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.
70. Ingest enough calories. You can’t really gain appreciable muscle without calories. A good target range for the 180-pound lifter is 22 to 25 calories per pound of bodyweight per day. That’s about 4,500 calories at the top end.
71. Use fast carbs. Though fast-digesting, high-glycemic carbs aren’t ideal for keeping lean, there are two times during the day when you should make sure you have them: first thing in the morning and postworkout. During these times, your body needs a quick spike in insulin to fill glycogen stores. (Actually, good postworkout carbs can be as simple as white bread or Gummi Bears.)
72. Try chocolate milk. A little bit of chocolate syrup mixed in with your low-fat or skim milk postworkout is as good, if not better, than refueling with a sports drink because of its ideal protein-to-carb ratio. The fast-digesting sugars in the syrup also helps to quickly pump glycogen stores back up to snuff.
73. Hydrate. No matter your goals, getting enough water is a vital part of athletic performance. Because every body function — including anabolism — requires water, you should aim to consume half of your bodyweight in ounces per day. A 180-pounder needs at least 90 ounces, especially if his workouts are intense. Your urine should be pretty close to clear; if it’s dark yellow or cloudy, you may be dehydrated.
74. Snack right. You may not be able to microwave a chicken breast every two to three hours at work or school, which is why you should keep healthy, muscle-friendly snacks handy. Almonds, jerky, protein powder, fruit and protein bars are easy-to-store items that can be accessed between meals.
75. Don’t skip breakfast. Eating a breakfast heavy in quality protein, carbs and fat is a good way to ensure that your day starts off on the right foot anabolically. This meal gets your body back into muscle-building mode after sleep and provides energy for the rest of the day.
76. Be creative. On a get-lean diet, people can go mad eating plate after plate of chicken and broccoli. Same can be said for those on a mass-gain plan — no one wants to eat egg whites and bell peppers every day. It gets boring. Instead, find new recipes that help satisfy your nutritional needs while also providing a welcome switch in the menu.
77. Don’t miss meals. When you get busy, food and water always fall by the wayside. However, with each missed meal, you’re missing out on an opportunity to grow. Instead, prepare all your meals for the day in advance and pack them in individual containers. This makes them easy to access for meals every three hours, as is ideal, and prevents you from heading to the vending machine when four to five hours have elapsed since your last sit-down.
78. Nosh at night. Casein isn’t the only way to grow at night. “Eat a large amount of lean protein and some fish oil right before bed,” says Sean Waxman, CSCS, a former national-level Olympic weightlifter and president of Pure Strength. “The protein will give the body the amino acids it needs to grow, and the fish oil will slow the absorption to maintain positive nitrogen balance longer through the night.”
79. Feed your muscles with protein powder. As you read earlier, protein is a must for maximum muscle and powders are a quick and convenient way to make sure that you’re getting enough. Stock your cabinet with fast-digesting whey for morning, midday and preworkout protein, and add casein for your postworkout and nighttime shakes.
80. Increase your strength and size with creatine. Next from protein, creatine is the MVP in the mass game. Creatine adds strength and size — as much as 5 to 10 pounds in the first few weeks of supplementation — by helping you to get more reps with heavier weight. Take 3 to 5 grams preworkout and postworkout for best results. Creatine monohydrate, the simplest and cheapest form of the stuff, is perfectly effective at helping you gain muscle, but new studies are showing that creatine hydrochloride might be absorbed better by muscles, even in lower doses.
81. Man up with Tribulus terrestris. This testosterone-boosting supplement can boost muscle growth and cause acute improvements in muscle strength. Research shows you should take 250 to 750 milligrams twice a day, with one dose coming an hour before your workout. (If you buy a specific testosterone-boosting product, follow the label directions.)
82. Branch out. Branched-chain amino acids, often referred to as BCAAs, include leucine, isoleucine and valine. These aminos help manufacture and repair damaged muscle tissue, as well as provide energy during workouts. Leucine in particular has been shown to drastically increase protein synthesis. Take 3 to 5 grams with breakfast, preworkout and postworkout, and before hitting the sheets at night.
83. Try HMB. Just starting out? Try taking HMB, or beta-hydroxy beta-methylbutyrate. A metabolite of leucine (see above), HMB helps prevent muscle breakdown, particularly beginners who are exposing their bodies to new stress. Try 3 to 6 grams two to three times per day with food.
84. Pump up your workouts with arginine. Using arginine for size is becoming as much of a no-brainer as the use of creatine. This compound, which enhances your body’s nitric-oxide production, improves blood flow to working muscles, which means more nutrients, oxygen and hormones get where they need to go. It has also been shown to raise growth-hormone levels, which leads to greater strength and size over time. Try 3 to 5 grams before and after workouts, but make sure your postworkout dose is stimulant free if you train late.
85. Recover right with glutamine. Don’t skimp on this crucial amino acid, which can decrease muscle breakdown, delay time to fatigue and increase levels of leucine in muscle fibers. As a bonus, glutamine enhances immunity, which keeps you training at a high level year-round. Take 5 to 10 grams four times per day, including before and after workouts.
