Now you may be asking: “2x per week? Isn’t that enough recovery time? Surely I hit my chest hard enough on chest day that it needs a nice long rest before I can fully hammer it again. In fact, if you train too frequently without allowing your muscles to recover you will wind up overtraining, and delayed onset muscle soreness will not be your only problem!”

One word: false. There is a common misconception around the industry that is pervasive and somehow finds its way to everybody. That misconception is the idea that it is quite easy to overtrain a muscle group. As a result, it is actually better to provide your muscle groups with longer rest periods to ensure “full” recovery and allow you to hit them again for maximum growth when they are fully rested and at their peak performance levels. This is simply not true. Well, you certainly want to make sure your targeted muscle group for any particular training day is fully rested and at its peak performance, but you certainly do not need to limit yourself to training each body part 1x per week to make this happen. You can devise a schedule that works well enough to provide you with the ability to hit your muscles 2x per week yet allow the appropriate levels of rest necessary. The most important component of this, of course, is understanding how long it takes muscle groups to recover.

The concept of recovery times is not complex. The bigger the muscle group, the greater the amount of time necessary to ensure proper recovery after a successful day at the gym. When working out your chest, back, and legs you will naturally require a greater period of rest and recovery than when working out a mid-level muscle like the shoulders or the small time biceps, triceps, and calves. A good rule of thumb is to allow the large muscle groups 3 days in between training and the shoulders and smaller muscle groups 2 days of training before jumping to train them again. This is a rule of thumb, however, because recovery is based on a multitude of factors that cannot all be accounted for in every individual situation. Assuming you have a successful workout by causing your day’s targeted muscle group to achieve muscle fatigue, factors that may influence recovery rates include hours of sleep, diet, genetics and daily activity levels. I don’t think it is unreasonable to assume an individual who hits the gym, goes to work performing manual labor, and follows that up with a party after work that cuts into his sleep will probably require more rest time between hitting the same muscle group again than an individual who hits the gym, goes to work at a desk, and follows that up with tv and bed. On average, at least, the second individual will probably need less recovery time because his lifestyle allows his body to simply rest more. However, this does not mean the first individual cannot hit each muscle group 2x per week. He just needs to make sure he develops a training schedule that provides at least his bigger muscle groups with a greater interval of time between training sessions. To see which muscle groups work well together, visit our Best Workout Schedule article.

Hitting each muscle group 2x per week has pretty obvious benefits. With a proper diet, increasing the frequency with which your muscles are torn and rebuilt naturally allows an individual to spark some new growth. This does not mean that hitting each muscle group 2x per week will suddenly double a person’s results, but it may certainly help break plateaus and increase your results because the muscle has more stimulation. After all, proper stimulation through muscle fatigue is the key to starting the process of building muscle, and if you are eating above your maintenance calories, the nutrients will always be there to maximize the potential growth of that stimulation.

Example Routine:

Day 1: Shoulders/Arms

Day 2: Legs

Day 3: Chest/Back

Rest

Repeat

The key when increasing training frequency like this is to make sure that you distribute the volume of work you do on each particular muscle group. This is not necessary, but it is also not necessary to stick with the same volume because you may wind up trying to handle too much volume in a weekly span of time. For example, if you handle 5 exercises for shoulders of 4 sets each every time you go workout shoulders, and 3 exercises of 3 sets each every time you hit biceps or triceps, you can easily see doing this twice a week may have drawbacks. Again, you have to adjust for your individual response to the increase in training frequency. As a suggestion, try lowering the amount of shoulder exercises to 3 or 4, or lowering the set numbers. This goes for any muscle group. With double the frequency, you will still wind up with more volume. To add, also remember that the most important thing is to train efficiently, not to just plow through exercises because that is your goal and you want to make sure you do x number of exercises or sets for a particular muscle group. Your goal should always be achieving muscle fatigue for your targeted muscle group, that’s it. You may need more volume to do this, but most likely if you really focus on hitting the muscle group correctly and not just moving the weight, you can lower the volume and still reach that objective. In the end, it is all about experimenting, but taking your training to the next level with an increase in frequency may be your next step towards success. Try it out. Good luck!

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Bro #1: “Yeah bro, can’t you tell I lost weight? I put on like 10 pounds of muscle too.”

Bro #2: “Crazy how I weigh less, but I definitely put on some muscle.”

