FIVE SHORTCUTS TO RAPID MUSCLE GROWTH

Apply these methods to pack on lean muscle faster

Do drop sets

“Continue an exercise with a lower weight once muscle fatigue starts,” says Tom Eastham, Fitness First PT of the Year. “You’re aiming for muscle failure so that during rest, maximum repair will be required – which will give maximum results. It’s a great plateau-busting option.”

Get the right muscle fuel

“Not all proteins are equal,” says nutritionist Emma Wells. “The Protein Efficiency Ratio refers to weight gained versus the amount of protein eaten. Eggs are top with a score of 3.92.” This means they out-muscle whey, beef and fish.

101 BEST MUSCLE-BUILDING TIPS EVER PART III

66. Front-load your days. You’ll stoke your metabolism all day by consuming larger amounts of calories early in the day. This also helps to ensure that you don’t store excess calories as body fat. Just make sure to taper off your calorie intake by the end of the day, when your energy expenditure is typically ebbing.

67. Include fats in your diet. Fat is a great source of energy and helps your body to metabolize many vitamins and minerals. Consuming unsaturated fats like avocadoes, nuts, seeds and olive oil is a crucial part of helping you grow muscle, especially if you are on a low-carb diet and need to make up for lost calories. Stay away from saturated and trans fats, which have no real nutritional value. Try to get 0.5 grams of fat per pound of bodyweight per day, or 90 grams for the 180-pounder.

68. Clean out your pantry. If it’s not in the house, there’s less chance you’ll eat it. Junk foods not only can sabotage your midsection but also can reduce the amount of muscle you’re able to build. These empty calories should be kept out of your home altogether if you’re serious about gaining clean mass.

69. Don’t ignore carbs. Carbohydrates may be taboo to physique-minded individuals because they can affect body fat when consumed in excess or when the wrong types are eaten too often. But to gain mass, you have to train hard, and this is much tougher without enough muscle glycogen (which is carbs in stored form). To gain mass, aim for 2.5 to 3 grams of carbs — upward of 540 grams — per pound of bodyweight per day.

101 BEST MUSCLE-BUILDING TIPS EVER PART II

33. Chest wisely. Occasionally using a little momentum or body English to get an extra rep or two at the end of a set is a good way to increase your workout volume. It’s important to use a strong and controlled rep speed when you begin a set, but generating an extra bit of momentum as you begin to fatigue can get you over a sticking point when correctly and judiciously applied.

34. End with a pump. A Japanese study concluded that you can increase strength and muscle-cell size slightly farther by flushing more blood and water into working muscles with a very high-rep set done after your normal working sets. Aim for a set of at least 20 reps and as many as 100 reps of a final isolation-type exercise following your heavy work.

35. Volumize. “One way to thoroughly bully a muscle into responding is by using German Volume Training, which calls for you to do 10 sets of 10 reps of only one exercise — ideally, a compound movement for maximum growth — which generates a muscle group,” Peña says. On top of the increase in muscle fibers you hit as a result of the constant stimulus, your workout will require less equipment, too.

36. Superset. By performing two exercises consecutively, without rest, you place a greater demand on working muscles. Typical supersets involve opposing muscle groups, such as biceps and triceps, but by performing a major compound exercise followed by an isolation move for a single muscle group, you can encourage growth, too.

101 BEST MUSCLE-BUILDING TIPS EVER PART I

As you progressed in school, you likely found that the required reading was becoming more and more cumbersome. More books, more pages, less time. In your search for some relief, you found Cliffs Notes — the almighty timesaving redeemer of many a student’s report card. These condensed reads offered a quicker way to get through the diffuse material of Melville, Hemingway and Shakespeare by highlighting the main points and trimming out the fat.

Think of this list in the same way, as a summation of the volumes of literature that have been written on muscle building over the years. The 101 tips, presented by section but not in any particular order of importance, encompass the broad spectrum of areas that require your attention for gaining mass: training, nutrition, supplements and equipment. No philosophical debate, no hidden meaning, no tidy denouement of narrative — here, you’ll just find the most authoritative, scientific and time-proven methods for packing on pounds of lean muscle, ready for you to put to use and ace your physique-transformation test.

SECTION NO. 1: TRAINING

1. Warm up properly. As you gain experience, your muscles, tendons and ligaments will be subjected to much more stress than when you first started. To reduce the chance of injury, increase your warm-up time proportionally. As you advance from beginner to intermediate status, three to four light and medium warm-up sets of your first weightlifting exercise of the day, after five to 10 minutes of a general warm-up on the bike or treadmill, can help adequately prepare muscles for the heavy lifting ahead.

A Definitive Guide To Building Muscle With Bodyweight Exercises

One of the biggest myths in the fitness industry is that bodyweight exercises are only useful for leaning out.

