Click Here to Sign Up for Your Free Bodybuilding Magazine Subscription

The Secret to Gaining Weight and Muscle Mass

Have you been having trouble gaining weight and building some real, quality muscle consistently?

Or maybe, when you first started weight training, did you gain a little muscle and bodyweight but then suddenly it came to a stop?

If you are not gaining any weight or getting any bigger, then I suggest you take a serious look at your poundage’s.

I see so many weight trainers, easy and hardgainers alike go day after day, week after week, and month after month pushing the same weight they were doing last month, and the month before.

They feel satisfied that they had a “good workout” because their muscles are pumped and well exhausted by the end of their workout after doing a bunch of sets of a bunch of different exercises for one muscle group.

This is a BIG mistake.

No matter what you’ve read or heard, getting a good pump has very little to do with muscle growth. All the “pump” means is that there is a temporary increased blood flow in your muscle tissue.

Though getting a good pump has a few benefits for building muscle, you certainly shouldn’t gauge your workouts by them, especially if you are a hardgainer.

What’s a hardgainer?

Any naturally skinny body type with a fast metabolism that finds it near impossible to gain weight or build muscle mass no matter what they do.

Back to how you should gauge your workouts for progress. There is a time and place for getting a good pump, and when you are a hardgainer or a beginner (or both) trying to gain muscle weight fast, then this is definitely not it.

If you’re looking for the fastest way to build muscle, then you must progressively add weight to your exercises.

This one of the most basic rules in weight training called progressive overload. I don’t care who you are, you can’t expect to build bigger muscles if you are using the same weight over and over again.

You have to get STRONGER if you want to get bigger.

And I don’t mean increasing the weight once a month. If you want to bulk up as fast as humanly possible, then focus strictly on getting stronger every week.

You can’t expect to look like the Incredible Hulk if your sister is pushing the same weight you are.

Here’s why…

As evolution suggests, our bodies survival is based on adapting to our environment. From all the way back to our caveman days until now, are bodies have gone under many changes in order to adapt and survive in the constantly changing world.

Your muscles are no exception. Whenever you finish a heavy workout, your muscle fibers adapt by recruiting more fibers so they can cope with the weight if it is forced to try to handle it again. As a result, your muscles will grow bigger.

As soon as your body becomes accustomed to a certain weight, it will no longer grow. It will no longer need to!

You must constantly overload it with more weight then it is used to handling.

From now on if you want to do a workout program for fast results, measure your progress by your strength, NOT how good of a pump you get.

Keep track of exactly how much weight you use for each set on each exercise, how many reps you did, and make it a goal to slightly increase that weight at least every other week.

It doesn’t matter if you write it down on a palm pilot or the piece of toilet paper stuck to your shoe when you walk out of the bathroom, as long as you know exactly how much weight you used and how many reps you did your last workout so you can add a little more on the next.

Don’t try to remember how much weight you used, because if you forget you will hold back your progress each week by using the same or less weight and therefore not getting any stronger, or by adding too much weight too soon which will lead to set-backs.

If this happens constantly, you will waste days, weeks, and even months out of your year in training. Can you see how important it is to keep track of your poundage’s?

When first starting out, you may discover that adding weight each week is not so tough and can be pretty consistent.

However, as you continue to weight train for a while you will sooner or later hit what’s called a “sticking point” on one or more of your exercises.

This is completely normal. From here, your increase in strength will have to be slightly more gradual then before.

For example, though you may have been able to increase your bench press poundage’s 5 pounds a week every week no problem for a while, you suddenly are not able to perform the pre-determined amount of reps of say, 8 reps anymore.

Now, instead of increasing 5 pounds again next week, just stick with that weight until you can complete the 8 reps. As soon as you can, try adding 2.5 pounds this time, or even 1 pound, instead of 5.

Remember, for long term results, slowly but surely is the way to go.

You will always be much stronger after one year if you continue to add weight in this fashion rather then trying to add too much weight too fast and being stuck at that weight
for weeks and even months at a time.

Now that you know that in order to get bigger you must get stronger, what is the fastest way to get stronger?

Keep your workouts SHORT and SIMPLE.

Marathon type workouts will only limit your growth and may even cause you to lose weight if you train too much for too long. You don’t need to do 5 different exercises for your chest with 5 sets for each.

In fact, you will get a heck of a lot better results sticking to just 1 or 2 compound exercises such as flat or incline bench presses and just doing 2 to 5 sets each, 1 or 2 days a week.

Why? Because you will allow yourself enough rest to increase the weight each week by focusing on just a few hard sets of heavy weight on one or two major exercises.

So if you’ve been having trouble figuring out how to gain muscle and weight fast, this may have been the major factor holding you back.

Make up your mind right now that you will train to become stronger each and every workout, and you will be on the right path to building some real quality muscle, whether or not you’re a hardgainer.

Eat plenty of good food, lift hard and heavy, get plenty of sleep, and keep your workouts short and simple.

Click Here to Sign Up for Your Free Bodybuilding Magazine Subscription