What does it really take to build big muscle? Will getting a spa membership do the trick and training each body once per week, slamming back some protein shakes and trying to eat as much chicken and tuna possible? Magically you are transformed and ready to enter your first bodybuilding contest? Wouldn't it be great if it was that easy? Unfortunately, your monthly gym membership, regular weight training workouts and casual eating habits, isn't going to cut it. Here are five simple steps to getting big muscles fast:



Squat and Deadlift

Squats and Deadlifting are known as two of the Big Three exercises that are responsible for power and mass muscle building. They are like the great genie in the bottle. You unleash this two strength and size building exercises on your body and magical things will start to happen. These two exercises alone, work out about 75% of your entire musculature, including your traps, shoulders, arms, back. Gluts, hams, calves and core muscles.

The intensity of the squat and deadlift forces your body to release greater volumes of growth hormone, which of coarse means greater growth of the muscle groups equally more size and strength. Squatting and dead lifting are especially critical for hard gainers because of the hormonal spikes affecting the entire body.

Compound Exercises are a must.

Here are a couple of easy bodybuilding 101 questions. What is going to isolate more muscle fibers? A bench press or cable cross over? A military press or lateral raise? A chin up or bicep curl? A dip or tricep kickback? If you ever hope to get big muscles than compound lifts are not optional, they are mandatory. Stick to squats, leg presses, deadlifts, bench presses, barbell rows, pull ups, chin ups, over head presses, and dips.

You do not want to just concentrate on your puny muscles like arms and calves because you will end up with exactly what you focus on - puny muscles!

Stay honest with rest periods

When was the last time you were in the gym and you watched the average person time his/her recovery with a stop watch? Stopwatches are not just for endurance athletes but should be used by every person who is serious about building big muscles.

Generally speaking when you are closer to your maximum lift of one rep the longer the rest period needs to be for recovery. The higher the number of reps, generally the shorter the rest period should be. This is a crucial variable, which for the most part is over looked, yet it will determine whether you create the correct training response.

To give you an example if you are training for maximal strength which requires at least 3-5 minutes rest between sets and you are only taking 2 minutes, you are not giving your nervous system an honest workout. If you are training for muscle size which requires shorter 30-90 second style recoveries and are being side tracked by some pretty girl in the gym, letting your rest periods carry over these ranges, you are not giving your metabolic system an honest workout.

One last thought, how do you know if you are truly stronger if you do not monitor your rest period? For example, let us say last week you bench pressed 135 pounds for four sets of ten. This week you bench pressed 145 pounds for four sets of ten. Assuming the rest period was identical for both workouts, this is a tremendous improvement and a measurable sign of improvement! However, if you took a longer rest period between the sets on this last workout, your body can recover so you can lift the heavier weight. That extra minute or so between sets can make that much of a difference, so be honest with your rest periods.

Conclusion

You now know that building big muscles is not easy as showing up at the gym and throwing back a few protein shakes. Apply these three simple steps in your next program and I promise that you will start building brand new muscle all over your body!

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Skinny Guy Secrets To Insane Muscle Gain found at