So many guys think that to get big, they need to have a gym membership to gain access to free weights and resistance machines. Well that’s just not true.

The truth is, it doesn’t matter whether resistance comes in the form of a barbell, or your own body, as long as moving it puts the right level of demand on your muscles.

In this article, I’ll explain the principles behind building muscle with bodyweight exercises. I’ll break down bodyweight training, and lay out the principles you need to know to build as much muscle mass as you can without picking up a barbell.

IT ALL DEPENDS ON YOUR DIET: TIPS FOR BUILDING MUSCLES

Perhaps you know the saying, “Abs are made in the kitchen.” This might some a bit crazy at first. But what it actually means is that your diet is just as important as your workout. Are you looking to pack on more muscle, lose weight and fat or simply get more defined? Then you are on the right track with Results and your customized 12-week training plan. But you’ll never maximize your results and achieve your goal if you don’t eat the right diet. We have put together some tips for you to help you reach your personal goals together with Runtastic.

Do you want to build muscle and gain definition?

Top 10 Foods to Gain Muscle Mass

What if I told you that you could gain more muscle mass with less training? Or retain more muscle mass with less training? And even gain/retain more strength with less training? The secret is nutrition.

As a personal trainer, most of my clients exhibit this behavior: they train hard, but they don’t give a heck about nutrition. So the time and effort they spend on training is wasted. Why? Because they think nutrition is complicated and they avoid the topic. I understand perfectly, because I used to be like that as well.

But we need to train smart. This means knowing how nutrition works and how to utilize it for your own fitness and strength gains. This works for anyone and everyone, be it for general fitness maintenance or muscle mass gain.

The Basics: Build Muscle for Better Health

Strength training is about more than getting buff

We all know how important cardiovascular exercise is -- how it's great for your heart, cholesterol, and blood pressure. And whether you choose to walk, bicycle, or jog, you know that any exercise that increases your heart rate helps you burn calories and melt away unwanted pounds.

But that's only half the equation.

For a balanced fitness program, strength training is essential. It can slow the muscle loss that comes with age, build the strength of your muscles and connective tissues, increase bone density, cut your risk of injury, and help ease arthritis pain.

Back To Basics - Time Tested Muscle Building Exercises

During the Golden Era of Bodybuilding there were specific exercises ALL of these men did without question. These exercises were the “bread and butter” of their training regimes and their physiques showed it. There were no 2 ways about it, if you worked your butt off on these exercises, you were gonna get results.

The good news is that you can do these exercises yourself and reap the rewards. You won’t need any fancy machines and you won’t even need a gym membership for these exercises. So if you were excited to get on that new bicep isolation machine where you could sit down, concentrate and “feel the muscle”, I hate to burst your bubble but we’re gonna have to take a detour.

These exercises might seem foreign to you if you train at a typical globo gym, but for the die hards who learned the basics through Arnold’s Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding, we have lived, breathed and bled doing these exercises, year after year, decade after decade.

Top 5 Exercises to Gain Muscle Fast

Nothing is more frustrating than slaving away at the gym, and not seeing results. Too often, people hurriedly scramble from machine to machine without a second thought towards compound exercises. Usually, this is because of time constraints, lack of motivation, or the free-weight section seems too intimidating.

While machines are great, they rob you of acute growth hormone signaling and opportunities to work harder by using precious stabilizing muscles. Trying to sculpt a chiseled physique without these bread-and-butter exercises is a fool's errand.

So if you're serious about cultivating mass, add these exercises to your training routine.

More: The Ultimate Bicep Workout Routine

11 Exercises That Build Muscle Without Bulk

A metabolism-boosting workout that builds strength and tones your abdominals, back, thighs, butt and arms.

Toning Exercises

Eager to achieve long, lean, sculpted muscles, but you're really not the type to spend hours pumping iron or pushing a metal weight machine at the gym? We hear you! Even though the fear of "bulking up" with weight training is not based in reality, especially for women over 40, building muscle is a must, both for strong bones and to boost metabolism. Here are our picks for the most effective "bulk-free" ways to get longer, leaner and stronger from head to toe.

Monkey push

Strengthens: Arms and shoulders, abdominals, back

Get into the "up" part of push-up position with hands directly below shoulders and body in a straight line from head to heels. Keeping core tight, push through toes and hop forward, landing gently with feet on the outside of hands. Hop back to starting position. Bend elbows (keeping them close to body) to lower body toward floor, then push back up; that's 1 rep. Do 10–12 reps.

Nutrition Tips – How to build muscle and size

How to Gain Weight and Build Muscle...

For some people, gaining weight in the form of muscle rather than fat can be a frustrating task. If you follow our top 8 tips, however, you'll pack on lean muscle and size far more easily and be well on your way to achieving your physique goals.

