If you want to not just get strong, but gain muscle size also, then you’re reading the right article!
I talk a lot about strength training and if you haven’t guessed by now I don’t think everyone needs to put on 30 pounds of muscle to get stronger, healthier, and live a better life.
In fact, most people probably like their “natural” weight better… the weight they were “supposed to be at”. Skinny guys may need to gain 10-15 pounds and overweight guys need to drop about the same amount, but by doing regular strength training, a little cardio, and eating clean — those goals are easily achieved.
But I know some of you want to know…
How to Gain Muscle Size!
And that’s what this is about. Here’s the three key things that need to happen in order to give your body the signal to “build muscle because we need more of it!”
1. Training Overload
First is of course your training. You need to overload your body with hard work to the point where it gets the signal to build more muscle because your current level of muscle just aint gonna cut it.
You do this through strength training. But important to note, is that a relatively high amount of both tension (heavy weights) and volume (lots of sets/reps) is necessary for this muscle building stimulus to occur. Just having one or the other in your training is going to limit your gains.
Focusing on compound exercises, like the ones in the DoubleYourGains’ 3-5 program and 25-30 total reps per exercise, per workout, is usually enough to get people growing, maybe more.
2. Excessive Calories
If you workout intensely, and don’t give your body any extra calories, then you’re not going to gain any weight. In fact, this is the biggest hurdle most “hard gainers” face — they have a fast metabolism and can’t eat enough!
Eating is so important to the muscle gaining equation that professional bodybuilders, who use anabolic steroids, will also take drugs that stimulate their appetites so they eat more.
If you wanna gain weight, you gotta eat more, that’s all there is to it. Read my article on diet to gain muscle. There are little tricks and tips though to pack in a ton of calories without being stuffed all the time like drinking milk, etc
3. Sufficient Rest and Relaxation
Your muscles don’t grow in the gym, they grow when you’re out of the gym. If you’re not on steroids, there’s no reason to be in the gym more than 4x per week max (if your goal is to build muscle that is)!
You need to get in, workout hard, get out, eat, eat some more, rest up, then eat some more… and right before you go to sleep — eat some more.
Seriously, as long as you’re on a good weight training program it all comes down to eating, sleeping, and watching your stress levels after that.
So use the 3 tips above to help yourself gain muscle size quickly!