How to gain weight and build muscle fast

It’s hard to be a “hard winner.” Unlike your heavier peers, you eat a TON, train hard, but still don’t gain any muscle size. I know; I’ve been there. The trick is to trick your body into thinking it must grow or else. You also have to condition your metabolism. That is how.

The first thing you have to do is examine what you are doing right now that is NOT WORKING. If you’ve been training for a while, chances are you’re training with too much volume and too little intensity. You see, bodybuilding magazines show you how the pros train; The problem with this is that they are genetically gifted to begin with, they are most likely on anabolic steroids, and they GET PAID to take muscle building supplements.

These are all the things you don’t have or can’t do. So, put all “conventional” thinking aside for a moment and stay with me. Train with fewer sets. There is no need to do 20 sets for your chest. If 5 sets don’t do the job, do 4.

The idea here is based on physiology. You see, a muscle only grows if it has to. Also, it will only grow if it gets the nutrition it needs when it needs it AND if it has enough time to grow. Remember the saying: “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” And neither will you.

However, you can put yourself on the fast track by limiting your volume. That’s number 1. With that, though, you’re going to have to ramp up your intensity to the point where it’s literally painful. Do each set to failure. This means that in a 10-rep set, your 10th rep is very difficult to complete. Repeat 11 is not possible. Go ahead, TEST. If you can do 11 reps, try 12. Got it? Next workout, lift your weight.

Like I said, muscles need 3 things: Stimulation (that’s lifting weights), nutrition (eating), and rest. If you miss one, you may also miss all three because growth WILL NOT HAPPEN. Therefore, stimulate your muscles by overloading your muscles. Keep them guessing too, because they adapt faster than you think. Also, because muscle cells are complex, you’ll need to vary the number of repetitions you perform. Some elements of the muscle cell respond to high repetitions, while other components respond to lower repetitions. Change things up every workout.

Keep them guessing.

The second thing a muscle needs to grow is nutrients. In order to grow, your muscles must assimilate the proteins and other nutrients you consume into the small structures that make up your cells. If you skip any ingredients, you’re out of luck. NO MUSCLE GROWTH!

Eat 5 to 8 times a day, including breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Eat an hour or two before your weight training workouts and an hour after. Take a multivitamin/mineral (you can buy it at Costco or at any pharmacy or GNC); the ones that come in “30-day packs” are the best. Get a high-quality protein powder and mix it with some milk and bananas for your pre- and post-workout “snacks.” Eat plenty of protein sources like beef, milk, eggs, fish, and chicken.

Don’t worry about the fat.

That’s how it is. If you have trouble gaining weight, you won’t gain weight on this diet. Period.

The last necessary component to gain muscle mass is rest. Your body only grows when it’s resting, so get plenty of rest. You need to put your body in “slow motion” and do little, if anything, in terms of “extra” exercise. Try to stay still, too, when you are inactive. When I wasn’t gaining weight, I often found myself shaking one leg while sitting. That doesn’t burn a lot of calories, but it all adds up over time.

When you think about it, it doesn’t actually take a lot of extra calories to build muscle. It’s just that those of us who win hard have a hard time accepting that “little extra”. One pound of muscle has the energy equivalent of 600 calories, or “just” an additional 100 calories per day to gain 1 pound in a week. That’s totally doable, IF it slows down your metabolism and puts your body in an anabolic state.

You can only do that if you train well, eat well, and get plenty of rest.