1. Eat enough calories

Most people who struggle to gain weight misunderstand the most basic principle - 'the body will only grow if you provide it with sufficient high quality calories each day'. In other words, you need to consume more calories than you burn each day!

Top 15 Tips for Building Muscle

Take note of these tips and you will maximize your chances of building muscle and minimizing fat.

1. Genetics are important. If you ever could, you would choose your parents well. The ability to pack on muscle is at least partly determined by genetics. However, starting from a low base you can always improve your body shape. Being male and young also favors muscle building.

2. Train with high volume and medium intensity. "Volume" is the quantity of sets and repetitions you do and "intensity" is how much weight you choose. For each weight training exercise set, perform 10 to 15 lifts with less than a minute break between sets. Lactic acid causes that burning sensation in muscles when you exercise intensely and this appears to stimulate muscle growth, perhaps from an increase in growth hormone production.

Workout Nutrition: What and When You Should Eat to Build Muscle

Use this nutrition guide to get the best results from your workouts

Your body is a machine that constantly reinvents itself. Every minute of every day, it breaks down its own tissues and replaces them with new stuff it makes from a combination of the food you eat and recycled material it scavenges from other tissues.

No matter how old your Facebook profile says you are, your component parts are considerably younger. Even your bones replace themselves every 10 years. By that standard, your muscle cells, with an average age of 15 years old, are the adults at the party. 

5 Style Tips for Fit Men | Muscular Man Fashion Advice | Dressing Sharp For BodyBuilders

You would think muscular men have it made.

They have an envious physique, live a healthy lifestyle.

Seems like everything is going for them……

Well, not everything.

Clothing.

In particular FIT.

Very few brands cater to muscular men – in fact if you take care of you body you’ll find most clothes are made to fit you with way too much excess fabric around the waist and too tight in the hips and thighs.

If you are a powerlifter or bodybuilder you know what I’m talking about.

It can be tough finding an outfit that isn’t too tight that you feel you’re going to bust the seems or so loose it makes you look overweight (despite being in GREAT shape).

Before declaring your situation hopeless – take 5 minutes to hear what I have to say.

Here are 5 tips that you can take action on right away to improve your style.

12 Simple Muscle Building Tips

Here’s a quick list of a dozen simple muscle building tips that you can start using immediately.

1)  Do Full Body Workouts as a Newbie

As a newbie you need frequent exposure to strength training for two reasons. The first is that you will be too weak to do any kind of damage that will demand longer recovery.

The second is that you need to learn the lifts. When learning anything you want to do it more often than less.

Three workouts per week consisting of a lower body compound movement, an upper body push and an upper body pull would suffice as a good minimalist program. I’d add in some extra work for the upper back, and some loaded carries and sled drags.

2)  After  1-2 Years of Proper Training Switch to an Upper/Lower Split

There comes a time when full body workouts just aren’t as practical anymore. When more exposure to a certain stress will lead to joint issues. And when your warm ups will start to take way longer than you want. That’s when it’s time to split up your training.

26 Muscle Building Tips That'll Make You Look Like This

1. Stop Doing Bicep Curls &…

• Stop doing chest flyes that don't give you a massive chest &…
• Stop doing those sissy triceps extensions &…
• Completely ELIMINATE any other isolation exercises from your muscle building workouts &…

ONLY Do JUST Compound Exercises and here's why…

• Your muscles get bigger as they get stronger &…
• Your muscles get stronger from lifting heavy things over & over &…
• Your muscles can't get that much bigger & stronger from doing isolation exercises where you're using much lighter weights but…

4 Ways to Build Muscle No Matter Your Age

One of my older buddies, a 74-year-old, fitness-conscious fellow, when asked how he’s doing, often responds, “I’m keeping it tight,” which always gives people a laugh. Amusing as it is to hear the phrase coming out of a septuagenarian’s mouth, his goal of keeping trim, with as much muscle as possible, is a serious one – and one we all should shoot for, no matter what age we are.

The challenge with muscle mass is that after the age of 40, it starts to decline at roughly 1% a year. At 50, the decline picks up additional speed (yikes!). So, if you’re not starting with a lot of muscle to begin with, it’s easy to see how by the time you hit my buddy’s age, you may have lost as much as 50% or more of your muscle mass. Pretty alarming, eh? Though it certainly explains why Granny needs help carrying the groceries.

How Men With a High Metabolism Can Gain Weight

A high metabolism can be a curse for any man looking to gain weight and build muscle. Most men with fast metabolisms will be classified as ectomorphs, notes strength coach Craig Ballantyne. This can be a blessing when trying to lose weight, as you burn calories at a quicker rate, but it makes weight gain much more difficult. It is possible to gain muscle and body weight, but you need to address several training, dietary and lifestyle factors.

