Weight Gain Myths

The vast majority of myths about weight gain are mostly passed down from

“gym talk” and so-called experts who know nothing about the body’s workings.

Myths that lead to wasted time, frustration and if are taken blindly as truth, can really set back your progress in the gym. Don’t believe everything you hear in the gym when it comes to exercise and weight gain, do the research yourself.

Simple, basic principles apply to all weight and muscle gain such as progressive overload, variable frequency of reps and high intensity workouts. Lets take a look at some of the most common weight gain myths.

High repetitions burn fat while low repetitions build muscle.

Progressive overload is needed to make muscles bigger.

Meaning that you need to perform more reps than you did

for your last workout for that particular exercise.

If you perform the same amount of reps at each workout nothing

will change on you, also if the weight doesn’t changes on the bar nothing

will change on you. You need to become stronger.

Definition has two characteristics, muscle size and a low

incidence of body fat. To reduce body fat you will have to

reduce your calories; the high repetition exercise will burn

some calories, but wouldn’t it be better to fast walk to burn these off?

Better still; use the low reps to build muscle, which will

elevate your metabolism and burn more calories (less fat).

Vegetarians can’t build muscle.

Yes they can! Strength training with supplementation of

soy Protein Isolate has shown to increase solid bodyweight.

Studies have shown that athletic performance is not impaired

by following a meat free diet, and people strength training

and consuming only soy protein isolate as a protein source

were able to gain lean muscle mass.

Strength Training will make you look masculine.

If it is not you’re intention to bulk up from strength training

you won’t. Putting on muscle is a long hard slow process.

Your strength-training regime coupled with quality food will

determine how much you will bulk up. To bulk up you also require

more food. Women don’t produce enough testosterone to allow

for muscular growth as large as men.

By working out you can eat what ever you want to.

Of course you can eat whatever you want, if you don’t care

how you want to look. Working out does not give you an open license

to consume as many calories as you want. Although you will

burn more calories if you workout than someone who doesn’t,

you still need to balance your energy intake with you energy

expenditure.

If you take a week off you will lose most of your gains.

Taking one or two weeks off occasionally will not harm your

training. By taking this time off every eight to ten weeks

in between strength training cycles it has the habit of refreshing you and

to heal those small niggling injuries. By having longer layoffs

you do not actually lose muscle fibres, just volume

through not training, any size loss will be quickly re-gained.

By eating more protein I can build bigger muscles.

Building muscle mass involves two things, progressive overload

to stimulate muscles beyond their normal levels of resistance

and eating more calories than you can burn off. With all the

hype about high protein diets lately and because muscle is made

of protein, it’s easy to believe that protein is the best fuel

for building muscle, however muscles work on calories which

should predominately be derived from carbohydrates.

If I’m not sore after a workout, I didn’t work out hard enough.

Post workout soreness is not an indication of how good the

exercise or strength training session was for you. The fitter

you are at a certain activity, the less soreness you will

experience after. As soon as you change an exercise, use a

heavier weight or do a few more reps you place extra stress

on that body part and this will cause soreness.

Resistance training doesn’t burn fat.

Nothing could not be further from the truth. Muscle is a

metabolically active tissue and has a role in increasing

the metabolism. The faster metabolism we have the quicker

we can burn fat. Cardio exercise enables us to burn

calories whilst exercising but does little else for

fat loss afterwards.

Weight training enables us to burn calories whilst

exercising but also helps us to burn calories whilst

at rest. Weight training encourages muscle growth

and the more lean muscle mass we possess, the more

fat we burn though an increased and elevated metabolism.

No pain no gain.

This is one myth that hangs on and on. Pain is your body

signalling that something is wrong. If you feel real

pain during a workout, stop your workout and rest.

To develop muscle and increase endurance you may need

to have a slight level of discomfort, but that’s not

actual pain.

Taking steroids will make me huge.

Not true, strength training and correct nutrition will

grow muscle. Taking steroids without training will not

make you muscular.

Most steroids allow faster muscle growth through greater

recovery, while others help increase strength which

allows for greater stress to be put onto a muscle.

Without food to build the muscle or training to stimulate

it nothing will happen. Most of the weight gain seen

with the use of some steroids is due to water

retention and is not actual muscle.

Strength training won’t work your heart.