I could keep going, but you get the point. Lose fat, gain muscle – at the same time. How many supplements have you seen that claim they’ll let you do this? How many articles have you read that claim you can do this? Plenty, you know why? The consumer market works on fast results, and we all know how impatient we are as humans. We want it, and we want it now. We wouldn’t want it as much if it actually required hard work and dedication, right? So you can see how the fitness industry and media in general work in tandem to provide you with the fastest way to do whatever (six pack abs, big arms, beach body, etc.). However, getting back to reality, the truth is simple. Unless you are using steroids, thinking that you can lose fat and gain muscle at the same time is just not going to happen. Well, I shouldn’t be that harsh, let me explain.

The process of thermodynamics is absolute, that means there’s no workarounds. Whatever you’ve read about and been religiously pumped into believing through magazines or the media, you’ll have to let go. The reasoning for that is simple. Our bodies function in one specific way, based on calories (units of energy). Food is made up of calories, which in the end, are used as energy for our every day activities. What we eat per day, is what we take in (calorie wise) and every thing we do (including what happens inside of our bodies) requires energy (calories). Therefore, this translates into: Food (calories in) vs. Activity (calories out).

If we eat more food per day than we wind up burning through our total activity levels that day, we will wind up with excess calories. Over time, if we keep this up, we will put on weight. If we do the opposite and continually burn more than the amount of food we take in per day, over time, we will lose weight. At the same time, there is a maintenance amount of calories that we require (based on our weight/height/activity level) that we will burn automatically per day. For an extreme but simple example, if we remove the activity factor (what we do each day) and just go off of our body’s statistics, just the act of breathing and functioning (while laying still in bed for 24 hours without moving) is going to burn a certain amount of calories, that amount is your maintenance. Therefore, this whole process of calories in vs. calories out is based on whatever our maintenance is per day. If we wind up below our maintenance, we’ll lose weight. If we wind up above, we’ll gain weight (again, over time, unless you literally binge and eat some insane amount in one day). For more on this, read our maintenance calories article.

Now that I’ve effectively summarized the basics (which, in turn, summarizes both of the articles I linked to), let’s get to losing fat and gaining muscle. Understanding the above, you can clearly see that to lose fat, you need to do the opposite of what you do to gain muscle. Right there, you should see how doing both at once does not make sense. In order to illustrate this for you in the simplest of forms, I’m going to use a good old metaphor. So here it goes: Let’s say you are constructing a house -

If you need to build the first floor, but you only have enough materials to build the basement, can you accomplish your objective? On another note, if you’re attempting to remove the window in the basement, but don’t have enough tools to do so, can you accomplish your objective? Without being imaginative, we can clearly see the answer to both questions being a no. Now substitute your body for the house, and your actions for the tools. The end result is the same. If you’re attempting to gain muscle, but you’re not eating above maintenance, you are not giving your body the necessary amount of food needed for it to actually build muscle. If you’re attempting to lose fat, but you’re not giving your body enough of a reduction in calories, you’re not going to able to lose fat because you’re overfeeding your body and it can run off of the excess energy instead of focusing on taking away from your body fat.

In its most basic form, therefore, the concept of lose fat, gain muscle (at the same time) = an oxymoron. How are you supposed to be able to give your body enough nutrients to have enough to sustain itself (and THEN SOME to build new muscle), yet give it less nutrients than it needs so that it can effectively start to burn fat? It’s simple, you can’t. You either have to be eating a bit above to gain muscle, or a little below to lose fat. It sucks, but it’s better knowing this than trying something that’s physically impossible and wasting your time because you’re being lied to, right? I hope so!

Now, to spare ending the article on such a devastating note, there is technically a way to be able to do both. It’s not the optimal way to get things done, but if you don’t mind taking more time to achieve results then you might take a liking to this method. Think about it, if you have to be above to gain muscle, and below to lose fat, where can you theoretically average out to be able to do both? At maintenance! It’s rather widely understood that if you stick to eating right around maintenance for extended periods of time, you’ll be able to accomplish a successful body re-composition (change the way your body looks). Very often that involves losing fat, yet gaining muscle. If you understand how we’ve gotten to this point with all the calorie talk, you can hopefully see how hovering right around your maintenance can bring a mix of both.

Keep in mind, however, that this process is much slower. Usually, if you really get practical, those AT maintenance are supposed to simply stay the same. However, with some heavy training and a strong diet (high protein), some positive body recomp. should be expected. Again, since you’re not focusing on one of the two goals specifically, and allowing your body to be performing at optimal levels by focusing on that goal solely, the results will be much slower. Just like with anything else, doing two things at once is not as productive as sticking to accomplishing one task at a time, this is no different. Nonetheless, it does not mean both can’t be done with time together (lose fat, gain muscle). If you don’t mind taking your time, or you’re not really into the whole bulking/cutting cycle, go ahead, give it a try. Good Luck!

