How to Successfully Start Gaining Muscle Part 1

If you are tired of being skinny, or a guy who needs to add a bit of muscle to his body and you have been wondering on how to do it, this post is for you! In it I will give you pointers on how to  successfully gain muscle and achieve your dream physique. It comes from my own experience; I already have gained 20lbs of muscle and will continue to do so since my transformation is not finished yet. Here is a first part of the two posts about it:

1.  Take responsibility

No one can do it for you! Not your personal trainer, not the secret training program, not the secret diet, not any magic pill (there aren’t any of these secret things, they DON’T exist). It COMPLETELY depends on you! You are responsible for being skinny. Fat people are responsible for being fat. You don’t have good genes to gain muscle? You don’t have the time? You don’t have money? Your metabolism is too fast and you can eat whatever you like and still not gain a pound? Guess what… it is all Bullshit!! These are just excuses that keep you from getting the Body of Your Dreams! Excuses, excuses, excuses… Stop them! It all depends on you. Believe yourself and that you can do it. Take a serious look at what you are eating and how much calories a day you are getting. You’ll see that you are probably under-eating. And because of that you are not getting those much-needed calories!

I’ve been there and done that. I ate three times a day and that would be all. Plus the amount of food would be ridiculously small. Then I started eating more, counting calories and the weight started to go up. BOOM! I realized that fast metabolism was just an excuse I’d use constantly. And the same goes for genes. They play a role if you want to be Mr. Olympia like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Ronnie Coleman. You do need great genes then. But if you just want to gain some muscle and get a healthy, strong body then you don’t need those super genes. All that matters is hard work and determination.

Before you resume, This Guest Post was written by Adrian who is on a mission to help 1000 people gain the muscles they have always dreamed of. Visit him at 36 Pounds.

2. Visualize the Body of Your Dreams

Create an image of it in your mind. Maybe it’s your idol (like an actor or some athlete, Will Smith or Arnold, or Stallone). Maybe it’s a guy you saw on the street the other day, maybe it’s a picture from a magazine, whatever you like. Just visualize it in great detail and do it as much as possible. Imagine how you walk, how you carry yourself, how your muscles look. Imagine how happy you will be when you reach this dream.  Wake up with this image and go to sleep with it. Cut out a picture from a magazine that you love and stick it to your wall, fridge or mirror. I did it, it feels great to see how I will look in the future.

3. Set goals

Can you make a free throw with your eyes closed? Can you go to a shop without knowing where it actually is and not get lost or look for it for a long time?  NO!! Without knowing where you are going you wont get anywhere. You will end up like a leaf thrown back and forth in the wind. And it applies here too. You need goals. Set specific goals: specific weight, specific fat percentage, specific date on which you want to have Body of Your Dreams.  Write them down. Without writing it’s just mental masturbation.  Not only set goals but also set aside exact times when you will go working out, how often you’ll eat. Decide it will be Monday-Wednesday-Friday and Saturday if you just HAD to miss a workout during the week (it’s just an example, figure out your own schedule).

Set realistic goals. You won’t gain 20 pounds in 10 days. You will be gaining fast when you initially start training. Your body will get a shock and it will change faster. But over the long period, you will be able to gain about 2 pounds a month. Everything more is fat (unless you’re on steroids) anything less and you should probably eat more. It will take time. My goal is to gain 36 pounds from May 2008 till the year 2010 for example.

4. Decide on what kind of program you will be following and how many times a week you will work out

I strongly suggest you don’t work out 7 times a week. Not 5 times too. It’s not for us skinny guys. I’ve trained 5 days a week and I stopped gaining muscle. It was too much. I was STUCK. I needed more rest and to eat more. 3 times is the best solution for me.

As for training programs, there are many of them. I suggest 2 of them. Either use a split routine (where you train two, max three body parts per workout) or 5×5 (whole body trained per workout) training. You can find split routine on my blog and find a good total body workout in the book Starting Strength.

5. Don’t hurry and do correct movements while doing the exercises

It is very important to NOT hurry when doing an exercise. It’s not a race. You might injure yourself and then you will have a big setback. I actually had injured myself because of hurrying. I injured my upper back and I had to forget training my trapezius muscle for a month and wasn’t 100 percent when training my back.

So do you movements slowly, focus on feeling how the exact muscle is working. The slower – the better. Especially, at the start of working out. Plus, if movements done aren’t correct than you will be wasting your time. The muscles you want to develop won’t grow because it’s not stressed correctly. This is one of the MOST IMPORTANT things in training!

Stay tuned for part 2 of the series. Until then, how about you share your experience with us? What did you do to gain the muscles you desired?