In this 5-parts series, I'm going to go over, in a very simple format, how to build muscle effectively, efficiently, quickly, and easily the correct way. Building muscle is not complicated once you know what to do. Lean mass building is not exactly a hard science. It's about knowing what to do, taking action to achieve results, and then analyzing the results for feedback while monitoring your progress so you dump what did not work and stick with what worked.
And I'll avoid a lot of the scientific jargon and terminology that happens to turn off a lot of people.
I'm not going to waste your time in this series on theory and lab studies done by armchair physiologists and scientists. I'm going to outline all the facts and knowledge you need to start an effective training and dieting plan for building muscle. Because confusion is the wall blocking results.
I'm going to give you just the real practical, non-bullshit information and detail a step-by-step guide at the end to get you started. Lately, I've noticed many "free" guides out there are incomplete (worse yet, some are trying to sell you supplements rather than teach you how to really build muscle) so I'll attempt to make this as complete as possible, even for newbies and beginners new to lifting.
If you've struggled in the past to build any noticeable muscle, then consider this a new beginning. You might have been clueless... you didn't know what you were doing and wasted time fooling around, going through the motions in the gym...but now is your chance to pick up knowledge and start this bodybuilding journey on the right path for real gains.
This series is broken down into 5 parts. This first part, this article here, deals with a little bit of theory and the big concept of building muscle. I'll talk about the muscle building process and how understanding it can help you understand the factors involved in building muscle. You'll get a bird's eye view of how to gain muscle mass.
The second part talks about nutrition and supplementation. You'll find out what foods to eat, how much you should eat, calories surplus, meal frequency, proteins, and all that jazz.
The third and fourth parts deals with exercise and recovery. You'll find out about targeted lifting for building muscle and how you can structure your own training programs for maximum muscle gains. And in the last part, I'll lay out a 5-steps action step plan to show you how to take all this knowledge and put it together into a clear plan. I'll show you how to put this all together and how to get started. Then you'll find a resources section afterward to further your education and training/dieting knowledge for life-long success.
You may have your own reasons to build muscle but we're not here to debate or discuss that right now. So whatever you reasons are, whether it's to look good in clothes, look good naked, gain some weight, to impress that girl next door, just keep in mind one thing: hunger and enthusiasm to train.
You got to have the passion right now to train intensely and succeed in the gym. Have that focus and excitement to pack on maximum muscle mass. You have to want it. And want it bad enough to stay focused and consistent with your program.
So let's get to it right now.
The Big Picture of Bodybuilding
First, I want to introduce to you the big picture concept that outlines the primary factors involved for building muscle. Then we'll zone in on the details within each factor. The devil is always in the details.
Not too long ago, I came up with the fitness equation. This equation is adaptable to any fitness goal by manipulating each factor of the equation. Sounds complicated?
Here's the fitness equation,
Exercise + Nutrition + Recovery = Fitness Goal
The fitness goal is whatever you desire or aim to achieve; jumping higher, running faster, punching harder, pitching harder, and even for building muscle. If you adapt this equation to building muscle. It'll look like this,
Strength Training/Weight Lifting + Calories Surplus + Macronutrient Balance+ Sleep= Muscle
Call it the "how to build muscle " equation , bodybuilding equation, bulking equation or whatever you want but the above factors are muscle building principles you must know and apply.
As you see from adapting the fitness equation, exercise becomes strength training and weight lifting, nutrition becomes calories surplus and macro balance, and recovery is sleep. These factors work synergistically together. You cannot neglect one and/or sacrifice the other. They all work together to make sure you do build muscle.
Muscle Building Process
What happens during the muscle building process? From the moment you lift a weight to the moment it grows? When you lift a heavy weight for a single repetition, your nerves immediately "fires" by activating all motor units associated with the muscle doing all the work. The motor units are just sets of nerves and muscles that work together. So when you're lifting a weight, your muscles "wake up" through contraction. You lift weights, muscles contract. They flex and generate force to lift that heavy dumbbell for you.
When this happens, the muscle fibers are stressed to the point of breakdown. Little "holes" appear called microtrauma. You must create this microtrauma to build muscle. And so this is the first step of building muscle. Lift weights to create microtrauma.
Meanwhile, after the workout, your muscles are weaker than when you started lifting. And your muscles must be weak first, after being teared down by the weights to build muscle mass.
And so your muscles must be repaired before it can grow bigger and larger. You do this by providing fuel for your muscles in the form of food. Real, whole, solid food. Lots of it. They repair and grow back stronger through food. Most of the actual repair and growth occurs during recovery phases, when you sleep. You grow muscles when you sleep. You gain muscle during slumber.
Taking all this into account, you can see how exercise, nutrition, and recovery plays into their respective roles to building muscle mass. The stimulus to create the microtrauma comes in the form of strength training and lifting weights. You feed your stomach with a lot of food to fuel the muscles for growth. Then you get plenty of sleep to allow the changes and muscle growth to occur. That's it!
This is the basic process to build muscle mass.
So you might ask, which factor is more important? Is food 70% of the equation? Is lifting weights more important? You might've heard some lifters on forums, who are too hung up on "broscience," say that muscle building nutrition is 80-90% of the bodybuilding game.
Well, think of the bodybuilding equation as a real equation with numbers. Let me give you some examples to help you put this bodybuilding thing into a little more perspective so you can definitely get results and avoid failure.
