How to gain Muscle mass
This guide is specifically written for people looking to put on bulk muscle mass. I have read copious amounts of information on the subject including a 300pg book on protein. I have also gained about 25lbs of muscle in 3/4 of a year.

DIET
If you’re looking to put muscle mass on you must understand that diet is the most important factor. In terms of gaining muscle mass I would say it would account for close to 75% of gains. You could have the best training program in the world but if your diet is crap you won’t gain any muscle mass. Period.

Muscle is made of protein, in fact anything structural in your body is pretty much made of protein (that and fat and a few minerals). What you want to aim for in terms of protein consumptions is 1->1.5g of protein for every lb you weigh. So if for example you weigh 150lbs you want to consume 150g -> 225g of protein a day, every day. That is A LOT of protein. Your average large chicken breast has about 30g of protein, so you want to eat the equivalent of 5 large chicken breasts a day at a bare minimum. You MUST eat 1-1.5g of protein per lb of body weight daily in order to make significant muscle mass gains. There is no way around this.

In terms of structuring your meals, you take your target protein intake and divide by the # of meals you eat a day.

3 meals a day…..150g/3 = 50g of protein per meal
6 meals a day……150/6 = 25g of protein per meal

The average person eats about 60g-100g of protein per day. Thus you need to double/triple your protein consumption in order to make serious muscle mass gains. If you have a hard time downing 50g+ of protein in 1 sitting, increase the frequency of meals to 6x a day to make it easier on your digestive system. Also realize it takes roughly 7-11 days for your body’s protein metabolism to adjust to the greater level of protein intake, especially if your tripling your protein intake. Thus expect to feel ill from being overstuffed on protein for 1 week, while you body adjusts to the new protein intake. This is normal.

In order to hit the daily recommended protein intakes it is advisable to supplement with protein shakes. Its a quick and easy way to get down an additional 30g of protein several times a day. I recommend buying your protein cheap and bulk from http://www.truenutrition.com/ . It’s about 5x cheaper than going to GNC and the quality is just as good.

Daily fat intake recommendations (0.45-1 1g/lb) …. 0.6 x 150lbs = 90g of fat/day
90g fat/ 3 meals = 30g of fat/meal OR 90g fat/ 6meals = 15g of fat/meal

Daily Carb intake recommendation dependent on level of activity…. (1.5-3g/lb) 1.5 x 150lbs = 225g of carbs/day
225g carbs /3 meals = 75g of carbs/meal OR 225g carbs / 6meals = 37.5g carbs/meal

YOU MUST KEEP TRACK OF HOW MANY GRAMS PROTEIN, FAT, CARBS YOU EAT PER DAY. Most skinny people overestimate how much they eat, and overweight people underestimate. In order to help you keep track I recommend using the free version of http://www.mynetdiary.com/ It’s online + you can use it w/ your smartphone if you choose.

In addition to this eat off a FUCKING DIGITAL WEIGHT SCALE if you have to in order to keep track. I did. If you don’t know how much your consuming in relatively exact quantities you won’t know if you will gain/lose weight/muscle mass. The body is like a machine that obeys the law of thermodynamics. What you put in is what you get out. If you don’t know how much of what your putting in, you cannot predict gains or losses. You are FUCKING SWIMMING IN THE DARK hoping you get what your aiming for…and it usually takes months to tell, if what your doing is working. Once you have spent 3-4 days measuring out grams of protein/fat, carbs you will have a good idea of how much is what. YOU MUST DO THIS. After a few days you won’t need to use the weight scale as often and you will get a good idea of how much food contains what.

TRAINING ROUTINE:

There are 4 fundamentally different types of training out there that all have VASTLY different goals. They generically are:

If you want to gain muscle mass, I recommend going for a cross between strength and hypertrophy. I use Lyle McDonalds generic bulking program. I recommend using it or something relatively similar. DO NOT overcomplicate things for yourself. Most guys I see in the gym, do wayyy to much shit, and border on doing endurance weight training which will do jack squat to build strength or muscle mass. In fact its counter-productive.

