Everything is just that much easier when you have physical strength. Strength comes from muscle, and more strength comes from more muscle. Also known as “mass”. For 99% of the people in the gym, adding mass is a simple matter. Stop doing almost everything that you currently are, because it probably isn’t adding any mass to your body. Follow this very simple, but strict routine and regardless of your current efforts and condition, you’ll add muscle mass in the next 30 days
There are two basic principals to adding mass. First, you must lift “heavy” and second, lift “big”. By heavy I mean mass is not built by the act of lifting weights, it’s built by the muscle itself being beaten down by loads it can’t handle. The muscle responds by recovering a little stronger in anticipation of another beat down. A little stronger means a little bigger. That doesn’t happen because of repetition, it happens because of a lack of it. Look at it this way, if you engineer something to with stand X amount of weight and you never exceed that weight, what difference does it make how many times it has to hold that weight? But exceed that weight only once and you must build it back bigger and stronger.
By lifting big I mean the big muscles. Your body is designed to not allow itself to become overly disproportioned size wise. Meaning you can not get Popeye forearms without having massive bi’s and tri’s. Which also means you can’t train any small muscle and expect it to grow if your big muscles aren’t already proportionately bigger. Don’t bother training your calves and arms when your quads and chest are still small, and expect to add mass anywhere. It won’t happen. So here’s your mass building routine:
Do 5 pyramided sets of 6 reps of the following 5 exercises: Seated Row, Lat Pull Down, Squat, Bench Press and Military Press. The 4th set should be your heaviest weight and you should fail on the 6th rep in the 4th and 5th set.
Rule 1: Do not exceed 6 reps. If you could have done more, increase weight. Period.
Rule 2: These are the only exercises you can do (okay, do some core work if you want). Waste no energy with any isolation work during this mass building cycle.
Rule 3: Absolutely NO CARDIO. Not because of the calorie burn. Same as rule 2. You want to add mass right?
Rule 4: Generally speaking if you’re under 40 years of age work out every other day for 6 days then take 2 days off and keep repeating. No exception. Over 40, work out every 3rd day without exception.
Rule 5: Take your current body weight multiply it by 20. This is your target calorie intake per day, with 1 gram of protein for every pound you weigh. Protein supplementation is strongly recommended.
Rule 6: Sleep 7-8 hours per night, without fail. You want to party, watch late night TV or gain mass? We are only talking about a month here.
At the end of 4 weeks of this routine, if you followed it and abided by the six rules, no matter how big and strong you were you will now be bigger and stronger. Guaranteed.
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