Let's take an example,
1 + 1 = 2
Simple equation with a simple answer. You can't have 2 without the other 1. Take 1 away and you'll only get 1. You must have both 1s to get a 2. This is simple addition. This goes the same for bodybuilding. If you want to build muscle, you must have all the factors in the equation. They are equally important. They're all 1s. Put all the 1s together and you get the result.
Take driving a car for another example. Let' s say the 4 tires of a car are the exercise programs. The engine is the nutrition factor. And the ignition system is the recovery factor. Driving the car is the muscle mass, the result. You can't drive (muscle result) if you don't have either the tires, engine, or the ignition.
You need to put the pieces together to get the desired result.
I'm bringing these analogies up to help you avoid failure and get results. So keep this in mind as this is very important. I think the number one reason why a lot of people fail at building muscle is that they place more emphasis on one factor over the other. They may like training but hate eating a lot. Well, if you neglect proper muscle building nutrition, you're going to fail and not gain an ounce of muscle no matter how perfect your strength training program is or how hard you train in the gym. You're not going to build muscle if you eat like a little humming bird.
By thinking one is more important than the other, you neglect the others. You risk failure. Each factor has its priorities. They are equally important.
So the lesson for this first part of Muscle Building 101 is to acknowledge the bodybuilding equation,
Strength Training/Weight Lifting + Calories Surplus + Macronutrient Balance+ Sleep= Muscle
Make a mental note to place equal attention to each factor of the muscle building equation. In the second part of Muscle Building 101, I'll get into the details of each factor, starting with muscle building nutrition. Remember, you build muscle mass with strength training/weight lifting, lots of good food, and lots of sleep.
Let's get to it.
Train Hard. Train Safely. Train Smart.
If you have any questions or comments, don't hesitate to leave a message below in the comments section or email me at ZQH245@gmail.com and ZAH250@gmail.com
photo credits:
Jayel Aheram
mjzitek
Jessa9
Related posts:
- Building Muscle Mass the Right Way through the Muscle Building Equation Building muscle requires you to understand and put to action three main principles of exercise. It’s not as hard as some of the muscleheads make it out to be. These three principle are universal and applies to everyone looking to build muscle mass. They are the principles of exercise, nutrition, and proper sleep and recovery. [...]...
- Muscle Building 101: How to Build Muscle with Bodybuilding Nutrition- Part 2 In part 1 of Muscle Building 101, you were introduced to the muscle building equation. Understand the equation. Know it. Get the big picture and concept of bodybuilding first before moving to this part. The remaining articles in the Muscle Building 101 series will address each factor of the equation to help you build muscle. Here, [...]...
- Muscle Building 101: How to Build Muscle with Bodybuilding Workouts- Part 3 In part 2 of Muscle Building 101, you read about building muscle and bulking up with proper muscle building nutrition. Now, let’s move on to the more exciting part of bodybuilding… exercise. Exercise in the form of strength training and weight lifting. Strength training is the second stimuli, apart from nutrition, that contributes tremendously towards [...]...
- Muscle Building 101: Bodybuilding Workouts- Part 4 So in the last part of Muscle Building 101, you were introduced to all the training principles you need to know in order to structure your weight lifting and strength training workouts for the gym. In this part, you’ll read about proper exercise programming and recovery. Now here are two sample strength training programs to familiarize [...]...
- A Simple Bodybuilding Program to Help You Build Muscle Gaining muscle mass is a step by step process that involves progressive resistance training in the form of strength training, eating a bulking diet with a surplus of calories, and getting a lot of sleep every night. If you don’t know how to gain muscle mass, those are the 3 basic fundamentals that you have to [...]...
- Supercharge Your Muscle Building Efforts with Bodybuilding Split Routines that Work If you do a search around the internet or input any of the listed terms into google search, “bodybuilding split routines” “weight lifting workouts” “muscle building workouts” “bodybuilding programs” “gain muscle workouts” Google will return search queries listing sites that detail the typical ultra-high volume routines emulated or taken straight from muscle magazines. The routines generally consist of 4 or 5 [...]...
- Selecting a Bodybuilding Program for Gaining Muscle and Building Strength You can find a lot of bodybuilding programs online and in muscle magazines and fitness books. But how effective are they? How do you know what to look out for before deciding to following a bodybuilding program or routine. There are really just 4 main things to analyze and decide if that bodybuilding program is [...]...
- The Principles of How to Build Muscle the Easy Way: A Muscle Building Blueprint Beginners new to bodybuilding, weight lifting, and strength training always want to know how to build muscle, and how to build it fast. They want to know how to gain the most muscle mass in the least amount of time. So they end up buying dozens of bodybuilding magazines, books, and videos on how to [...]...
- Muscle Building 101: How to Build Muscle By Putting It All Together- Part 5 You learned the why and the what in the first 4 parts of Muscle Building 101. In this final part, you’ll finally learn the “how”…how to build muscle and strength by putting everything you’ve read so far together. This is a non-bullshit, 5-steps quick start plan to get you started in mapping out your muscle [...]...
- Building Muscle and Strength is Easy Alright building muscle is not exactly easy as pie in a pure sense but the overall process is understandably simple if you make it so. Bodybuilding, building strength, and losing weight does not have to be a science if you don’t make it so. It’s both a science, life-long practice involving action, and an art [...]...
{ 3 trackbacks }
{ 0 comments… add one now }