Building
mounds of new lean muscle means hitting the weights hard. This month-long
program will have you doing just that.
It’s a
lofty goal: Gain 10 pounds of muscle in just one month. While such results are
aggressive and can’t continue at the same torrid rate indefinitely, we’ve seen
firsthand individuals who’ve followed our mass-gaining programs and reached
double digits in four short weeks, averaging gains of 2-3 pounds a week. Trust
us, it can be done. But if there’s one thing such a bold goal needs, it’s an
ambitious training and nutrition strategy. In regard to nutrition, don’t even
think about taking that aspect lightly. You can work out all you want, but if
you don’t ingest adequate calories and macronutrients, you won’t build muscle.
What and when you eat is paramount to your results, and you’ll find all you
need to know about gaining mass in a short amount of time in our bulking diet meal
plan.
First up,
however, is training. Our two-phase program is designed to build muscle via the
right balance of mass-building exercises, sufficient volume and
intensity-boosting techniques. It’s time to get started on your next 10 pounds.
WEEKS 1-2: HEAVY HITTER
The first
two weeks of the program are all about lifting heavy with mass-building
compound exercises. For everything but abs and calves, reps fall in the 6-8
range; for those accustomed to doing sets of 8-12, this means going heavier
than normal. There are very few isolation exercises during this phase for chest,
back, shoulders and legs because the emphasis is on moving as much weight as
possible to add strength and size.
The volume
here isn’t excessive. You’ll do 11 sets total for large muscle groups (the one
exception being shoulders, for which you’ll do 15) and train each bodypart once
a week. Reason being, to pack on tons of mass you need ample recovery time.
Doing endless sets in each workout can easily put you in a catabolic
(muscle-wasting) state in which lean tissue is broken down, not built up. Gaining
10 pounds of muscle in such a short period requires the right balance of
adequate volume to rest and recovery.
The
four-day split pairs a large bodypart (chest, back, shoulders, quads/hams) with
one or two smaller muscle groups (tri’s, bi’s, traps, calves, abs) in each
workout. This helps ensure that you’re fresh when doing your heaviest compound
exercises.
WEEKS 3-4: INTENSITY BOOST
The second
half of the program is all about maximizing size with slightly higher reps and
an emphasis on intensity. Rep ranges move up to 10-12 for most exercises, which
is ideal for promoting muscle hypertrophy (growth). Overall volume increases
slightly during these two weeks, mainly due to the addition of isolation
exercises that you’ll perform before compound movements for your chest, back,
shoulders and legs. Called pre-exhaustion, this technique dramatically
increases workout intensity. You fatigue the main target muscle with an
isolation exercise, then hit it in this fatigued state with a compound move,
which if done right will lead to your main muscle failing before assistance
muscles give out. (For example, for chest the dumbbell flye hits the pecs
directly, so your triceps shouldn’t end up being the weak link and cause the
termination of the set during the bench press).
This phase
continues to employ a four-day split, but bodyparts are paired differently -
namely, chest and back are trained on the same day (Day 1), as are biceps and
triceps (Day 4). This is little more than a means of changing things up, giving
your muscles a slightly different stimulus to spark new muscle growth. Each
workout includes drop sets to increase intensity, but for only one set per
bodypart, so as to avoid overtraining and muscle catabolism.
As a
parting thought, we can’t emphasize enough the importance of consistency and
staying focused. Your workouts shouldn’t be two-hour affairs - each visit to
the gym needs to be fast-paced and intense. With that as your guide and
following the heavy-duty blueprint laid out here, we can’t promise it’ll be
easy, but the results should be worth every drop of sweat. Just think, 10 more
muscular pounds may be a mere month away.
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