Building muscle fast (bulking up) requires really heavy lifting, but it also requires smart work-outs and meal plans. We'll go over each of these in the following paragraphs.
A muscle grows only when it has to. Muscles grow as a consequence of overloading them and then allowing them sufficient rest and providing them sufficient nutrition so that they can adapt to the stresses put on them. As a practical matter, this means that you should exercise each muscle group a maximum of twice per week. When you really stress a muscle, you may even want to work out once per week. Muscles need a lot of time to recover after High Intensity Training (HIT) of this nature.
Here's the work-out routine:
Day 1
- Squats, 4-5 sets, 10-12 reps. Slow and deliberate. Full squats.
- Hamstring curls, 3 sets, 15 reps.
- Calf presses, 3 sets, 20 reps.
- Tricep extensions, 3 sets, 10 reps.
- Barbell curls, 3 sets, 10 reps.
That's it for Day 1. Day 2 is rest.
Day 3
- Bench press, 4-5 sets, 6-10 reps. No bouncing (EVER).
- Bent Rows, 4-5 sets, 6-10 reps. Feel the weight. Round the shoulders at the bottom, really squeeze the shoulder blades together at the top.
- Shoulder press, 3 sets, 10 reps.
Day 4 is rest.
Day 5
- Repeat Day 1. You can substitute stiff-legged deadlifts for the hamstring curls and you can do variations on the arm exercises.
Days 6 & 7 are for rest.
Day 8 (Day 1 of the following week)
- Repeat Day 3. You can substitute Lat pull-downs for the Bent Rows.
Day 9 is for rest.
Day 10
And so on. This routine is merely alternating "Arm and Leg day" with "Torso day," with each getting in at least one work-out per week. This program gives you the opportunity to really blast your torso in the first week, since you're only training it one day for the entire week. You can also train really heavy on your squats, which is the most important exercise you can do.
In fact, if you only did one exercise at all, it should be the squat. Squats stimulate not only the quadriceps, hamstrings, and glutes, but they also stimulate muscle growth throughout the body. There are so many stabilizing muscles that are directly stressed by squats that you'd be hard-pressed to find a better overall exercise. Additionally, it's been shown that heavy squats actually trigger a muscle-building response in the body. In short, you'll gain muscle all over simply by doing heavy squats.
That's the exercise program. Each of these routines should take no more than 30-45 minutes to complete.
Now, onto the nutrition program. Vince Gironda, the "Iron Guru," held the belief that bodybuilding was 85 percent nutrition. I won't go that far. But I will say that training without good nutrition is pointless, just as good nutrition with no training is useless!
You CAN, however, trigger an anabolic response with proper nutrition. The key is keeping a positive nitrogen balance in the bloodstream. This means that you have to eat high-protein, low carb meals every 2-3 hours. DON'T WORRY ABOUT THE FAT. You'll also need to take in a LOT of supplements. There are a whole host of supplements that you need to take to effect this anabolic response. Remember, your muscles only grow if they have to. You can help this along by supplying them with the nutrients they need. Here's the program:
Breakfast
- Mix up 4-6 eggs
- 8 oz half and half
- 8 oz whole milk
- 8 oz steak or other beef
Snack
- Mix up 4-6 eggs
- 8 oz half and half
- 8 oz whole milk
- MetRx packet
Lunch
- 1 pound hamburger
- Mixed green salad or raw veggies
- 4 oz cheese
Snack
- Mix up 4-6 eggs
- 8 oz half and half
- 8 oz whole milk
- MetRx packet
Dinner
- 1 pound steak or roast
- Steamed veggies
- 4 oz cheese
Snack
- Mix up 4-6 eggs
- 8 oz half and half
- 8 oz whole milk
- MetRx packet
Supplementation (with every meal and snack)
- 10 dessicated liver tablets
- 5 yeast tablets
- 4 raw orchic-tissue tablets
- 6 amino acid tablets (ariginine and ornithine)
As you can see, this is a super-high protein, low carb meal plan with a LOT of supplementation! All of this is geared toward putting your metabolism in an anabolic (muscle-building) state. You should follow the exercise and meal plans laid out above for no more than 4-6 weeks.
You can see gains in as little as 2 weeks on this program! Generally speaking, once you gain 2-5 pounds of muscle, you'll want to go on a less extreme diet plan and change up your exercise plan to do a few more sets per body part, with more reps per set. Why? Your body adapts to each type of stress you put upon it. Constantly changing things up "confuses" your body and, because it always seeks to adapt to the stress, continuously grows. Also, by switching up the exercise regimen, you'll be promoting different aspects of muscle growth (Muscles grow in various ways: The parts of the cells grow in number and in size, both require different training stresses).
In summary, then, you will constantly cycle through this extreme training and diet plan, you'll move off it after several weeks, then you'll go to higher volume but less intense work-outs for several months and a more traditional ("balanced") diet, then you'll return to this muscle-building phase. It's a cyclical, or phased, approach. I call it the "Stair Step Method."
Here's to your bodybuilding success!
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