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8 Proven Strategies For Maximum Muscle Gains



8 Proven Strategies For Maximum Muscle Gains


There is so much conflicting information out there when it comes to the topic of building muscle, and sometimes it can be very difficult to know where to start. If you’re an average beginner looking for some basic guidelines to follow in the gym, the following 8 points will start you off on the right track.

1) Train With Weights and Focus On Compound, Free Weight Movements.

If you want to make solid, noteworthy gains in muscle size and strength, you absolutely must train with free weights and focus on basic, compound exercises. A compound exercise is any lift that stimulates more than one muscle group at a time. Examples of these lifts are the squat, deadlift, bench press, chin up, barbell row, overhead press, dip and lunge. Compound movements allow you to handle the most weight and will stimulate the greatest amount of total muscle fibers.

2) Be Prepared To Train Hard.

One of the biggest factors that separates those who make modest gains from those who make serious gains is their level of training intensity. In order to stimulate your muscle fibers to their utmost potential, you must be willing to take every set you perform in the gym to the point of muscular failure.

Muscular Failure: The point at which no further repetitions can be completed using proper form.

Sub-maximal training intensity will leave you with sub-maximal results, plain and simple.

3) Track Your Progress In The Gym From Week To Week.

Our bodies build muscle because of an adaptive response to the environment. When you go to the gym, you break down your muscle fibers by training with weights. Your body senses this as a potential threat to its survival and will react accordingly by rebuilding the damaged fibers larger and stronger in order to protect against any possible future threat. Therefore, in order to make continual gains in muscle size and strength, you must always focus on progressing in the gym from week to week. This could mean performing 1 or 2 more reps for each exercise or adding more weight to the bar. Keep a detailed training log to track your progress as your strength increases over time.

4) Avoid Overtraining.

Overtraining is your number one enemy when it comes to building muscle size and strength. When most people begin a workout program, they are stuck with the misguided notion that more is better. They naturally assume that the more time they spend in the gym, the better results they will achieve. When it comes to building muscle, nothing could be farther from the truth! If you spend too much time in the gym, you will actually take yourself farther away from your goals rather than closer to them. Remember, your muscles do not grow in the gym; they grow out of the gym, while you are resting and eating. Recovery is absolutely vital to the muscle growth process. If you don't provide your body with the proper recovery time in between workouts, your muscles will never have a chance to grow.

5) Eat More Frequently.

The main area where most people fail miserably on their muscle-building mission is on the all-too important task of proper nutrition. Training with weights is only half of the equation! You break down your muscle fibers in the gym, but if you don't provide your body with the proper nutrients at the proper times, the muscle growth process will be next to impossible. You should be eating anywhere from 5-7 meals per day, spaced every 2-3 hours in order to keep your body in an anabolic, muscle-building state at all times. Each meal should consist of high quality protein and complex carbohydrates.

6) Increase Your Protein Intake.

Of the 3 major nutrients (protein, carbohydrates and fats) protein is without a doubt the most important for those who are looking to gain muscle size and strength. Protein is found in literally every single one of the 30 trillion cells that your body is made up of and its main role is to build and repair body tissues. Without sufficient protein intake, it will be physically impossible for your body to synthesize a significant amount of lean muscle mass. If your body were a house, think of protein as the bricks. A general guideline is to consume 1-1.5 grams of protein per pound of body weight each day from high quality sources such as fish, poultry, eggs, beef, milk, peanut butter and cottage cheese.

7) Increase Your Water Intake.

If you want a simple, easy and highly effective way to maximize your muscle gains, drinking more water is it. Water plays so many vital roles in the body and its importance cannot be overstated. In fact, your muscles alone are made up of 70% water! Not only will drinking more water cause your muscles to appear fuller and more vascular, but it will also increase your strength as well. Research has shown that merely a 3-4% drop in your body's water levels can impact muscle contractions by 10-20%! Aim to consume 0.6 ounces for every pound of bodyweight each day for optimal gains.

8) Be Consistent!

Consistency is everything. Those who make the greatest gains in muscular size and strength are the ones who are able to implement the proper techniques on a highly consistent basis. Simply knowing is not enough, you must apply!

Building muscle is a result of the cumulative effect of small steps. Sure, performing 1 extra rep on your bench press will not make a huge difference to your overall results, and neither will consuming a single meal. However, over the long haul, all of those extra reps you perform and all of those small meals you consume will decide your overall success. If you work hard and complete all of your muscle-building tasks in a consistent fashion, all of those individual steps will equate to massive gains in overall size and strength.

4 comments:

  1. Hello Michael at Be Warrior, my name is Michael Ceraso. I check in periodically to your website and love your tips for muscle and health improvement. I am also a member of the Myoblast Protein Cookie team. I hope that we are not imposing nor are we trying to hock our wares on your page/website, we would appreciate it so very much and so dearly if you could post a brief paragraph with a link to our Kickstarter campaign to help to promote and attract possible crowd funders for our new health food business. Maybe a brief re-posting on your twitter, facebook and other social media pages as well. I have prepared 3 brief paragraphs which you can just copy and paste into your blog for us. I feel we have a common goal to help promote wellness through healthy eating habits as well as a balance between exercise and a greater understanding of how our bodies work via muscle training and a proper work out regimen. I hope you will find this email non-intrusive and take a minute to help us promote our dream of providing health conscious peoples with a healthy and flavorful protein snack alternative.


    Thanks so much for your time and consideration,

    Michael Ceraso


    To post:

    Myoblast Protein cookie is a healthy snack alternative made with Whey protein isolates, oat flour and Agave. It was designed by both Brendan Schenck, who is a personal trainer, fitness enthusiast, and a seasoned chef, working at the decorated restaurant NOBU 57 in New York City and Elisa Mula, a certified Pilates instructor, avid runner and private securities consultant. Both Brendan and Elisa, who met at a gym, found that they were dissatisfied with the selection of healthy snacks on the market for post workout eating and/or dieting, so they decided to bake and bake and bake until they found the perfect balance between flavor and a high quality source of protein. And so, Myoblast Protein cookie was born from their common love for fitness, health and the pursuit of flavor.

    To help get Myoblast protein cookies off the ground floor, they have embarked on a Kickstarter campaign which was launched February 1, 2013. It is their intention to attract health and fitness-minded individuals and organizations in order to help them spread the word about their fund-raising endeavors and get the much needed flavorful high protein snack out into the market. Check out their Kickstarter campaign here:


    http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1116539397/real-flavor-meets-healthy-snacking-with-myoblast?ref=email


    Their website here: www.myoblastmuscle.com and help participate in bringing our dream of bringing rise to muscle to life!


    Thanks so very much for your time and consideration,

    Michael Ceraso

    ReplyDelete
  2. your welcome
    this is a honor
    this is the article :http://be-warrior.blogspot.com/2013/02/myoblast-protein-cookie-team.html

    share it now :D

    ReplyDelete
  3. I knew that I over trained in kobelco colombia because I have sore muscles the other day for 1 week. I learned my lesson now and I won't do it again.

    ReplyDelete
  4. @ galen nikolaidis :
    good and thanks for the comment

    ReplyDelete