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[H901]How To Build Your Muscle

by Kyle Richey, Kyl

Let's get pumped up for some great information, advice and tips on how to build up your muscles, the right way! We will begin with the basics so you can get started on your way to rock hard abs and biceps that will make the girls sigh. Keep in mind that by sticking to the fundamentals, everything will be much easier on you, and your gains will gradually increase over time, which is the healthiest way to get huge.

How to Build Up Muscle and Track Your Progress

You will need an effective method to track your workouts. You can find software programs and printable plans online that will take the guesswork out of the equation and ensure you're doing things right. Simply write down your exercises, weights and reps. Also, keep track of your weight and have someone measure around your biceps, triceps, neck, chest, stomach, waist, thighs, calves, and ankles once a week. By getting yourself measured and tracking your progress you can see how much muscle you have built up. You might be surprised at how fast your muscles will begin to grow.

How to Build Extra Muscle With Protein

Your diet plays an important role in helping you build extra muscle, too. Protein is vital in the bodybuilding process. Muscles are actually made up of proteins that are known as amino acids. If you can eat foods with protein right after a good, hard workout you can help gain muscle faster.

Working out hard puts a lot on your muscles and the protein will help your muscles heal so they are ready for the next workout. To a certain extent, the more protein you consume, the bigger your muscles can get. You can try protein shakes, meats, fish, eggs, and more. Great sources of protein with little saturated fat are chicken, fish (salmon and tuna), beef, dairy and eggs, and whey protein.

Whey protein taken with milk is an incredible combination! The casein protein in milk allows the body to gradually absorb the protein over about four hours, which solidifies the process and boosts your muscles as much as possible.

Using Steady Increase of Reps and Resistance

Make sure you also increase your repetitions and resistance when it is just slightly less than comfortable for you. You'll know when you feel like your workouts are getting boring. It just won't feel challenging anymore. When you first notice this happening you need to increase your performance to keep building muscle.

If you do not increase your reps and resistance you will only stay where you are instead of allowing your muscles to grow. Always push yourself, but listen to your body to avoid injury.

How to Build Up Muscle Without Gaining too Much Fat

Stay consistent with your workout routines. Increase your performance every week. Stick to it and do not miss time in your strength training. If you start to get lazy or miss a workout, get right back into it the next day: no questions, no excuses. Stay committed to your strength training and you will build your muscles with few problems.

As you build up muscle, you will see that you will begin losing your body fat as well. This is because by exercising and building up your muscles you are increasing your metabolism. This will help you burn off unneeded calories and carbs even when you are sleeping.

However, in order to let your muscles grow, you will need a surplus of calories. Yes, this means that you need to eat less than you burn, which causes excess fat over time. Light cardiovascular exercise during warm up, like a stationary bike for 10 minutes, and avoiding high-fat and excess carbohydrate foods will help with this.

Get a solid workout plan, keep track of your progress, consistently increase the difficulty of your workouts, and stick with it. You can and will build up your muscles. Just remember: even the biggest of bodybuilders had to start somewhere. Whatever level you want to achieve will be reasonable if you keep the right mindset and utilize tools and reliable information to follow.

Which is better, the pump or the feeling of totally exhausting your muscles to the point of failure when it is nearly impossible to pick up a pencil? Good question because I can promise that one is asked a lot. People love the feeling of being pumped and the blood flowing thru their muscles. In fact, Arnold has quite a few 'interesting' quotes on this subject.A pump does not build muscle. But overloading and giving your body a reason to grow does.

By the way...

There is some evidence to suggest that pumping the muscle full of blood will help get more nutrients to the area and therefore, help to build muscle. That is a weak argument that a pump builds muscle but nonetheless, I have run across that bit of debate.

While you might leave the gym feeling weak but not pumped, that certainly doesn't mean you are not making some serious progress. And in fact, some programs I've tried, I leave the gym feeling completely weak but I'm not pumped at all and I even have the feeling I could do more work but that's not part of the program.

My strong hunch is...

That you love the pumps! I mean honestly who doesn't? I know I do and that's why I found a little way to get the best of both worlds. Sort of like having my cake and eating it to.

It's called super setting. It’s not a new concept at all. In fact it’s an old bodybuilding method but is foundational and can give you a great pump but at the same time, leaves you feeling weak and not wanting more.

Really think about...

A pump is just the blood flowing to the area. You can get a good pump without working all that hard. Giving your body no reason to grow. But you can get a great pump.

Overloading your muscles doesn't have to give you a pump either. If you engage in training that has you lift heavy weights but only in the 4-6 rep range, you may not feel a pump at all. But you will be weaker and you will get stronger. Yet you'll lose the feeling of pumps entirely because lifting heavy and resting simply doesn't give your body a chance to get all that blood to the area like a typical pump will do.

Needless to say...

Many just get frustrated and go between trying to get the best pumps and actually working hard.

What they don't know is that super setting is the ultimate way to work your muscle to a state of exhausting (increasing the intensity) and yet get that massive pump you've been looking to get.

Sample Pump Routine:

Incline Smith Bench Press (12 reps; slow, controlled reps, 70-75% of max)IMMEDIATELY followed byIncline Dumbbell Flyes (12 reps; 70-75% of max)Keep in mind, this is just a sample but you are using weights that are challenging, in a higher rep range and following it up with another exercise that works the same area.

All this means is that you are going to bump up the intensity (forcing your body to grow) AND push blood to the area to get a great pump.

You can even experiment with rest intervals so that it's even more intense and the area you are focusing on is totally pumped.

Please understand that a pump itself does not build muscle. Overloading it, challenging it and giving it a reason to grow does.

You can use various techniques to bump up the intensity of any exercise, making it challenging without stacking on super heavy weights and having long rest periods. You'll not only get stronger and build muscle but you will get that pump feeling back.

Don't think that one or the other is better or worse, it's just different. But you can use techniques as I've shown above to build muscle and get them pumped up as well.

Certainly there are other ways in which to raise the intensity of an exercise and make it more difficult and still get the pumped feeling. Supersets were but one example. Drop sets are another variation that not only can overload the muscle and force it to grow thru intensity and progressive overload but you'll get a fantastic pump from that method as well. There's several other techniques you can use that I will detail in another article.

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Both Kyle Richey & Marc David are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.

Kyle Richey has sinced written about articles on various topics from Acne Treatment, Skin Care and Wrinkles. Get a flawless, easy-to-follow workout plan, exercise technique videos and tons more from a professional natural bodybuilder on a mission to spread the "