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The fitness taboo: steroids. No man would dare admit they are using, otherwise they could kiss any potential career in the fitness industry goodbye. After all, who could sell products and preach about hard work and diet when they have been dosing on something most individuals won’t be? It’s career suicide, and everybody knows it. With that said, this article is not about the impact steroids will have on an individual’s career. Nor is the article about whether people are using steroids. What I’m hoping to accomplish here is to put forth a solid answer, based on a real study, of the impact (muscle growth/fat loss) steroids actually have on an individual using them. There has been an eternal war between two sides in the fitness industry: those that believe steroids produce magical results and those that believe steroids are only a boost that works best with hard work and diet. It’s quite the heated argument, and there are plenty of proponents on both sides. Naturally (!), steroid users will claim the latter and preach about how much dedication and hard work is required to obtain great results. In fact, many go over the top and proclaim that it takes even more hard work and dedication than when training natural, because you don’t want to “waste” the steroid’s potential. On the other hand, others will claim one can be a couch potato administering steroids and wind up looking like a tank. It’s time to put some medical research into the mix, and figure out who stands the better ground.

Before we start, I understand I’m using the term ‘steroids’ loosely, as there are many varying in potency and effect. However, the most obvious, and the one used in the medical study, is testosterone (‘test’) dosing. Therefore, it is a fairly accurate generalization of steroids and their effects. Now, the study used in this article is entitled, “Testosterone dose-response relationships in healthy young men.” Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab. 281: E1172–E1181, 2001. The primary objective of this study was to observe the changes in muscle mass associated with dose-dependent administrations of testosterone. In other words, different individuals would receive different doses of testosterone, and the effects on muscle mass would be observed. 61 men were split into 5 groups, and the groups (in order of 1-5) received: 25mg, 50mg, 125mg, 300mg, 600mg.

The absolutely crucial element of this study was the following: The participants were asked not to undertake strength training or moderate-to-heavy endurance exercise during the study. Yes, they were told to be couch potatoes. There was also no significant change in daily caloric, protein, carbohydrate, or fat intake in any group during treatment. The results were startling: (if you want to read the full study, please go here).

Those individuals who were administered 125mg, 300mg, and 600mg doses of test per week increased their free-to-fat mass ratio by 5%, 15%, 37% respectively. In other words, these couch potatoes were able to increase their lean muscle mass while decreasing their body fat levels by doing nothing other than injecting these doses of testosterone. The smaller 25mg and 50mg doses were not significant enough to cause any major changes. Although the study admits there were differences between individuals WITHIN a group (for example, there was an average 15% boost in the 300mg group…however, certain individuals within that group could have had a 10% increase, while others could have had a 20% increase), across the board each group averaged very significant increases starting with the 125mg group. Again, these individuals were explicitly told not to engage in any training. It is the equivalent of being told to sit on the couch, while getting injected with test and hoping the results come anyway.

Sure enough, the results did come (I’m referring to results throughout this article as being the muscle growth/fat loss that occurs throughout a period of time – not results with regards to building a certain type of physique). They are quite extraordinary, in fact. An individual could do nothing but live his life, and if he injects a significant enough dose of test, he will be able to accomplish what any natural individual is not able to do (lose fat and gain muscle at the same time). An individual training naturally could have the strictest diet, the greatest workout routine, and it all won’t come close to matching up with someone on a 125mg dose of test who is not even training. This is the unfortunate truth. What little a natural individual can do during a re-composition comes nowhere close to these results.

Now, with that said, that doesn’t mean those who do use steroids achieve their physiques by doing nothing. The study shows the amazing results that come from taking test, however, achieving an incredible physique still requires absolute dedication and hard work. It’s important to note the distinction here. Neither the study, nor this article, claims that you can achieve any particular physique by simply injecting some test. Building a particular physique obviously requires hard work and dedication, and with steroids mixed in, allows new boundaries to be reached that were previously not available. However, what this study does show, is that the power of a proper steroid dose is quite magical. An individual who does no physical activity and is taking at least a 125mg dose of test weekly will not only grow bigger, but leaner. Now, imagine throwing a halfway decent gym routine and diet plan into that equation.

