The Truth About Muscle Gains is That I Did It, and You Can Too…

Looking for the truth about muscle gains for women as well as men? There is a ton of misinformation in the media, in muscle magazines, and on the Internet regarding how to build muscle. If you take the time to read, you will notice there is varying and contradicting advice everywhere you look.

We have been told that women should train differently from men. We have been informed that weight training will bulk women up. I even heard one “expert” on TV telling a group of people that they can turn body fat into muscle mass.  What does he mean by that?  The media and magazines and even so-called experts are very vague on their information, in hopes to cash in on consumers fears and dreams.

The fact is, information regarding health, wellness, fat loss and muscle gain is a dime-a-dozen, leaving the reader thoroughly confused. So, how do you know what to believe? What really works? What’s the truth about muscle gains? Well, you have to think logically and learn to read between the lines.

Realize that when you see a top bodybuilder or fitness professional on the cover of a muscle magazine with her training program listed in an article about her, stating that she trains six days a week and each body part twice a week, understand that the program was designed for her.  Nine out of 9.99 times, professional bodybuilders and fitness athletes use anabolic substances to get such low body fat levels and detailed mass and to be able to handle more training in a shorter amount of time. Of course, this is the dirty little secret that’s not shared. What’s worse, most claim to be natural.

KISS – Keep It Short and Simple

Here’s the truth about muscle gains. Building muscle doesn’t have to be rocket science. It just takes some time to understand how your body works.

You may hear or read about some top level professional bodybuilder training six days a week and up to 2 to 3 hours a day. He or she is able to do this because her or she is probably using anabolic substances. Taking such supplements allows the body to recover much quicker, allowing you to train longer and more often.  Dan Perterson at LiveScience.com reveals, “AAS can block cortisol from binding to the muscle cell’s receptor sites, which diminishes the breakdown process. Less muscle breakdown means less muscle fatigue which would allow a pitcher to recover more quickly from a nine-inning outing.”

The natural lifter needs more rest time for proper muscle recovery. Your body has a limited supply of energy to use for resistance training, and once it’s used up, training will no longer be productive.  An effective muscle building workout should be limited to 45 minutes, and no longer than an hour.

Training does not need to be complicated. The idea is to stimulate the muscle, and that’s it. There is no need in taking part in a training marathon. You have a limited amount of time before your blood sugar level drops, so you must take advantage of muscle building effectively and efficiently in this small window of opportunity.

You may feel that you have unlimited energy, but that’s usually due to an adrenalin rush. The body uses its fuel to push you through each rep, each set, and for your rest between reps and sets.  The bottom line is, get in the gym, stimulate the muscles briefly yet thoroughly and get out of the gym. Then, feed the body and let it rest to recover.

Train, Eat, Rest = Muscle Growth

Cut Training Back

The truth about muscle gains is that burning fat and building muscle can work hand-in-hand, but only if you incorporate a good diet and mass training. Fat loss does not occur with weight training. So, thinking that weight training more often will burn fat and build muscle quicker or better is false.

You are not growing when you are in the gym. Your body builds muscle when it’s at rest and when it’s fed nutrients it can use. Weight training is a stimulus for muscle growth to occur. When you weight train you are tearing down the muscle for them to rebuild stronger and larger. This growth can only take place during rest and proper nutrition.

The truth about muscle gains is that it is far better to train 3-4 days week, perhaps for muscle gains than every day of the week. You want to prevent overtraining before it happens.

Force Your Body into Growth

The truth about muscle gains is that you can literally force your body to grow by using progressive overload. This basically means that you must push yourself each workout to improve in either poundage or reps. Failure to progress training weekly will stagnant muscle gains. If you don’t give your muscles a reason or breeding ground to change, they won’t. You must force this upon them.

A simple example is this: You benched pressed 100 pounds last week for ten reps. For mass gain, ten reps is a lot, so you want to lower your reps to 8. To do this efficiently, you should increase your bench press weight the next week to 105 to 110 pounds. Let’s say the next week you bench pressed 110 pounds for 8 reps, you can stick with that poundage until you easily do 9 reps and when you do, you know to increase the poundage again the following week.

To continue increasing muscle gains, keep slowly adding poundage and try to simulate the muscle in the 6-8 rep range.