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Bodybuilding is not a simple endeavor. You will need to radically change your lifestyle in order to increase your muscle mass and build an impressive physique. For a great many people, building a powerful, strong, muscular body requires focus, motivation, concentration, and adaptive training. This article examines the most effective ways to build lean muscle fast.

For most beginners, the first six months are the most exciting. If you have managed to stick to the eating plan, use the gym on a regular basis, and plan a decent routine, your results will have been impressive. Beginners add on average 20lbs of lean muscle mass to their bodies in the initial six months. After the first six months however, many bodybuilders tend to hit a plateau.

There are some effective ways to overcome this first plateau, but you are going to have to think intelligently about how you are going to do so. The way to shock your body out of its comfort zone is to increase the resistance in your training. This means adding weight to your exercises! The muscles will adapt to being asked to lift the same amount of weight on a regular basis, and be able to do so without straining. The only way to effectively counteract this is by continually adding more weights and changing your routine.

Even if you have a world-class routine, and you are continuing to increase your load on each exercise regularly, your body can actually get used to the specific order in which you perform your routine. If you keep an accurate log of your workouts, it should be fairly simple to vary them every three or four weeks. You can replace exercises, incorporate new exercises, or just reorder them. How you do this will depend on what you are specifically aiming for, and how much your gains have slowed.

You probably already have a fair idea of what sets and repetitions are, but how many are you supposed to perform? In a general workout routine, you might perform five or six sets of around fifteen repetitions. However, for bodybuilding, high intensity low repetition workouts are much more effective for increasing muscle mass. For each exercise, whether you are using free weights or a machine, you need to aim for two or three sets containing eight repetitions.

You may have some unpleasant recollections of your high school gym instructor lecturing you on the importance of good form. Though it is not the most exciting parts of your new endeavor, form is critically important to your success. We have all seen huge, professional bodybuilders pressing, lifting, pulling, and pushing enormous weights. Most of us have probably been so impressed, that we haven’t really examined HOW they are doing this. If they have been moving the weight in a carefully controlled fashion, that really is impressive, but conversely, if they have been squirming, wriggling, bending, and stretching to get the weight to its destination, this poor form will cause them injury at some point.

There are two specific reasons why form is so important: safety and effectiveness. If you are a wriggler and generally squirming when exercising, you will find that your muscles, joints, and sockets are forced into unnatural positions – which will cause injury to your knees, hips, back, and shoulders. The effectiveness of the exercise is greatly reduced by improper form because the focus shifts from the intended target. This not only reduces your gains in the target muscle groups, but it will also put a huge strain on unintended recipients – some of which were not intended to be strained this way.

If you have done any kind of research on bodybuilding exercises you will probably have found thousands of varieties. The type of exercises that you choose to include in your routine will greatly impact your results. Core exercises, which stimulate many muscle groups at once, are a much better use of time and effort than focusing on smaller muscles which do not have the capacity to grow as much. An example of this would be focusing solely on bicep curls. As a bodybuilder, you would not expect to see huge all-round gains from a routine that only focused on one comparatively small area of the body. Using core exercises, such as shoulder presses, deadlifts, squat, dips, rows, or pull ups, you will not only stimulate the bicep, but you will also increase muscle mass in the other surrounding areas coincidentally.

Improving your diet is another excellent way to ensure you get the most from your hard work. You should aim to eat six evenly-spaced, protein-packed meals each and every day. These meals should be supplemented with an adequate water intake. It takes your body much longer to hydrate than dehydrate, so ensure you drink enough!

One fact that is little known, and therefore sadly under-utilized is that your muscles actually rebuild themselves whilst you are resting. It might be tempting to go into the gym twice a day and work yourself to a frazzle, but by pacing yourself and resting, you are actually doing your body more favors.

So, to recap on the seven most effective ways to expediently increase the amount of lean muscle mass in your body: rest, drink plenty of water, eat properly, use core/compound exercises, lift heavier weights, keep good form, and vary your routine when you find yourself hitting a frustrating plateau. Follow these key steps and you will surely start to gain lean muscle fast.

Five times a week, two hours each visit. You’ve been more faithful to your gym schedule than you’ve ever been to any girlfriend you’ve had. And for a while it paid off: those muscles started rippling and the girls started paying attention.

But then, like a bad dream you wake up from, your muscles suddenly wasn’t growing like what it used to do. Your muscles stop responding to your heavy workout no matter how intensely you’ve been training. So you said to yourself, now I will train harder. So now you put in three hours a session and but even as you upped your gym dosage, horrors of horrors, your muscles are actually shrinking.