Eat Big

The adage "To get big, you must eat big" applies more to skinny guys and ectomorphs than anyone else. In "Scrawny to Brawny," nutritionist and coach John Berardi writes than most skinny men simply don't eat enough to gain weight. Berardi suggests eating five to six times per day and eating a whole meal each time, rather than picking at snacks. These meals should each contain a protein source, a serving of nutrient-dense carbs such as beans, brown rice, whole-grain bread and pasta or oats, along with vegetables and a healthy fat, such as peanut butter or avocado.

Why You Need to Eat Fat to Burn Fat

Overview

For a long time, we thought avocadoes were good for nothing but ready-made guac and a decent California burger every now and then. But these little nutritional hand grenades were having an explosive impact on our diets for all that time. How so? They’re infused with a key nutrient for maintaining healthy weight: fat.

Wait…fat can help us maintain our weight? Fat doesn’t make us fat? In a word: exactly.

Fat is not something to avoid. For starters, it’s essential for normal growth and development. Dietary fat also provides energy, protects our organs, maintains cell membranes, and helps the body absorb and process nutrients. Even better, it helps the body burn fat, says nutritionist and owner of Nutritious Life meal system, Keri Glassman, RD, who recommends that about a third of any weight-loss plan’s calories come from dietary fat.

How to Lose Fat & Tighten Up the Chest

Lowering your body fat and tightening up your chest requires cardiovascular exercise and weight training. Cardio, which forces you to keep moving over a period of time, is an effective exercise for burning a high number of calories -- while weight training will provide the stress needed to overload your muscles and stimulate their development. In addition to your workouts, make adjustments to your nutritional habits to ensure you’re taking in an appropriate number of calories to facilitate fat loss.

Step 1

Schedule a 30- to 60-minute cardio workout four to six days per week. To lose a pound of fat, you’ve got to burn 3,500 more calories than you consume. Therefore, to lose fat at a healthy rate of one to two pounds per week, you’ll need to create a deficit of 3,500 to 7,000 calories every seven days. The more frequently you do cardio, the more calories you’ll burn and the greater the deficit you’ll create.

Mass Gaining Daily Meal Plans

Following the right type of diet when gaining weight is just as important as it is when trying to lose weight. Mass gaining diets can be potentially disastrous if you don't plan ahead. To build muscle you need to eat enough calories to spark growth, but not so many that you add excess body fat. Though the perfect daily meal plan differs from person to person, you can follow a few basic rules.

Get the Calories Right

First and foremost, you need to work out how many calories you should consume each day. Nutritionist Jamie McGinn suggests adding an extra 500 calories per day to what you currently eat. NASM trainer coach Chris Embry agrees, adding that if you're currently maintaining your weight, this will result in a 4 to 5 pound gain per month. Any more than this is probably fat gain. Macronutrients matter as well as calories. The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics advises getting 15 to 20 percent of your daily calories from protein, 20 to 35 percent from fat and at least 50 percent from carbohydrates.

Training 101: The Ultimate Guide To Sets and Reps

Overview

If you could peer inside the heads of most people at the gym, you’d probably see that their minds were doing one of the three things during their workout—stewing about work, singing along with the lyrics coming through their headphones, or counting to eight, 10, or 12. Set after set after set.

I may listen to Eminem or let my mind wander, but I can tell you one thing I don’t do: Stress about my reps.

The reason is simple: Strictly structured workouts – such as doing 3 sets of 10 reps because a piece of paper says so —is an archaic way of training. I’m not saying it doesn’t work; I’m just saying that you’ll make more out of your time in the gym if you forget the must-hit-a-number doctrine and learn to lift by more feel --and to suit your personality.

3 Signs You're Overexercising and 3 Ways to Avoid It

Overview

One of the most well-known strength and conditioning coaches, Dan John, once said, “If exercise was a pill, it would be the best-selling pill of all time.” This statement is bold -- but true. The benefits of exercise range from decreasing body fat and increasing lean muscle mass to improving healthy blood markers and overall health and happiness. With all of the benefits of exercise, it’s no wonder many of us partake in regular sweat sessions, especially if we’re determined to enjoy a long, healthy life.

But an issue occurs when exercise is taken to excess. Unfortunately, like many things in life, too much exercise can be detrimental to our bodies. These consequences can range from acute and chronic injuries to problems sleeping and decreased immunity -- the exact opposite of what exercise is supposed to do. There’s a scale that must be balanced in order to take advantage of the benefits of exercise while preventing the unwanted side effects of overdoing it.

