17 Muscle Building Facts I’ve Discovered

I’ve been a personal trainer and natural bodybuilder for the
past 5 years. During that time, I’ve discovered a lot of muscle
building facts and fitness observations.

I wanted to share some of the most important ones with you, in
this article.

Here are 17 of the most important muscle building facts I’ve
learned over the years.

1. People do not see great results with their muscle building
endeavors simply because they are misinformed and misled as to
what works and needs to be done. My job as a trainer is to
inform and to educate people as to what really works.

2. In order to stay with your fitness routine for the long run,
you need to identify the “why” behind what you’re doing.
Uncover, specifically, what you want to change and why you want
to change. Use this to become your driving force.

3. You absolutely must associate pleasure with your muscle
building routine and pain with not committing to your fitness
routine. Humans by nature do things that are pleasurable and
avoid things that create pain.

4. We are after long-term, permanent results, so there will be
no quick fixes and gimmicks. We are going to create a lifestyle
change that will be easy to live with. No counting calories or
points, just make better choices and healthier, moderate
portions.

5. Always think quality over quantity. This means more working
out is not better when it comes to building muscle, better is
better. Most people I come in contact with work out too much and
eat too little.

6. The key to permanent fat-loss is to speed up your metabolism.
Once this is done, weight-loss becomes permanent.

7. The whole process of changing your body takes time. Commit
yourself to at least three months to literally transform your
body. You may see some results before then, but three months is
what it takes to see great results.

8. During the first couple weeks of a muscle building program,
you’ll notice that your scale weight either doesn’t change or it
may go up a bit.

Throw the scale out the window, it doesn’t distinguish between
fat and muscle, so when you initially gain a bit of muscle at
the start, the scale weight will go up. That’s a good thing.
Over time the scale weight WILL go down.

9. You must eat often and in moderate amounts to speed up your
metabolism. If you eat often, your body utilizes and breaks down
your food often, leading to less stored body fat.

10. Eat 5-6 small meals/snacks throughout the day. The easiest
way to do this is to eat a moderate breakfast, lunch, and
dinner, and then a small snack between breakfast and lunch,
lunch and dinner, and then a small snack at night. You must
condition your body to eat every 3 to 3 1/2 hours. You cannot
restrict calories too much, this will slow down metabolism and
absolutely stop progress dead in its tracks.

11. You must create a synergy between proper nutrition, moderate
aerobic exercise, and intense, brief weight-training. The
answers to weight-loss lie within each one of these. This is why
diets, Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, and other programs are not
long-term successful. One or more of these elements is missing.

12. Small, steady steps will lead to progression, which will
lead to results, which will increase motivation, which will
again increase results, which in turn will lead to long-term
change.

13. For best results with building muscle and losing fat, 5 days
a week, 30 minutes a day is most beneficial. More than 5 days
and you risk overtraining. Less than 5 days and you may not see
optimal muscle building results.

14. You must incorporate resistance weight-training into your
weight-loss efforts. Fat is metabolized by muscle, muscle
literally will burn more calories just to maintain itself.
Increased lean muscle tissue helps your body to speed up its
metabolism (again, increased metabolism being the key to
weight-loss.

15. Too much aerobic activity will be counterproductive to your
muscle building efforts. 2-3 days a week, 20-30 minutes each
session is optimal. Again, more is not better, better is better.

16. Diets do not work, so never try to diet. Diets are a flawed
method which create to much pain (pain/pleasure principle). You
can diet for a short time, but the physical and psychological
cravings come, leading you to binge and eat more than you would
have.

17. Pick one day a week and cheat. Eat anything you want, and I
mean anything, but just make it a moderate amount. Then be
strict for the other 6 days a week.

These were some of the most important muscle building facts I’ve
learned over the past 5 years. Follow as many as you can and
you’ll soon see more results from your time spent in the gym.

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