Ahhhhh, the Gym Plateau. It afflicts all of us and few of us ever gotten out of it. In fact, most people don’t even know that they have hit the dreaded plateau and thought that their muscles can only grow so much due to inherent genetic factors. Not to worry though, if you read the following fitness tips, and follow these tips to the latter, I can assure you that your muscles will start growing again and grow bigger they will.

Here are your free fitness tips.

Fitness Tip #1
Take A Break

This tip is easy to comply for most of us but very difficult for some gym rats. Simply take a break from your workout. Do not step into the gym or do any workout for 2 weeks. Its time to let your body recover from the punishments you are dishing out to your muscles. Some bodybuilders may find this difficult to do because working out is addictive. You produce endorphin when you workout and endorphin is also known as happy hormone. The same hormone you produce when having sex.

Professional bodybuilders take a break after every 4-5 months of hard training and when they are back in the gym, they shock their well rested but complacent muscles back into massive muscle gain.

Fitness Tip #2
Are you training too often?

If your exercises are intense enough, you need only to train each muscle group once or twice a week. Your training schedule shouldn’t repeat muscle groups in the same week. Every time you train, you do your muscles damage. Muscles need time to repair and it does so in the after your training when you are resting. This means that if you lift weights on consecutive days, there isn’t sufficient time for the body to recover. Try to have one day rest between each weight lifting day.

If your routine requires intensive weight training, remember not to prolong your gym time longer than an hour. This is because your cortisol, a muscle eating hormone level will be elevated and thus will be counter productive to your efforts. It eats your muscles.

Most of all, you must sleep! Eight hours or even better, go for ten hours. Muscles do not grow in the gym; they grow when you sleep. When you sleep, you are secreting growth hormones for many bodily functions and one of those functions is to build muscles. That is why they called it beauty sleep!

Fitness Tip #3
Are you using the correct weight lifting techniques?

If your technique or form is incorrect, not only is your training retarded, you are also inviting injury. Don’t laugh. But when you exercise you must think and focus, instead of mindlessly repeating the motions, do take note of how you perform each exercise and rep. Do so with deliberation and at the beginning and end of every lift, pause and squeeze the muscles you are exercising. Mind and muscle must connect! Never never use momentum of the swing to lift the weights and let gravity pull the weight down. That is why you must lift slowly and lower slowly feeling the tension in your muscles and resisting the load all the time.

In order for muscles to want to grow, you have to stress them to the maximum, and then further. Do enough repetitions until you feel you cannot go any further using good form. You must then either increase the weight or the number of repetitions at the next session. This is called progressive overload, and progressive overload is what forces your muscles to grow. As a general guide, if you can lift more than 12 reps the weight is probably too light and it is too heavy if your muscles fail you in less than 5 reps. You may wish to consult your physical fitness trainer on the correct form and technique for each exercise.

Fitness Tip #4
Are you using free weights?

Most machines do not involve as much of the synergistic muscles (supporting muscles) as free weights do. And, therefore, do not build as much muscle mass. Synergistic muscles are the smaller muscles that aid the main muscles in balance and strength in each lift. Machines has its uses, but for beginners and for smashing plateaus, use free weights.

Fitness Tip#5
Workout with compound exercises

Compound exercises are exercises that involve 2 or more joint movements and thereby employing bigger muscles and more synergistic muscles . Bench presses, dead lifts, squats, and barbell curls amongst others are fantastic compound exercises . For example, when you squat , all the muscles in your lower body get a workout and that alone is about 60 percent of your overall musculature . Squat also works your back and abs too. Using more muscles at one go means that you get a better overall workout. To add icing to the cake, because of the massive utilization of your muscles , you will pant, huff and sweat more. That means your routine also has a cardio effect and you will burn calories even hours after you stepped out of the gym .

Fitness Tip#6
Are you working out your legs?

Your body is programmed to grow proportionately with only slight variations. If you do not train your legs, your upper body mass will stop growing before it becomes large. Surely, you’ve heard of chicken legs! Just because leg training can be brutal, it doesn’t give you reason to hide your legs in your pants. To get that super hero X-frame, pepper your routine with squats . A word of caution though: compound exercises such as dead lifts, squats, and bench presses must be done in excellent form and a spotter is highly recommended. This is where your physical fitness trainer will come in handy as your spotter. If not, injuries are bound to happen and that may put you permanently out of the gym.

Fitness Tip#7
What are you eating?

Muscle building requires protein – the more, the better. Meat, especially red meats and fish, are the best source. It is in your food that your body will draw nutrients from, for strength and necessary fats for joint and organ protection.