With an ability to grow bigger while becoming leaner, as a result of doing nothing but injecting a specific dose of test, nobody can honestly claim steroids are not a magical supplement. Yes, you will receive better results the better your routine and diet is. Yes, you will receive better results the more dedicated and hard working you are in pushing your boundaries in the gym and eating right. However, this does not negate the fact that steroids are so powerful you can actually make significant changes to your body by simply taking them. Sure, this won’t bring optimal results, and someone would probably not take steroids just to sit on a couch and explore what happens. Nonetheless, that’s exactly what these subjects did, and the results have been documented. Theoretically, if an individual simply wanted to get a little bigger while leaning out, they could skip going to the gym and take a weekly test dose of at least 125mg. Some would get slightly better results than others, but on average, they would make rather significant changes to their body with no change in their diet. In other words, they could decide to live their lives and achieve more than the hard working natural going all out at the gym and in the kitchen. Why? Because the natural won’t be recomping at the same speed, it’s just not possible. Recomping is a slow process, but the most comparable to the one the couch potato cycling a good dose of test would be experiencing. Otherwise, the natural would take even more time using a traditional cutting/bulking cycle.

Keeping all this in mind, I don’t believe it’s a stretch of the imagination to actually claim steroids can do the work for you. Certainly, if you’re looking to build an amazing physique, this statement does not apply. However, as mentioned previously, theoretically an individual just looking to look better without dedicating a whole lot of time to the gym can jump on a test cycle and improve the way his body looks quite drastically. Not accounting for proportionality, an individual cannot claim that simultaneously building muscle mass while losing fat will not result in at least a semi-decent physique (unless you’re quite obese). Because this is the case, steroids can, in fact, be magical. Would it be the wisest choice? No, but the main point here is that it is possible for steroids to give an individual a much better looking physique on their own. You might not be carved out of stone, but you’ll be bigger and leaner, even without hitting the gym (this whole article assumes an individual doing this would know what they are doing, of course).

It’s quite amazing what can be achieved nowadays. Of course, we won’t go into all the possible side effects and problems that may arise when taking illegal steroids. However, assuming we are in an ideal world where steroids are legal and there are absolutely no side effects, it’s quite extraordinary to see an individual could simply take some doses to get bigger. This makes the usual speal about how steroids require hard work and dedication to be truly effective a farce. There’s no other way around it. You can bend this information and claim they won’t be as effective if not followed with proper training and nutrition, but you cannot deny they are effective on their own. Being effective, but not optimal, does not make them ineffective, no matter how you try and spin it. With that said, imagine the realistic scenario. Knowing what a solid dose of test can do for an individual who does nothing, apply that dose to the average joe who does actually work out at the gym when he decides to run a cycle. Even a weak gym routine and flaky dedication could lead to even better results (again, we’re assuming an individual doing this knows what they are doing, which includes proper PCT).

So folks, if any individual who took steroids attempts to tell you how hard they worked to achieve their physique, don’t automatically roll your eyes. They very well might have, but keep in mind that an extremely crucial component of their physique came as a result of a magic supplement. A magic supplement that can make significant physical changes to an individual’s body just off its own potency. Without sounding too absolute, at the very least a magic supplement that can make up for a lot of potential inconsistencies that a dedicated natural has no room to make. With that tool in their shed, they can’t exactly claim it was all due to hard work and dedication, as often is the case. Again, the moral of the story here is simple. Steroids will not give you the body you’re looking for by themselves. Nonetheless, they certainly are unmatched, as they are able to produce significant bodily changes on their own if dosed correctly. This ability, in and of itself, can’t really be termed anything other than magic. The folks supporting that side of the war certainly have a point.

P.S. -> For those interested in things you can do to try and maximize your natural testosterone production, visit our Increase Testosterone article!

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First, to get bigger arms, you have to understand how much each of the two muscles are involved in making up the arm. Without going into detail on all the different heads of each, the triceps make up 2/3rds of your arm size. In turn, the biceps take up only 1/3rd. So for many, not knowing this fundamental difference already sets them back in their arm growth. Undoubtedly, to the average Joe, the bicep muscle is the “gun” everybody refers to. Even when people refer to their arm size, sometimes they say their biceps are (blank) inches, when they’re actually referring to their entire arm.

This infatuation with the bicep muscle unfortunately induces people to work hard towards training their biceps, with the triceps coming second in priority. This is a vital mistake. The tricep is composed of three tricep heads out of a total of 5 on your arm (the other two being bicep heads). Therefore, every time you’re placing less emphasis on your tricep while curling your heart away to get softballs on your biceps you are the cause of limiting your own arm growth. The fix is simple, keep training your biceps hard, but at the very least, do the same for your triceps. I’d venture to say that you’d be better off prioritizing your triceps and doing an extra exercise for them over your biceps. (Again, this is for those lacking in total arm growth – those whose tricep grows easily would not have to prioritize it in their arm training).

