subject: Muscle Building Program – 3 Essential Parts of a Muscle Building Program [print this page] Muscle Building Program 3 Essential Parts of a Muscle Building Program
When most people try to set up their muscle building program, it seems they go to one of two extremes. Some people don't plan at all. Their nutrition is horrible, their training is all over the place, and they don't have a chance at making any long-term progress. Others plan far too much, spending way more time than necessary on detailing every minute, insignificant aspect of their training and diet. To make things simpler and construct the best possible muscle building program, follow these three key principles.
1. Focus your Nutrition on Muscular Gains
Most people who lift weights for very long soon find that no matter how hard you train in the weight room, your nutrition will make the difference between lousy results and amazing progress. Therefore, any good muscle building program will place a focus on maximizing the results a trainee can get from their food intake.
To build new muscle tissue, you must eat a certain number of calories more than you burn every day, as well as enough protein to support the repair and growth of muscle cells. The exact amounts of proteins, carbs, and fats one needs to eat will always vary, so your muscle building program should have you eating in a way that is just right for your body, your activity levels, and your schedule.
2. Strength Training, not just Weight Training
While certain bodybuilding techniques such as supersets and dropsets, as well as massive amounts of training volume can sometimes be useful for a muscular growth spurt or breaking through a plateau, the only way to make long-term, consistent progress in muscular growth is to get stronger. A stronger muscle is a bigger muscle, period.
Any good muscle building program will include a training regimen focused on making big gains in strength over a long period. A program should also have you focusing on the hardest, heaviest exercises such as squats, deadlifts, presses, and pulls. Isolation movements are good, too, but they're not going to build most of your muscle mass. Whether you want to gain five pounds of muscle or fifty, the best way to accomplish your goals is to use these heavy movements and get strong at them.
3. Planning for Recovery
Contrary to what many people seem to believe, your muscle do not grow in the weight room! They grow when you leave and recover, especially while you are sleeping. Therefore, a good muscle building program will have you organizing your training, nutrition, and sleep in such a way as to maximize your recovery abilities. The more often you can stimulate a muscle, give it food to grow, and rest it enough to repeat the whole process, the more quickly that muscle will gain some serious size.
