It might happen that after hours and hours of hard work in gym, then end result is far from satisfying. In order to build muscles, you need to focus on two aspects; what you do in gym and what you do outside the gym.
And, the most common reason behind it is the fact that most of the people don’t focus on the things outside the gym. In this article, we will be discussing how you can get maximum productivity from your efforts.
Ways to build muscle fast:
Increase protein in diet
25% of your muscle is made up of protein, so in order to just maintain those muscles, you need a constant supply of protein.
And, when you want to grow the size of muscles, you need to feed your body more protein. And, most of the people don’t have sufficient protein in their natural diet.
So, egg is a good way to supplement your body. But, it shouldn’t be the only way. First of all, too much of egg white is also not good for you.
But, if you are really serious about body building, then you need to invest in whey protein. I am not saying you can’t build muscles without whey, but whey makes it very easy and simple.
The best thing you can do is to give protein from bunch of different sources. Because, protein is made up of combination of amino-acids and different protein source provide you with different amino acid combination.
It is very important to include almost every kind of amino-acid in your protein portfolio.
Many people don’t take whey because they think it’ll be bad for their health. This is far from truth, whey protein is basically derived from milk and it has absolutely no side effects. But, you have to make sure you don’t eat it like crazy.
Glycogen level
If protein makes up 25% of your muscles, then rest of the part is made up of water and Glycogen. Glycogen is nothing, but carbohydrate stored in your muscles.
Glycogen is basically a fuel for your muscles. When you workout this fuel is spent. And, if you do not replenish your glycogen, it not only prevent increase in muscle size, but also cause muscle wasting.
How to know I have low glycogen level?
Start by looking at your daily diet, if you don’t take good amount of carbs and you do heavy workout, your glycogen level will most probably be low.
Apart from that, if you feel a decline in energy in gym, it can be a sign. As I said, Glycogen is fuel for you muscle and if your muscles don’t have enough fuel, it won’t be able to work with maximum power.
It is important for you to eat carbs in good quantity but over eating of carbs can make you fat. As our body converts extra carbs into fat.
It is always a good idea to incorporate more complex carbs and less simple carbs in your diet. Complex carbs are digested very slowly and is essential if you want to bulk without getting fat.
Recovery time
Believe it or not, fastest way to gain muscle mass is resting. Body building requires 3 main things: 1) Workout 2) Diet 3) Rest.
You take any of these 3 things out of the equation and you won’t be able to build muscles. Rest can be of two type.
One is how much your sleep or just lay down and other is the amount of time separating two workouts of same muscle groups.
Sleep is so important for a body to function and it is even more essential when want to build muscles. The fact is, you break muscles in gym and you build muscles when you sleep.
It is important that you sleep at least 8-9 hours. And, due to some reason you can’t sleep that much, then it is important that you increase gap between two workouts.
It is said that, 20 minutes of meditation is equal to 2 hours of sleep. Although, there is no concrete scientific proof backing this claim.
Even if it is not true, meditation has been proven to be helpful for a good quality sleep. And, quality of your sleep is more important then the quantity.
Second kind of rest, is the gap between two workout of same muscle group. It is important to give time to your muscles to recover from previous workout before jumping into the next workout.
It also helps in replenishing the muscle glycogen level.
Testosterone
Testosterone is a very important hormone for muscle building, it is present in both males and females, in varying quantity.
The fact is, most of us don’t have adequate amount of free flowing testosterone in our body. And, for people who are testosterone deficient, it is very difficult to build muscles. So, to get muscles fast you need testosterone.
There can be several reasons for low testosterone like, improper diet and too much masturbation. It is important to note all the things you are doing wrong and correct them one by one.
Make sure you include Zinc and omega 3 and omega 6 in your diet. Sleep and proper rest is another way to increase the level of testosterone.
Although, there is Testosterone replacement therapy available but it is always a good idea to go natural. Check out some of the natural ways to increase testosterone.
Imp: Most of the people who can’t grow muscles have one thing in common, instead of training the entire body equal, the do isolation exercises.
That is wrong way to do it. Compound exercises are known to increase the production of testosterone. Examples, deadlift, squat, bench press and pull ups.
Push and push hard
How to gain muscle fast? It is said, the muscle you make in the last 2-3 reps of a set is far greater than the initial 15-20 reps.
If you go to gym, lift a little here and there, and come back home without breaking a sweat, than you are not doing enough.
