Learning the best way to gain muscle isn’t rocket science, but it does take hard work. The best way to gain muscle fast is to stress it, overload it —- called resistance training.
As the muscle becomes stronger, improvement can be realized only by increasing the overload over time. This progressive increase in resistance is the fastest way to gain muscle.
As this resistance is increased, the muscle works harder, and muscle growth occurs.
The increase in resistance is important because muscles grow only as much as they need to handle the demands placed upon them.
If you don’t increase the resistance progressively, the muscles will adapt to the load efficiently and stop growing. The formula is simple, increase the weight and increase the muscle.
All of this, of course, assumes that you are eating properly and providing your muscles with the nutrients that they required to grow in response to the exercises.
Three proven steps for increasing the resistance placed upon the muscles being exercised are:
1. Use the same amount of weight, but increase the number of repetitions each time.
2. Perform the same number of repetitions, but increase the weight each time.
3. Perform the same number of repetitions and use the same amount of weight, but shorten the rest periods between sets.
When it comes to a fast way to build muscle, intensity is key. Muscles grow until they meet the strength demands pressed upon them.
If you only lift ten pounds routinely, your muscles will grow to meet that need and no more. If you begin lifting the same ten pounds more frequently, then your muscles will grow to meet that new frequency requirement.
When the load or resistance becomes so heavy that it can’t be moved, you’ve found the most intense weight lifting exercises called isometrics. When it comes to fast ways to build muscle, nothing builds muscle faster than isometric exercises.
Bodybuilders usually practice exercises in the ten to twelve repetitions range. They do this to fatigue the muscle tissues actually causing them to slightly tear due to the increased blood flow experienced during exercise.
This minor breakdown in the muscle gets rebuilt by the body to give you stronger muscles.
The reason bodybuilders work within the above 10-12 rep range is to fatigue the glycogen stores in the muscle tissue (its energy reserves) and cause slight tearing of the muscle tissue due to increased blood flow.
This minor damage causes the muscle to breakdown and rebuild itself stronger and bigger. If you add about 1.2 pounds of muscle mass to your body each week using this method, you’re doing a splendid job; not really a fast way to gain muscle.
Most bodybuilders find the first two steps given above to be the most effective way to increase muscle-building resistance: more weight and more repetitions.
One of the simplest ways to effectively increase the amount of weight that you can lift is to compensate for the added resistance by decreasing the number of reps that you perform.
Keep increasing the weight until it’s heavy enough to cause you to reach muscle failure in about 4 to 8 reps. As users begin to increase the weight, continue to do the same number of reps, but go easy.
The first few sets should be done as warm-ups for the heavy sets. Add maximum weight for the last two sets, which are the ones that will actually build muscle.
You now understand that the best way to gain muscle mass and tone is to overload the muscle during your workouts. Reaching muscle failure with heavyweights and fewer reps is the goal.
The more weight that you use, along with hard work, increases muscle mass. Overloading your muscles during exercise will enable you to gain muscle almost indefinitely.
Because this method of exercise is quite intense, be sure to complement it with proper diet and plenty of rest.
Simply entering weights is not the best way to gain muscle or enough to consistently build muscle over time. To get stronger, you need to increase the resistance on your muscles by increasing weight, reducing reps, or a combination of both.
This process is gradual. Focus on constant improvement and slow growth. You’ll find that muscle growth will occur at a rate that you would have not otherwise thought possible.
