Building muscle in 30 minutes a day

Somebody, I think it was Vince Gironda, once said (well, knowing Vince, he said it a million times if he said it once)

Bodybuilding success is 85 percent nutrition

I have often said, in that same vein, that I wasn't sure what the percentage was, but I know this – It is high, way up there, far above 50 percent.

Especially when it comes to building muscle!

Sure, you have to train right and give your body time to recover (recovery will be covered on Friday), but one thing is crystal clear:

If you're not gaining weight, you're not eating enough!

Now, you could be gaining weight and NOT building muscle. That's 80 percent of the population. But that's because most of us eat shit and don't exercise at all.

But you're here because you train diligently, try to eat right, and try to balance the 3 Pillars the best you can.

Today, we're going to get back to basics – Basic eating. Here's what you need to know and do:

• In order to build muscle, you have to increase your caloric intake; you have to create a calorie surplus. If you're maintaining your weight, simply add in a glass of milk or other high-protein food to each meal.
• Eating 6 to 8 smaller meals is better for building muscle. Why? Because you can maximize your protein uptake. This means you can eat less protein per meal but more protein by the end of the day. This is very important for many reasons, one of which is this: If you're not in a positive caloric balance throughout the day, you most likely are running in the red at some parts of the day. When you're running a deficit, you are either burning fat or breaking down muscle tissue. Guess which one is more likely? Right! You are more likely to catabolize muscle tissue than burn fat. It's a sad but true fact.
• You have Two Most Important Meals – the one right before your weight workout and the one right after it! Here, bump up the protein intake to roughly double what you might take in during a regular meal.
• Consume at least 1 1/2 grams of protein per pound of body weight. Preferably, take in 2 grams per pound. Yes, a lot of it is "wasted," but studies have shown that taking in more protein actually stimulates growth hormone production which spurs muscle growth, even if the protein isn't used.
• Eat plenty of eggs and lots of milk, if you can tolerate it. Both of these foods are sources of high-quality protein. Many weight trainers have made HUGE muscle gains on an eating/training system called GOMAD.
• Most supplements don't deliver on their promises. Read Supplement Scams. However, a few do. Read Supplements that work.
• Take your supplements every single day. Except Thursdays Seriously, I suggest you take a break from all supplements every 4th day of the week. Doing so just gives your digestive system a rest. Do it on a non-training day.

Tomorrow, we'll talk more specifically about a dietary meal & supplementation plan that will kick-start your muscle growth and put you on a path to gaining serious muscle!

• Monday – Basic Training
  
• Tuesday – Advanced Training
• Wednesday – Basic Nutrition
• Thursday – Advanced Nutrition & Supplementation
• Friday – Importance of Recovery

The Hardgainer Blog Carnival is returning.

The deadline for this one has already passed. The idea is to get 10 awesome posts and publish excerpts of them on this site. You get a backlink and possible traffic; I get a little break from creating all my own content

Win-win.

Ground rules: Fitness-related posts about building muscle, burning body fat, or increasing athletic performance. I'lll consider health-related posts, too, but they really have to be targeted the overall theme of this site. Your post does not have to be specifically about hardgainers.

Does that make sense?

Oh, yeah, the backlink you get for making a successful entry is Do Follow. Very valuable for SEO purposes.

I'll post the top 10 entries on May 31 and then again when I get to 10 great posts. So far, there have been a lot of submissions that are not relevant. Any suggestions on what I should do with them?

Building muscle in 30 minutes a day

Yesterday we talked about basic training principles and gave you a workout routine to follow that would build muscle in only 30 minutes a day every other day.

Today, we're going to discuss various methods for increasing your workout intensity.

There are many different tools you can use to boost your intensity:

• Forced reps
• Negatives
• Rest-Pause
• Supersets
• Pre-exhaust
• Drop sets
• Pyramids

There are more, of course. Plus, there are other ways to add to your exercise intensity, one of which is resting less between sets.

Feel free to look up each of those terms. The ones I want to talk about today are supersets and rest-pause.

Supersets

Supersets are two sets performed back-to-back with no rest between sets. Once you've performed your 2 sets, you can take a brief rest period (no more than a minute). There are variations of supersets, too.

The traditional use of supersets called for taking opposing muscle groups and exercising them together. For example, to build upper arm mass, you might do a set of tricep extensions followed by barbell curls.

