HOW TO GAIN MUSCLE FAST

What is Muscle?

To build muscle we must understand it. Wikipedia defines muscle as: ‘a soft tissue found in most animals. Muscle cells contain protein filaments of actin and myosin that slide past one another, producing a contraction that changes both the length and the shape of the cell. Muscles function is to produce force and motion. They are primarily responsible for maintaining and changing posture, locomotion, as well as movement of internal organs, such as the contraction of the heart and the movement of food through the digestive system via peristalsis.

 

We’ve underlined a few words in that text: protein, contraction, shape, movement, force and motion. These words will be the foundation of this article, as they are representative of muscles and their features. They will pave the way to understanding how you can build muscle and gain an effectively well-structured muscle mass.

How Do I Actually Gain Muscle?

To understand how to build muscle, we have to first to check the basics on muscle physiology. When we lift weights, we generate micro tears (traumas) in the muscle fibers, which calls to action some ‘satellite cells’ whose only duty is to repair the damaged fibers and this is exactly the phenomenon commonly known as ‘muscular hypertrophy’.

This is exactly your training goal, to break and repair, because this process is the one that stimulates protein synthesis. Here are the rules to building more muscle.

RULE #1: Eat More Calories Than You Use

To build muscle at an optimal rate, you need to consume more calories than your body uses.  This is vital if you are wanting to gain muscle without too much fat, or if you have struggled to gain weight in the past.  Anabolic steroid users can be a bit more lenient with their diet because their body is synthetizing protein at an enhanced rate 24/7.  The natural bodybuilder won’t have anywhere near as much freedom.

To know how many calories you should be consuming, work out our basal metabolic rate (BMR), that is, how many calories your body burns up at rest.  Once you have this figure you can add approximately 500 calories extra, and that is your daily goal.

The basic formula for this calculation is:

Body weight (pounds) x 15 = maintenance

Therefore, somebody weighing 180 pounds would be about to use this formula as follows:

180 x 15 = 2,700 calories per day = BMR

We know that to gain muscle you should be eating an additional 500 calories per day above your BMR so therefore someone weight 180 lb should be eating 3,200 calories/daily in order to gain weight.

Of course this figure isn’t set in stone and it’s important to monitor your progress and adjust your daily calorie intake goal accordingly.  Some people may find they need to consume 800 calories above their BMR to gain weight.

RULE #2: Multiply Your Protein Intake

In selecting what you want to eat more, another area you must may close attention to falls in the category of proteins. Many people just do not eat enough protein. Discard those legends that you can only digest 20 or 30 grams of protein each time you eat, or that you several small doses of protein 6-7 times per day. You will be missing your goals if you listen to this. If you’re already absorbing one gram per pound of your body weight, you want to eat for the body you’re trying to build, not the one you already have – double your protein intake in view of your goal.

RULE #3: Eat Nutritive Whole Foods

Eating the wrong types of food is a common mistake. When trying to gain mass, your first instinct could lead you to ingest the most calorically dense foods possible like pizzas and donuts, right? But remember, your goal is mass, but more muscle mass and less fat. You’ll need foods that are dense in terms of calories — for instance, steak and mashed potatoes is great — but also those foods that carry a very high nutritional value – like baked salmon fillets coupled with fresh salad as a side dish.

Some people like to count marconutrients as it allows for a more flexible style of dieting but this is not for everyone, and indeed, some may find this style of dieting tiresome.  If you are an amateur fitness enthusiast who takes steroids, of course there is no need to follow the ‘if it fits your macros’ mantra.  Instead, you can get away with monitoring your daily calorie intake.   However if you struggle with weight loss, you may consider a clean bulk instead.

RULE #4: Give The Preference To Compound Exercises in The Gym

Keep it simple and effective. You don’t need complicated exercises and machines: select those exercises that work the greatest number of muscles. Squats, deadlifts, bench press, rows, for instance. Superset with some “isolation” exercises and there you have the perfect plan.

Here’s a list of the most effective exercises in building muscle:

• Deadlifts. Deadlifts are one of the best muscle builders – build a big and strong back. They should be performed using a barbell with perform form.
• Squats. Actually, deep squats – these are among the toughest exercises, but they are an absolute necessity in your training program.
• Dips. These allow you to use your bodyweight in space against the force of gravity. They are really an excellent muscle builder for the chest, triceps, and shoulders.
• Chin-Ups. The show in a moment your ‘relative’ strength. If you can perform at least 5 chin-ups, your relative strength is already good. They are also a mass builder for your lats, biceps, and upper back.  Some people will prefer to subside these with lat pull downs, which of course allows a much heavier weight to be used.
• Bench Press. The epitome of all exercises for building muscle mass. Variations such as the flat bench barbell, the dumbbell press and the incline bench barbell work wonders as mass builders for the chest, the shoulders, and the triceps.
• Overhead Press. This exercise is a great indicator of your upper body strength. Most of the longtime lifters should be able to press their bodyweight overhead.
• Rows. Bilateral or unilateral, they’re both great for increasing the muscles of the upper back.

RULE #5: Lift Heavier Weights in a Progressive Fashion

Progressive overload is key to your growth, because it increases strength in a linear fashion. When your strength increases, you can add more weight, and so on. The more strength and the more weight and the more reps all mean more mass. Muscle mass.  But be smart, because heavier lifting can entail a risk of injury which would be detrimental to your progress in muscle gains.