Getting bigger arms of course, goes way past what we’ve just gone over. That’s just the bare minimum you need to keep in mind if you’re struggling with arm growth. When it comes to actual training, keep the following in mind:

1) Prioritize – If you’re trying to get bigger arms, it is pretty clear that you’re not one of those people who can grow their arms by looking at a set of dumbbells. Therefore, you can’t attempt to continue focusing on training your arms the same amount that you do your other body parts. I might get a few people shaking their heads at this (for the fact I’m referring to arm training), but if a body part is stagnating in growth you have to prioritize it. Many people will claim that with the added work your arms do for all your other body parts, excluding legs, it is pointless to work them more than one time a week directly. I find that claim ridiculous, and I’m often not surprised to see only those who don’t have a problem growing their arms advocating such a position. They don’t know what it’s like, plain and simple. To add, I bet they prioritize another body part they’re not satisfied with. Arms are no different.

2) The Big Exercises – there are certain exercises for both the triceps and biceps that are highly recommended over others due to their ability to achieve muscle fatigue much more efficiently than the rest. Sure, tricep pressdowns might work as the main or only exercise for some people but I’m assuming that by reading this article you’re not one of them. Focus on close grip bench press, dips, and skullcrushers/overhead extensions. For biceps, chin ups/barbell curls can do the trick.

3) Mind Muscle Connection – grabbing a barbell and throwing it up with your back isn’t going to help you grow bigger arms. Do it right, focus your mind on moving the weight with the muscle you intend the exercise for. For curls, stand against the wall with your elbows at your sides, don’t let your ego win and lower the weight. Remember, it’s about how hard you hit the muscle, not how much weight you use (especially if that weight is being lifted with the help of supporting muscle groups).

4) Constant Tension – by straightening your arms on skull crushers you’re letting your tricep relax. Instead, stop 5-10% short of straightening and go back down to do another rep. This keeps constant tension on the muscle and helps it reach muscle fatigue faster because you’re not giving it a rest between reps.

5) Dropsets, Supersets, Negatives, etc. – always try to take your muscle to, and past, its limit. Incorporate these various tricks to your sets in order obliterate the intended muscle group. You bet that after a 4-5 set dropset at the end of an exercise your biceps/triceps will be screaming. You get bigger arms by punishing them to your absolute best ability. Utilize these tricks.

Finally, the question of how to get bigger arms is irrelevant if you’re not eating enough to actually allow your body to grow. Make sure you eat above your maintenance calories so your body has enough nutrients in it to rebuild and pack on size. If you’re not eating right, no matter what you do in the gym your arms will stay the same size. Good luck!

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1) Hit the gym and make sure you hit your muscles hard, when they’re hit hard, they get damaged. Your body responds by fixing the damage and adapting the muscles so that next time they can handle that load without damaging themselves, at which point you hit the muscle even harder (now that you can, since your muscles have adapted), and you recycle the whole process. This is called Progressive Overload.

2) In order for your body to repair and adapt the muscle (muscle growth) for the stresses you make it undergo in the gym, you need to give it enough nutrients. If you’re not eating above maintenance, you’re not doing that. So make sure you figure out how much you need to eat, How Many Calories Should I Eat A Day?.

The key concept behind all of this is the idea of muscle fatigue. If you hit your muscles hard enough so that they fatigue, you will force your body to grow them in order to adapt (again, as long as you feed your body enough). A commonly overlooked method of making sure your muscles reach muscle fatigue is doing negatives. This can be applied to any exercise, any routine, at any time.

There are two parts to a movement, let’s use bicep curls as our example. When you’re lifting the weight up, it’s the positive part of the movement. When you’re letting the weight go back down, it’s the negative part of the movement. Most people tend to focus on the positive, while ignoring the negative (most commonly, simply letting the weight drop back down immediately so they can bring it up again). If you wish to really hit your muscles hard, you need to make sure you’re not ignoring the second half of every exercise. We’re looking to gain muscle right? How do we make sure we reach muscle fatigue? We pay attention to the negatives just as much as the positives of each movement!

Here are some ways you can incorporate a focus on the negative while you’re training:

1) Add negatives at the end of your set – let’s say you’re doing a set of 8 reps on bench press. You get to rep 8 and you’re just about exhausted, well…not so fast! Instead of putting the weight back on the rack, get a spotter and do a couple negative reps till you really give out. Slowly and steadily, with the focus on your chest, lower the weight all the way down. Then, let the spotter get the weight back up to the top for you, and do it again. Repeat this until you’re completely out of it. Since this method takes you to ultimate failure, it is recommended you leave this for the last set of the particular exercise, so you can really finish it with a bang! Muscle fatigued, mission accomplished!

