations like me then you know if you’re not careful you could lose most of your muscles while you’re gone. Usually there is a gym nearby but if you’re in remote places it can be tough.  Check out the shot of my jungalow in thailand, nice digs =)

Here are 4 exercises you can do from pretty much anywhere:

Push Ups – you know em, you love em , 50 is a nice number =)

Chin Ups – (aka pull ups), find a bar somewhere or bring a portable one that can fit in any doorway, check out this guy Todd Mei, he has the world record for pull-ups, did 700 in a hour!!! How many people at home right now can’t even do 20 and this guy does 700… Wow.

Triceps with a Chair & Couch – not sure the official name on this but have a chair 4 feet away from your couch, your hands are behind your back on the edge of the chair and your feet are on the couch, bring your butt down towards the floor and then back to chair level, if too easy put some weights on your lap.

Ab Killer – laying on your back with your
legs up and your head and arms up

I would like to ponder a bit in the nutritional advice that so many people that want to gain muscles wonder about. How important is the food we eat for our ability to build muscles?

From my point of view it is very important. Muscles are built by proteins and therefore you need a certain amount of this for the body to be able to build muscle tissue. There are some essential amino acids that you only can get from the food and that is necessary for many of the bodies function. You can also choose to eat food that is rich in zinc to ensure that you have a good testosterone level. Testosterone is the main growth hormone for muscles in the body and you want to keep your levels high if you want to gain muscles fast.

How then are you supposed to eat to build muscles the way you want?

This is something that can be quite individual. We all have different bodies and also different desires of what we want to achieve. For a hard-gainer, someone who is skinny and finds it difficult to gain muscles it is important to eat a lot. For those guys (and girls in some cases) it’s about training smart and eating good and plentifully.

For those that are a bit flabby, and who wishes to actually transform some of that fat to muscles you have to take quite a different approach, both to your diet and your training. If you are a bit overweight it might be a good idea to actually add a bit of cardio-vascular training into your schedule since this helps to burn the fat. This will not give you muscles though so it is important that you also spend time lifting weights.

If this describes you, you still want to eat a lot of calories – after all this is essential if you are going to gain muscles. However, you want to make sure that you eat good calories. Lots of proteins and less fat and mono-carbohydrates (as in sugar, white rice and bread).

When you consider that your body is unique and that it needs to be treated thereafter you can find a diet that is perfect for you. You can consult a dietitian or even a personal trainer and ask for advice if you are uncertain. Otherwise, use common sense, make sure you eat a varied diet with lots of vegetables and fruits and you can be sure you get all the vitamins and minerals that is necessary to have a healthy body.

So what are the secrets?

First of all, train your mind. This may seem a bit weird to some but I promise you, if your mind is not focused on muscle gain you will become sloppy and start to miss out on doing your training properly. Remind yourself over and over again what your goal is and keep your focus on that. Imagine how good it will feel to have the body you have dreamed of etc. If you are not interested in bulking up, then what’s the point? Make sure it is something you do because you want to do it, make it fun. You will start to include more and more things into your lifestyle that will be of great aid when you are to gain muscles.

Alright then, so you are focused and motivated, you know what you want. What then is the fastest way to success from here? Now you have to have a good training technique to get the most out of the hours spent in the gym. Make sure you train with intensity. No use to spend long hours at the gym – you are better off spending 30-45 minutes each time and work out hard this time. The fewer reps the better in general if you are after big muscles. After you have done a set of 6-8 reps you should not be able to make another one, this is how heavy the weights should be to maximize the results.

Another important aspect that you want to bring to your lifestyle is to eat properly. If you don’t have the right building blocks for your muscles they won’t be able to grow. Eat food that are high in protein, a good idea is to add a few protein shakes to your diet each day. You also want to increase the amount of calories you eat every day and with a few extra protein shakes to your daily diet, this will be taken care of easily.

Last and also important is to sleep properly every night. Make sure you get a good amount of sleep, 7-8 hours at least. This is the time when your muscles grow the most and if you make sure you have a good rest you make it easier for the body to do its thing and repair and build up the muscle tissue in your body.

One of the most important things is to not overdo the training. Don’t work the same muscle every day but let them rest for at least 48 hours. As a matter of fact, your muscles are not growing while you are doing the exercise but afterwards, while you are resting. This is when the muscle tissue is being repaired and if there has been more pressure on it than usually, the cells will be triggered to build more muscle tissue and you will see a gain. If you don’t give your muscles this important time of rest it won’t be able to repair properly and you will only experience tired and possibly painful muscles instead of the big, strong muscles you are after.