How to Use Rest Periods to Maximize Your Fat Loss

Overview

If you’re like most people, you’re already tracking exercises, reps and weight. But you’re likely neglecting a huge part of your fat-loss program: rest periods. (You know, those breaks you’re supposed to take between sets during your workout?) Luckily, there are guidelines to get you back on track to lose more body fat and improve your training.

It seems counterintuitive, but the amount of time between exercises and sets has implications to the amount of fat your body burns (provided the rest of your program is sensibly designed). But your training must be specific to your goals to achieve the desired outcomes. In the case of maximizing fat loss, you need to use a variety of rest-period lengths for safe training and maximum fat loss.

If You Miss a Meal Will You Lose Muscle?

If you're trying to put on muscle, you might be afraid to go more than a few hours without downing a high-protein meal or snack. You might believe that by not doing so, you risk slowing your metabolism, resulting in gaining fat and losing muscle. While many people think you'll lose muscle mass if you don't eat frequently, it's not true that missing a single meal will cause you to lose muscle mass. Carefully planned mini fasts may actually help to improve your muscle mass composition.

Myth of Catabolism

Catabolism refers to the break down of muscle tissue, which happens when you're undernourished. If you're in a catabolic state, you will lose muscle, which is one of the reasons why many people fear missing a meal. However, nutritionist Martin Berkhan reports that it actually takes up to 24 hours after eating for your body to go into a catabolic state. Many bodybuilders also like to spread their protein intake out through the day, due to the belief that the body can only use a certain amount of protein at a time, but according to strength coach and bodybuilder Tom Venuto, there's no limit to the amount of protein your body can absorb and use at one feeding.

How To Build Muscle Mass After 50

Starting around your 40s, your metabolism slows more and more rapidly with age. That's because losing muscle mass is a natural part of aging. The more muscle mass you have, the faster your metabolism. With so many 50-and-over Americans falling victim to heart disease and diabetes, counteracting a slowing metabolism is important to potentially help prevent weight gain and resulting illness. To build muscle mass despite the effects of aging, stick to a serious exercise plan and optimize your diet for muscle gain. Never begin any new diet or exercise regimen without first consulting your doctor.

Weight Training Routines for Skinny Men

With muscular men often gracing the covers of magazines and capturing the limelight in entertainment, skinny men can feel short-changed. Skinny men — or ectomorphs — tend to burn calories fast and have a hard time gaining weight and muscle mass. If you are a skinny guy who wants to get stronger and add muscles to your frame, you can achieve success by following a weight training routine that suits your body type.

Weight Training Basics

The American College of Sports Medicine recommends that adults lift weights twice a week by doing eight to 10 strength-training exercises with eight to 12 repetitions of each exercise for good health. To increase muscle strength and bulk, skinny guys should do a lower number of repetitions using higher weight amounts. For instance, try doing four to six repetitions of 50-lb. weights instead of 10 reps of 30-lb. weights. Follow a weightlifting program that works all of your major muscle groups, including your arms, shoulders, back, abs, legs and chest muscles.

How to Gain Weight & Muscle for Skinny Men

Whether you call yourself a hard-gainer, an ectomorph, or just plain skinny, you're not alone in your efforts to pack on healthy weight and gain muscle strength and size. Many naturally thin men have a difficult time upping their body mass. Thankfully, a combination of changes to your lifestyle, eating plans, and workout schedule can help you to gain weight and muscle faster.

Step 1

Eliminate or reduce your cardio exercise. Cardio can limit or even cancel out your efforts to gain weight and put on muscle because it burns up the extra calories your body needs to grow bigger. If you don't want to give up your cardio habit completely, limit its frequency as much as possible and keep each cardio workout session's duration to under 45 minutes.

The Best Exercise and Eating Advice for Your Body Type

Ectomorph, endomorph and mesomorph might sound like alien races straight out of a sci-fi series, but knowing which of these three body types you are can help you customize your workout plan. While there are numerous training programs to choose from, tailoring your training to your body type (somatotype) and goals will help you start seeing results faster, which means you’re more likely to stick with your new workout.

Typically, people gravitate toward what they’re good at and shy away from more difficult activities. But if your goals are to change your body, doing more of what’s challenging is key. But don’t think that means you have to do endless burpees until you reach your dream body. It’s not so much which exercises you do, it’s how you structure your workouts, taking into account exercise order, reps performed and rest periods taken.

How To Build Muscle – Best Muscle Building Workout, Diet & Exercises

I can remember walking into a gym for the first time and easily being the most small, weak and skinny guy there. My muscle building genetics were (and still are) as bad as can be, yet my only goal was to figure out how to build muscle as fast as humanly possible.

So, like most people with this same goal, I started reading everything I could about the best workout, diet and exercises for building muscle. I spent money on the supposed best muscle building supplements, books and magazines, read countless websites and articles, and tried tons of methods and programs.

