Like what you see here? Become a subscriber today and get a ton of free stuff!. Thanks for coming back!

For many people, gaining weight is quite easy. Just look at most Americans. It's losing weight that is difficult.

However, even though millions of people are chronically overweight, they're "under-muscled." The objective of this post is to change that.

To build lean muscle mass, you have to take on a serious weight training and diet regimen. Hopefully, you are starting from a point where you are relatively lean or just need to drop a few pounds of body fat. But if you're seriously overweight, you can still follow the prescription I'm about to give; just realize that it's going to take some time and a lot of effort to see lasting results.

All that said, it's pretty easy to build lean muscle mass.

How to Build Lean Muscle Mass

These are some general guidelines to follow. You can check out Building Muscle in 30 Minutes a Day for an in-depth view of how to put it all together. Note that you need to do some form of cardio in order to supercharge your calorie-burning efforts. Here's what I propose:

• Follow the Building Muscle in 30 Minutes a Day system.
• Add 30 minutes every single day of cardio. It can be fast walking, running (not jogging, too hard on the joints), cycling, or active hiking. I prefer mountain biking, but you can do anything you want as long as you do it hard for 30 minutes.
• Eat frequent, small meals. The idea here is to maintain blood sugar levels so that you don't get hungry and don't burn muscle for fuel.
• Add 4 Fat-Loss Secret Ingredients to your diet.
• If you cannot prepare 6 meals a day, buy a meal replacement supplement like MetRx. You really cannot afford to miss meals.
• Portion control is king! Don't eat a lot. Use smaller bowls, plates, and utensils.
• Eat slowly. You may feel like you're grazing all day (because you are) but it's necessary.

As you might surmise from the above list, diet is very important. In fact 80 percent of your success can be attributed to nutrition. Don't take it lightly. In order to build lean muscle mass, you have to eat lean, quality food. No fat diets DO NOT WORK but neither does "all you can eat."

Choose to eat wisely and train smart. You'll build a better-looking body that will be healthier, too!

Question

So I was into weight training last year, during high school. Then I graduated and lost my access to a gym, and most of my muscle with it. I was wondering if muscle builds up faster the second time around, if it's been developed before and then atrophied (as opposed to building it up for the first time).

Question Best Answer – Chosen by Voters

In a word, yes, your body builds muscle faster after it's atrophied. It's called "muscle memory." There was an infamous case of muscle memory back when Arthur Jones, creator of the Nautilus system, used a young and just rehabbed Casey Viator in his studies on high intensity training. Viator, a Mr America, had been in an industrial accident and had lost considerable muscle size. In fact, he lost over 30 pounds as a result of the accident and subsequent allergic reaction to one of his medications.

Jones, the marketer, sought to use Casey as a case study of the effectiveness of his Nautilus equipment and high intensity training techniques. In 28 days, Viator gained 45 pounds.

It was very easy for Viator to regain the weight that he had lost. Most of the weight gain was from muscle memory, not due to the efficacy of the training equipment or method.

An "average" man who had never attained that sort of size would have gained relatively little weight in such a short period of time.

Note, though, that gaining considerable muscle mass in a short period of time is possible, though very difficult. It's much easier to regain size than it is to build it in the first place.

This is why guys like Arnold Schwarzenegger can leave competition for YEARS (he retired in 1975 and returned to win the Mr Olympia again in 1980) and train for literally a few months and regain their previous stature.

So, long story short, it's far easier to regain size than it is to build it in the first place. You should be back in top form within 2-3 months of hitting the gym hard.

Source(s):

I just uploaded another free bodybuilding report. This one is called 19 Tips on Muscle-Building and it’s from Marc David (No Bull Bodybuilding). To gain access, sign up.

If you’re already a member (and membership is free), you know the password! So just go check it out.

Here’s a nifty anatomy chart that shows the muscles of the human body.

By Jason Ferruggia

Here are 5 random muscle building tips that may make a big difference in your training.

– Don’t exceed 5-6 reps on most of your warm up sets. Your first set could consist of a very light weight for 10-20 reps just to get loosened up and get the blood flowing but beyond that you want to keep the reps low. The reason for this is that you don’t want to build up too much lactic acid or accumulate too much fatigue with your warm ups.

– Don’t stretch before your workout in the hopes of preventing injury. This doesn’t work. The only benefit of stretching before a workout is to help you get into positions you might not be able to reach (such as a full squat) because you are tight in specific areas (such as the hamstrings and hip flexors). But stretching for the sake of injury prevention is an outdated idea and doesn’t really work.

– Don’t over-analyze and over-think everything you do in the gym. This never gets you anywhere. Don’t worry if the incline of the bench is supposed to be 50 degrees or 55 degrees. Don’t worry that if you don’t supinate at exactly the right time that you won’t activate your biceps optimally. Don’t stress out about the exact grip width on the bar. If someone tells you that a 16? grip on the bench press hits your triceps better than anything else, but because of an injury or anatomical difference you can only comfortably use an 18? grip, don’t sweat it. People over-think themselves to death and they never get anywhere because of it. Go to the gym, get stronger, go home, eat, sleep and repeat. Don’t turn it into advanced calculus. That is one of the best muscle building tips I can give you.

– Always train both sides of the joint with equal volume. Therefore if you do six sets per week of pressing exercises you need to do six sets per week of pulling exercises. If you do two sets of curls you should do two sets of triceps work. And so on and so on…

– If you can’t get your forearms to grow, try hitting them with more frequency than other muscle groups. They can easily be trained three times per week and recover without any problem. Also, try to hold the bottom stretched position of wrist curls for 3-5 seconds per rep. When you finish training the forearms, hit them with a deep stretch for both the extensors and flexors for 30-60 seconds. These muscle building tips should get the forearms to grow.

For more incredible muscle building tips please visit MuscleGainingSecrets.com.

Jason Ferruggia is a world famous fitness expert who is renowned for his ability to help people build muscle as fast as humanly possible. He is the head training adviser for Men’s Fitness Magazine where he also has his own monthly column dedicated to muscle building. For more How to Build Muscle Fast tips, check out http://blog.muscle-build.com/go/muscle-gaining-secrets.php