TIPS TO BUILD MAXIMUM MUSCLE
Be prepared to train at a high level of intensity every single time you enter the gym.
If you think that building muscle is going to be a walk in the park and that you can simply enter the gym, “go through the motions” and then go home, you are sadly mistaken.
The reality is that if you want to experience any appreciable gains in muscle size and strength, you’re going to have to be prepared to train hard. This is one of the key factors separating those who make modest gains from those who make outstanding gains.
Most people just plain don’t train hard enough!
As soon as the exercise starts to get difficult their spotter jumps in and begins needlessly assisting them, or they simply put the weight down altogether.
BIG mistake!
The gym is a war zone, and if you want to be victorious, you must be willing to endure the battle.
Intense weightlifting is perceived as a threat to your survival, and the body responds to this by increasing the size and strength of the muscles to battle against the threat. Therefore, in order to see the most dramatic response in size and strength, you must push your body as hard as you safely can.
This can be achieved by performing all sets in the gym to the point of concentric muscular failure… Concentric Muscular Failure: The point at which no further positive repetitions can be performed using proper form despite your greatest efforts. This is very challenging and will require a lot of mental toughness on your part. I’m not going to sit here and feed you a pack of lies by saying that training for muscle size is an easy task. It’s not!
Some argue that training to failure is not necessary in order for muscle growth to occur, and the truth is that they are absolutely correct.
You could never train to failure and over time you would still see gains in muscle mass and strength. The only true requirement for muscle growth to occur is progression.
However, (and that’s a big however) if you’re like 99% of the population, then you want to experience those gains as quickly and efficiently as you possibly can. While training to failure isn’t necessary for growth to occur, it IS necessary if you want maximum growth to occur in the shortest period of time possible.
Even if you are not able to train to muscular failure (perhaps due to injuries or other limiting factors), one thing remains absolutely certain: if the last 1-2 reps of a set don’t force you to dig down deep and don’t place your body under a reasonable amount of discomfort, you quite simply are NOT training hard enough!
Avoid overtraining by limiting your overall workout volume and by providing your body with sufficient recovery time in between workouts.
This is one of the most common and most deadly mistakes that almost all beginners run into. They naturally assume that the more overall work they perform in the gym, the greater their results will be.
Heck, when I was a beginner myself I thought the same thing.
Who can blame us for thinking that?
In almost all aspects of life this basic logic holds true. If you want to perform well on a school test, you need to maximize your studying time. If you want to improve your skills in a specific sport, you need to practice as much as possible.
When it comes to training for muscular size and strength, you can take this basic logic and toss it right out the window, down the street and around the corner!
The key thing to realize is that your muscles will NOT grow larger and stronger if they are stressed beyond the point of recovery. Remember, training with weights is merely an activity that sets the wheels in motion; it “sparks” the muscle growth process and “tells” your body to start building new muscle tissue… But the actual growth process takes place away from the gym while you’re eating and resting.
If you disturb the recovery process, your muscles cannot rebuild themselves.
Overtraining is your number one enemy! Your goal in the gym is to perform the minimum amount of work necessary in order to yield an adaptive response from the body, and not a THING more.
You can avoid overtraining in the following ways…
1) Limit the number of sets that you perform during each workout – You should perform a total of 5-7 sets for large muscle groups (chest, back and thighs) and 2-4 total sets for small muscle groups (shoulders, biceps, triceps, calves and abs). And remember, this is total sets per WORKOUT, not per exercise. 2) Limit the amount of time spent in the gym – Each workout should not last for any more than 1 hour. This time frame comes into play beginning with your first muscle-building set and ends with your final muscle-building set. 3) Limit your training frequency for each muscle group – Each specific muscle group should only be directly stimulated once per week in order to allow for full recovery time. If you’ve been following the “more is better” mentality then you may find it hard to let go of, but believe me, as long as you train hard, you do NOT need to train often or with very many sets and exercises.
In fact, performing too much work in the gym may actually cause your muscles to become smaller and weaker.
Stop placing so much of your emphasis on dietary supplements. There is no replacement for basic hard work!
If you really think that pills, powders and drink mixes are going to build your body for you, you’re in for a huge disappointment! It continues to amaze me how much value and emphasis the majority of trainees place on “the latest breakthrough pill”.
Everyone is always asking me…
“What’s the best creatine out there?”
“How much weight can I gain from this whey protein supplement?”
“I have $200 a month to spend on supplements… what should I buy?”
Stop the madness!
A supplement is just that… a supplement.
It is there to supplement your diet by filling in the missing gaps and by providing you with greater amounts of specific nutrients that will slightly speed up your progress. Supplements are NOT there to do the work for you and will only play a small role in your overall success in the gym.
Stop falling for the multi-million dollar ads that talk about the latest “revolutionary discovery” that will allow you to build 25 pounds of muscle while you lie on the couch. As advanced as we’ve become as a society, the basic rules of hard work and dedication still apply. If you want to change your physique, then hard training in the gym and a consistent diet plan is the only true way to get there. Now, this doesn’t mean that I’m AGAINST the use of supplements; I’m merely against the over-use and over-emphasis of supplements. There are a few good, solid, effective products out there that I do recommend, but only as a small part of your overall approach.
