You may have heard the term "muscle memory." What this means is that
once you've properly trained your muscles to grow, they'll readily
regrow after a cutting phase, or even a lengthy break due to life
circumstances. Muscle, in other words, is smart. If it's been to a
certain level once, it can find its way back.
However, when you're trying to grow or increase muscle mass beyond where you've been before, it's more challenging. To make these gains, it helps if you better understand how muscles "think." Too often, performance and physique athletes emphasize random, challenging training protocols without focusing on how and why muscles grow.
Once you understand the 6 rules for building muscle tissue and incorporate them into your training program, you'll see results .
1 - Building muscle allows us to sculpt and shape our bodies to look the way we want them to look. The simple fact of the matter is that strength training is one of the only ways to change the shape of our bodies. Sure, we can lose bodyfat with cardio exercise or restricting calories, but the fact is, our bodies will stay the same basic shape they were before. But with weight training, we can actually change the shape of our bodies. Want bigger pecs? A wider back? Sweeping thighs? Bulging biceps? There's an exercise for that! You may not be able to spot reduce, but you can add solid muscle to your shoulders, chest, back, legs, etc. with the right training approach!
2 - Set a specific goal and create a plan of attack.
If you were to drive cross country to another city, would you just start driving randomly, or would you plan a route that would get you quickly and efficiently?
Think of your plan as a road map and your goal as your destination. Without a plan and a specific goal you will be without focus and can easily get lost or side tracked. This happens more often than you know. I see many people in the gym just doing whatever, or just eating whatever -- no plan or specific goal. They wonder why they don't make progress. They have no focus.
Having a specific program to follow allows you to take action each day. This action is focused on specifically getting you to your destination quickly. There is no thinking, debating or guessing. You just do it. A specific plan provides necessary daily structure that not only keeps you on the road moving forward, it also helps to develop good eating and training habits that will benefit you long after you have reached your destination.
3 - Train with Intensity
When you’re a beginner in the gym you probably don’t know what truly hard training is because it’s not necessary to train to failure to see big results. But for seasoned bodybuilders, training to failure is necessary to fuel further muscle growth. Intensity isn’t really about how hard you’re working out, it’s about how much weight you’re lifting compared to your one-rep max weight. For moderate to intense workouts at every gym session, go with a weight that you can lift for 6-12 reps before reaching failure.
4 - Accept The Fact That You Will Gain Some Fat Along The Way
It is very tricky to measure out your calorie intake to point were you are eating the exact amount in order to build muscle and burn fat. Some people will try to bulk very gently or go on small cutting phases every couple weeks to make sure they don’t gain any fat.
Using the calories surplus method you are guaranteed to build muscle, but you will gain some body fat in the process. However the more muscle you build on your physique the more calories you will burn off while training. This is due to the more muscle mass you have the the easier it is to burn fat off because muscle burns calories at a higher rate than fat.
Do not go crazy with a calorie surplus and eat everything and anything because remember the more fat you gain the more you will have to strip out when you chose to cut down the road.
5 - Eat more
This rule is pretty simple, but usually the one that is not done correctly. If weight gain is your goal, then you will need to eat more food. Period. In most cases, you will need to eat more than you are normally accustomed to.
What this will do is gradually get your body accustomed eating at regular intervals. Eventually you will be hungry before each meal time.
When eating more, you will need to make sure that you are getting plenty of good quality protein. Protein is a nutrient that is essential for building muscle. Every meal that you eat should contain some form of protein. Meal Replacement Powders like Myoplex are excellent for this purpose. They enable you to eat large amounts of good quality protein in a very convenient manner.
6 - Believe it or not, rest is just as important for muscle gain as nutrition. If you’re serious about building muscle, then take your sleep seriously too. Being tired hinders muscle gain because sleep is required for proper muscle recovery and growth. Just like with nutrition, you only spend an hour a day in the gym so the rest of your time needs to be filled with things that promote muscle growth after your work is done in the gym. You should be getting 8 hours of sleep per night to aid in catabolic muscle growth. Human growth hormone is released during sleep and for men 60-70% of their daily human growth hormone supply is secreted in the first few hours of falling asleep. Then during the REM sleep stage, the body restores the muscle tissues, which is the muscle rebuilding needed for growth after you break your muscles down in the gym.
I know the determination and the will to reach and what you're spends on your dreams, and track this topic tips you will see
positive results success.