Building Lean Muscle

Building muscles quickly is very easy to do. Following a few basic fundamentals will allow you to pack on quality muscles within a couple weeks. You have to be consistent, though. So, what I’m going to share with you are some basic fundamentals that will allow you to quickly build muscles the easy way.

The fundamentals are:

1. Nutrition. This is probably the most overlooked fundamental when it comes to building muscles. Most weightlifters train hard, but they overlook the nutrition part. Eating the right foods is just as important as training. You have to eat right to gain quality muscles.

When trying to build muscles quickly, make sure you eat alot of protein and carbohydrates. You should try to consume at least 1.5 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight everyday. And roughly 2-3 grams of carbs per pound of bodyweight.

An example would be if you weighed 170 pounds, your protein intake would be 255 grams and your carb intake would be 340-510 grams.

2. Training. Make sure you train heavy. And by heavy, I mean weight that you struggle with. If you can bench press 135 pounds for 20 reps, don’t go in the gym and do 3 sets of 8 reps with 135 pounds. Go heavier. Do 205 pounds instead.

By lifting heavier, you’ll place stress on your muscles, which will break them down. If you workout with light weight all the time, you will stop growing. So, add more weight.

Also, be sure to have a spotter. If you’re doing heavier weight than you normally do, you need to have someone there with you to make sure you don’t hurt yourself. Even the strongest guys in the gym need a spot.

 

 

Add compound lifts to your workouts. This will allow you to quickly build muscles the easy way. Some great mass building exercises are bench press, squats, standing barbell curl, military press, and deadlifts.

3. Rest. When trying to build muscles quickly, there’s nothing that’ll slow you down more than over training. You shouldn’t be in the gym 3 hours a day, 7 days a week. Give your body time to recover from your workouts.

Try to get at least 6 hours of sleep every night. When you do, you’ll notice an increase in your recovery time.

Those are the basic fundamentals that you can use to quickly build muscles. Make sure you set some goals, follow these tips, and watch how fast you pack on quality, hard, and lean muscle.

 

If you’re looking to build lean muscle, I want you to first work on getting a tan. (Although that may be tough for us living here in the frigid northeast!)

I can see it now, people are going to be lined up at their local tanning salon, telling the clerk they need to start building some muscle. Well, let me save you from stares of confusion from the salon owners.

You’re not going to build muscle from sun tanning.

But the cause and effect relationship between the sun and tanning perfectly illustrates a point I want to make about working out too much.

I must get 3 or 4 emails each day from people wanting to know why they’re not building muscle as fast as they’d like. They tell me that they’re working each muscle group as often as possible.

Well, the thing is, there’s no law in weight lifting that says if you double your time, you double your results. Usually, if you double the amount of time you lift, you actually lessen your results.

It’s because weight lifting is closer to the “Less is More” theory than the “The More The Better” one.

So I want to show you how getting a tan actually answers why you do not want to weight train a muscle group more than once each week.

Getting a sun tan is a cause and effect relationship. The sun is the cause and the tan is the effect. In other words, the sun is the stimulus and the tan is the result.

When you get a tan, what is actually happening is that your melanocytes are producing melanin pigment in reaction to ultraviolet light in sunlight. Ultraviolet light stimulates melanin production.

The pigment has the effect of absorbing the UV radiation in sunlight, so it protects the cells from UV damage.

You have to expose yourself to UV for a short period of time to activate the melanocytes. By repeating this process over 5 to 7 days pigment builds up in your cells to a level that is protective.

But what happens when you get too much sun? That’s right, you get a sun burn, something you do not want to happen. Too much of the stimulus leads to a negative result.

So the key is to find the right amount of sun for the desired effect. Too little sun results in no tan and too much sun results in a sun burn.

So, how does this relate to building muscle?

Muscle growth happens by overloading a muscle with heavy weight and then allowing it to rest and recuperate. In this case, the lifting of heavy weight is the stimulus and, if the environment is properly set up, the result is lean muscle growth.

The proper “environment” for muscle growth is rest and proper nutrition (high protein, moderate carbs, plenty of water).

If you train a muscle group (biceps, triceps, etc) more than once each week, it does not get a chance to recuperate and will not grow or become stronger.

It’s like going back out in the sun too much. Overexposure to the sun leads to a burn. Overexposure to lifting leads to overtraining. When overtraining occurs, muscle growth and strength gains come to a screeching halt.

So to maximize muscle growth and keep that “anabolic window of opportunity” intact, you definitely want to train a muscle group once each week.