My 4 “recommended” supplements include…
1) Protein supplements (whey protein, meal replacements, weight gainers and the occasional protein bar)
2) Creatine
3) Multivitamins
4) Essential Fatty Acids
I’m not going to talk about all of the specific benefits of each product in this report, but if you’re looking to accelerate your progress in the gym and achieve the best results possible, then those are the only 4 products that I would truly recommend.
I’m a big believer in the basics, and the plain fact is that most trainees are way more concerned with their supplement programs than they really need to be. It’s only natural, I mean, who wouldn’t want to pound back a couple of “orange-flavored creatine cocktails” and watch their biceps explode through their sleeves?
Understand that application and consistency is EVERYTHING!
You can have the most effective workout schedule possible, the most intelligent diet approach available and the most intimate understanding of muscle growth from every possible angle, but without the inner drive and motivation to succeed you will get nowhere, and very fast.
Just as the famous saying goes…
“Knowing is NOT enough. You must APPLY!”
Those who make the greatest gains in muscular size and strength are the ones who are able to continually and systematically implement the proper techniques on a consistent basis.
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 single 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.
It is those who are willing to persevere that will succeed.
It is those who are willing to rise above laziness that will end up with the most impressive results.
I mean let's face it, everyone wants to be strong and muscular. If this is the case, why isn't everyone strong and muscular? It's because only certain people have the proper drive and motivation that it takes to get there.
If you’ve got the drive and the motivation to get started right away… To begin blasting your body into an almost uncontrollable surge of lean muscle growth… To start adding inches of rock-hard, granite-like mass to your chest, back, arms, shoulders and legs… To develop an impressive, powerful new body that turns heads at the beach, the mall, at work, at school and everywhere else you go…
Then the ONLY thing left for you to do now is to formulate a proper plan to get there. And not only to get there… but to get there as quickly, easily and painlessly as you possibly can.
So before you even set foot in a gym, I would strongly urge you to make sure that your training and diet plan is properly structured, and that you’re implementing the most powerful muscle-building and fat burning techniques available. Like I said earlier in this report, many people have the motivation to succeed, but they simply lack an effective training and nutrition plan to go along with it.
I would absolutely hate to see you put a bunch of time and effort into your program only to become frustrated and impatient when the results don’t come like you had expected. And even worse, I’d really hate to see you end up like 95%of the population who flat-out quit and give up due to a lack of progress.
This report has armed you with 8 very powerful steps towards achieving positive results from your muscle-building program… But the truth is that there is a lot more to it than just this.
Be prepared to train at a high level of intensity every single time you enter the gym.
If you think that building muscle is going to be a walk in the park and that you can simply enter the gym, “go through the motions” and then go home, you are sadly mistaken.
The reality is that if you want to experience any appreciable gains in muscle size and strength, you’re going to have to be prepared to train hard. This is one of the key factors separating those who make modest gains from those who make outstanding gains.
Most people just plain don’t train hard enough!
As soon as the exercise starts to get difficult their spotter jumps in and begins needlessly assisting them, or they simply put the weight down altogether.
BIG mistake!
The gym is a war zone, and if you want to be victorious, you must be willing to endure the battle.
Intense weightlifting is perceived as a threat to your survival, and the body responds to this by increasing the size and strength of the muscles to battle against the threat. Therefore, in order to see the most dramatic response in size and strength, you must push your body as hard as you safely can.
This can be achieved by performing all sets in the gym to the point of concentric muscular failure… Concentric Muscular Failure: The point at which no further positive repetitions can be performed using proper form despite your greatest efforts. This is very challenging and will require a lot of mental toughness on your part. I’m not going to sit here and feed you a pack of lies by saying that training for muscle size is an easy task. It’s not!
Some argue that training to failure is not necessary in order for muscle growth to occur, and the truth is that they are absolutely correct.
You could never train to failure and over time you would still see gains in muscle mass and strength. The only true requirement for muscle growth to occur is progression.
However, (and that’s a big however) if you’re like 99% of the population, then you want to experience those gains as quickly and efficiently as you possibly can. While training to failure isn’t necessary for growth to occur, it IS necessary if you want maximum growth to occur in the shortest period of time possible.
Even if you are not able to train to muscular failure (perhaps due to injuries or other limiting factors), one thing remains absolutely certain: if the last 1-2 reps of a set don’t force you to dig down deep and don’t place your body under a reasonable amount of discomfort, you quite simply are NOT training hard enough!
Avoid overtraining by limiting your overall workout volume and by providing your body with sufficient recovery time in between workouts.
This is one of the most common and most deadly mistakes that almost all beginners run into. They naturally assume that the more overall work they perform in the gym, the greater their results will be.
Heck, when I was a beginner myself I thought the same thing.
Who can blame us for thinking that?
In almost all aspects of life this basic logic holds true. If you want to perform well on a school test, you need to maximize your studying time. If you want to improve your skills in a specific sport, you need to practice as much as possible.
When it comes to training for muscular size and strength, you can take this basic logic and toss it right out the window, down the street and around the corner!