PROGRAM – My Modification on Lyle’s Generic Bulking program

Flat bench: 3 sets X 6-8 reps with 3 minute rest between sets
Technique: http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/traini … nique.html

Row: 3 X 6-8 with 3’min rest
Technique: http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/traini … e-row.html

Shoulder press: 2 X 10-12 with 2’min rest

Pulldown/chin: 2 X 10-12 with 2′ min rest
Technique: http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/traini … nique.html

Triceps: 2 X 12-15 with 1.5′ min rest
Technique: Kick Backs or Decline? Nose Breaker
http://www.naturalfitnesstrainers.com/m … estgrp.htm

Biceps: 2 X 12-15 with 1.5′ min rest

Weighted Swiss Ball Crunch: 3 X 6-12 with 2′ min rest
Technique: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVBddP5oW8Y @ 20 sec mark

Alternative – Cable Crunch Technique:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2a-sJBYsBo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdIFn…eature=related

I don’t do legs, cuz i don’t care about having bulky/strong legs. I workout for 1hr every 4 days. If you recover quick you can work out 1x every 3 days. Seriously out of all the sports/training physical self-improving things to do, 1hr every 4 days is massive benefits for minor time investment.

NOTES:
Do NOT mix cardio and weight training. Do them on separate days or at least 4 hours apart. Cardio burns muscle glycogen…you need this in order to get the most out of your weight training. DO NOT do cardio longer than 5mins before or after weight trianing. You can do 5mins super low intensity if you need to warm up.

If your in the gym 2hrs a day, 5x a week working out the same muscles YOUR DOING IT FUCKING WRONG.

Do NOT add a gajiilion exercises, most guys in the gym are over-training, and digging themselves holes.

Take the FUCKING 3 minute long ass break between heavy strength sets. Use a timer if you have to. I do. I know its hard, but you can do it. 70% of the time in gym is spent sitting on my ass, waiting, allowing muscles to recover between sets.

Eat you BIGGEST meal of the day as soon after you workout as possible. Working out stresses your muscles you want them to recover as fast as possible. Also eat a bit before, and drinking sugar drinks (Gatorade or juice) while weight training is advisable as well. Helps replenish muscle glycogen (aka muscle energy).

2 weeks at 80% intensity, then 4-6 weeks @90%+ intensity , then back-cycle to 80% for 2 weeks. YOU MUST back-cycle in order to prevent plateaus. (reference)

Drink Micellar Casein or eat cottage cheese (30g+ of protein equivalent) before going to bed at night. When you sleep for 6hours plus, these slow digesting protein will help keep your muscles from going catabolic on you.

For everything you could possibly want to know on gaining Muscle & losing fat go to: http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/ – Most good info is free…it’s just a lot to read and hard to find. I have read most of it….

iPhone weight training app, to keep track of reps, sets, weight. Gym Buddy

Supplements are over-hyped for the most part. However take a multivitamin, take 15ml of cod liver oil for omega 3’s per day, 400mg of Magnesium Citrate, 25mg of Zinc Citrate, Calcium and Iron if your deficient. Diet + Training = 99% of gains….most exotic supplements out there get you 1% extra…maybe.

I eat 200g+ protein a day…if for example my protein consumption drops to 100g a day, I can predictably lose about 5lbs of body weight a week. Yes protein is that important if you have an ecotmorph metabolism.

Cost. If your on a budget consider this. A steak has about 40g of protein. You can buy Whey Protein as cheap as $6.39/lb. 1lb = 453g of protein ~~~ 11 steaks worth of protein for $6. DEAL.

Contrary to popular belief doing crunches WILL NOT GET YOU A FUCKING 6-PACK. The guy with the world record for greatest # of consecutive crunches does not have a 6-pack. Having a 6-pack is almost entirely a function of having very low bodyfat %. Less than 12%. This is done through EXTREME DIET control. If you want to get your ab muscles to pop the only think you need to do is in the above routine. Crunches are an endurance exercise, and will not make muscles bigger or necessarily “stronger”.(Theory Reference)

The non-science of muscle confusion, and tricking muscles by shocking them is a LOAD OF BS. It’s not backed by any scientific studies. Progressive overload aka. add more weight to the bar is sufficient to add muscle strength and mass. In fact adaption in motion is a good thing, in that decreases chance of injury. Those P90X guys keep spreading unsubstantiated lies. The only reason you may want to change a routine is out of sheer boredom, or you are training adaptations for a very specific sport. Neuromuscular coordination only counts if your training for something NEW you haven’t done before, and its sport specific meaning you want your body to learn a new motion ONLY. Neurons govern motion only NOT muscle size or strength. If you are looking to just bulk, it is best to stick to the same well rounded routine for years/decades. Switching exercise routines as soon as you have adapted just increases the chance of injury with no added benefit. Switching between various styles of bicep curls ain’t gonna make em get stronger or bigger any faster, in fact it will have the opposite effect in that as you have to adapt to a new motion and you can’t maximize weight push. Motion adaptaion is your friend when looking to bulk/ add strength.