86. Top the tank with taurine. Taurine helps you produce more force during workouts and can help you improve your endurance and recovery. Take 1 to 3 grams of taurine preworkout and postworkout.
87. Make room for a multivitamin. If you’re not already taking a multivitamin, the question is, “Why?” Hard-training individuals can suffer from nutritional deficiencies, and a multivitamin helps to correct that. Pick a complete multivitamin and take daily as directed, with food.
88. Supplement with extra vitamin D3. This under-the-radar vitamin is being shown to help increase muscle growth and strength through its interaction with muscle fibers. It can be taken supplementally, but it can also be found in food. “Good sources include milk, salmon, tuna, eggs and fortified orange juice,” White says. In supplement form, aim for 1,000 IU, one to two times daily with food.
89. Fortify your health. In addition to a daily multi and extra vitamin D, it’s recommended that you supplement with essential fatty acids, calcium and probiotics. All three have demonstrated numerous health benefits in clinical studies. Essential fatty acids support the cardiovascular, immune and nervous system. Calcium helps bone strength and is involved in muscle contraction, and probiotics augment the digestive system.
90. Believe the buzz on caffeine. Caffeine is gaining a reputation as a perfect preworkout addition to your usual supplement stack. Taken as caffeine anhydrous in a dose of 200 to 500 milligrams, 30 to 60 minutes before your workout, caffeine can help delay your time to fatigue and cause an immediate increase in strength. One study showed that lifters gained an immediate 5 pounds on their bench press when supplementing with caffeine.
91. Go green. Often found in weight-loss formulas, green-tea extract is a great supplement for general health, too. The active constituents in green tea have strong antioxidant properties, most notably epigallocatechin gallate, or EGCG for short. Green tea has been shown to stabilize cell membranes in the body, lower LDL cholesterol (i.e., the “bad” type of cholesterol), help prevent inflammation, and has positive effects in the battle against cancer growth.
92. Stay abreast of the latest supplement research. Every day, scientists and researchers are hard at work in labs nationwide looking for new compounds and ingredient combinations that can help bodybuilders build muscle and athletes get bigger, stronger and faster. Take advantage of this continually growing wealth of information by keeping on top of it, through this magazine and other reputable outlets. Then put that knowledge to use by shopping at The Vitamin Shoppe.
EQUIPMENT
93. Master the barbell. The barbell has always been — and will always be — the primary implement in the gym for building strength and mass. Perfect your technique on exercises such as the squat, deadlift, bench press, incline bench press, overhead press, upright row and bent-over row, and you’ll be well on your way to new muscle.
94. Master dumbbells. While barbells reign supreme as the No. 1 mass builder in the gym, dumbbells are a very close second, and major muscle makers in their own right. Dumbbells call smaller stabilizer muscles into action because each side of your body is forced to work independent of the other. This greater demand on muscles triggers new growth, not just in the muscle you’re targeting but in the supporting muscles and tissues, as well.
95. Use machines. Machines should never be the main player in your mass-gain plan, but they have their place. Machines allow you to safely overload muscles, even though it’s through a predetermined range of motion, without you needing to worry so much about balance or weights dropping on you.
96. Use cables. Cables are mainly used to “shape” existing muscle but actually provide great muscle-building benefits because of constant tension. Unlike barbells or dumbbells, which usually have an “easy” portion of an exercise, cables keep your muscles working hard from point A to point B. Choose challenging resistance, and cables become a reliable way to gain muscle.
97. Get to know the Smith machine. The Smith machine, which has a barbell contained in a straight, smooth-running vertical track, allows you to perform your heavy barbell work without necessarily having a spotter around. The safety hooks allow you to rack the weight with a flick of the wrist whenever you hit a sticking point. You don’t want to become over-reliant on the Smith, but it’s good to augment an otherwise free-weight-centric mass routine.
98. Strap up. When your grip begins to fail during your back workout, throw on a set of pulling straps. Don’t worry about the effect on your grip or forearm development; worry about your back first. (Back first, grip later.) If your forearm development is a concern, it’s better to add in specific work for them at the end of the workout than compromise the weight you can handle on your back exercises.
99. If you have access to them, try kettlebells. Kettlebell exercises, such as swings and snatches, are a great way to break up the monotony of typical gym training and can help you build more power and strength.
100. Limit belt use. Weight belts help, if you use them sparingly. Wearing a belt at all times never allows the lower-back muscles to strengthen. We suggest that you use one only if you really need it on your heaviest sets including squats, deadlifts, barbell rows and standing overhead presses, in which you require lower-back protection. Skip the belt on other sets so your lower back has to work and can therefore grow stronger.
101. Increase your intensity on bodyweight moves. Dips and pull-ups are two of the best bodyweight exercises you can do for getting bigger and stronger. But when you can manage 10 to 12 good reps on your own, it’s time to add weight. To do this, you can either hold a dumbbell between your feet or wear a dipping belt, which allows you to really pile on the poundage.
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