2) Do whole sets of negatives – finished with those skull-crushers? Don’t be, bring the weight back and do a whole set of negatives before you put that barbell away. If 3 sets was your intended set count, add a 4th based solely on negatives to finish off strong. You can also do an entire exercise based on negatives only. If you’re doing 4 exercises for that particular muscle group, make one of them a negative exercise!

3) Do a negative at the end of each rep of a set – Instead of dropping the weight on that dumbbell row, do a negative on the way down. Continue this after each rep, I guarantee you won’t do the same amount of reps and the burn will be excruciating. This is actually a very good way to mercilessly gnaw at a muscle, since you’re making it work constantly on the way up and on the way down without rest (for a longer period of time, too!)

These are the most common ways to incorporate negatives into your day at the gym, so that you can really reach muscle fatigue. Gaining muscle will also require that strong calorie count, as we’ve mentioned in point 2 at the start of the article, so don’t forget about that! Furthermore, get creative. I’m sure you can come up with your own ways of using negatives to maximize your results, so don’t be hesitant. I’ve simply outlined what’s usually applied. Remember, the focus is on a slow and steady second half of the movement. You want to use your muscle to resist the gravity of the weights as they naturally come back down. Take your time, and really feel it in the muscle (Mind Muscle Connection). If you want to gain muscle, hit your muscles twice as hard, by making sure you don’t forget about that often ignored opposite part of the rep. For more tips on how to destroy your muscles in the gym, check out our Weight Training Tips article. Good luck!

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Muscle hypertrophy, in basic terms, is muscle growth. However, as we very well know, stimulating muscle hypertrophy and achieving muscle hypertrophy are two very different things. Without giving your body the resources it needs to repair itself after you have effectively stimulated it towards growth, none of this matters. Therefore, before we dive into the main topic of this article, make sure that you are aware of the importance of eating above maintenance calories when attempting to put on muscle mass. I always stress this, and I always will continue to do so. After all, you can’t add a section to the house without the bricks, right?

Besides everything mentioned in the first paragraph in regards to stimulating muscle hypertrophy, there is something very important that you can utilize that cannot be grouped in with everything else mentioned. It is not a weight training tip, but rather a methodology. It is a “way” to train, that may be obvious for some but I see very rarely utilized in the gym. That methodology is the idea of always training under constant tension.

What is constant tension? Well, when you’re doing a set of bench press to presumably work on your chest, what you see almost everybody do is complete the rep by locking out their elbows (finishing the repetition at the top by straightening the arms before going back down for another rep). It is not the wrong thing to do by any means (outside of placing extra stress on the joints – but that’s something for the long-term that you need to weigh out for yourself), but it is nonetheless not the best method to use when completing a set. Why? Because we are trying to strive for efficiency, achieve muscle fatigue (which leads to stimulating muscle hypertrophy) while minimizing time spent doing so.

Constant tension is a method of training where you never lock out at the top of a movement, instead, you reach as high as you can without doing so, and immediately go in for another rep. This does not allow your muscles to rest (even if for a second) by straightening your arms on bench press, as your chest is constantly under tension until you are done with your set. For a reverse example, if you are doing barbell curls you would squeeze strongly at the top and instead of going completely down with your hands you would stop just short of straightening your arms, and go back up. Your bicep would be constantly involved in the workload with absolutely no rest until you have finished your set. You can imagine that doing this will lead to dealing with slightly lower weights, rightfully so.

With constant tension not only are you maxing out the capabilities of your muscle group on each exercise by drilling them the entire time your set is active, but you are also making sure that it doesn’t get a chance to breathe in the process. Increasing productivity while stimulating muscle hypertrophy sounds pretty good doesn’t it? Now keep in mind, that doesn’t mean that you go grab weights and give yourself the freedom of flying through an exercise because you’re never completing the rep. Constant tension also holds importance when it comes to timing, as it involves the Mind-Muscle-Connection. You never want to be doing reps “fast”, you always want to increase that muscle group’s time under tension (the time it takes for you to do a rep) by taking at least a good 3-4 seconds on everything. With that in mind, combine time under tension with constant tension, and you can see where reaching muscle fatigue and stimulating muscle hypertrophy come together.

Again, constant tension is a methodology of training and a mentality of how you should approach hitting your muscles. It can be applied to any exercise, for any muscle group. Combine it with any of the great tips discussed early in the paragraph and you will be making sure that you’re taking your body to the limit each time you’re in the gym. Add in a good diet that gives you the nutrients you need, and you will give your body what it needs for muscle hypertrophy. For more on giving your body the training it needs to grow, check out our Gain Muscle article. Good luck!