Wrong!! Strength training with short rest periods will

increase your heartbeat well over a hundred beats

per minute. For example, performing a set of breathing

squats and you can be guaranteed that your heart will

be working overtime and that your entire cardiovascular

system will be given a great overall body workout.

Any intensive weightlifting routine that lasts for

20 minutes or more is a great workout for your heart

and the muscles involved.

I can gain muscle and lose fat at the same time.

Wrong. Only a few gifted people with superb genetics

can increase muscle size while not putting on body fat.

But for the average hard gainer, they have to increase

their muscle mass to its maximum potential and then cut

down their body fat percentage to achieve the desired shape.

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How To Gain Weight And Build More Muscle

For many thin guys around the world, gaining weight without using illegal steroids has been a challenge. For thousands of lean young men, the dream is to gain weight, but no matter how much they eat they remain thin. Some people are naturally thin; that means their genetic makeup is in such a way that the body burns more calories than others. The very basic method of weight gain is to eat more calories than your body burns off. By providing the body with more calories, this balance can be altered and body mass can be increased. Weight training is of great importance in this context, which enables the body to absorb more nutrients from the food by increasing the level of certain hormones and increasing the muscle mass.

There are many incorrect beliefs and theories bout building muscle. The type of food to be eaten is an important factor which decides the type of weight gained, whether it is muscle mass or mere accumulation of fat. Some types of calories are not equal to others for gaining muscle; because most processed junk food contains empty, totally nutritionless calories. These foods promote accelerated fat storage, and do not provide the body with the correct nutrients essential for gaining muscle. High quality protein, which the body breaks down into amino acids, should be the centerpiece of all your meals. Intense exercise increases demand for amino acids, which support muscle repair and growth.

Another factor is the selection of the right type of weight training. Resistance exercises will help with muscle growth. Whereas aerobic exercises can result in the reduction of weight. For maximum muscle gain, the focus of your workouts should consist of free weight exercises, rather than machines or bodyweight exercises. To get a very effective workout, you must stimulate as many muscle fibers as possible, and machines do not do this. The main reason for this is a lack of stabilizer and synergist muscle development. Stabilizer and synergist muscles are supporting muscles that assist the main muscle in performing a complex lift.

The results of weight training can vary from person to person, and will usually depend on your consistency and commitment to your program. You should have the patience and motivation for building a powerful body with a consistent diet and exercise schedule.

Exercise Guidelines for building muscle:

Weight training involves the use of equipment that enables variable resistance. This resistance can come in the form of free weights like barbells and dumbbells, machines that use cables or pulleys to help you lift the weight, and bodyweight exercises like pull-ups or dips. The more stabilizers and synergists you work, the more muscle fibers stimulated. The exercises that work the large muscle groups are called compound (or multi-joint) movements that involve the simultaneous stimulation of many muscle groups. These compound exercises should be the foundation of any weight training program because they stimulate the most amount of muscle in the least amount of time. Multi-jointed free weight exercises like the bench press require many stabilizer and synergistic muscle assistance to complete the lift.

Free weight exercises like the dumbbell press or squat put a very large amount of stress on supporting muscle groups. You will get fatigued faster and not be able to lift as much weight as you did on the machine. But you will gain more muscle, become stronger very quickly and have a true gauge of your strength.

If you use machines in your program, they should be used to work isolated areas and only after all multi-jointed exercises have been completed. Beginners should begin with a limited combination of machine exercises, bodyweight exercises and multi-jointed free weight exercises. Before increasing the weight levels, they should work on becoming familiar with the proper form and execution of each.

The following are some proven basic exercises to encourage muscle and strength gain unlike any other exercises.

Bench Presses – works the chest, shoulders, triceps

Overhead Presses – shoulders, triceps

Pull-ups/Barbell Rows – back, bicep

Squats – legs, lower back

Dead lifts – legs, back, shoulders

Bar Dips -shoulders, chest, arms

To build mass, you must weight train with heavy weights. To consider a weight heavy, you should only be able to do a maximum of 4-8 reps before your muscles temporarily fail. A weight is considered ‘light’ if you can do more than 15 reps before muscle fatigue sets in. Heavy weights stimulate more muscle fibers than lighter weights which result in more muscle growth. Heavy weight training puts a huge strain on your body, so adequate rest and recuperation after your workouts is essential.

