When it comes to building muscle you need to lift medium to heavy weights, to make sure you hit those fast-twitch muscle fibres. These muscle fibres are the ones that are responsible for strength, speed and power; they can dramatically grow in size when stimulated properly through tough training sessions. Ideally, you need to be lifting 70-100% of your 1 repetition max.
Important Recovery
Rest and recovery is essential when it comes to muscle building. One of the effects of the high intensity workouts is the release of growth hormone and testosterone - these hormones stimulate muscles to help them grow, but the fact is that this effect takes place after your workout, so make sure you rest. Each body-part needs approximately 48 hours recovery before you train it had again.
Protein intake is another important factor to make sure you get the most out of your training. Protein helps the muscle repair itself after a workout; gets it ready for the next session. Try to make sure your protein intake is adequate - approximately 1.7g per Kg of body weight.
How Heavy is Too Heavy
Past research has proven that it can be more beneficial to concentrate your workouts on lifting mostly medium to moderately heavy (70-85% of your 1 rep max), rather than just heavy weights (85-100% of your 1 rep max). Lifting in the 70-85% zone can build more muscle size due to the workout intensity, since the weights can be moved over more repetitions (6-10), instead of lifting really heavy over fewer repetitions (1-5).
The Best Exercises
When your goal is building muscle, you want to make sure you select large compound exercises that work a lot of large muscle groups at the same time. The most popular muscle building exercises are as follow (always make sure you perfect the technique before increasing the weight):
- Deadlifts
- Clean and presses
- Cleans
- Bench presses
- Push presses
- Squats
- Lunges
- Chin ups
- Body dips
When working out to increase muscle size, always remember to carry out each rep slow and controlled - never rush the repetition, as this will destroy your technique and increase your risk of injury. Another important factor is the amounts of rest in between each set of repetitions, when starting out you want to allow at least 60-120 seconds of rest before you try to lift the next set.
Limit your Cardio
There are endless benefits of cardiovascular training (treadmill, bike, stepper, rower, skipping etc...) and you would be a fool to ignore it completely. In saying that though, too much cardiovascular work can slow down your results to gain muscle. It works well to keep your fitness work short and fast, focussing on interval workouts, or sprints, when working on your preferred machine.
If you do 2-4 specific weights sessions a week of approximately 60 minutes and keep your cardiovascular workouts to a high-intensity of 10-15 minutes, you should start to see considerable body shape change within 2 -3 months. If you stay patient and dedicated, you will be amazed at the results.
