If you’re looking to pack on solid LEAN muscle mass, then this is the article for you.
Let’s be honest with ourselves… There’s a lot of confusion on how to gain muscle mass and what it really takes. And to be honest, there’s a lot of downright lies by the media, food companies, and supplement industry. Hey, it’s a billionaire dollar industry. Of course they will be lies! We have supplement ads everywhere we go, and 99% of them complete and utter shi—I mean, crap. In fact I’d go as far as to say that a good 70% of them have far worse side effects than any “steroids” taken (I said taken, not abused). I want to give you 6 areas you absolutely, positively, must focus on in any muscle building program you decide to use:
- 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 are one of those who tends 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 training intense. And I mean intense. If you are upping your calories you should be upping the weight, reps, or sets you do. This will force your body to build muscle faster and use more calories for rebuilding lean muscle mass.
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, overhead press, and then add in isolations for any of the other muscle groups). Rotating rep and set schemes every 3 weeks or so is quite important. Of course, if you are doing 3×8 or 5×5 and still making progress. I.e. adding weight, using less rests between sets, etc. Then there’s no need to switch it up yet. However, once you find progression hard to get past. It’s time to switch it up.
How do I switch it up you say? Well, let’s say you’ve been doing 5 sets of 5. 3 sets of 15 is quite a dramatic change.
- 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. I’ve used just about every supplement on the market, as have many of my athletes, and most of them are useless. However, there are a few exceptions to the game, and some can aid you in the muscle gaining process, if you decide to use them.
I will give you information on which products I recommend.
The main supplements worth taking to gain quality muscle would have to be protein (whey, milk, or egg), Creatine, BCAA (also known as branch chain amino acids) EFA’s, a multivitamin, and of course, Omega-3 fish oil.
Save your hard-earned money and time by avoiding the useless ones.
I recommend a GOOD whey protein powder. A mixture of casine and whey is always useful. What’s the reason I recommend this? You’re at work, college, or whatever you do. You can simply take a bottle of water with you, a scoop or two of protein powder in the shake. It’s time for a meal? Well you can just throw in some water shake and voila! You have an instant meal.
But which protein powder should I use? A lot of people will tell you there really isn’t a difference. However, this is crap. You want quality protein powder. So here are the two I recommend to you. The first one is for those dieting and on a low carb diet. The second one is similar to a weight gainer– with a twist.
What’s the twist? It has Low GI carbs. Yep! It’s not full of junk. So you will actually put on lean muscle mass, not fat!
Optimum Nutrition Standard Double Chocolate For Americans
Optimum Nutrition Standard Double Chocolate For UK
Pick the one that suits you. I’m also not affiliated with any protein or supplement companies, which allows me to give you unbiased answers here.
Optimum Nutrition Post Workout Maximum Recovery For Americans
Optimum Nutrition Post Workout Maximum Recovery For UK
Any other reasons why I recommended the protein powders above to you, besides the facts already mentioned? Well, they are high in BCAA, the building blocks of muscle, and they aren’t full of the crap that many are, so they are “safe”
The other product I recommend is fish oil. Seriously, everyone’s going mad on it now. If you haven’t heard of it, I don’t know where you’ve been! Unfortunately, most people don’t have the right information on how to use this supplement.
In short, the average diet in the USA is defect in Omega 3. It’s been said up to 99% of Americans are deficient in Omega 3s (including athletes). By adding up to 5 grams of this a day, I’ve seen people lose 4/5lbs in just over 10 days, and yes that’s fat loss I’m talking about. Not bad, no?
Omega 3 Softgels Fish Oil
Why did I recommend those brands? Because they are high In Omega 3 and all the essentials required for maximum benefits. If you want a cheaper alternative and you are man enough, try liquid fish oil. Otherwise, you’ll need to get the capsules!
Creatine.
Optimum Nutrition Creatine Creatine Mono
Reflex Creapure Mono Creatine Mono
Finally BCAA. Aka branch chain amino acids.
Dymatize Nutrition BCAA Complex BCAA
BCAA BCAA
These really are a FABULOUS product. Name me another product that is low in calories, helps you maintain muscle mass, helps you INCREASE muscle mass, and helps you burn fat!
Can you? I didn’t think so!
Bonus question? I’m on a budget! What supplements do I need? Obviously you don’t NEED any. However, to get the best results possible, you certainly do. So let’s look at your goals
Build muscle mass? Whey protein, Creatine, and fish oil. (If possible get BCAA, they will really help)
Fat loss and wanting to keep muscle?
Whey protein, BCAA and fish oil.
Optimum Nutrition Standard Double Chocolate
Optimum Nutrition Post Workout Maximum Recovery
Omega 3 Softgels Fish Oil
Optimum Nutrition Creatine Creatine Mono
Reflex Creapure Mono Creatine Mono
Dymatize Nutrition BCAA Complex BCAA
BCAA BCAA
- The proper amount of sets and reps for muscle growth without overtraining.
Like we talked about earlier, you obviously want to make sure you’re setting up your weight training to be the best use of your time and energy. Otherwise, why bother?
Most people train the wrong way for muscle growth. I’d go as far as to say 85% to 90% do. 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.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying stick to this all year round but PROGRESSION is the key.
Doing 10 sets of 10 has its ups and down. Will you build muscle? Yeah, for the first three weeks. After that? You won’t build anything and will certainly lose strength.
After all, muscle growth occurs from overload. And it makes sense that one of the quickest ways to increase overload (weight lifted) is to increase the amount of reps. 25 reps is more than enough to fully stimulate the muscle fibres.
5: The right balance of protein, carbs, and fats.
If you don’t get enough protein, you WILL NOT gain muscle. This is a FACT. Why won’t you build muscle? Because protein is what the body uses to make muscle. Or rather, the amino acids found in it are. Especially the 3 amino acids that are known as the branch chain amino acids. (See why I recommended them so much now?) If you consume too many Calories from bad sources or by mixing carbs and fats together, 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.
It’s also important you pick the right diet to follow and stick to it.
- I’m thinking of using anabolic steroids… what do you recommend?
Deca,
Testosterone,
Winstrol,
GP Oxan (Anavar),
GHRP-2
Clenbuterol,
The list goes on and on. I’d recommend you go to our blog and check out one that is relevant to you such as our “new to steroids” blog page.
Those are 6 basic areas you want to focus on with any muscle building program you use.
The main points I will list below:
- Find out the proper amount of calories you need to gain muscle weight without adding a lot of fat.
- 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.
- If you decide to invest in supplements, stick with the proven ones like protein, Creatine, and glutamine.
- 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.
- 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.
- If you want to gain mass quickly, you may want to consider using anabolic steroids. We are fine answering emails or ask on the forum. We urge you to check out our other blog posts if you are new to anabolics.