Too much weight training (stimulus) will produce negative results. If you do not allow your muscles to rest, recover, and get ready for the next workout, you’re doing the same thing as if you went back out into the sun too much.

Too much of something can produce negative results as much as too little of something.

So if you want to start building more muscle, start working on your tan

When building muscles fast, there are a few things you must understand. Although, working out is a big part of gaining muscles, you also must perform a few other basic steps as well. So, what I’m going to share with you are 5 ways to build muscle fast.

Before I dive into the top 5 ways of building quality muscles, I’ll like to tell you that while trying to put on size, you need to be consistent on your efforts and honest with yourself. Now that I’ve gotten that out the way, let’s go over the top 5 ways.

Exercise

In order to put on muscle, you have to do the right exercises, or lifts, that will allow you to do that. The types of lifts you should focus on doing is compound lifts. These lifts consist of bench press, squats, military press, and deadlifts. These are the “mass building” lifts.

You should also do a few isolation lifts, such as bench flyes, tricep pulldowns, preacher curls, upright rows, and side lateral raises. And don’t forget to work on your abs, too.

Nutrition

In order to build muscle fast, you’ve got to be serious about your nutrition. It’s extremely important. You have to intake a lot of protein and carbohydrates (or carbs). You should consume at least 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight per day and at least 1.5 grams of carbs per pound of bodyweight per day.

An example of this would be if you weighed 170 pounds, you should consume at least 170 grams of protein per day and at least 255 grams of carbs per day.

A few foods you should add to your meal plan is steak, chicken breast, turkey, tuna, salmon, and eggs for protein. And for carbs you should eat pasta, oatmeal, fruits, rice, and potatoes.

Supplements

You probably won’t get this information anywhere else, but you should consider taking supplements. One of the supplements you should consider taking is whey protein. It’s essential for building muscles fast. Also, you could take vitamins, amino acids, glutamine (an amino acid), and creatine.

These are great mass building supplements and will help you build muscle fast and safely.

Pre-Workout Meal

Pre-workout meal is important for muscle growth. You don’t want to hit the gym without properly fueling your muscles. So, before you workout, you should consume about 20-40 grams of protein (whey protein shake, tuna, chicken, or turkey) and about 40-60 grams of complex carbohydrates (apples, oatmeal, banana, or brown rice).

Post-Workout Meal

As noted above, supplements are important. So, post-workout is one of the most critical times when it comes to building muscles. Make sure you drink about 40 grams of whey protein (roughly 2 scoops) and about 50-80 grams of simple carbohydrates (baking potato, honey, powerade, or white bread with jelly).

Also, you should add some bcaa (amino acids), glutamine, and creatine to this power drink and consume it immediately after your workout.

These are the top 5 ways to build muscle fast. Make sure you eat, train hard, and rest. When you do, you’ll add on some serious muscle mass.

If you want to whip yourself into shape and achieve some muscle growth it can be a slow process, which may require more effort than most people want to invest in it.

As anyone who has ever tried bodybuilding knows, muscles develop slowly over time with regular work outs.

Frequent work outs are a must to build muscles in a controlled way. Bodybuilding trainers usually recommend that you have a routine that you do at least 3-4 times a week to see significant muscle development.

There are many different exercises, and weight training that you can perform to tone the muscles the way you want.

Conversing with a professional bodybuilding trainer about the best way to achieve the muscle growth you want is a very wise decision. They will be able to give you many different pointers for improving your muscle building.

Local gyms offer experienced trainers who will help you set up the routine you need to get the results you seek.

In order to build muscle in a controlled way you need to be educated on the proper techniques of what exercises need to be done to target the body parts you want to target.

There are many different web sites, and blogs that will offer you helpful pointers getting you started in the right direction.

One important thing to remember is that when you are weight lifting your body needs time to recover; this is why experts suggest one day weight lifting, then a day of aerobic exercises in between allowing your muscles a chance to relax and recuperate.

If you are not an expert bodybuilder you will probably not know how your body is going to react to vigorous training until you actually begin your program.

That is a good reason to take it fairly easy at the beginning. Overworking or straining your muscles can have long term effects that will actually retard the process of building muscle.

Therefore begin by setting your expectations fairly low so you can meet them gradually a little at a time. Then as you achieve your initial objectives you can gradually ramp them up.

You’ll be surprised how fast you will get past the initial phase and begin attempting more serious bodybuilding.

Your trainer can help you set your muscle building goals, and can help map out a plan to acheive them. For many people it is also helpful to have a buddy to work out with.