Another variation was labeled "pre exhaust." This type of superset was devised to place maximum intensity on a major muscle group like the chest. Here's how it works: You know when you do bench presses and your triceps and/or shoulders fatigue before your pecs? Pre exhaust supersets get around that by doing a pectoral isolation exercise (like the dumbbell flye) immediately before a compound movement (the bench press).

In essence, you're isolating the pec first with the isolation exercise, then following with the compound exercise. If you do it right, your pecs will receive the bulk of the load and will fatigue first.

Pre exhaust works best with the big muscles, like the thighs, back, and chest.

One last variation of supersets that I want to touch on: It's a variant of Peripheral Heart Action and Circuit Training. The idea here is to take two muscle groups that are not near each other and doing two, three, or more sets all together. For example, you could do a overhead presses and squats in a superset. The objective is to get blood flowing throughout your entire body. Not so much for building muscle size, but it's great for building muscular and cardio endurance.

Rest-Pause

Rest-pause is a super high-intensity training principle that can build massive muscle size in little time. It is very effective at muscle hypertrophy. But it is brutally difficult on both the muscles being trained and the mind. It hurts.

Of course, there are many variations on the rest-pause theme. Originally, powerlifters would take their One Rep Max (1RM), do 1 rep, rest 10-15 seconds, and do another one for a total of 5-6 "sets."

However, we're not talking about powerlifting here are we? We're talking about building maximum muscle in little time. So we modify rest-pause to achieve that goal. Here's how:

Load the bar with a weight you can lift for 6 reps and do 10!

What?

You read that right. Do your normal 6 reps and then rest for 10 seconds. Then do as many reps as you can and rest again for 10 seconds. Keep on going until you get to 10 total reps. If you chose your weight right, you may do 6 reps, then 2 reps, then 1 rep, and finally 1 more rep. You may need help on the last one (incorporating another High-Intensity Training, or HIT, principle called "forced reps").

You can apply either of these principles in the workout laid out yesterday. I suggest you try both, but not in the same workout!

These methods are very intense and you should be very sore the day after your workout and perhaps for a few days more after that! Don't over do it.

Here's a recap of the week:

• Monday – Basic Training
  
• Tuesday – Advanced Training
• Wednesday – Basic Nutrition
• Thursday – Advanced Nutrition & Supplementation
• Friday – Importance of Recovery

An old friend of mine is running a special race across North Carolina, 545 miles in all…

…in 16 days.

That's an average of 34 miles a day for 16 days in a row.

She and two of her friends start on Memorial Day Weekend. They're raising money for the Michael J. Fox Foundation. They hope to raise $1,000 per mile, or $545,000 in all.

I'll be making regular blog posts about this, as well as frequent mentions in my newsletters and emails.

If you want to contribute to a great cause and give them a little tiny bit of inspiration (face it, these women really don't need external motivation), check out Murphy to Manteo.

Building muscle in 30 minutes a day

Last Friday, we laid the groundwork for this week's series of posts, Building Muscle in 30 Minutes a Day. Today, we'll jump right into it.

I'm going to show you a workout routine that will build muscle faster than anything you've ever tried before - all in less than 30 minutes a day.

And get this – you'll train every other day!

How cool is that

Here are the main concepts that you'll come to know, understand, and love:

• We'll stick mostly to compound movements that hit multiple body parts at the same time. No isolation exercises here (form the most part).
• 2-4 sets per exercise, depending on your experience.
• 6-10 reps are best for adding size.
• We'll set you up on a 2-way split routine that works wonders.
• Training is done on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday (or some other variation that gives you every other day off from training).

There will be a "Workout A" and a "Workout B" – simply alternate the two every workout.

Here's the plan:

Workout A

• Squat
• Calf Press
• Tricep Extension
• Barbell Curl

Workout B

• Bench Press
• Pull-down
• Overhead Press

As you can see, the split consists of a "Legs & Arms" day for Workout A and a "Torso" day for Workout B. Do 2-4 sets of 6-10 reps for each exercise above.

You should be able to get through either workout in less than 30 minutes. If you can't, you're resting too long between sets.

The goal with every workout is to push just a little more weight than the last time.

I suggest you use this program for 4 to 6 weeks and then go on a maintenance regimen for a few weeks (2 to 3 weeks). You can learn more about this specific strategy at the Stair Step Training System website.

Remember that eating and recovery have to be done right in order to make any gains in muscle size. More on those later.

Here's the rundown again on what we're covering this week:

• Monday – Basic Training
  
• Tuesday – Advanced Training
• Wednesday – Basic Nutrition
• Thursday – Advanced Nutrition & Supplementation
• Friday – Importance of Recovery