How to gain muscle mass

There are many reasons to go to the gym frequently.

 There are those who seek to maintain a good line and show off a good figure, others do it as an alternative means to improve their physical performance in any sports discipline, there is the case of people who only go to protect their health in a preventive way and we must not forget those who claim gain muscle, hypertrophy.

Today we focus on this last objective, how to gain muscle mass.

To gain muscle mass it is not enough just to go to the gym and enrich the diet with protein. The desired objective will only be achieved if you push your muscles to the limit and then let them recover and strengthen with rest.

Muscle hypertrophy comes when hard and consistent exercise routines are planned, well designed, with vital participation of the rest and a diet according to these goals.

Functional exercises and slow movements

Specialists consider that a good training program to develop muscle mass should be composed of multi-joint exercises that make up 70 to 80% of each session.

these movements produce more growth hormone. In turn, you have to perform these exercises slowly, with slow repetitions in each series.

When movement is slower, muscle effort is prolonged and blood flow is increased.

Repetitions with progressive weight increase

Here is another key to muscle hypertrophy. As the body adapts to the effort, more load must be included in the exercises.

 Slow movements invite the use of large amounts of weight and do not perform more than 10 repetitions before muscle failure.

Heavy workouts allow you to develop more raw strength and build muscles concentrically and eccentrically. The pure force that is gained at the beginning is used to accumulate repetitions later.

high intensity workouts

An alternative to the previous practice is the HIIT or high intensity training. To gain muscle mass there are two possibilities: hypertrophy in parallel or sarcoplasmic hypertrophy.

The first is the one that occurs with strength training with heavy loads and few repetitions.

The second comes with lighter loads and more repetitions, just what HIIT proposes.

In high-intensity training to gain muscle mass, exercises such as push-ups, burpes, sit-ups, squats and lunges.

You can even perform HIIT sessions that accompany traditional hypertrophy training, thus replacing the time spent on cardio.

In any case, for high-intensity exercises to be efficient, it is necessary to ensure a caloric surplus, or what is the same, eat more calories than are spent so that they go to muscle mass and not fat gain.

Take care of the diet to reach the goal

The more protein that is stored in the body, the larger the muscles will grow.

However, these nutrients are also used for other functions such as hormone production. Scientific studies indicate that the body can use one gram of protein per kilogram of body weight.

This amount, if you want to grow your muscles, must be exceeded, therefore, eat more but in a balanced way, reinforcing protein intake. Before exercise do not forget to take a pre-workout with amino acids and carbohydrates with this Protein shake

You can prepare pre-workout directly at home, with homemade protein shakes.

A simple one is the one that is composed of a tablespoon of olive or flaxseed oil, half a cup of low-fat yogurt, a cup of grape or apple juice and a banana.

You know how to gain muscle mass, what habits you should follow to achieve a good degree of hypertrophy.

Remember, prioritize multi-joint exercises and do series of few repetitions, with slow movements. You can complete this dynamic with HIIT sessions, and don't forget to reinforce your diet with a high protein intake, as well as good rest routines.

There are no previous results.

Related publications

Button back to top