To have massive muscle gain and help in muscle preservation , you need about 2-3 grams of good protein per kilogram of your body weight . If you want to get serious about muscles , you may need to supplement them with protein shakes . Eating a meal and having a protein shake immediately after your workout also maximizes the window for rapid absorption of nutrients. This is important as you need to feed the muscles now that you have damaged them. You should also 6 small meals a day so your muscles are constantly fed throughout the day. This will help rev up your metabolism to burn fat too. This will tremendously help you in your build muscle lose weight program. Remember to take your protein shake half an hour before you workout too.

Fitness Tip#8
How about Carbs?

Glycogen is the main energy source for any muscle-building exercise. The body stores whatever carbohydrates you eat as glycogen and muscles use it to give you energy during your workout. After an intense workout, do consume carbohydrates immediately to replace the used glycogen. You can even indulge in high glycemic carbs such as ice creams and white bread as these will turn into insulin and shuttles nutrients such as protein to your muscle cells quickly.

Fitness Tip #9
And Fats?

Yes, your body do need do need fats . But try to avoid saturated fats such as animal fats or worse, trans fats which are artificial fats found in pastries, confectionaries and preserved food. Consume healthy unsaturated fats such as olive oil, canola oil, fish oils, flax seed oil.

Fitness Tip#10
Water Water is essential.

Water is essential. It is the most underrated macronutrient. You need at least eight glasses of water every day but when you exercise , you lose even more water because of the sweating. So drink before, during and after your workout. Weigh yourself before and after the workout, and compensate for the loss by drinking at least 16 ounces of fluid for every pound or half a kg lost.

Fitness Tip#11
Creatine

While meats are the best source for creatine, which is a nutrient that helps speed up muscle gain and power you up during workouts, those who do not get enough from their regular diet must be supplemented. Creatine puts volume into your muscle cells and gives you that muscle pump thus your muscles feels tighter, look bigger and overall illusion of superb muscularity . It also helps to prevent muscle breakdown.

Fitness Tip#12
Glutamine

When supplemented, it may help bodybuilders reduce the amount of muscle wasting away or used up as energy. It also helps in muscle recovery.

Fitness Tip #13
Do you change your routine?

The human body is fantastic at adaptation. So whatever routine you are on, your body will get used to it. So do change your routine every 6-8 weeks. For example, instead of working out your chest muscles at the start of your workout, work your back muscles instead. You can reverse your whole routine or change the variations of your exercises or add new ones and take away some old ones. By changing your routines, you not only shock your muscles to new growth, it will also prevent boredom by doing the same thing all the time.

Progressive muscle relaxation [PMR] is a relaxation technique of stress management developed by American physician Edmund Jacobson in 1934. This progressive muscle relaxation technique is focused on tensing and releasing tensions in the 16 different muscle groups. Jacobson reasoned that since muscular tension is usually followed as a by product of anxiety, one can lower and reduce anxiety by understanding and learning how to self relax those muscular tension. (McCallie et al., 2006)

Joseph Wolpe (Conrad and Roth, 2006 ) further adjusted this technique for use with systematic desensitization in 1948. Subsequently, both Bernstein and Borkovec in 1973 (Bernstein and Borkovec, 1973) came out with adjustments to the technique to suit cognitive behavioral stress management. Empirical proofs also supports the use of progressive muscle relaxation in high level tension responses and mind body techniques such as: irritable bowel syndrome, insomnia, reducing tension headaches, adjunct treatment in cancer and chronic pain management in inflammatory arthritis.(McCallie et al., 2006)

Let us take a closer look at what exactly is progressive muscle relaxation and how does this technique work. The idea behind progressive muscle relaxation is simply that of isolating one muscle group at a time, then intentionally creating muscle tension for 8-10 seconds, and then allowing the muscle to totally relax so as to release the tensions.

Taking for instance, when we take our right hand and tighten it into a fist with all our force, we can feel the muscle tension slowly increase in our hand and all the way up to the forearm. The longer we hold the tension and force, the more tense the arm becomes. The body will then become conscious that it does not feel comfortable in this position at all, where pain might even start to occur.

The above demonstrates an instance of intentionally exaggerated muscle tension in the body. When such tension exists around the forehead, one would usually experience headache and if it is around the neck area, a neck ache would be experienced. When the body continued to hold the muscle tension and then all at once, relax and totally let go, a difference will be felt when the hand is allowed to flop down onto the lap. The muscles around the arm now start to relax, and the muscle tension slowly flows away and disappears.

Based on the principle of muscle physiology, this process of relaxation is proven to work. The muscle has to relax whenever tension is being created in a muscle and then release. This happens because the muscle does not have a choice and it must react in this manner.

