So far this semester, I have discussed ways to obtain and maintain a lean physique through such things as low carb dieting, cardiovascular activity, and higher rep training. But, for guys who want to lean down to a muscular physique have to start with a key ingredient to the equation: decent muscles. In order to build up your muscle size, you will have to first mass up or bulk up your muscles to have something to show when you later lean your body down. You could start your mass training now and give yourself a month to diet down for spring break time. The time to start is now if you want to impress the crowds with shirt sleeve splitting biceps, boulder chest, and washboard abs in the spring when you hit the beach for the break.
Weight training is a key component to your journey for mass. Training with heavy enough weight to challenge yourself is essential. Do not, however, just put as much weight on as possible and do a couple of reps. Although, some of your fellow weight room warriors may admire the large amount of weight you lifted, this will not be very beneficial to your muscle mass gains. Challenge yourself and try to increase your lifting poundage whenever you can but do not try to just out-lift others but use a weight that will challenge you. 150 lbs. on the bench press may be challenging to some, while 300 lbs. may be challenging to others. The weight you lift should be challenging enough so that you are barely able to achieve more than 8 to 10 reps each set. The additional stress of the heavy weights causes more muscle fibers to be stimulated in order to compensate the body to lift it. Your workouts should focus more on the use of free weights rather than machines. Although machines are also good to use as well, many bodybuilders agree that free weights are superior. Mass-building exercises such as bench presses, squats, deadlifts, military press, barbell curls, among other basic exercises should be used in your workouts. These basic exercises are good mass builders because supporting or stabilizing muscles are used to help the main target muscle in performing the lift. This along with the larger range of motion capability stimulates more muscle fibers and therefore helps build larger muscles.
Another important piece to the mass building puzzle is to consume more calories than you are burning each day in your diet. Eating enough calories in your diet will ensure that your body will have enough to repair torn down muscle tissue from the strenuous workouts and build the muscles back stronger and larger. A common misconception of massing up is that you eat everything in sight and that all the fat you accumulate can just be stripped off later. The calories that you take in must also include the adequate amounts of fat, carbohydrates, and protein according to your body weight. These can be figured through the equations: Calories: (Desirable weight) x 12. Protein: (Calories) x .15. Carbohydrates: (Calories) x .45. Fat: (Calories) x .30 and then divide that amount by 9. These equations may have to be manipulated if you are feeling that you do not have enough energy to do your workouts.
Because of the ample amount of information on this topic, part 2 of mass-building will continue in next week’s column.