The Three Best Ways To Gain Muscle

Do you have a picture in your mind of your "dream" body? Perhaps all you want is a few inches of new muscle on your chest, shoulders and arms... maybe you'd like to give your physique a complete overhaul and gain 20 or 30 pounds of mass in a hurry. Whatever it is, if you want to turn that dream into reality, you'll need to apply one simple principle to your training program. Anyone who's ever made the transition from weak and puny to big and strong has used it. And if you want to "get big," you'll need to use it to... According to popular legend, Milo of Crotona began carrying a young calf on his shoulders each day. The story goes that he would pick the calf up on a daily basis and walk around a large stadium. As the animal grew, Milo also grew stronger. Eventually, he was able to carry a fullygrown bull. And so the concept of gradual progressive overload was born. It refers to the idea that you need to increase the demands you impose upon your body in order to make it bigger, stronger, or leaner. Like most biological systems faced with a challenge,

muscle will modify itself to meet similar challenges in the future. Once the system has adapted to that demand or load, increases in strength and size are no longer needed and will eventually stop... a situation you'll need to avoid if you want to keep growing. Now more than ever, you and I are bombarded with so many conflicting and confusing opinions about the "right" way to gain muscle size and strength. Truth is, it's actually a lot simpler than most people think. Within certain limits, a muscle will grow in direct proportion to the amount of work it's required to do. And while there are many ways to increase muscular work over time, these are the three that I think will give you the best results. Method #1: Resistance Probably the most obvious (and effective) method of progressive overload involves adding weight while keeping the number of repetitions per set the same. For example: Workout #1: 8 repetitions with 100 pounds Workout #2: 8 repetitions with 105 pounds Workout #3: 8 repetitions with 110 pounds When using this method, aim to increase the resistance in small increments. A good rule of thumb is to add 5% or 5 pounds, whichever is the smallest. It's also important to remember that the resistance used

needs to be over and above a certain threshold, otherwise gains in muscle size will be limited. For example, let's say that your maximum in the bench press is 200 pounds for 3 sets of 6 repetitions. But when you train, you use just 100 pounds. If you were to add 5 pounds to the bar every workout, then you could argue that you're adding weight to the bar while keeping the number of repetitions the same. Does this count as progressive overload? Well... not really. It's certainly not going to deliver much in the way of meaningful results, because the weight you're using is below the threshold required to stimulate growth. It's a challenge your body has already adapted to. Although reducing the load can be useful when it forms part of a program of fluctuating progressive overload (more about this later), it's not going to deliver substantial gains in strength and size. Method #2: Repetitions Another effective form of progressive overload involves trying to perform more repetitions with the same weight. For example: Workout #1: 6 repetitions with 100 pounds Workout #2: 7 repetitions with 100 pounds Workout #3: 8 repetitions with 100 pounds

Like adding resistance, increasing the number of repetitions per set is a simple method of progression. There are, however, two major problems. Firstly, it's hard to maintain for extended periods. Let's say that you can lift 100 pounds for 5 repetitions. Adding just 1 extra repetition constitutes a 20% improvement in performance. Such a large rate of improvement isn't uncommon in the early stages of a training program, but you won't be able to keep it going forever. In contrast, adding 5 pounds to a 100-pound load represents only a 5% improvement in performance, and is far more sustainable over the long term. The second problem is that increasing the number of repetitions per set will eventually change the adaptation stimulus imposed on your body. Your muscles will respond to a program of long distance running, for example, by creating muscle protein geared towards endurance activity. A training "signal" of heavy weight training will trigger an increase in the "strength and size" proteins. And a mixture of different "signals" will lead to mixed results (a balance of strength, size, and endurance). Gains in muscle strength and size are generally greater with the use of low repetitions (3-12) and high loads. As you increase the number of repetitions, you'll develop some muscular endurance along with strength and size.

Using the example above, if you were to progress from 100 pounds for 6 repetitions to 100 pounds for 8 repetitions, you're still in the right repetition range for building size and strength. However, if you just keep on adding repetitions and work up to 100 pounds for 15 repetitions, you're now getting a mix of strength, size and endurance. So, even though your performance has improved, the stimulus for muscle growth is reduced. Method #3: Volume Another way to increase the difficulty of a workout is to increase training volume. Volume is a measure of the total amount of work performed over a given period of time, such as per set, per workout, or per week of training. The precise way to determine training volume per repetition is to multiply the weight by the vertical distance the weight is lifted. Although adding both weight and repetitions will increase training volume to some degree, probably the most popular way to increase volume is to perform more sets for each muscle group. For example: Workout #1: 5 sets per muscle group Workout #2: 6 sets per muscle group Workout #3: 7 sets per muscle group It's not a good idea to keep adding sets forever. If there were a perfect linear relationship between the number of sets per workout and subsequent muscular gains, then