The interesting part of this process is that the muscle will not only quickly relax back to its pre-tensed state, and when it is allowed to rest, the muscle will become even more relaxed that it was before the tension was created. When this procedure of creating tension in the muscles and then releasing of the tension is applied to every major muscle group of the body, all of these muscles will become more relaxed prior to the beginning.

The main idea to initiating the relaxation response in this way is to take control of the voluntary muscles through creation of tension in them, followed by forcing them into a state of relaxation. When the body is aware of the presence of the tension, it will respond by triggering the muscles to relax, where the rest of the other components of the relaxation response will naturally follow.

Lesser oxygen is needed for relaxed muscle and hence the rate of breathing is slow. Since the heart does not require to be beating so fast to supply oxygen out to tense muscles, heart rate and blood pressure decline. Thus the normal blood flow will returns to the belly and digestion resumes where the belly is calmed and also the hands and feet are warmed up. As a result, this series of body adaptations all occur and fall naturally into place as the voluntary muscles are being directed into a state of relaxation, and changes in mood followed which make the body feeling calm and refreshed.

The progressive muscle relaxation procedure teaches you to relax your muscles through a two steps process. Through repetitive practices, the body quickly learns to recognize and differentiate the associated feelings between a tensed muscle and a completely relaxed muscle. Using this simple knowledge, the body can then induce physical muscular relaxation when the body first becomes aware of the signs of the tension that accompanies anxiety. With physical relaxation, the mental will also be more readily focused and able to maintain more calm.

To further enhance the benefits of being both physically and mentally relaxed, the body need to always stay as relaxed as possible. This is achievable if there is a positive transfer of the muscle relaxation technique into daily activities. Using the principle of Taichi, it focuses on slow rhythmic movements in a graceful manner where they mind and body is in a relaxed condition while the body is maintaining the correct postural alignment.

When we talked about the body being in a relaxed position, it does not mean that the muscles are not being used. In fact, Taichi can be considered as a high intensity aerobic exercise when practiced using the correct scientific approach and postural alignment. However, for many amateur Taichi practitioners, it is often difficult for them to maintain both physically and mentally relaxed especially when they are too focus on trying to remember the Taichi movements and applying the taichi principles.

Thus, the progressive muscle relaxation techniques offer a good foundation or pathway where individual can use it to initiate the body relaxation, then transferring this relaxation state into Taichi practice where it can further be used to achieve both mind and body relaxation and lastly to habitualise it into daily activities.

Hence, as we can see there is a positive transfer of muscle relaxation from practicing progressive muscle relaxation technique to taichi and lastly to maintain this state of well being and feeling of relaxation during normal daily physical activities.

To begin practicing the progressive muscle relaxation technique, we can either sit in a comfortable chair or lying on the bed. The main objective is to get as comfortable as possible, and tries to avoid wearing any tight clothes or shoes and also not to cross the legs. As for the breathing, take a gradual deep breath and let it slow gradually and slowly.

What we are going to perform is alternately tensing and relaxing specific major groups of muscles. After tension is released, the muscle will become even more relaxed than before the tensing. Focus on the feel of the muscles, especially the distinction between tension and relaxation. Over time, the body will become aware of any tension felt in any specific muscle and be able to reduce that tension. This is known as kinesthetic awareness. Before performing the progressive muscle relaxation, if one has any problems regarding pulled muscles, broken bones, or any medical contraindication for physical activities, need to consult the doctor first.

1. Hands – Clench the fists tightly to tense it and then relaxed. Next, the fingers are extended fully to create tension and relaxed.

2. Biceps and triceps – Elbow flexion to tense the biceps and relaxed by dropping the arm. Next, the triceps are tensed up and then relaxed by dropping them.

3. Shoulders – Pull back the shoulders to tense the muscle and then relax them. Next, push the shoulders forward or hunch it to create tension and then relax.

4. Neck (lateral) – Keep the shoulders in a neutral and relaxed position, the head is then rotated slowly to the right, as far as possible and then relax. Next rotate to the left and relax.

5. Neck (forward) – Press down the chin and tuck into your chest to tense the muscle and then relax. Hyper extension of the neck is not advisable as it could create too much stress on the neck.

6. Mouth – Open up the mouth as wide as possible to create tension and then relaxed. Next, the lips are pressed together as tightly as possible to create tension and then relaxed.

7. Eyes – Open the eyes as wide as possible to tense the muscle and then relax. Next, close the eyes tightly to tense it and then relax.