Eating guidelines for building muscle:

A high protein diet is an inevitable part of any weight training programme, importantly, protein derived from animal sources. Proteins you need to be concerned with are those found in whey, casein (cottage cheese), eggs, beef, poultry, and fish. Soy protein, tofu and bean curd are some alternatives. Eating the right amount of foods consistently will force your body to grow beyond what you may think possible. The diet also should contain an adequate amount of carbohydrates (potatoes, sweet potatoes, yams, oatmeal, cream of wheat, cream of rice, rice, beans, bread, pasta, all cereals) and fat. Green leafy vegetables and fruits also should be included.

When you train with weights, you should eat a minimum of 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight. You also must have protein at every meal. To enable your body to actually assimilate and use the all the calories you will ingest, you have to reduce your meal size and increase your meal frequency. Splitting your calories into smaller, more frequent portions will enable food absorption and utilization of nutrients.

During the past 20 years there have been great developments in the scientific understanding of the role of nutrition in health and physical performance. Studies shown that adequate dietary carbohydrate should be ingested (55-60% of total energy intake) so that training intensity can be maintained. Excess dietary saturated fat can exacerbate coronary artery disease; however, low-fat diets result in a reduction in circulating testosterone. So the balance between protein, carbohydrate and fat should be maintained.

So the focus on weight gain programmes must be on two components, lifting heavy weights, which will stimulate the largest amount of muscle fibers. Your body responds to this stimulus by increasing your muscle mass and secondly eat more calories than your body is used to. When you overload your system with plenty of protein and fats, your body has no other choice but to gain weight.

A Mass Gaining program is incomplete without the timely measurements to monitor your progress. Without it, you won’t know how exactly your body is responding to your diet and training routine. Just looking in the mirror and guessing is not acceptable. If you want to start getting great results, you must develop the habit of accurately tracking your progress. This also provides the motivation to continue with the weight gain schedule and for the further progression. So even though you have a very thin body type, and haven’t been able to gain weight no matter what you try, you will definitely succeed with a well planned weight gain programme.

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How To Gain Muscle Naturally No Steroids Necessary

Wondering how to gain muscle? There are many fads, gimmicks and “quick fixes” to be found, but there is really only one healthy way to gain muscle mass. You don’t need to be gifted with great genetics or use potentially dangerous illegal hormones or steroids.

The “how to gain muscle” question has a relatively simple two-step process:

1) increase your caloric intake, and

2) workout. This combination will provide the desired results.

Don’t be embarrassed to look in the mirror! You CAN have the body that you strive to achieve. When you first begin thinking about how to gain muscle, the first instinct may be “But I don’t want to gain fat”. Losing fat and gaining muscle mass are two different objectives, and are tackled in two different ways. At this point you have to realize that dieting and exercising to lose weight is different than dieting and exercising to gain muscle.

In gaining muscle mass, the caloric intake must be increased. You have to take in more calories that your body is used to: take in more proteins and fats-your body has no choice but to gain weight. While nutritional supplements may be utilized, this should NOT be used as a substitute for a healthy diet. The increased calories are then offset by working out with weights in order to achieve the increased muscle mass you desire. This workout will stimulate growth by “overloading” the muscles. The combination of caloric building blocks (which help rebuild and repair muscle tissue) along with the increase workout.

If you are among the millions who constantly try to gain weight and build muscle mass, remember that a firm commitment, the proper diet, and a good weight-training regimen are the best ways to succeed in reaching your goal. A muscle mass building diet includes plenty of protein and enough calories to promote weight gain.

A good place to start is to multiply your current weight by 18. This number will give you a rough idea of how many calories your body needs in a day to bulk up. If you are extremely active, play sports, or have a faster than average metabolism, you may need to increase your caloric intake even more. A muscle building diet requires a lot of effort on your part. It’s not easy to consume enough calories in three meals per day. A good suggestion would be to eat several small meals each day rather than three large ones.

Protein is a critical element in any mass building diet. Ideally, you should eat one and a half grams of protein per pound of body weight. While this seems like a lot of protein, spread over several small meals each day it will be a lot easier to meet this goal. Fish, poultry, eggs, and lean red meat are excellent sources of protein. Lots of fresh vegetables and simple carbohydrates combined with plenty of protein should allow you to meet your calorie quota each day. The best muscle building diet is a combination of consuming adequate calories and the proper types of foods.

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