The last few reps of any set should feel like a battle in itself and they help in rapid muscle growth. Don’t be afraid to take a few seconds rest in the middle of the reps. And, make sure to finish every set. If you are giving up just before the end, you are missing 50% of what you could have achieved.
If you have a gym partner this task will be much easier. Doing those heavy last rep, a little support by your spot can make a huge difference. Or, you can ask someone to temporarily spot you for the heaviest last set.
Use right technique
If in spite of working very hard in the gym, you still aren’t building muscle fast, then you probably need to check your technique. There are many ways to do an exercise and only one of them is correct.
The mistake that many people make is that they go with the motion. When you are workout out on a particular muscle, your mind should be connected to it.
And, for that, first of all, you must be thorough about the fact that which exercise target which muscle.
Suppose, one variation of push up might target your chest more and another might target your triceps more. You should know the difference and focus on targeting that muscle.
Muscle under tension for long time
Secondly, people go too fast and they think they look cool. If you are one of them, then please stop right now.
When you go slow you prevent injury, makes you stick to right technique, helps in systematic breathing and puts your muscle under tension for more time. The long your muscles is under tension the more they’ll grow.
You pick 10 people with good physique and analyse how they exercise and you’ll see that each one of them go slow and maintain the technique.
You must ask your trainer from time to time to check whether you are doing an exercise correctly because it might happen that after sometime you start doing an exercise incorrectly.
Systematic breathing
To build muscle to need oxygen. Your heart needs oxygen to pump blood properly, your brain needs oxygen to focus and your muscles need oxygen for the work it is doing. But, what we do?
We stop breathing entirely. It is not possible to go on without proper supply of oxygen. And, to be truthful, it is not easy to remember breathing while you are lifting heavy weight or while you are doing the last few killing reps.
That is why, you need to train your body to breath in a systematic pattern. Although, it is recommended to breath out while to squeeze. But, I think you can do what suits you the best, it won’t make a huge difference.
Except, when you are working on abs, then make sure to breath out completely when you squeeze.
Going slow with the motion will help you stick to a pattern and if you breath properly you can train for more time, which in turn will help you to build more muscle.
It is important not only to breath while to exercise but also breath while you are rest. People often check their cell phones or talk to a gym buddy during their rest time and forget to breath deep. Don’t do that.
Squeezing is most important
It is probably best way to build muscle fast. As I have said before, it is a waste of time and energy to go with the motion. You must know what you are doing. I see people, doing everything properly but forgetting to squeeze at the end.
It running towards your goal and turning around just few meters before your reach it.
To explain this properly, I’ll have to divide your entire range of motion into few phases. I call them High tension and low tension state.
The position when you muscle is in highest tension, it is high tension state and when you muscle is in low tension it is low tension state.
When you squeezing your muscle is in highest tension and the more time you spend in this state the better it is to build muscle.
If you think squeezing helps in only pulling exercises like dumbbell curl or barbell row, then you are wrong.
It is equally important to squeeze while you push. Make sure to squeeze when you do chest workout and notice the difference, especially in dumbbell fly.
Range of motion
Every muscle in the body is designed to do a task and in order to build it we must make make our muscle to do that task. But, before all that you need to know the function of the muscle you are trying to target.
For example, while doing biceps curls your range of motion will decide whether you are targeting head or short head of the biceps.
As you can see in the above picture, the man starts at the bottom reaches middle and ends at top. If your of motion is from bottom to middle, then you are building your long head of biceps and when you try to move above the middle position, the long head of the biceps transfers the job to the short head.
And, the range of motion for short head is between middle and top.
Like, this every muscle have a range of motion and if you can’t grow muscles it means you are not sticking to it.
Increase resistance
First of all, you need to know how your mind works. Suppose, when you are lifting a piece of paper, you are doing it effortlessly. In this case, your brain won’t see the need for more muscle.
But, when you lift a huge stone and most probably it won’t be difficult for you, which will send this message to your brain. See the conversation between your body and brain.
Body – “More load than I am capable, need more muscle.”
Brain – “Ok. I’ll use protein to build more muscle, so that you can lift the weight easily.”
But, this won’t happen in a day. When you body constantly send the above message, day after day, then your brain will find it credible and do the necessary part.
It is important to not hurry with the weight but it is more important to not become stale. You must increase the weight from time to time to make your brain feel that it needs fast muscle growth.
These were some of the fastest ways to gain muscles, if followed properly, you’ll be able to see some good results with in a week.
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