8. Gluteus – Press the gluteus together tightly and raise pelvis slightly off chair to create tension and then relax.

9. Quadriceps – Fully extend both legs and raise them above the ground to tense the muscles and then relax. Next, press the feet (heels) into the floor or foot rest to create tension and then relax.

10. Abdominal – Suck in the stomach as much as possible to create tension and then relax completely. Next, push out the stomach to create tension and then relax.

11. Calves and feet – Plantar flexion to create tension and then relax. Next, dorsi flex as much as possible to create tension and then relax.

12. Toes – Fully extend the toes outward to create tension and then relax. Next, bend the toes up as far as possible to create tension and then relax.

Lastly, let the whole body to remain relax for a while and feel the relaxation of all the muscles. After continued practices, there should be a gradual progression in muscle relaxation and then habitualising this into Taichi practices and finally to daily activities. These relaxation exercises will not eliminate tension, but when it arises, the body will be aware immediately, and the body will be able to respond positively to remove the tension away.

REFERENCES

BERNSTEIN, D. A. & BORKOVEC, T. D. (1973) Progressive relaxation training: A manual for the helping profession. Champaign, IL: Research Press.

CONRAD, A. & ROTH, W. T. (2006 ) Muscle relaxation therapy for anxiety disorders: It works but how? Journal of Anxiety Disorders Volume 21, Pg 243-264.

HOLLAND, J., MORROW, G., SCHMALE, A., DEROGATIS, L., STEFANEK, M., BERENSON, S., CARPENTER, P., BREITBART, W. & FELDSTEIN, M. (1991) A randomized clinical trial of alprazolam versus progressive muscle relaxation in cancer patients with anxiety and depressive symptoms. Journal of Clinical Oncology, Vol 9.

MCCALLIE, S, M., BLUM, M, C., HOOD & J, C. (2006) Progressive Muscle Relaxation. Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, Volume 13, Number 3, 13 July 2006 , pp.51-66(16).

OHMORI, F., SHIMIZU, S. & KAGAYA, A. (2007) Exercise-induced blood flow in relation to muscle relaxation period. Vol 6

SERMSAK LOLAK, M., L, G., CONNORS, J, M., SHERIDAN & WISE, T. N. (2008) Effects of Progressive Muscle Relaxation Training on Anxiety and Depression in Patients Enrolled in an Outpatient Pulmonary Rehabilitation Program. Vol. 77, No. 2, 2008

If you are serious about building muscle then listen up, I’m going to share with you two critical moments crucial for fast and healthy muscle building. This article alone can save you years of wasted effort. Armed with this knowledge virtually anyone should be able to make tremendous gains and add pounds of drug free muscle to their physique.

I won’t explain things like stable isotope tracer technology, immunohistochemical muscle fiber typing or powerful microarray methods but I want you to know that although I’m not scientist myself all I’m saying here is backed up with hardcore muscle building science. There is huge the difference in results of those who use scientifically proved results and those who don’t. Science is contributing enormously to a better understanding of the factors that ultimately control the size of muscle mass growth.

Why muscles grow at all?

Stimulating muscle protein synthesis process underlines changes in the size of muscle mass. High stimulation of muscle protein synthesis is absolutely essential to gaining muscle. It does not sound like incredible, scientific revelation, isn’t it? Well, maybe it doesn’t sound so but be sure, it’s essential factor for generation of new muscle tissue and I will explain why. Without a doubt, muscle mass growth is complex subject matter. There are many, many factors that influence the muscle growth process including, but not limited to, physical activity, hormones, disease, age, genetic factors as well as the quality and quantity of nutrition.

But I’m going to show you how to utilize scientifically proved facts to your advantage. This can really save you months or even years of wasted time, particularly if you are one of those guys or gals that have to work their butt off just to add a molecule of muscle to their frame. If you really want to build muscle and transform your physique an ultra-high (24h long) stimulation of muscle protein synthesis is the name of the game you need to play. Many experts like Paul Delia explain that “muscle is protein and protein is muscle” and although that is fact there are other factors that work against your ability to build muscle.

You should keep in mind that constant synthesis and breakdown of muscle tissue is a process that never stops in our bodies. Even if you perform no physical activities at all, muscle proteins are constantly being broken down and regenerated (scientists call this process protein turnover).

As I have explained, this process never stops but it can speed up or slow down in response to various circumstances. For example, dieting (calorie restriction) slows down this process. Aging also slows down protein turnover, or the rate at which new muscle proteins are regenerated. Alternatively, after you’ve hit the gym for your expertly planed workout system, protein turnover is accelerated, enormously.