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If you’re attempting to gain muscle, wherever credible you end up in your search for the best results, you will be told that you need to follow a few simple rules. Beyond these rules, you are left to your own creation, missing an essential element in your quest to gain muscle. What you’ll often hear will be the following two fundamentals:

Principle #1: Be Above Maintenance Calories – if you are planning to gain muscle, you have to give your body enough nutrients from food (in the form of calories) in order for it to slap on some size. If you don’t give a construction worker enough bricks, what house is he expected to lay?

Principle #2: Progressive Overload – in order to signal to your body that it needs to grow your muscles, you have to bring those muscles to muscle fatigue. In other words, destroy them in the gym to the point your body knows it needs to prepare itself for sustaining that same force the next time. By repeating the cycle each time you are in the gym, and pushing harder with each session, you’ll do the necessary to force your body to grow (again, in line with the first principle and obvious proper rest).

The various diets you can construct, the various exercises, routines, and ways you can punish your body in the gym in order to gain muscle will be plenty. Those are all secondary in importance, behind these main two principles outlined above. Think of all of those things as the cherries on top of the pie, the pie created out of the two fundamental rules above. As long as you follow what is outlined above, everything else is just the extra that you can use to help you nit-pick how you want to most effectively achieve your muscle gain. However, that’s where the problem starts. You shouldn’t stop there, as there is another fundamental principle necessary to gain muscle in a way that leaves you satisfied. There is a difference between trying to gain muscle and following the results; and building your own body to become what you want it to become through careful analysis and response to your individual genetics. That principle, is the principle that separates ordinary physiques from those that are eye-popping.

Principle #3: Genetics Matter, Use Them – there is an ongoing war about genetics. On one side, people claim that some are simply blessed with amazing genes and everything just comes “easier” to them when trying to gain muscle. On the other side, people downplay the role of genetics as a cop-out for those who just don’t “work hard enough”. The problem? Both of them fail to see where genetics come into play, and how anybody can use their specific genetics to mold what they want to become. There is a middle ground here, and you need to acknowledge it and use it to your benefit.

Everybody has different genes, we are all individuals with our own special codes. When we work out to gain muscle, we all respond differently in different muscle groups. Some people have a better base to begin with, others are worse off (relative to those with a good base). However, while training to gain muscle, it is plainly evident that each individual has certain muscle groups that seem to just “grow”, while others stagnate behind. You must realize this, accept this, and train in a way that leads every muscle group to its maximum potential.

While you’re weight-lifting to gain muscle, you will come to realize that particular muscle groups on your body seem to grow when they look at a pair of dumbbells, while others seem to treat the weights as hell and resist growth. The #1 mistake you can make, is use a routine to emphasize all muscle groups universally. It is irrelevant if you had a good or bad base to begin with, if you are training you will notice your genetics predisposed you to gaining muscle in certain areas easier than in others. You have to take what you’ve been given, and devise a workout routine to account for this. Trying to gain muscle in a muscle group that is stubborn is obviously going to require more punishment of that muscle than one that grows from 3 sets of an exercise.

Those that complain that they simply don’t “have the genetics” are mistaken, although there clearly are variations among individuals in how much natural muscle mass they can gain based on their statistics, everybody has strong and weak points. Some may only have one weakness, others may have plenty. That doesn’t mean your genetics have precluded you from attaining a solid physique you’re proud of, it means you need to push those muscle groups that are stubborn to the point they have no choice but to gain muscle.

The fact it’ll require more punishment from you than someone else “blessed” with the genetics to only have 1 or 2 weak points shouldn’t mean anything to you. You are responsible for your growth, there is no room for excuses when it comes to trying to gain muscle. If you are motivated and want to succeed, it is your job to take on those weak points, not blame “genetics” because you don’t care to respond to your body the way you need to in order to overcome the muscle groups that require extra hard work.

For example, if your chest seems to grow from a set of push ups, don’t hit your chest as much as you hit your weak muscle groups. Hit it hard, and turn to focus on the muscle groups that are behind. Punish them, and do not hesitate to punish them again. There is a horrible misconception in the fitness community that you should allow your muscles to “recover” for days on end. You don’t. If you have weak triceps, hit them every other day. If you are following the principles outlined above, and resting enough, you will never reach a state of “over-training”. Do not let anybody tell you otherwise. Your muscles aren’t growing, do you think you should keep going hitting everything once or twice a week, or prioritize and punish that muscle until it has no choice but to grow? If you chose the former, you’ll keep your stagnation progressing, instead of trying to gain muscle.