adding strength and size would simply be a case of increasing the number of sets you do. Obviously, this isn't the case. You can't just keep adding sets ad infinitum and expect to grow. Eight sets per muscle group might be better than four, but it doesn't necessarily follow that 16 sets will work better than eight. In fact, recent research shows that a "moderate" training volume works better to boost strength than either a "low" or a "high" volume [1]. In other words, there's an optimal training volume, above and below which gains in muscular strength and size will be compromised. You can also increase training volume by taking a shorter rest period between sets while keeping the weight and repetitions in each set the same (you might also see this referred to as an increase in training density). For example: Workout #1: 90-second rest intervals Workout #2: 75second rest intervals Workout #3: 60-second rest intervals As with the previous forms of progression, this also has its limitations. If you keep reducing rest periods, multiple sets will eventually become one set, and the amount of weight you're able to lift will drop dramatically. Cutting rest intervals beyond a certain point will also reduce the amount of weight you're able to lift in subsequent sets. When you're using heavy weights (e.g. 3-5 RM), I think it's best to focus on other forms of progressive overload, such

as increasing the resistance or number of repetitions, rather than increasing training density. What do you do when your progress stalls? The major limitation with all forms of progressive overload is that the performance curve will eventually flatten out. In theory, all you need to do is pick an exercise, and choose a resistance you can lift for a certain number of repetitions. Then, you add a few pounds of weight to the bar at regular intervals. For instance, you might be able to squat 200 pounds for a maximum of 10 repetitions. Add five pounds of weight to the bar each month, and you'd be squatting with 260 pounds just one year from now. Continue the process for the next five years, and the weight you're using will have risen to 500 pounds. If you've been working out for some time, you've probably realized that you can only keep adding weight for so long before your gains slow down. In short, you won't keep progressing at the same rate forever. That's why it's a good idea to follow a program based on fluctuating progressive overload also known as nonmonotonic training. Unlike monotonic training (which means a continual increase without any decrease), non-monotonic training involves regular phases of lighter loading, which help to

facilitate recovery and growth. Although the curve of muscular work increases and decreases in a wave-like pattern in the short-term, it gradually increases over time. While there are many different ways to incorporate fluctuating progressive overload into your program, a simple way to do it is to take a week off for every 3-6 weeks of hard training. An "off" week (sometimes called a deload or unload) doesn't mean doing no exercise at all. Rather, you just reduce the number of sets by 50% while maintaining the weight and number of repetitions used in the previous week. Theory + practice = results All of this sounds good in theory. But how do you put it all together? Here's the system that I use with all the major compound exercises (deadlift, squat, bench press and chin-up) in my program. It's a very simple but highly effective way to get bigger and stronger in a hurry. Phase 1 Week 1: 3 sets of 8 reps with 90kg Total training volume = 3 x 8 x 90 = 2160kg Week 2: 4 sets of 6 reps with 100kg Total training volume = 4 x 6 x 100 = 2400kg

Week 3: 5 sets of 5 reps with 110kg Total training volume = 5 x 5 x 110 = 2750kg Week 4: 2 sets of 5 reps with 110kg (DELOAD) Total training volume = 2 x 5 x 110 = 1100kg As you can see, I'm increasing both the resistance and volume on a weekly basis in weeks 1-3. Then, I'll deload in week 4 by reducing the volume. After the deload, I go back to 3 sets of 8 repetitions. But this time I'll use a slightly heavier weight than before. A good rule of thumb is to add 5% or 5 pounds (2.5 kilograms), whichever is the smallest. Phase 2 Week 5: 3 sets of 8 reps with 92.5kg Total training volume = 3 x 8 x 92.5 = 2220kg Week 6: 4 sets of 6 reps with 102.5kg Total training volume = 4 x 6 x 102.5 = 2460kg Week 7: 5 sets of 5 reps with 112.5kg Total training volume = 5 x 5 x 112.5 = 2812.5kg Week 8: 2 sets of 5 reps with 112.5kg (DELOAD) Total training volume = 2 x 5 x 112.5 = 1125kg As you can see, the total training volume (the amount of work your muscles are doing) is increasing over time, which is the real key to gaining strength and size.

Unless your goals lie in the higher end of competitive athletics, this is a system you could probably use indefinitely. At the very least, it's something you can keep coming back to after a few months of training for another goal (e.g. fat loss), or after you've been using a completely different system of progression (e.g. Charles Staley's Escalating Density Training). There are, of course, many ways to skin the proverbial cat, and there's no one program that will work equally well for all people all of the time. But no matter what type of routine you follow, your body will grow bigger and stronger ONLY when you apply the principle of gradual progressive overload to your workouts.