What’s happening within your muscles has an enormous impact on the entire body. You see, muscle tissue is the body’s largest reservoir of bound and unbound proteins (it constitutes 50-75% of all proteins in the human body), this means that muscle protein turnover is synonymous with whole body protein turnover. In other words, muscle is drawn upon constantly to supply the amino acids that are required for a vast array of physiological demands, every single day. Same thing like with the bank account, if you don’t make some rather substantial deposits, the balance just keeps diminishing.

Scientific keys to rapid muscle building

What we need is to increase the synthesis rate of muscle proteins so that it runs faster than they are broken down. We need complete program (nutrition and exercise program) which is design to boost up the muscle protein synthesis. Science has confirmed that lifting weights has the potential to cause a tremendous increase in muscle protein synthesis but regular training diminishes this response, therefore the most important question is what type of weight training program is most effective at providing a high stimulation of muscle protein synthesis? Good point, is it not? Off course it is, but so many people fail to use results from scientific studies and therefore often fail in their attempts. For you muscle research buffs, seminal work completed by Baar & Esser confirmed that the degree of overload placed on muscle correlates with the magnitude of stimulation of muscle protein synthesis and the subsequent increase in muscle mass.

In other words, muscle mass gains are directly proportional to the stimulation of muscle protein synthesis which, in turn is proportional to the amount of overload placed on muscle. Inanse muscle gain program is a complete answer for all man and women because it is based on hardcore muscle building science. It is not for those who wait for magic beans or mambo jambo to happen. This is quite clear formula folks: “High & proper overload = high stimulation of muscle protein synthesis = more muscle “. If your muscle building program is based on this principal than you are on good track and you do have already excellent results without steroids usage. Just stay away from any weight training program and technique which deviate from this fundamental rule.

So if you want to build muscle, there are two rules that you must understand.

The first is, the stimulation of muscle protein synthesis is the critical regulatory event that leads to muscle growth. The second is that the intensity and method of overload placed on muscle determines the magnitude of stimulation of muscle protein synthesis.

Among the many muscle groups, chest muscle (pectorals) is often considered the most “showy” muscle; hence it is hardly a surprise that quite a number of men tend to focus on developing this muscle group to the point of sheer obsession. It’s definitely not in the best interest of your body to over train your pectorals (or any other muscle group for that matter) as this would only lead to miniscule results or worse, excruciating injury such as pectoral tear.

Now admittedly, I was also guilty of over training this muscle group. The chest is often regarded as one of the most appealing part of the body hence many women find men with muscular chest sexually attractive. Anyway, I was a skinny hardgainer and extremely eager to improve my physique, so I started training my chest at least 3 times per week and performed all kinds of exercises in order to build my chest muscle and hopefully, attract the ladies as well (sad, I know). Alas, after several weeks of consistent training, I decided to throw in the towel as the efforts that I put in did not seem to indicate even an ounce of promise. I knew there was something amiss so as they say; ‘it’s back to the drawing board’.

I did a lot of research on this matter and plodded through various online and offline sources offering so-called “secret tips and tactics” to develop a killer chest. Most of them are utter nonsense! Finally it came to my attention that in order to build decent looking chest muscle fast; one has to focus on these 4 key factors:

1. Focus on presses – Start channeling your efforts on proven mass maker exercises. I’m referring to basic pressing compound movements such as barbell/dumbbell bench press and chest dips. These are the exercises that can truly make a difference to the overall development of your pectorals compared to dumbbell flyes or barbell/dumbbell pullovers. I used to believe that performing flyes consistently will help to create “razor sharp definition” around the outer part of the chest, no thanks to a dubious tip I discovered in many muscle publications and websites.

Now I’m not implying that flyes and pullover exercises are utter useless. They should also be considered every now and again, however pressing compound movements must be treated as the primary arsenal of your chest pumping workout. For bench workout, do mix in incline and decline presses to facilitate growth in the upper and lower part of your chest respectively.

2. Focus on gradual positive progression – Building highly developed pecs may take some time especially if you’re hardgainer, but it’s not impossible to have a noticeably muscular chest in a relatively short period of time. The key is to focus on slow but gradual positive weekly progression. This means that you must improve upon your previous workout session by either increasing the poundage, or add a rep or two and perform the exercise to total failure. I can assure you that this tactic can help you build a noteworthy chest muscle fast, generally in a matter of weeks provided that you employ them consistently, week in, week out.

