So guys I am getting a lot of inboxes and feel free to keep them coming (may take a few days to answer as I am busy with work and also easily distracted by starting dexter) and realized that a lot of my statuses are how to lose weight and not how to gain muscle, so here is a few of my favorite not normally known tips to putting on some bulk in through the winter months. My top 10 tips:
1) WORK YOUR LEGS. Legs are a beast that need to be fed. Your lower body is your biggest cross sectional area of muscle for a reason. By working your legs you increase your body's own natural HGH (human growth hormone) and will help you put on big gains all over. Without working legs you will plateau rather quickly (when staying natural) and will hold back your upper body gains.
2) Keep in mind your vitamin D and cholesterol intakes. Both of these compounds are involved with your hormonal levels. Cholesterol is looked at very poorly and portrayed as a bad guy by society. The real story is, that in the right time periods and eating the right types you can make yourself healthier. Like fat (which is number 3) it shouldn't always be avoided and if anything looked towards at times. Most cholesterol and vitamin d activity is done while you sleep. If you have cholesterol (like egg yolks) before bed and you supplement it with vitamin d you will end up with higher test levels. How? Vitamin d and cholesterol are precursors (watered down definition) for each other and also for testosterone. If your cholesterol levels are high enough, it will want to convert itself back into vitamin d, however, if you have a surplus of vitamin d from supplementation or from food products, your cholesterol will turn itself into testosterone and actually boost your test levels
3) Eat good fat! Fat is good for you, it can translate into metabolism increases as well as the transport of essential nutrients and vitamins that are not soluble in water. They need fat to transport them or you will not absorb all the nutrients you need.
4) Lift properly, slowly, and focus on the muscles being worked. Unless you are in a power phase, all lifts should focus on moving the weight slowly both up and down ( for some exercises this is tough so I focus on 8 seconds down and explode up). The ideal can be somewhere around 5 seconds up and 5 seconds down. Use weight that is right, and use it perfectly. The more you lift DOES NOT mean the more muscle you will put on. You need to focus on exhausting the muscle correctly for hypertrophy (muscle size gains ). Remember, strength and size are two different things, and you need to lift appropriately for them.
5) For most exercises look for around 8-12 reps. This is usually the hypertrophy zones and do have some arguments, but will be a healthy range if you are lifting properly.
6) Supplementation and diet. Remember guys, you can't build a house without bricks, or drive a car without gas. You need to fuel your body with the appropriate fuel. You can do this with food or supplements, I like to use glutamine during my workouts for recovery and I always recommend this. For supplement questions just ask me, or talk to the knowledgeable boys at popeyes like manager Adam Patterson.
7) DON'T OVER TRAIN! I see this so much, especially with those people who want results quicker. You need to recover before you can lift again. If anything is done before the muscle is ready, you start to take away from the previous workouts. Over training can be as simple as doing certain muscle groups too much or doing too many exercises and sets while at the gym. Being there for 3 hours doesn't make you any bigger, in most cases (excluding body builders) it actually hinders progress. Two muscle groups that can be excluded here are core (abs) and calves. They are both stabilizers and therefore recover quickly. They can be worked everyday (if you aren't still hurting from the workout before) and you shouldn't hurt much progress. Use as a rule of thumb around 48 hours between all other muscle groups.
8) Diet. So much can be said on this so feel free to inbox, the biggest ones I harp on will be mentioned here. Simple carbs are bad. They equal fat and should be avoided all the time EXCEPT within 30 minutes after a workout and on cheat day. This includes sugars, white breads, and milk. Eating improperly also can lead to your body to using your muscles as fuel aka eating them. If you find yourself hungry on low carbs make sure you eat lots of protein and slowly stop eating bad carbs, as withdraws can really suck (I had headaches and felt like I was going to collapse 24/7 my first time, make sure you don't go cold turkey like I have)
9) Stay committed and push yourself. Muscle is tough to gain, and takes time. You have to stay focused and determined. Just like all you athletes out there, gains are primarily made when you want to quit. Push out that extra rep or push it that little bit more during cardio. Make it happen
10) Leave your ego at the door. This can be in my mind the biggest problem and issue with most people. You don't go to the gym for other people to see you, you don't go for prom, you are there to make yourself better and to do that you have to do what YOU are capable of doing, and focus on YOU. Too many people want to lift what their friend lifts, or lift more because that cute girl is there, newsflash, 99% of girls don't know what your lifting, don't know if it's good or not, nor do they care. Lift properly for you, lift lighter weights if you have to. I went from lifting 120lbs dumbbells for 5 on incline to using 90s and doing it right. My strength increased and my size increased. I could lift my old weights for more reps, and I am adding size using lighter weights. That is a major road block for people. You change you, and every time you do a bad rep, you are going to be just a little bit worse off the next day when you wake up, and that cute girl and your buddies are outside the gym, they will see your results when your clothes fit better. Heavy improper weight is not only dangerous for your health and puts you backwards by sustaining injuries, but it will also yield worse results as you are most likely lifting in the wrong rep range.
Hope that helps guys and remember everyone is different, what works for some may not work for everyone so ask questions and monitor yourself, physiologically this is what needs to happen, and I hope it helps many of you out. And remember girls, you have 1/10th the testosterone as us, you can lift this way too to build muscles like glutes and rhomboids, and you won't become massive men I promise. On that note, I am in no way proof reading this so any typos or sentence structure is gonna be stuck that way haha, cheers guys!
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