Step 1. Perform specific exercises on a regular basis.
Step 2. Eat a well-balanced diet including adequate amounts of protein and micronutrients.
Step 3. Schedule some rest days to allow for adaptations to occur.
In order to stimulate muscle growth, your body must be pushed with resistance style exercises. Muscle growth occurs when small muscle fibers tear as a result of stress, and then regenerate themselves. This growth occurs during periods of rest, and your body needs fuel to regenerate efficiently.
Your muscle-building plan must include the following:
- Hard work: Stimulate muscle tissue by training hard. Use your body weight as resistance, or lift weights on a regular basis, 3-4 times per week.
- Balance: Do exercises for the upper and lower body to ensure you maintain a good muscular balance in your body.
- Patience: Allow time for the results to appear. It takes time to see muscle growth and gain strength.
- Rest days: Don’t over-train because your recovery ability will be compromised. Plan to take at least 1 or 2 rest days per week.
- Motivation: Understand that you need to motivate yourself to make it happen.
Best Way to Train for Muscle-Building
Progressive training is important if you want your muscle-building routine to be productive. You must be dedicated to training in a way that helps you to improve over time. If you lift the same amount of resistance for the same number of repetitions (reps) during each workout session, you’ll stay the same. At some point, you must attempt to either perform more reps, or use more resistance.
Following a reps and weight increase schedule will allow you to easily measure if you’re improving from workout to workout. Rep ranges is a simple concept to understand and apply to your training.
I like to recommend a rep range of 10-14 for strength training in the initial stages, especially when someone is just getting started. High reps will force you to choose a moderate weight. This way you’ll become proficient with exercise form (important for safety) as the weight increases. As your workouts transition more into the power range, increase weight and decrease reps.
Beginning a Muscle-Building Plan
Your goal in your first workout is to reach muscular fatigue within the set range using a set amount of resistance. For example, if 50lbs was your chosen weight for squats and you achieved twelve perfect reps, you’d simply record 1 set of squats = 50lbs 12 reps.
The goal in your next workout would be to achieve more reps with the same weight until you can perform 14 full reps. Achieving the set reps should prompt you to increase resistance in your following session, because the top end of the rep range was achieved.
Increasing Weight
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