The problem is, after nearly 2 years of researching and trying things out first hand, I ended up getting virtually nowhere. In fact, the insane amount of conflicting, deceptive and all around terrible advice out there just left me more confused than when I started.

Now, over 10 years later, I know exactly what I did wrong. I understand what works and what doesn’t. I see what workout, exercises, diet and supplements are best, and which are absolute crap. I know exactly how to build muscle successfully, and I want to help you avoid making the same mistakes I did.

4 Keys to Strength Building and Muscle Mass

Muscle is harder to build and maintain as we age. In fact, most of us start losing muscle around age 30, with a 3- to 8-percent reduction in lean muscle mass every decade thereafter.

This is due to lower testosterone levels in men and lower estrogen levels in women — both hormones that help build muscle — as well as changes in nerve and blood cells and the body not converting amino acids to muscle tissue as efficiently, among other factors. But muscle loss doesn't need to be inevitable: For adult men and women, regular resistance training exercises are key to building and keeping muscle.

Strength Training and Health

Strength training is an important piece of the fitness equation. Men and women should participate in muscle strengthening activities that work the major muscle groups (legs, hips, back, chest, abdomen, shoulders and arms) at least two times each week. Examples of strength training include lifting weights, using resistance bands and doing push-ups, pull-ups and sit-ups. Even everyday activities such as carrying groceries, playing with your kids and gardening can strengthen muscles.

How to Gain Muscle Mass With a Fast Metabolism

Gaining muscle mass with a fast metabolism is not impossible, as many "hard-gainers" believe. Hard-gainer types typically have an ectomorph body, with smaller bone structure and less natural muscular build than other body types. The simple equation for gaining muscle mass applies to those with a fast metabolism as well: create a growth stimulus and supply the body with adequate nutrition to repair damaged muscle and rebuild it stronger. The tricky part about gaining muscle mass with a fast metabolism is the "adequate nutrition" part. Hard-gainers often burn calories so fast that they cannot be stored as fat or used to build muscle. In addition, they also may have difficulty absorbing nutrients efficiently. The simple answer is that you must eat as hard as you train. Follow these simple guidelines to fast-track your mass gains.

10 STRENGTH-BUILDING STRATEGIES THAT WILL NEVER DIE

Follow these 10 rules for immediate and long-lasting muscle and strength.

Strength is the foundation of everyday acts of athleticism like hitting a 300-yard drive in golf and not-so-human feats like J.J. Watt's 5'1" box jump. Strength isn't limited to muscle size and capacity. You see, when you get stronger, you're better able to lose weight, run faster, and hit harder. Convinced you need to work on your strength? We've got 10 no-frills tips to help you make everything in your life feel just a little bit easier (and much lighter).

1. OWN THE "BIG FOUR."

The squat, deadlift, bench press, and shoulder press are the best strength-building exercises, period. The chinup and row are great moves too, but don't make them the focus of your workout — they can be assistance lifts to complement the bench and shoulder press, keeping your pulling muscles in balance with the pressing ones.

FIVE WORKOUTS THAT BUILD MUSCLE AND MASS FAST

Your no-nonsense sessions to total-body strength and muscular size.

WORKOUT 1

Barbell Chest Press: 4 sets, 6-8 reps

Rest 2 minutes

Barbell Row: 4 sets, 8-10 reps

Rest 2 minutes

Decline Dumbbell Chest Press: 4 sets, 6-8 reps

Rest 2 minutes

Weighted Pullup: 4 sets, to failure

Rest 2 minutes

WORKOUT 2

10 Sets of 10 with 1 minute rest between sets

Incline DB Bench Press with 75% of your max

10 Sets of 10 with 1 minute rest between sets

BB Bench Press with 75% of your max

11- 20 Insane Diet Tricks For Massive Muscle Gains Part II

11. Eat More

Some people say that they can’t put on muscle because their metabolism is simply too fast and they can’t even gain weight if they are not exercising. There really is only one way to remedy this – eat more. According to most experts, you should be eating your body weight x 20 kcal a day. So if you weigh 150 pounds, you should be eating 3,000 calories every day.

Make sure that you keep doing this and that you never go under if you really want to gain muscle. After doing this for about two weeks, your body will be ready to move on to the next phase. The next phase is to add another 500 calories to the equation. If you still weight 150 pounds, then you should start eating 3,500 calories a day. If after another two week you still have not gained any weight, add another 500 calories. But if you are adding weight, stay with the body weight x 20kcal + another 500 calories equation.

1 - 10 Insane Diet Tricks For Massive Muscle Gains Part I

If you really want to put on lean muscle and do it quickly, you are going to have to do more than just hit the gym every day. There is a lot that goes into it. Even more important than training is your diet. If you really want to see serious gains quickly, then you are going to have to pay special attention to every aspect of your diet and your lifestyle.