This is a good way to stay focused on your goals and enables you to keep everything in perspective so you are less likely to give up before you hardly get going.

You might also consider the impact of bodybuilding supplements on your training objectives. Discuss this with your trainer or coach, and search the internet for as much information as you can find.

If you are serious about muscle building and building a better physique most experts agree that bodybuilding supplements can assist you to attain your goals more rapidly.

Muscle building supplements such as prohormones when added to one’s intensive training and diet routine will result in you piling on muscle much quicker.

Regardless of how young or old you are the ability to build muscle is there.

How you go about it though can vary based on your age. The results you are interested in can also affect the types of exercises you take part in to get there as well.

There are many benefits for your overall body when you build muscle. Many medical professionals encourage it due to the benefits it offers for your heart.

Most of us think of young men and even some young women working to build muscle.

Yet there are programs for those 50 years and older as well. They work to keep their arms, legs, back, and shoulders strong and healthy.

Generally, the older a person is the more they will rely upon increased reps in order to build muscle.

They won’t be increasing the amount of weight they work with as much as younger individuals will.

You may notice as the years go by that your amount of muscle mass has diminished.

That doesn’t mean you can’t get it back though. Some elderly people are in the best shape of their lives due to engaging in a program that helps to build muscle. They now have the time to dedicate to it.

They also understand how important it is for them to remain healthy at any age.

Studies show that when you continue to build muscle your metabolism doesn’t slow as you age either. This means you will be less likely to put on additional pounds as you age.

Since being overweight can lead to an array of health concerns this is definitely something you want to take into consideration.

Since we live in a culture where weight tends to be a huge epidemic making some positive changes can be more beneficial than you realize.

As a person gets older they are also more susceptible to breaking bones. That is due to their range of flexibility not being what it once was.

When you engage in exercises to build muscle though you will continue to have plenty of flexibility.

As a result you will be less likely to suffer serious injuries should you fall or be involved in another type of accident.

Getting sufficient exercise and keeping your body healthy is important at every age. Young individuals need to learn that lifting weights isn’t just to develop huge muscle mass.

However, everyone does need to strive to build muscle for their overall health. There are plenty of exercises to take part in regardless of your fitness level or your current strength.

Regardless of how old you are right now, the ability to build muscle is there.

Take a good assessment of your current fitness level. Then make a plan to incorporate small but effective changes.

In no time at all you will see the difference in your overall fitness level. You may even find it fun to build muscle when you join a class or workout with a friend.

People are increasingly becoming fitness conscious these days. More and more people want to build muscle fast for this very reason. Almost every bodybuilding aspirant and athlete seems to be in a hurry to gain muscle mass. Persistent efforts and workouts along with a proper diet are the only ways in which you can develop rippling muscles that much more quickly.

If you are someone who wants to build muscle fast, then you must remember that nothing comes easy and you will therefore need to be ready to put in the hard work. The first thing that you must remember when you hit the gym is to use free weights. Free weight training, particular the reps using heavier weights are known to give quick results. This is because such exercises stimulate the muscle fibers in our body and help in building them fast.

A lot of people in their enthusiasm to build muscle fast often resort to taking steroids. You must remember to completely avoid such short cuts to success. These steroids are known to cause plenty of harm to the human body and are therefore best not taken. It is always preferable that you build your body in a natural way, since this way you will not have to worry about negative side effects, at a later point in time.

Diet plays an important part if you want to build muscle fast. You should take a diet that is full of essential nutrients. The diet should be balanced with a large quantity of proteins in it. This is important since proteins are the essential nutrients required to bulk up. You can find plenty of proteins in food products such as meat and also in diary products.

You can also talk to a professional nutritionist, who can plan your diet. These professionals can offer you valuable tips on bulking up with the right kind of food. They can for instance devise a diet that meets all your nutrition needs and is also keeping in tune with your workouts. You should also try and calculate your daily food intake. This way you can keep a track of what are the food items that are actually helping you to gain muscle mass.

Along with food products, you can also find many body building supplements too that are available these days. It is always preferable to go in for a natural food supplement, since they are not known to cause any negative side effect. The right combination of all these factors will help you building muscle fast.

Why creatine supplements and protein shakes? For those who are weight training, bodybuilding, and trying to gain muscle mass, there are thousands of bodybuilding supplements that promise to help you build muscle fast, but which supplements really work?

In reality, there are no quick and easy shortcuts to building muscle: hard work and eating properly are still the keys to getting bigger. However, two supplements have been shown time and time again to help build muscle effectively, efficiently, and quickly: protein and creatine supplements.

