Lots of people want to be bigger. Many of them never really get there. So, what are the keys to making big gains in size and strength?
1. Get serious about eating
Let’s be clear here: you need to eat a lot of food to gain serious muscle. More than you’re used to, and probably more than you feel like. But how much is enough? It’ s easy to underestimate. You need at least 2-3g of protein per kilogram of body weight, for starters.
Don’t guess, and don’t fuck around. Weigh, measure and record what you’re eating – at least for a while – to make sure you aren’t undershooting your calorie or protein needs. There’s a good chance you aren’t eating enough of what you need.
Think about quality and diversity of protein too. Every type of meat has different saturated, poly & mono-unsaturated fat, omega-6 to omega-3 ratio and various amino acid profiles and absorption times. So make sure you cycle through more than beef and chicken. Look at fish and shellfish, lamb, pork, venison, kangaroo, duck. Even fox is edible, with enough bbq sauce…
2. Balance your fat, carbs and protein
If you’re sure you’ve got your protein intake right, you still need to consider the other two macronutrients: fat and carbohydrates (although not necessarily together).
People often ignore fat, or have a phobia about it. Get over it! Testosterone is your best muscle-gain friend, and it is made from cholesterol, which in turn is made from fat. Not only that, fat gives you more calories per gram, which is worth noting when you need to cram a couple thousand extra calories in each day. Fat sources like butter, Nuts, Avocados, coconut, olives and flaxseed are your friends. Stay away from shitty refined oils like canola, soybean, sunflower and vegetable oils, which create inflammation in your body. fat should make up about 30-40% of your total caloric needs on a mass gaining cycle
Carbs need to make up the gap in your caloric needs..they are going to power your workouts and help your recovery. They are not the enemy, get them in! which types? what ever just make sure your achieving your fibre needs 25g+ per day, and keep the sugar intake to around 30% or lower of total carb intake and you should be fine!
3. Get your shit together in the gym
We’ve all seen those dickheads in the gym who are there to gossip with their mates, chat up their personal trainer and generally suffer from fuckarounditis. You need to keep your mind on the job when you work out, because every single rep has to be right. You need to activate the mind-muscle connection: to think about what muscle you’re contracting, focus on it and make sure it’s moving the right way. Better to do 5 perfect reps than 10 half-arsed ones.
Mass gain is also about time under tension and total volume – make sure every muscle has at least 40 seconds under tension to get to hypertrophy, as well as the right tempo for each rep to really put the muscle to work; when it burns, it means its working. Essentially, you want to make every rep harder, not easier.
4. Find the right supplements
Mass gain is all about food. But having the right vitamin and mineral balance will help prevent things like muscle cramps, you could throw in an electrolyte, magnesium can help with sleep quality, or you can throw in a multivitamin which is relatively inexpensive and just going to cover all bases. There is other supplements that can help like creatine, fish oils and depending on the type of training you do things like citruline malate and beta-alanine, fast digesting carbs, eaa’s or bcaa’s, maybe of benefit.
