Gain Muscle - How I Gained Muscle In Spite Of What I Was Taught

Starting Out

After studying the training advice of the Internet’s hottest fitness guru, I broke down the mountain of facts, tips and strategies down into just a small handful of things I could try quickly and easily to prove to myself whether or not the fundamentals of this guy’s system would really work for me.

While there are lots of specific details I haven’t tried yet, and strategies I haven’t yet implemented, I focused on the few core principles that seemed to speak the loudest to me, that stood out and grabbed my interest.

I felt that I was working out an awful lot without seeing any major gains and this guy was promising that I could see more progress more quickly by training less. He insisted that I could spend less time exercising and get better results. This definitely grabbed me so I determined I would put this to the test first.

What I Had Been Taught

Well, this was not what I had been taught by the huge guys who had coached me in the past. Most of my coaching came from the big guys who worked out in the gyms I went to. I never worked out as long and as hard as they did. I was never interested in consuming as many supplements as they did. And I wasn’t interested in getting as big as they had grown. So everything seemed as it should. I worked out less than they did and stayed smaller. This is just what I wanted on both counts.

Lots of hardcore bodybuilders train with an attitude that more is better and you can’t really overwork your muscles. The muscles will become too exhausted for you to continue to push them before you reach a point where you start breaking down more muscle than you can rebuild in the next day or two. I’m talking about huge guys who workout for 2 or 3 or sometimes even 4 hours at a crack.

New Training Advice

Then this professional fitness trainer comes along and tells me I’m probably overtraining. What? The huge guys at the gym were training way more than I ever did. They taught me that the more you train the bigger you get. Of course, lots of these guys were competing and eating all sorts of things I knew very little about. I didn’t concern myself very much at the time with the expensive supplements they consumed. So, I don’t know if that would partly explain it or not. These guys worked out at least four or five times a week. Hmm…

This trainer, I’ll call him “Mr. Fitness”, said that over-training is very common for lots of athletes and particularly for bodybuilders or those who train with weights. He said we typically take the stance that training as much as possible is the fastest way to massive muscle gains. Did he mean it’s not?

Yes, he did!

He claimed we have to create the proper balance between the amount and the intensity of exercise we do with the amount of rest we get and the time we give our muscles to recover. Well, the gym guys all knew not to work out the same muscle group two days in a row. What else was there to worry about?

A New Insight Into Over-training

He listed some typical symptoms of over-training like higher resting heart rate, weak appetite, high blood pressure, weight loss, trouble sleeping, increased metabolic rate, irritability, early onset of fatigue and I didn’t have any of them so apparently this didn’t apply to me.

Then he mentioned one symptom of overtraining that I did have.

He said if I’m not making strength gains every workout that I’m not fully recovering from my last workout before doing the next one. Well, I only added weight to my exercises when the weight I was lifting felt too light or I was able to do more than 10 reps easily. This had long worked well for me but I did tend to go up and down. Sometimes I felt better using more weight and sometimes less. I was not making steady progress.

According to what Mr. Fitness told me one of the goals of training includes continual improvement. I should get stronger and stronger every single workout. If consistent strength gains elude you then it means you have to decrease the amount of weight you train with. Oh, really? I thought using the most weight I possibly could was the key…

Lots of times I would start working out and realize I didn’t have my full strength this particular day so I’d just go through my typical routine using less weight. According to Mr. Fitness this was a big mistake.

In his theory the reason I felt weak lay precisely in the fact that my muscles hadn’t fully recovered from my last workout yet. By continuing to train at a lower intensity I was further breaking down already overtaxed muscles making it even harder for my body to fully recover and increasing my risk of injury. Hmm…

So what solution does this guy recommend? Go home and rest. Skip the workout entirely.

Eureka – It Works!

I started testing his theory by adopting this approach and then I started reducing my workouts to a maximum of one hour and cut the number of sets I did for each muscle group in half.

At this point I exercise about half as much as I used to. I hardly ever get cramps anymore and I’ve gained muscle mass rather than having lost any. I don’t actually add weight every single time I work out but I’m adding weight more often. Plus, I have stopped dropping down to lower weights so frequently because my body hasn’t fully recovered yet.

So who is Mr. Fitness as I call him? How can you learn to build muscle, get comprehensive workout routines and techniques, stay flexible and limber by stretching, avoid over-training, exercise less, eat the right foods, make rapid progress without drugs regardless of your genetics and start building the strong, fit body you want right now? Click one of the links below and you’ll also discover who Mr. Fitness is.

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