Here are some tips for getting that lean muscle you want quickly and effectively.

1. Anabolic Sleep

This might sound pretty weird, but a lot of professional bodybuilders stick to this routine religiously. To understand what anabolic sleep is, you need to understand what anabolic eating is first. Body builders advocate eating six to eight times a day in order to have a steady intake of the nutrients you need for your body to stay anabolic.

8 Tips To Build Huge Chest Muscles Fast

If you want a physique that’s muscular and chiseled yet proportioned, symmetrical and aesthetically pleasing, then building up your chest muscles should be one of your primary goals. There are no shortcuts to huge chest muscles, but there is a right way and a wrong way to do things. Internet has significantly reduced the quality of the information on this subject, as everyone seems to be an expert.

When it comes to the human body, nothing says strength and power quite like a pumped, muscular chest. But swollen, rock-hard pecs can be notoriously difficult to develop, particularly if you’re one of those ectomorph types who have trouble putting on weight. No matter your body type however, you can indeed build a sculpted, powerful chest with a well-designed chest workout protocol.

Muscle-Building Tips

People have a tendency to treat training for a “look” differently than training for an athletic or a strength goal. The truth is, whatever your fitness goals are, it is important to structure your program in a way that allows you to meet those goals in the shortest time period possible.

You have a tremendous variety of tools available to you, and it’s sometimes easy to forget that not all methods are effective for all goals. Athletes training for their sport practice some highly specific drills; training for fat loss requires adjustment of nutritional strategies; powerlifters work on becoming skilled and efficient in their primary lifts.

Given these examples, it’s easy to see that none of these scenarios would really benefit from using strategies intended for the others. So, if your goal is simply to build a lean, symmetrical and attractive body — the ultimate male body — the obvious solution is to gear your diet and training structure toward those goals.

1- Focus On Building An X-Shaped Physique

10 Muscle Building Tips for Men

As a personal trainer, men always ask me about the best exercises, supplements or tips for building muscle. The truth is, most guys hitting the gym don’t get the results they want because they’re making some critical mistakes.

Learn 10 tips including a workout and diet plan that will help you to build muscle.

1. Machines vs. free weights

Leg press, hamstring curls, seated chest press etc. while providing resistance, these are all machines that provide too much assistance and balance the weight for you. Your core muscles (not just your abs but all the muscles around your trunk) don’t work as much, therefore you’re not building real long lasting strength required to gain muscles in proportion.

TOP 10 MUSCLE AND STRENGTH BUILDING MOVES

Get the best results possible while spending the least amount of time pulling and pushing weight at the gym.

BIGGER AND STRONGER

While everyone who goes to the gym to lift weights has their own set of specific goals, one common thread that runs through most is the desire to get bigger and stronger. Bodybuilders are unique bunch in that they look to build every muscle in the body to the greatest possible degree, while trying to make sure everything remains in perfect proportion and symmetry. Because of this they must utilize a myriad of specific and varied exercises for each body part, so that every muscle fiber and motor unit pool is exhausted at every workout.

How To Increase Muscular Endurance: 6 Training Tips

When most people think of muscular endurance they think of things like running and cycling. The fact is, muscular endurance is important to almost any activity that requires any use of physical strength and is one of the more important aspects of physical fitness and performance.

There are many ways you can improve your muscular endurance, but not all of them will give you lasting results. If you want to make some serious gains there are several principles you must follow to achieve maximum benefit to your muscles!

Muscular Endurance Tip #1 – Get Stronger

I can’t stress this enough to both athletes and the general fitness population: strength matters! Not only does it matter, but it should be one of the first steps towards achieving most goals. The fact is that many people underestimate how important strength is to other physical aspects such as improving muscular endurance.

13 Essential Mass Gaining Tips

Hardgainers aren't the only ones who struggle to add muscle to their frames. If you lift and eat for growth but it doesn't seem to make a difference, here's your new roadmap to mass!

Want more size? You're definitely not the only one! Many of us want more mass. Successfully putting it on, though, is where things get difficult. Skinny so-called "hardgainers" aren't the only people who struggle to add muscle to their frames.

Lots of people—including women—lift and eat their hearts out without seeing their measurements reflect it as much as they'd like.

It may feel like you're cursed, but something more tangible and fixable is always to blame. Arm yourself with the right information, and finally feel your clothes straining from dem gains!

3 REASONS YOU'RE NOT RIPPED

Get chiseled and build lean muscle by avoiding these 3 common workout mistakes.

