subject: How To Build Muscle The Natural Way [print this page] How To Build Muscle The Natural Way How To Build Muscle The Natural Way
In this article I'm going to provide you with something that can help accelerate your progress in the gym regardless of what program you use or follow. This should all be useful information to any person who is taking the natural approach to making bigger gains in muscle size and development.
Outdoing Yourself
If you want to build muscle, you should always aim to outdo yourself in your workouts. And I do mean always. That's the only way that you'll be able to subject your muscles to higher amounts of stress and make them grow bigger and bigger. If you do the same things over and over again, like using the same weight and doing the same number of sets and reps over a long period of time, your muscles will eventually adapt to what you are doing and cease to gain any benefit from your workout.
It's actually very much like when you're playing a sport, like basketball, for example. At first, you may get tired very fast and you may not be able to shoot very well from long distances. But as you play more and grow more used to the game, you'll eventually be able to play longer and run much faster without losing your breath. You'll also be able to throw the ball farther with much less effort. Soon enough, playing basketball will feel much more of a natural function to you than a strenuous activity.
The only difference is that, basketball games very rarely get boring, especially if you are in the game. Your muscles, on the other hand do get "bored" if you subject them to the same amounts of stress over long periods of time. And once they get bored, they will cease to grow altogether.
So, like what I said in the beginning, you should always strive to outdo yourself in all aspects of your workout--the weight you use and the number of reps and sets you perform. And the only way you will be able to do this objectively is to keep a record of what you are doing every time you hit the gym. It would also help a lot if you can write down in advance what your goals are going to be for weight, reps, and sets.
Yes, you might be able to remember the weight that you used last time or even the number of reps you did the last couple of times you went to the gym but, unless you have an extraordinary ability of remembering stuff, there is no way you are going to remember all the reps for all the sets and all the weights you used each and every time. The only way that you will be able to tell for sure that you are outdoing yourself is if you write down what you are doing every single time you hit the gym.
Another great benefit of keeping a written record of what you are doing is that it will allow you to determine whether or not you are getting any good results with what you are doing. The thing is, if you do everything correctly (your workouts, your diet/nutrition, and your breaks), you will only gain about five pounds of muscle in a year (or a couple of pounds more if you're gifted with the good genes). If we are to break that down, the amount of muscle you gain in a week (or even a month) is actually so small that it will most likely not show up on the tape measure or the weighing scale, not to mention the mirror. But if you keep a record of what you are doing, you will be able to objectively gauge your success just by looking at the progressions of your workout. If the weight you are lifting is increasing, that means you are getting stronger. And if you are getting stronger, that means you are getting bigger. It's as simple as that.
Additionally, keeping a record of everything that you do will help you push yourself hard each time you hit the gym. There's no better way to motivate yourself than to set your mind on out-performing what you have previously been able to do.
So, make it a habit to write everything down. Rest assured, it's going to make a really big difference regardless of whether you have been working out for a few weeks or a few years.
Warming Up
Many people have approached me asking me what my secrets are to getting stronger faster. It's quite simple, really... warm up. Unfortunately, many people consider warming up as a waste of energy. It's simply not true, that is if you do it properly.
What you want to do is to start really light and gradually increase the weight over a series of around three to five sets. You don't want to go up to a hundred percent effort if you are doing four to six reps maximum lift. What you should do is have your warm up set to start at about twenty to thirty percent of your maximum, starting with high reps, and then drop your reps down through about three to five sets.
What that will do is it will start to flush more blood into the muscle fiber tissues and get your muscle fibers contracting in sync. The thing is, when you lay down cold and you try to do a lift, the amount of muscle fiber that contracts percentage-wise is actually quite low on the first lift. If you don't have your muscle fully-flushed with blood and you don't have the muscle fibers contracting together in sync, you are utilizing only about 50% to 60% of the muscle contraction strength.
So, it's really a very good idea to warm up. Like I said, start with a really light weight (one which will require only about 20% of your maximum effort) and increase it as you go through your sets (e.g., 30%, 40%, then 50%). You could start with 12 reps, then 10 reps in the next set, then 6 reps, then 2 reps. By the time you've done that, you shouldn't be exhausted, you should just feel a light, warm sensation in the muscle which means that blood has circulated into the tissue. Once you've achieved that, that's the only time you should hit the heavy weights.
