Build Muscle Workouts

If you're looking to gain mass, don't overlook your diet. Unless your body is properly fueled, your body won't have the inputs it needs to build mass. A good muscle building diet is highly overlooked, but vital.

If your goal is to get 100% better at something, what would be the best way to approach it? I can think of two ends of the continuum. The approach you select will be somewhere along this continuum: doing one thing twice as good (or 100 percent better), or performing 100 activities 1 percent better. I think that most people try the first approach, but the latter is much easier to implement.

Taken a step further, to make each of these 1 percent building blocks more effective, you could also focus on things that occur outside of your workouts. So you concentrate on changing your habits and making incremental improvements that will stack on top of one another to bring you massive benefits.

So here are 5 minor lifestyle changes you can make to amplify your muscle workouts.

1) Replace Traditional Cardio with High Intensity Interval Trainign

Aerobic activities have a negative impact on muscle gaining because it burns glycogen and branched chain amino acids (BCAA). Instead, focus on interval training for fat burning, e.g. a 400-meter sprint followed by a 400-meter recovery jog, repeated 3 more times.

2) Increase Total Time Under Load

Rather than concentrating on the number of repetitions, concentrate on the total time your muscles are under load. Try spending 2 seconds on the negative contraction, 1 second at a neutral contraction (bottom of the exercise), and 1 second on the positive contraction. Lengthening the negative is an easy way to overload muscles and promote muscle weight gain.

3) Increase your Sodium Intake

Sodium increases amino acid absorption and carbohydrate storage while also improving the muscle's receptiveness to insulin. Just do in it moderation!

4) Mix up your Total Time Under Load

One really easy way to add variety to a workout, confuse your muscles, and build muscle up is to switch up your repetition tempo by adding an explosive day once per week, or an explosive set once per workout. It looks like this: 2-second negative contraction, 1-second neutral, explode as fast as you can on the positive contraction and repeat.

5) Try Something New

If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got. Commit to yourself to read a new (as in current and scientifically backed) exercise book every six months. You’ll pick up new approaches and new tips to add to your workouts.

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