While you are doing the exercises at the gym, you want to maximize the pressure on the muscles. Always use weights that are as heavy as you barely can do your reps. If you are able to do 20-30 reps your weights are to light and you should instead put more weights on and do no more than 10 reps on each set. To really optimize the muscle gain you can do only 1 set of 10 reps and lift so heavy that you couldn’t do 1 more lift. Make sure the exercise is performed in a slow and controlled way. Both on the way up and down. So short and intense is the best way to go about it and you don’t have to be every day at the gym.

A good idea is to have 2-3 days off each week and let your whole body rest those days. By training properly and combine this with good rest and a great deal of protein you can gain muscles much faster than you’d thought possible. If you are focused you will be able to gain quite a few pounds each months in pure muscle mass and your body will look great.

Some people just try too hard and many have heard others (usually some skinny friend) tell their stories about how people gain muscles (steroids, etc) and think that the reason they don’t get the results are simply because their bodies don’t have the ability. Everyone can gain muscles; you only have to know how to do it.

The second myth about muscle building that I will examine is:
‘If I eat less I will turn the fat in my body into muscles’
To eat properly is the base for being able to gain muscles. Since you’re giving your body extra activity you also want to give it extra energy. If you feel that your body is a bit floppy or even overweight, you might instead want to combine your weight lifting with some cardiovascular training. And if your only aim is to lose weight, then of course, a cut in calories can be helpful. But to have your muscles growing there’s no short cut; you have to eat.

Muscles are first and foremost not made up by fat at all, they are built up by protein, and so this is where you want to have a good amount of your caloric intake from. To work out hard and thinking that your dear body will use the energy already stored in the body for building new muscle tissue is like trying to build a house out of thin air; it just won’t work. You have to give your body a constant flow of protein for this to be possible.

This doesn’t mean that the energy that’s in your body is not being used.  It is what makes it possible for you to even do your work out session. For this aim, you want to have a good intake of both fat and carbohydrates before your training.

Then afterwards in the evening, when most of the repairation and building up of the muscle tissues is happening, you want to have your largest part of protein intake.

If you fail on giving your body all the nutrition it needs you won’t be able to grow. If you want to lose some of that extra fat on your body for your muscles to be more visible, you might consider doing a month of running, cycling or other cardiovascular training before you start building. Find out what is your goal, set your focus on it and you can achieve it.

If you’re willing to let go of old beliefs and instead go for the advices that people that have been able to gain muscles give you, there’s no limits to what you can achieve. Be smart and work out nicely and the muscles will come.

In the bodybuilding world there are a few common myths that not only keep people from building their muscle, but that even can have the opposite effect and make your body weaker.

Here in this article I will examine one of the most widely spread myth, which is:

‘To gain muscles I have to work my muscles long and hard and often’

If you’ve been believing this, it’s no surprise that you haven’t been able to get your muscles growing. Too often I see people at the gym lifting and lifting and having their muscles work until their almost collapsing. They do a lot of reps with high weight, spending over an hour at the machines, and the next day they come back and do it all over again. Some people might even do two sessions in the same day!

So why is it that this way of training doesn’t work? The harder I work on my muscles the larger they should become, one might think. Well, the key is to work short and intense, and to let the muscles rest in between sessions.

You do want to [TAG-Tec]lift weights[/TAG-Tec] that are challenging, so far so good. By lifting heavy weights the cells in your muscles will naturally be programmed to build up more muscle fibers which are what makes them grow. What you want to do is to do only a small number of reps on each muscle. Between 6 and 8 reps is the magic number. Then you want to make sure that you give each muscle you’ve worked on a proper rest for around 48 hours. The [TAG-Tec]muscles[/TAG-Tec] don’t grow when you’re at the gym; they grow while you’re resting.

This is why it doesn’t do you any good to work out too often, it only creates fatigue and the muscles won’t have the ability to recover and grow. Trust your body and know that you can let it do its work while you’re outside the gym. By doing proper work out, it will naturally want to change its apparatus to the increased pressure and activity it’s facing.

The reason why you don’t want to spend more than 45 minutes at the most at the machines is that the energy that‘s stored in the body only lasts that long. After that, your body might actually have to use the energy stored in the muscles to be able to continue – therefore, that extra 15 minutes will actually decrease your muscle mass.

So don’t overdo your training, it will not make your muscles grow faster. This is one of the most common mistake people do, but there are a few other myths that can come between you and your lean muscle mass. Make sure you have the knowledge and you can start gaining.