olivetalks

A blogger somewhere at The Stork, The Guinea Pig & The Elephant - due to the long name of the blog later called just a blogger - shared his gym experiences, including two really hot photos of himself. I was going to comment there and give some advice on how to gain muscle mass, which seems to be his aim in life, er, I mean in the gym. In the process I realized the comment was going to compete in length with the actual post and decided it would make more sense to write a proper post just about that. So, here it is, Storkians, olivetalksans, et al!

From my occasional interest and pursuit of bodybuilding I’ve collected the following information about how to gain muscle mass. To build the muscles you need to do high resistance and low repetition count exercises, which basically means:

• Train each muscle group (for example biceps) once per week. Don’t do it more often as the muscles need time to recover and grow.
• Regardless whether you use machines or free weights, the resistance should be selected such that you can do no more than 3 series of 8 repetitions in each series. Some people recommend an even lower repetition count.
• Each repetition should be done very slowly, let’s say 10 seconds for the concentric movement (in which muscles get shorter) and 5 seconds for the eccentric movement (in which muscles are forced to elongate). The movement should be steady and controlled.
• Give yourself a couple of minutes of rest between the series.
• The last repetition in the 3rd series should trigger thoughts like “There’s no way I can do this even one more time even if someone puts a gun to my head and says ‘Do it again or I kill you’”. The muscles should hurt. No pain - no gain.

Progress:

• Each week you should be able to add a few extra kilos until you reach your physiological limit. So keep track of the weight used each week.

Diet and sleep:

• Very important is also the diet. You need high protein content. More than the usual 80-100 grams per day. Basically if you want extra kilos of muscles you have to get extra N times that of proteins in your food. So you probably have to at least double your daily protein intake. Make sure your kidneys are OK as they will have more work filtering your blood.
• During the exercise you’ll use lots of energy in a short time so you have to eat carbohydrates a few hours before. Something like pasta with tuna is good as it has carbohydrates and proteins. Avoid sugary foods as they lower testosterone levels and you need testosterone to gain muscles. There are other things to avoid like caffeinated drinks and fried foods, more about it here.
• Get enough sleep - during sleep is when the growth hormone is produced and you need it for the muscles to grow. That’s also when your imagination can roam free and show you in advance the benefits of your new improved body…

Safety advice:

• If it hurts anywhere else than the muscles you’re at the moment exercising, especially chest pain, stop immediately. I’m not counting the painful faces of other gym members…
• Remember to breath properly all the time when exercising otherwise you can get problems with high blood pressure.
• If you’re unsure about your health consult a doctor.
• If you’re unsure about your exercise program consult a professional trainer.
• If you’re unsure about your finances, go read some other blog…

That’s about it. Now go and move your butt.

Or … you could stay a bit longer and read a few more posts on olivetalks.com.