3. Focus on intensity not frequency – As mentioned earlier, I was so desperate to pack on a decent set of pecs that I completely over trained them. Learn to minimize training frequency as intensity level is actually the key to transforming your chest from a flat, barren landscape, to barrels of massive proportion! Stop training your chest 3 to 4 times per week because it won’t make any difference, trust me. It is best that you train your chest with maximum intensity once per week using the progression tactic for optimum development. This also applies to other muscle groups. Once a week with super concentrated intensity is all it takes to produce terrific results.

4. Focus on adequate muscle building nutrition – Without proper nutrition, it’s near impossible to change your physique. Protein for example, is the key nutrient for building and repairing muscle tissues. Carbohydrates, fats, and other micro-nutrient support are also crucial for improving the quality of your physique. How are you going to build your chest muscle fast if you do not consume the appropriate ratio of muscle building nutrients? Always keep your diet in check, otherwise all your muscle building efforts shall go to waste.

If you are serious about building muscle then listen up, I’m going to share with you two critical moments crucial for fast and healthy muscle building. This article alone can save you years of wasted effort. Armed with this knowledge virtually anyone should be able to make tremendous gains and add pounds of drug free muscle to their physique.

I won’t explain things like stable isotope tracer technology, immunohistochemical muscle fiber typing or powerful microarray methods but I want you to know that although I’m not scientist myself all I’m saying here is backed up with hardcore muscle building science. There is huge the difference in results of those who use scientifically proved results and those who don’t. Science is contributing enormously to a better understanding of the factors that ultimately control the size of muscle mass growth.

Why do muscles grow at all?

Stimulating muscle protein synthesis process underlines changes in the size of muscle mass. High stimulation of muscle protein synthesis is absolutely essential to gaining muscle. It does not sound like incredible, scientific revelation, isn’t it? Well, maybe it doesn’t sound so but be sure, it’s essential factor for generation of new muscle tissue and I will explain why.Without a doubt, muscle mass growth is complex subject matter. There are many, many factors that influence the muscle growth process including, but not limited to, physical activity, hormones, disease, age, genetic factors as well as the quality and quantity of nutrition.

But I’m going to show you how to utilize scientifically proved facts to your advantage. This can really save you months or even years of wasted time, particularly if you are one of those guys or gals that have to work their butt off just to add a molecule of muscle to their frame. If you really want to build muscle and transform your physique an ultra-high (24h long) stimulation of muscle protein synthesis is the name of the game you need to play. Many experts like Paul Delia explain that “muscle is protein and protein is muscle” and although that is fact there are other factors that work against your ability to build muscle.

You should keep in mind that constant synthesis and breakdown of muscle tissue is a process that never stops in our bodies. Even if you perform no physical activities at all, muscle proteins are constantly being broken down and regenerated (scientists call this process protein turnover). As I already said, this process never stops but it can speed up or slow down in response to various circumstances.

For example, dieting (calorie restriction) slows down this process. Ageing also slows down protein turnover, or the rate at which new muscle proteins are regenerated. Alternatively, after you’ve hit the gym for your expertly planed workout system, protein turnover is accelerated, enormously.

What’s happening within your muscles has an enormous impact on the entire body. You see, muscle tissue is the body’s largest reservoir of bound and unbound proteins (it constitutes 50-75% of all proteins in the human body), this means that muscle protein turnover is synonymous with whole body protein turnover. In other words, muscle is drawn upon constantly to supply the amino acids that are required for a vast array of physiological demands, every single day. Same thing like with the bank account, if you don’t make some rather substantial deposits, the balance just keeps diminishing.

Scientific keys to rapid muscle building.

What we need is to increase the synthesis rate of muscle proteins so that it runs faster than they are broken down. We need complete program (nutrition and exercise program) which is design to boost up the muscle protein synthesis

Science has confirmed that lifting weights has the potential to cause a tremendous increase in muscle protein synthesis but regular training diminishes this response, therefore the most important question is what type of weight training program is most effective at providing a high stimulation of muscle protein synthesis?

Good point, is it not? Off course it is, but so many people fail to use results from scientific studies and therefore often fail in their attempts. For you muscle research buffs, seminal work completed by Baar & Esser confirmed that the degree of overload placed on muscle correlates with the magnitude of stimulation of muscle protein synthesis and the subsequent increase in muscle mass.

In other words, muscle mass gains are directly proportional to the stimulation of muscle protein synthesis which, in turn is proportional to the amount of overload placed on muscle. Gain muscle mass program is a complete answer for all man and women because it is based on hardcore muscle building science. It is not for those who wait for magic beans or mambo jumbo to happen.

This is quite clear formula folks: “High & proper overload = high stimulation of muscle protein synthesis = more muscle “. If your muscle building program is based on this principal than you are on good track and you do have already excellent results without steroids usage. Just stay away from any weight training program and technique which deviate from this fundamental rule.