Protein is one of the fundamental building blocks of muscle fiber. In fact, without protein, your body would be completely unable to build muscle (or even survive). Anybody who is weight training and hoping to put on muscle needs to eat a diet that is high in protein. However, it can be extremely difficult to get an adequate amount of protein for muscle growth from diet alone.

When weight training, it is recommended to ingest 1 to 1.5 grams of protein for every pound of body weight. If you weigh 150 pounds, that means you should be getting between 150 and 225 grams of protein a day. That’s no easy feat when you are relying exclusively on a diet of lean and healthy foods, which you will want to do if you want to remain healthy and avoid gaining body fat while bulking up those muscles. The solution to this problem is protein supplementation.

Protein supplements, particularly whey protein, are effective, safe, and proven to help you build muscle fast. Still, protein shakes should be used only as a supplement to your healthy, balanced, high protein diet.

Creatine is another extremely effective supplement when it comes to building muscle. Very few bodybuilding supplements ever live up to their hype, but creatine is one of the few that does. Whether you are using creatine ethyl ester or creatine monohydrate, creatine supplements have been proven to stimulate gains in muscle size, strength, endurance, increase energy, and speed recovery from workouts.

Creatine is also one of the most well researched bodybuilding supplements. Creatine should not be used continuously, and you should drink plenty of water while using both creatine and protein supplements to avoid adverse side effects.

If you are looking to build a bigger, more muscular body, remember that there are no easy shortcuts. Proper diet and weigh training are the only ways to achieve your goals. However, protein and creatine supplements, combined with proper diet and workouts, can indeed help you see better results faster.

Building hard, lean muscles isn’t as hard as you think. It’s actually quite simple. Especially if you follow the simple 3 muscle building tips I’m going to share with you. So, if you’re serious about learning how to quickly build muscles, continue to read on.

The top 3 muscle building tips are:

1. Training. This is the most obvious of the muscle building tips. When working out, be sure to include compound lifts into your plan. These lifts include bench press, squats, deadlifts, and standing barbell curls. Compound lifts are the best mass building exercises.

Also, be sure to change your workout every month. Don’t do the same sets, reps, and exercises every workout. By changing your workout frequently, you’ll force your body to grow rapidly. This is how you’ll be able to quickly build muscles.

Another great tip is if you’re always lifting low reps, let’s say 3 to 6 reps for every lift, during one month when you change your workout, increase your reps to 10 to 20 reps. This will cause your muscles to adapt to the stress. You’ll be amazed at how fast your muscles grow.

When you design your workouts to quickly build muscles, make sure you don’t work the same body part in two consecutive workouts. What I mean is, don’t bench press on Monday and then do it again on Tuesday.

A great example of a workout would be Monday- chest and triceps, Tuesday- Legs, Calves, Abs, Wednesday- off day, Thursday- shoulders and abs, Friday- back and biceps, Saturday- off, and Sunday- off.

2. Nutrition. This is the most overlooked muscle building tip. In order for you to quickly build muscles, you have to eat alot of protein and carbs. Also, eat frequently. You should try to eat every 2 hours. Make sure you eat at least 1.5 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight and at least 2 grams of carbs per pound of bodyweight.

An example would be if you weigh 190 pounds, your protein intake would be 285 grams per day and your carb intake would be 380 grams a day. You should also drink plenty of water throughout the day as well.

Some great muscle building foods include meats (chicken, beef, fish), eggs (have been shown to really help add muscles), yogurts, cottage cheese, wheat pastas and breads, apples and bananas, oatmeal, sweet potatoes, brown rice, and yams just to name a few.

3. Track your results. After every workout, write down what exercise you performed, the sets and reps for each one. The next time you enter the gym for that same workout, try to lift more weights than you were able to do previously.

Let’s say you benched 225 pounds for 4 sets of 8. The next time you bench press, you should try to do 230 pounds for 4 sets of 8. This will ensure that you’re always getting stronger, which will help you quickly build muscles.

Make sure you get plenty of rest. Have fun. And use these 3 muscle building tips to quickly build muscles the easy way.

Copyright © 2006 Richard Knight

If you’re anything like I was a short while ago, “a skinny guy trying to build muscle mass”, then I have some important tips that could help you start seeing results instantly.

There are 3 key ingredients that you MUST HAVE in order to build muscle mass and quickly at that. And here they are:

Muscle Mass Ingredient #1 – More Protein

If you want to build muscle mass quickly then this is a “must”. Just remember, the only thing that can build muscle in your body is Protein. So if you’re not consuming enough protein it’s IMPOSSIBLE to build lean muscle mass and stack on the pounds.

