- Training principles
- Choose your routine
- Diet
- The other little stuff
First of all those are your new gods:
A muscle as you think traditionnaly is composed of myocites (known as muscle fiber), and themselves are composed of many chains of myofibril
Myofibril are composed of 3 mains PROTEINS
1. Titin (gives the elasticity to the muscles)
2. Actin (thin filament that will work with the myosin)
3. Myosin (thick filament that will pull the actin with his heads thus making a contraction)
Now that we know all this you might ask yourselves why the fuck are your reading about all this.
Well because IMO it is important to understand something before doing it
When you expose a muscle contractions with a volume or an intensity high enough it will create tearing in the myocite that will be repaired by the satellite cells (cells that are disposed around the myocite) by fusing with the muscle cell causing the hypertrophy. The satellite cell will replicate themselves and some will stay in the myocite and will differenciate and fuse with the myocite to either repair damaged myocite or create new myofibrils. Some others will serve as a source of new nuclei that will supplement the growing myocite allowing it to create more proteins, especially more actin and myosin.
All this will play an important role in your training that we will see in the next 2 parts
As we saw earlier muscle need to get damaged in order to grow
To create these damages we have 3 different factors that will play a big role:
1. The intensity
2. The volume
The intensity simply means "how heavy", the heavier the weight is for you the more the intensity factor goes up
On the other hand the volume is "how much" reps can you do with a given weight
Intensity and volume are correlated: the higher the volume so the lower the intensity. You will not be able to perform your one rep max for multiple reps, so if you decrease the intensity (lower the weight) you will have to put more volume to compensate, which means adding more reps.
And this is where the fun begins, different rep ranges are used for different needs:
- 3 to 5 reps: strength oriented focus
- 6 to 12 reps: hypertrophy oriented focus
- 15+: endurance oriented focus
After having seen this a lot of young lifters will want to work only in the hypertrophy range because big muscle go brrrrrrrrr
But all of these rep ranges are important in a well though program.
strength
Errybody wanna be a bodybuilder, but nobody wanna lift this heavy-ass weight. - Ronnie Coleman
Errybody wanna be a bodybuilder, but nobody wanna lift this heavy-ass weight. - Ronnie Coleman
I advise to do the strenth oriented lifts on polyarticular exercices that would be your main lift of the day at the beginning of your workout(e.g: deadlift, rows, bench press, military press, squat). This rep range will allow to make strength gains that will transfer when doing isolation exercices (more strength = lift heavier in isolation = more hypertrophy)
hypertrophy
Now comes the part that everybody wants, the godly big muscles
After having done the heavy your going for the volume.
I would advise to do mostly isolation exercices on this rep range or to train a main lift with less weight.
endurance
Since our goal is to gain muscle this rep range isn't the one we're going to use the most
Nevertheless it was proven to be good for hypertrophy to work in this range too, so I'd suggest to use it for tiny muscles that can recover more quickly (shoulder, abs, calves)
The rule of thumb is basically : higher rest if using a lot of muscles at the same time (polyarticular lift) or high intensity and you lower the rest as you go up in volume and isolate more the muscles
So depending on the rep ranges:
strength: 3-5 minutes rest / set
hypertrophy: 90 - 120 seconds rest / set
endurance: 30 - 60 secondes rest / set
In case you've already lifted a few times go on this link and check what level you are : https://strengthlevel.com/
Introduction
Greyskull LP 3 x a week / strength based / full body
The r/Fitness Basic Beginner Routine 3 to 5 x a week / strength based / full body
Ivysaur's 4-4-8 Program 3 x a week / strenght based / full body
ICF5x5: Ice Cream Fitness 5x5 3 x a week / strength & hypertrophy based / full body
AllPros Beginner Routine 3 x a week / strength & hypertrophy based / full body
Beginners
GZCLP 3 or 4 x a week / strength & hypertrophy based / full body (template)
Westside for Skinny Bastards 3 x a week (or more) / strength & speed based / upper-lower split (good for athletes)
Metallicadpa's Beginner PPL 6 x a week / strength & hypertrophy based / push pull legs
Dumbell Stopgap 3 x a week / strength based / full body dumbell routine
5/3/1 For Beginners 3 x a week / strength based / full body
Intermediate - Aesthetics
German Volume Training 3 or 5 day cycle / hypertrophy based / body part split
PHUL 4 x a week / strength & hypertrophy based / upper-lower (2 strength, 2 hypertrophy)
PHAT 5 x a week / strength & hypertrophy based / upper-lower and body part split
Lyle McDonald's Generic Bulking Routine, LMGBR 4 x a week / hypertrophy based / upper-lower
Steve Cook's Muscle Building Program - Variation 4 x a week / hypertrophy based / body part split
Intermediate - Strength
5/3/1 4 x a week / strength based / split + accessories
Candito 6 week strength program 5 x a week / strength based / split + accessories (spreadsheet)
N-Suns 5/3/1 4-5-6 x a week / strength based / split
The Texas Method 3 x a week / strength based / full body
Madcow 5x5 3 x a week / Strength based / full body
BWF Primer 14 days / strength based
Arms of steel 30 days program / strength based / upperbody
Beginner
Power up 30 days program / strength based / full body
30 days of gravity 30 days program / strength based/ full body
Intermediate
Strength protocol 30 days program / strength based / full body
Advanced
Boxer prime 30 days program / boxing oriented / split
Military fit 30 days program / strength & endurance / full body
The human body follows one rule, the rule of thermodynamics, if the energy in is higher than the energy out then you'll store that energy (fat), if the energy out is higher than the energy in than you'll use your stored energy
First of all you need to be clear with yourself: do you want to gain muscle or loose fat ?
Gain muscle
The easiest part, just enter your data in the tool and then add between 150 to 500 kcal more per day to your TDEE(the more you add the faster you'll gain but you'll put on some fat too)
Loose fat
Use the tool and once you've your daily maintenance calories (TDEE) just decrease it by 500 kcal, that's it
Sleep
Muscle is actually built and repaired during your sleep when your body produces growth hormones, so sleep a lot, at least 7 hours, between 8 and 10 is optimal
Food
Your body needs an energy surplus to build muscle but the type of food can play a big role too
The most important macronutriment are proteins and lipids (fat), protein will bring the building block for your muscles while good lipids will maintain your hormonal system in a good state allowing the testosterone to keep a normal level
Failure
Reaching failure in the gym happens, don't sweat it, if you couldn't increase the reps or the weights it will come next session
Do not sweat it, but if you want to be sure to not miss any factor here are the things to look out for:
Hydratation: drink 2L per day, missing out on water will decrease the strength you're able to develop
Sleep: missing out on sleep will not reduce your strength but the time you'll be able to put out some power
Food: check that you still gain weight, if not you might be not eating enough and thus reducing the muscle mass increase needed