Six Things You Must Have In Any Muscle Building Program

If you’re looking to pack on solid muscle mass, you’ll
definitely want to read this article.

Because there’s a lot of confusion on how to gain muscle mass
and what it really takes. I want to give you 6 areas you
absolutely, positively must focus on in any muscle building
program you decide to use:

1: The proper amount of calories.

Since your diet is one of the most important keys to gaining
muscle mass, you really need to know HOW many calories to eat,
WHAT types of food to eat, and WHEN you should be eating them!

If you consistently under eat, you will NOT gain muscle mass.
However, if you tend to overeat a lot, you will likely gain body
fat.

So you have to be pretty accurate with your calorie intake in
order to gain muscle mass without a lot of fat.

2: The correct approach to training in the gym.

Any muscle building program should give you MASS building
techniques so that you can gain quality muscle weight, not just
fat.

You want to make sure you’re not training too many days. That
will stop your body from recovering and your muscles from
repairing themselves.

You also want to make sure you’re not doing too many exercises,
reps, and sets because that too could lead to overtraining.

We’ll touch more on it below, but the best approach for building
muscle is to stick with the basic compound exercises (bench,
squats, deadlifts, barbell curls) and use lower reps and just a
few heavy sets.

3: The best possible supplements to help pack on weight.

Let’s get this straight…you do NOT need supplements to gain
muscle. You need calories. And I’ve used just about every
supplement on the market and many are a complete waste of money!
However, there are a few exceptions and some can help you in the
muscle gaining process, if you decide to use them.

The main supplements worth taking to gain quality muscle would
have to be protein (whey, milk, or egg), creatine, glutamine,
EFA’s, a multivitamin, and meal replacements.

Save your hard-earned money and time by avoiding the useless
ones.

4: The proper amount of sets and reps for muscle growth without
muscle breakdown.

Like we talked about above, you want to make sure you’re setting
up your weight training to be the best use of your time and
energy.

Most people train the wrong way for muscle growth. What I mean
is, they do way too many reps and sets, thinking more is better.

A lower rep and set range is proven to speed up lean muscle
growth while minimizing muscle breakdown.

After all, muscle growth occurs from overload. And it makes
sense that one of the quickest ways to increase overload (weight
lifted) is to lessen the amount of reps and increase the amount
of weight.

5: The right balance of protein, carbs, and fats.

If you don’t get enough protein, you WILL NOT gain muscle. If
you consume too many fat calories, you’ll gain mostly fat and
not muscle. So it’s important that you get the right breakdown
of protein, fats, and carbs for your specific body type.

Most advice shows that 50% of your calories should come from
protein, 40% from carbs, 10 % from fats. But this is just a
guideline. Find what works best for you and stick with that.

6: The right approach to cardio so that you do not burn off all
your hard earned muscle weight.

Depending on your goals, cardio may help or actually hurt your
chances of gaining weight. If you’re really looking to gain more
weight fast, you may not want to be doing cardio at all.

That way, you don’t risk losing weight and muscle by expending
calories that could have been used for muscle building.

If you’re looking to lose body fat while still gaining muscle, 3
to 5 cardio sessions a week is plenty.

For someone wanting to pack on the weight, I’d stick with just a
couple sessions, none if you’re really desperately trying to
gain weight.

Those are 6 basic areas you want to focus on with any muscle
building program you use.

The main points again are:

1. Find out the proper amount of calories you need to gain
muscle weight without adding a lot of fat.

2. You want to set up your weight training to be the best use of
time and energy in the gym. This includes how often to train,
how many muscle groups, and how long to rest, both between sets
and between workouts.

3. If you decide to invest in supplements, stick with the proven
ones like protein, creatine, and glutamine.

4. Using lower reps and fewer sets means you can use more
intensity and overload on the muscles. High reps with low weight
does nothing for muscle building.

5. Out of your total daily calorie needs, you want to ensure
you’re getting the proper ratio of protein, carbs, and fats. You
can start with the 50-40-10 ratio or 40-40-20 and go from there,
depending on your results.

6. If you want to gain mass quickly, you may want to consider
dropping cardio altogether. Or else, 3 to 5 sessions should be
more than enough to continue gaining muscle while shedding fat.

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