So if you want to build muscle, there are two rules that you must understand.

The first is, the stimulation of muscle protein synthesis is the critical regulatory event that leads to muscle growth.

The second is that the intensity and method of overload placed on muscle determines the magnitude of stimulation of muscle protein synthesis.

It is extremely critical to develop a bodybuilding program stimulating the 3 muscle fiber types. This can be the difference between a hard ripped body and an average Joe overtrained body.

Muscle fiber types are not always described in detail with many of the bodybuilding courses and sites you may encounter on the internet or in the gyms.

The inside of your body is where the 3 different muscle fiber types reside. You may not even notice that much of a difference from the outside in front of a mirror, but your body knows the difference!

Let’s look at the different groups of muscle fibers and how we can take advantage of their power:

Type A muscles: These are the fast-twitch muscle fibers

Fast twitch muscle fibers known as type A are the muscles responsible for the most forceful contractions generated in your body. Unfortunately, these muscles also experience fatigue the fastest.

Let me give you an example. When you perform bench pressing exercises, the type A muscle fibers are the predominately used muscles for this exercise.

These muscles contain very large motor neurons and also very low mitochondrial density. These muscles do not utilize oxygen very well as they have a low oxidative capacity. These types of muscles do no suit themselves for endurance activities very well. You see, oxygen must be present for endurance exercises and therefore, these type A muscles are not made for that purpose.

The type A muscles rely on creative phosphate and stored glycogen (glucose) as the fuel for energy. They will not use your stored fat (what me, stored fat?) because they can only contract constantly from about 1 to twenty seconds at a time.

Type B muscles: These are known as the fast-twitch muscle fibers

The type B muscles are in the same family as the type A muscles but not quite to the same extent as the type A muscles.

These muscles are used in workouts for mostly shorter durations of activities. Not quite up to the marathon type of muscles, these are moderate.

Let me give you an example. Let’s say you are sprinting the 100 meters. This is a type A muscle activity. On the other hand, an interval of eighty to ninety percent for thirty seconds will use the type B twitch muscles.

These muscles do use oxygen to a larger degree than type A. Type B muscles still have a large motor neuron (though not as big as type A). They are the intermediate type of muscle because they are resistant to fatigue. They also have a high degree of mitochondrial density.

These muscles contract in longer durations, are fatigued to a lesser degree and use oxygen better than the type A muscles.

The slow-twitch muscles: The running muscles

The third type of critical muscle fiber is a slow-twitch muscle family. These are called the marathon muscles. The characteristics of these muscles are extended durations and medium to lower intensity activity.

These slow-twitch muscle contain a very high ability to avoid fatique. They also use large amounts of oxygen to power these muscles.

Unfortunately, these muscles are slower to contract. The force obtained in these muscles are not as powerful as the other muscles. Therefore, these muscles are not used in workouts that require a large degree of power moves.

These muscles are very high in terms of mitochondrial density. The muscles contain large amounts of capillaries carrying oxygen around our body. This oxygen capacity is what provides the marathon type of workouts. The extended time frame for the workouts are a result of this oxygen carrying ability.

This is the great part: these slow-twitch muscles rely on FAT as a fuel. Yes, the reason many of us workout, can be obtained by using these muscles. Instead of carbohydrates or creatine phosphate, the fat powers these muscles in workouts.

So how do we use this information in our provenfitness routines? We will train each group a little differently.

Using you best force generators, type A, you will want to train by using exercises that maximizes the effort for a shorter period of time.

A good example is doing a sprint at full speed, 2-5 rep sets in weights and other types of plyometric activities.

The next step will be to train the type B muscle fibers by decreasing slightly the amount of force contracting the muscle while simulataneously increasing the amount of time you contract the muscles so slightly.

Here is a good example, exercise 30 to 45 intervals repeating 10 times using 1 minute or 1.5 minutes resting at a low to moderate rythym. Since these muscles have a higher oxygen utilization ability, target the six to ten range for maximum benefit.

Last but not least, improving the slow-twitch muscle fibers will happen with endurance. Longer here is the key. This will take more time but the amount of time training is the most important part of this type of muscle.

So, if you run, run longer than before. If you bike, take more time biking. If you swim, increase the amount of time swimming – got it.

Don’t worry, this muscle thrives on extended amounts of time and it is exactly how you want to train it going forward.

In conclusion, when planning out your training plan, think about the different types of muscles involved with the activity. You will get the most out of your efforts. Your muscles will react as I described above and the results will come. The types are your friends.

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