Warm up properly, add weight and reps in a slow but constant manner, listen to your body when it alarms you and your muscles, bones, tendons, and ligaments will be prepared to push more and more weight, while you will be becoming stronger, thus pushing more weights and building extra muscle mass.

 

RULE #6: Sleep Adequately Every Night

First of all, you need enough quality sleep each and every night because sleeping enough helps your body build that muscle mass you are trying to achieve through proper eating habits and adequate training. When you sleep adequately (quantity and quality, that is) your levels of the growth hormone increase. This hormone has an essential role in the growth and in the recovery of the muscles. When you don’t sleep enough, another hormone-called cortisol increases its levels in your body and thus you have a hard time in gaining muscle. Research has found that people who don’t get enough sleep, both in quantity and quality, do actually lose muscle mass because of this stress-inducing hormone’s activity in the body.

RULE #7: Supplement Properly Your Diet and Nutrition Program

Do I need supplements? Technically speaking, you don’t need supplements to gain muscle mass.  But if the question were: “Are supplements beneficial?” then the answer would be: ‘Yes, they are!’

Eating, training and sleeping properly are the 3 basic factors which, if all abided by, are enough for anyone to build some muscle mass. But if you want to see serious muscle gains in your regimen, the addition of supplements will definitely give you an edge.

Here are the supplements which most are useful in gaining muscle:

• Creatine: creatine is very effective for increasing your workout intensity and overall recovery.  It is a nitrogenous organic acid that occurs naturally in the body. Its main role is to facilitate the recycling of ATP, thereby increasing energy output.
• Fish Oil: Fish oils ensure a healthy balance of omega-3 , omega 6 and omega 9 fats; these are essential if for cardiovascular health.  It can also improve your muscles glycogen stores and improve metabolism.
• Vitamin D: It acts in fact as a steroid precursor, and many researchers have found that it can influence heart health and the density of your osteoarticular system.
• Whey Protein: Whey protein is one of the cheapest options that while however guaranteeing a good source of high quality proteins, is also easy to prepare, portable, tasty, and financially convenient.
• Probiotic/Digestive Enzymes: When you are overfeeding yourself for a long period of time, your digestive system is working lots of overtime, so you need to protect it and, additionally, improving the bacterial flora can enhance the production of your short chain fatty acids, the absorption of all the nutrients you ingest and also your immune response.
• BCAAs: Branched Chain Amino Acids are in fact very useful, and have multiple benefits including increasing protein synthesis, reducing fatigue and muscle soreness and burning more fat as energy.

The Real Winning Edge: Anabolic Steroids

Anabolic androgenic steroids (AAS) are admittedly, even for those who in principle do not favor their use for many different reasons, the category of products that MAKE AN UNBEATABLE DIFFERENCE.

The average person using steroids will get much better results in terms of building muscle and improving performance than someone who is natural. A 10 week study took a group of 43 men of normal body weight between the ages of 19 and 40 who all had some degree of weight training experience.

The result was astonishing: those who implemented an anabolic steroid – in this case, only testosterone enanthate – were able to build on average, 13 pounds of muscle more than those who stayed ‘natural’.

So, which are the best steroids for gaining size/mass? Here are the real top players:

• Dianabol: Dianabol, whose chemical denomination is methandienone, represents perhaps the most well knwn steroid for mass gains purposes. Dianabol is widely used for large muscle gains, being so androgenic in nature. It was the prime choice by an athlete as famous as Arnold Schwarzenegger, so many times a Mr. Universe and Mr. Olympia champion and perhaps the greatest of all in the history of bodybuilding.
• Anadrol: Anadrol probably comes second in the list of the most potent anabolic steroids for mass gains. It really is potent as it favors huge increases of muscle and enormous strength gains, though it can cause water rendition (which may be beneficial depending upon your specific goals). Hence, the bloating effect does not make it the best choice if you’re looking for that dry appearance but this water retention aspect is offset by quite an incremental strength that you will experience when pushing more and more weight in the gym.
• Trenbolone: Trenbolone is 5 times more anabolic in its effects when compared to base testosterone and also, differently from Anadrol, does not have the consequence of pushing up your levels of fluid retention under the skin (hence great for aesthetic purposes). But don’t get it wrong, it is still a huge muscle mass enhancer, given its high anabolic rating, and will help you also in developing an extremely elevated level of strength in a quick fashion!

• Testosterone: Testosterone is the basic sexual hormone in male individuals, the father of all steroids, and the anabolic compound which, by attaching a series of esters to it to control its release rate, makes it possible to develop huge amounts of muscle mass. Anyone can increase synthetically or naturally the individual levels of this steroid, forcing the body into some significant anabolic consequences, among which is the muscular growth due to the higher rate of the protein synthesis which occurs in the human organism.
• Deca Durabolin: Deca Durabolin is a favorite mass gaining boosters amongst steroid users. It has often been appreciated that just one cycle with this anabolic steroid can determine an increase of as much as 15lbs of pure lean muscle mass. This type of result, however, does also have to do with the inclusion of other such factors as an ideal dieting and eating schedule, an appropriate training method and (not less important) the existence of seriously positive genetic factors.