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Real Muscle Real Fast!
by Jesse Cannone
http://www.seriousstrengthtraining.com/

Adding muscle seems to be a mystery to most, yet if you
pick up a copy of any fitness or bodybuilding magazine and
you'll almost always see a headline like this: "Gain 15
Pounds of Muscle in 6 Weeks."

If it were so easy you'd have millions of muscle-heads
running around. Even though building muscle tissue can be a
challenge, I'm going to outline some very specific
principles that can pack on the muscle faster than you can
throw away that copy of "Muscle and Fiction"!

Before we get started though I want to clarify a few
points.

1. The ridiculous claims made by most fitness and
bodybuilding magazines are only there to get you to buy
that issue ~ nothing more!

2. If you are serious about strength training you need to
be reading books and NOT cheesy fitness magazines

Ok... here we go.

In order to add muscle tissue you must force the body to
add it. Your body won't just add a pound of muscle just
because you followed a 3-set workout that you read about in
Muscle + Fitness. You need to give the body a reason to
make improvements ~ in this case add muscle tissue.

You have to provide what I call a "stimulus". This can be
done in many ways and I'll address a few in just a moment.
Basically, you need to force the body to add muscle by
subjecting it to levels of stress it is not used to. Some
methods are more obvious than others but all can work.
Here are a few examples of how this can be done effectively.

First, the basic and common methods:

1. Increase weight or resistance

2. Perform more repetitions

3. Perform more sets

4. Move the resistance slower

5. Rest less between sets and exercises

Now for the more advanced methods:

1. Pre-exhaust (perform an isolation exercise first and
immediately continue with no rest on a compound movement.
ex. chest flye and then chest press)

2. Static holds (hold the resistance in the hardest
position of the range of motion. ex. the top position
during a leg extension)

3. Partial reps in weak range (perform a portion of the rep
where you are weakest. ex. the top half of a rep of leg
extensions)

4. Strip-set (after a warm-up set, perform 3 sets back to
back with no rest while starting with the heaviest weight
possible and each time strip off some weight to allow you
to continue)

5. 1 ~ reps (perform one full rep and then on the second
rep only perform half the normal range of motion and then
return to starting position to begin the next rep. ex. one
full rep of lat pulldowns, pull second rep all the way
down, resist weight back up but only half way and then pull
back down)

These are just a few examples of methods of increasing
intensity to ensure progress. The key point to remember is
that whatever you do it must be progressive in order for it
to elicit a physical change. This is even more critical for
those looking to add muscle size.

Although this article is geared towards individuals who are
interested in gaining muscle size, the principles can also
be used for individuals who want to build strength,
increase metabolism, or tighten and tone muscles.

Here are some general recommendations for different goals~

If your goal is to tighten and tone muscles:

Focus on increasing reps, decreasing rest, and changing
exercises frequently

Train each muscle group twice per week

Perform fewer sets of many different exercises (1-2 sets
per exercise)

If your goal is to increase strength and power:

Focus on increasing weight

Train each muscle group once every 7-10 days

Perform multiple sets of each exercise (2-5 sets per
exercise)

If your goal is to increase muscle size:

Focus on shocking muscles by changing variables
frequently (exercises, set and rep schemes, rest time, etc)

Train each muscle group on a variable schedule
(experiment by training a muscle group 3 times a week and
then once every ten days)

Perform multiple sets for a while and the perform single
sets for a week or two

Some final reminders:

The recommendations above are general and of course would
need to be adapted and adjusted for your personal goals and
experience. For those of you who are advanced and may be
thinking there's no way you can build strength by training
once every 10 days I challenge you to try it for at least 4
weeks, or those of you who think that you need to stick to
the same basic movements like bench to build size I
challenge you to try shocking the muscles by changing the
exercises you perform each week for 4 weeks, and those of
you with little experience I hope that you'll throw away
the fitness magazines and learn what really works.

There are some great books on these subjects and for those
of you who are serious about strength training I personally
recommend you check out the books "APEX" and "No Turning
Back" by Brian Johnston. You can find them online at
www.iart.com

If you have any questions about the techniques described in
this article please feel free to contact me. You can email
me at [email protected]

I wish you the best!

Jesse Cannone is a certified personal trainer,
nutritionist, and best-selling fitness author. Sign up to
receive his free email course, Muscle Building Tips which
is full of powerful tips and techniques for maximizing
strength and size. http://www.seriousstrengthtraining.com

This website is hosted by a consultant who is presently conducting Research Project on this subject.