The key thing to realize is that your muscles will NOT grow larger and stronger if they are stressed beyond the point of recovery. Remember, training with weights is merely an activity that sets the wheels in motion; it “sparks” the muscle growth process and “tells” your body to start building new muscle tissue… But the actual growth process takes place away from the gym while you’re eating and resting.
If you disturb the recovery process, your muscles cannot rebuild themselves.
Overtraining is your number one enemy! Your goal in the gym is to perform the minimum amount of work necessary in order to yield an adaptive response from the body, and not a THING more.
You can avoid overtraining in the following ways…
1) Limit the number of sets that you perform during each workout – You should perform a total of 5-7 sets for large muscle groups (chest, back and thighs) and 2-4 total sets for small muscle groups (shoulders, biceps, triceps, calves and abs). And remember, this is total sets per WORKOUT, not per exercise. 2) Limit the amount of time spent in the gym – Each workout should not last for any more than 1 hour. This time frame comes into play beginning with your first muscle-building set and ends with your final muscle-building set. 3) Limit your training frequency for each muscle group – Each specific muscle group should only be directly stimulated once per week in order to allow for full recovery time. If you’ve been following the “more is better” mentality then you may find it hard to let go of, but believe me, as long as you train hard, you do NOT need to train often or with very many sets and exercises.
In fact, performing too much work in the gym may actually cause your muscles to become smaller and weaker.
Stop placing so much of your emphasis on dietary supplements. There is no replacement for basic hard work!
If you really think that pills, powders and drink mixes are going to build your body for you, you’re in for a huge disappointment! It continues to amaze me how much value and emphasis the majority of trainees place on “the latest breakthrough pill”.
Everyone is always asking me…
“What’s the best creatine out there?”
“How much weight can I gain from this whey protein supplement?”
“I have $200 a month to spend on supplements… what should I buy?”
Stop the madness!
A supplement is just that… a supplement.
It is there to supplement your diet by filling in the missing gaps and by providing you with greater amounts of specific nutrients that will slightly speed up your progress. Supplements are NOT there to do the work for you and will only play a small role in your overall success in the gym.
Stop falling for the multi-million dollar ads that talk about the latest “revolutionary discovery” that will allow you to build 25 pounds of muscle while you lie on the couch. As advanced as we’ve become as a society, the basic rules of hard work and dedication still apply. If you want to change your physique, then hard training in the gym and a consistent diet plan is the only true way to get there. Now, this doesn’t mean that I’m AGAINST the use of supplements; I’m merely against the over-use and over-emphasis of supplements. There are a few good, solid, effective products out there that I do recommend, but only as a small part of your overall approach.
My 4 “recommended” supplements include…
1) Protein supplements (whey protein, meal replacements, weight gainers and the occasional protein bar)
2) Creatine
3) Multivitamins
4) Essential Fatty Acids
I’m not going to talk about all of the specific benefits of each product in this report, but if you’re looking to accelerate your progress in the gym and achieve the best results possible, then those are the only 4 products that I would truly recommend.
I’m a big believer in the basics, and the plain fact is that most trainees are way more concerned with their supplement programs than they really need to be. It’s only natural, I mean, who wouldn’t want to pound back a couple of “orange-flavored creatine cocktails” and watch their biceps explode through their sleeves?
Understand that application and consistency is EVERYTHING!
You can have the most effective workout schedule possible, the most intelligent diet approach available and the most intimate understanding of muscle growth from every possible angle, but without the inner drive and motivation to succeed you will get nowhere, and very fast.
Just as the famous saying goes…
“Knowing is NOT enough. You must APPLY!”
Those who make the greatest gains in muscular size and strength are the ones who are able to continually and systematically implement the proper techniques on a consistent basis.
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 single 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.
It is those who are willing to persevere that will succeed.
It is those who are willing to rise above laziness that will end up with the most impressive results.
I mean let's face it, everyone wants to be strong and muscular. If this is the case, why isn't everyone strong and muscular? It's because only certain people have the proper drive and motivation that it takes to get there.
If you’ve got the drive and the motivation to get started right away… To begin blasting your body into an almost uncontrollable surge of lean muscle growth… To start adding inches of rock-hard, granite-like mass to your chest, back, arms, shoulders and legs… To develop an impressive, powerful new body that turns heads at the beach, the mall, at work, at school and everywhere else you go…
Then the ONLY thing left for you to do now is to formulate a proper plan to get there. And not only to get there… but to get there as quickly, easily and painlessly as you possibly can.
So before you even set foot in a gym, I would strongly urge you to make sure that your training and diet plan is properly structured, and that you’re implementing the most powerful muscle-building and fat burning techniques available. Like I said earlier in this report, many people have the motivation to succeed, but they simply lack an effective training and nutrition plan to go along with it.
I would absolutely hate to see you put a bunch of time and effort into your program only to become frustrated and impatient when the results don’t come like you had expected. And even worse, I’d really hate to see you end up like 95%of the population who flat-out quit and give up due to a lack of progress.
This report has armed you with 8 very powerful steps towards achieving positive results from your muscle-building program… But the truth is that there is a lot more to it than just this.
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