You almost never eat French fries or donuts or Dairy Queen Blizzards, and pizza is only for cheat days, so you’ve ruled out a crappy diet. You hit the gym five, sometimes six, days a week with a good dose of cardio and lifting, and yet you still don’t know what the problem is. Why am I still not ripped, you wonder. Why am I killing myself in the gym without a six-pack and an abundance of striated muscles to show for it?  

You’re right, diet may not be the answer. And genetics isn’t necessarily to blame either. There’s a good chance that all the work you’re doing is undermining your efforts of getting lean muscle. The fact that you’re frequenting the gym isn’t the issue; it’s what you’re doing once you get there.

THE ESSENTIAL 8: EXERCISES THAT WILL GET YOU RIPPED

Resistance training is more important and far more effective than cardio for fat loss, and is an essential part of your training program. There are eight essential exercises that everyone should include in their resistance training program.

So, you want to get lean; you want to be ripped! You have your nutrition targeted at fat loss; you have your supplement regimen all ready. Now, you just need your training program sorted, and you will be ready to roll.

How do you train for fat loss? What are the best exercises to include? What is the best split to use? How much cardio do you do? How many recovery days do you take? The information available is varied and often contradictory, because what works for one individual does not always work for another. If that is the case, how does one go about setting up a training routine if everyone responds differently to different training program?

25 top tips for how to build muscle mass

If your muscle mass is the same now as it was a few months ago, something is amiss — in the gym, out of the gym, or both. More of what didn’t work for you over the last few months isn’t going to work over the next few months. Changes are needed. Put the guidance in this article into practice, and build more muscle mass.

Bodybuilding’s top tips for muscle mass

1. If currently you’re lifting about the same weights across your mainstay exercises as you were a year ago, don’t expect to have much more muscle mass. While the biggest muscles aren’t the strongest, and the strongest muscles aren’t the biggest, there’s a substantial link between strength and muscle mass for most bodybuilders.

3 Simple Tips to Gain Muscle Mass

Every year, high school athletes try all sorts of crazy things to get bigger, faster and stronger for their sports. They take all kinds of supplements and different strength-training programs, yet many still fail to gain weight.

So what does it really take to put on muscle mass? Here are three quick tips.

1. Stop doing so much cardio

Nearly all athletes enjoy playing sports more than lifting weights, so they spend a lot of time honing their skills on the field or court. But if you want to put on muscle mass, playing your sports for hours on end probably won't help.

Strength and endurance compete directly against each other. Sports like basketball and soccer are cardiovascular in nature, so if you're playing one of them all the time, you're facing an uphill battle if your goal is to gain size.

How to Build Muscle

Are you looking to grow muscle mass and burn calories more efficiently? It doesn't happen overnight (as any bodybuilder can tell you) but you'll be well on your way to adding muscle mass to your frame as you follow these steps consistently.

Part 1 Diet

1.Increase your caloric consumption. For example, if you are currently consuming 2,000 calories a day, boost that to about 2,500 calories or even more. But make sure that you're eating clean, and are not eating too much.

2. Get enough protein to support muscle growth. Aim for between 1-1.8 grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight. For example, if you weigh 180lb, take in at least 81-146g—or about 2.8-5oz—of protein every day.

THE FIT FIVE: BODY-WEIGHT EXERCISES FOR MUSCLE-BUILDING

Our expert explains the secrets to building muscle with body-weight exercises.

Fitness enthusiasts around the world have always advocated for body-weight exercises, but to the beginner and even some seasoned lifters these exercises may seem trivial. In order to dispel this myth, we asked Andrew Sakhrani, C.S.C.S., a Montreal-based strength coach explains the importance of weight-free exercise.

Q1: What's the best way to warm up my shoulders without weights or cables?

“Start off with some foam rolling; myofascial release helps to remove some of the minor knots and wakes up the muscle groups you roll on. Then go over to the wall and do some wall slides by having your elbows bent 90 degrees against the wall and trying to slide your arms as high as possible without letting the elbows leave the wall. Finally, take a long dowel and hold it farther than shoulder-width apart and perform shoulder rotations by lifting the dowel over your head and behind your back.”

Top 10 Mass Building Tips

You want to build muscle and get lean.  And you don’t have all day to read about all the meaningless minutia. You just need to know precisely what to do. So read these mass building tips and you’ll be on your way to the physique you want.

The good news is you don’t need tons of fancy equipment or a thousand dollar a month supplement bill.  Its not complicated. This is simple stuff, my friends…

1) Do 3 Hard Strength Training Workouts Per Week

Some guys can train more often than this but for most average people with busy, stressful lives three sessions does the job quite nicely. This is especially true if you are doing other physical activities such as hill sprints, jumping rope, and playing sports on a regular basis.

And you should be. I highly recommend a bare minimum of one 20-minute HIIT (high intensity interval training) session per week. Most people would be stay leaner and healthier from doing two.