Add Muscle

ADD MUSCLE

Gaining muscle is hard for many people. At one extreme are bodybuilders who train heavy and hard, eating every 2-3 hours in an effort to force their bodies to pack on muscle. Often bodybuilders resort to steroids to enhance muscle gains. The other end of the spectrum is the average person looking to tone up within their comfort level. (More and more it seems everyone feels the pressure to look their best and train hard in the gym).

In general for anyone looking to add muscle, we recommend an intense weight-lifting program coupled with a good diet for muscle gains, and certain supplements to facilitate this.

Exercise Program: In general, less is more. The ratio of intensity to duration is inverse - so short intense programs work best. For example, 2 exercises of 2 intense sets each per bodypart is often sufficient. Decreasing sets and time in the gym, but also Increase the frequency of training. This allows for more growth periods. For example - if one trains chest once per week, they get 52 growth periods per year. Training 2 times per week gives 104 growth periods per year, twice as many.

Diet: This is often the hard part. To gain you need to eat, and alot. This may require you to shift your focus from health to muscle - for example - if your goal is to gain, and you have no other food to access except Fast Food - well, eat it! You can always go back to healthy eating after you are bigger.

In general - try to eat every 3 hours at a minimum. Six meals per day- if you cant eat them all, then make protein shakes for one ot two. Each meal should have at least 50 grams of protein. In fact- try to get fat- eat alot, and when you think you are full, eat more. If you cant, make a protein shake. Make your shakes with plenty of protein powder, and Flax/EFA oils. For many- trying to get fat is the only way to be sure they are adding enough calories to gain weight. Read more on Eating for Muscle here...

Supplements: Besides the general ones (Multi-vitamin, EFA/Flax Oil ) the following are critical:
Whey protein: Whey is rapidly absorbed protein that gets into muscle cells fast. Also has large amounts of glutamine and other critical amino-acids.
Creatine: Creatine is proven to increase strength and have a volumizing effect (muscles look larger!)
BCAA's: BCAA's can actually trigger a hormone shift in your body towards muscle building!
Enzymes: If you eat alot- you need to be sure you are digesting it all. Enzymes are key for enhancing digestion, especially if you want to gain weight. Also without food (empty stomach) they are good to reduce stress related injuries from training hard.

Also- depending on your budget - the following are also great:
Pro-Hormones: the new ones such as 1-Test, and 4 OHT are amazing and actually do work.
Taurine: Great cell volumizer, strength enhancer, and very cost effective! Taurine is the most abundant amino-acid in muscle cells under certain conditions, not Glutamine. (according to Dr. Eric Serrano).
Acetyl-L-Carnitine(ALCAR): More energy, anti-catabolic, fat burner.
Phosphatidylserine (PS): Great anti-catabolic agent.