In order to maintain your weight, you should be consuming 1 gram of protein for each pound of body weight. So if you’re a 150 lb. guy then in order to maintain your muscle mass at that weight you need to consume 150 grams of protein each day. And if you want to build muscle mass, you’re going to have to consume “more” protein, to not only maintain the muscles you have now but to build more.

So if you want to build muscle mass quickly and safely a general rule of thumb is to consume 1 – 2 grams of protein for each pound of body weight. So if you’re a 150lb. guy you’d want to consume at least 150 grams of protein upward to 300 grams of protein a day.

Muscle Mass Ingredient #2 – More Carbs

Despite what Dr. Atkins said, for all us skinny guys “Carbs are GOOD”. We need carbs as a source of energy. But you don’t want to consume just any ‘ol carbs. You want to consume a lot of complex carbs rather than simple carbs.

In other words, you still want to stay away from the sweets and simple sugars that are found in a lot of our junk food, and you want to consume more complex carbs like those found in whole wheat bread, brown rice, sweet potatoes, whole grain cereals, yams, spinach etc.

Why complex carbs? Because unlike simple carbs (sugars) it’s virtually impossible to turn complex carbs into fat – which means more energy to burn (work out with) and less fat to deal with in the end.

If you want to build muscle mass fast, ideally you’d want to consume 2 – 3 grams of carbs for each pound of bodyweight a day.

Muscle Mass Ingredient #3 – Heavy Weight Training

You cannot build muscle mass without “Heavy weight training”. Let’s just put it this way “the more stress (heavy weight) you put on your muscles, the more it will grow”. And it’s simply because when you put extreme stress on your muscle by lifting heavy weights, your body responds (builds more muscle) so that next time it won’t be as hard or strenuous on your body to lift the same weight.

Ideally, if you want to build muscle mass – lean muscle mass to be more specific, you’d want to lift weights that allow you to do 6-8 reps and no more.

Of course there’s a whole lot more to building muscle mass, but if you follow these 3 key ingredients you’ll be on the road to building lean muscle mass quickly and a whole lot easier than you ever thought possible. Good luck and grow “Massive”.

Are you sick and tired of everyone telling you a different way to build muscle? Are you unhappy with how you look in the mirror? Are you frusturated with your slow progress in the gym? Are you ready to learn five simple steps that will teach you how to build muscle safely and effectively?

There is a good chance that you are not maximizing one of these four steps. Your problem and solution lies in correcting these essential steps before you have any chance of building a muscular and lean physique.

Get read to learn how to build muscle in four simple steps, in less time, without any drugs and without bogus supplements.

Step #1

Committ to lifting weights at least three to four times per week. Your goal is to stimulate your muscles with resistance (stress) which results in your muscles growing bigger to avoid the stress from occuring again. Once you go home, let the muscle heal through nutrition and rest, it will grow bigger and you will repeat this process again. Ideally you should hit your muscles once every 72 hours so you could perform 2 upper body workouts per week and 2 lower body workouts per week.

Step #2

Focus on eating at least 5-7x a day with balanced meals from carbohydrates, proteins and fats. If your goal is to build muscle than you should be eating at least 15-18 x your current body weight. Your carbohydrates should equate about 45% of your intake, your proteins should equate about 35% of your intake and your fat should be the remaining 20% of your intake. You should focus on over half of those meals being solid whole food meals and the remainder can be liquid meal replacment shakes.

Step #3

You should focus on stretching at least half the amount that you lift weights. One of the biggest mistkakes I see is people training, training and training with out any stretching. Stretching helps restore normal length to the tissue and if you are constantly training, your muscle tissues will shorten and big to perform weaker and slower and have a higher incidence of injuries. So if you are lifting weights 4 hours in the week, at least an additional 2 hours should be dedicated to stretching. You must counteract the shortening of the muscle tissues that occurs with weights or else you are a injury screaming to happen.

Step #4

Avoid supplements that have not been around for longer than 3 years. I learned this phisophy from an Australian strength coach who recommended not trying any supplement until it has been around at least 3 years to pass the test of time. This will make your life much easier and help you avoid all the marketing hoopla in the latest fitness and bodybuilding magazine. If you follow this rule, you will discover only a small handful of supplements still standing. Here are the ones you should not go with out: a high quality multi-vitamin, fish oil capsules, powdered creatine and a protein powder. These products will cover your nutritional basis for health, healthy body composition, strength and muscle mass.