Prioritizing muscle groups should be your top priority, if your genetics don’t allow you to grow your shoulders at a steady pace like your arms, then hit your shoulders until they do. Hit your arms hard once a week if not less, and prioritize. Now, when I say prioritize I don’t mean go to the gym and hit your lagging chest three days in a row. Make sure you give a muscle group at least a day in between, but if you get to the point where you have to hit it three times a week (divided, of course), do it! Gain muscle, evening every muscle group out, that’s your objective.

In order to attain muscle symmetry, an important component of this whole process is making sure that you use a Mind Muscle Connection. It is imperative that you actually focus on using the muscle you are trying to work, doing the exercise with that muscle being the primary mover. Each rep should be done by the muscle group the exercise is intended for. Otherwise, not only will you limit the amount of muscle gain you can slap on that particular muscle as you’re not exhausting it to its absolute limit, but you will also allow other muscle groups to take over the exercise when it is not intended for them. This is another problem that leads many people to have stagnating body parts, while others grow exponentially, which can further be aggravated by the role of genetics discussed here.

To gain muscle, and gain that muscle where you want to gain it, you have to make sure that you are not allowing other muscle groups to enter your exercise any more than they physically have to. If you are bench pressing, don’t let your shoulders or triceps do most of the work, squeeze the chest to make it push the weight up. Leave your ego at the door, as it can only exacerbate your limited gains in certain muscle groups. Genetics may tell you where you know you need to work extra hard, but only you can limit yourself in not overcoming that problem by failing to work extra hard. The ability to gain muscle and achieve muscle symmetry is in your hands, don’t blame genetics. Prioritize, punish particular muscle groups more often than others, and do what you have to in the gym to give that muscle group no other option but to gain muscle. That is how you will achieve the look you are going for. Eat properly, train properly (prioritize, use mind muscle, reach muscle fatigue) and don’t follow a routine for the sake of following it. Use routines as templates to create your own routine that places your weak points at the forefront, allowing you to really punish each muscle group equally (as all will require varying amounts of punishment). That is how you really gain muscle, and not mope around feeling others were just more “blessed” than you. That’s not how it works, it’s all in your hands. Figure out what you have been given, and hit the gym based on that knowledge. Good luck!

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There are certain weight lifting exercises that are rather universally accepted as better than others. For the purpose of this article, we are not going to go over each and every one of them. Instead, we will provide you with one exercise per body part that you should strive to keep in your routine as a standard.  An exercise that we feel is the cream of the crop for achieving muscle growth for that region and should be included in each workout (or a variation of it, at the very least). Also keep in mind, we do have an article on the best exercises per muscle group based on an EMG study if you’re interested.

Shoulder: Lateral Raises

Yes, I picked doing the “measly” lateral raise over any type of shoulder press. Here’s why: The shoulder press focuses largely on the front delt, even though you can vary the exercise to incorporate more of your medial head than the standard version. Even so, for the vast majority of people the front delt will become overdeveloped when compared to the side delt, mostly due to extensive chest work. Even for those who do not fall into this group, the front head can easily grow at a steady pace provided you do any type of benching or pressing for your chest.

Focusing directly on the side delt, therefore, will help increase your width and allow you to work towards achieving that “V” frame. Of course, I can make the case that any overhead pressing movement varied to account for higher medial delt activation can trump focusing on this particular small-time isolation exercise. However, I’m not saying you should only do lateral raises, I’m simply saying it should be included each time you go hit your shoulders. A pressing movement can be dismantled by doing front and lateral raises. Can you, on the other hand, go to do a shoulder workout and simply focus on shoulder presses? You can, and for some it will work, but for many I’m inclined to believe that over time if hypothetically they only focused on that weight lifting exercise for shoulders they would not have fantastic side delts (which are necessary for that wide look).

Chest: Chest Dips

I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to chest, only because I’m a firm believer in Incline Pressing. I think that Incline Pressing should be the standard exercise for anyone trying to build an impressive chest, but Chest Dips (when done correctly, using the Mind Muscle Connection) are an absolutely vital exercise aimed towards achieving great chest growth. Many people focus too much on flat benching/pressing, and they’re often left wondering why their chests aren’t anything spectacular. Try to come in on chest day and doing Chest Dips as your first exercise, do it right, and I’m fairly certain you’ll walk away with time very happy with your results. To be fair, throw Incline Pressing in there too. It is a commonly believed that dips are the equivalent of decline benching. Although this is true, depending on how much of an angle you use you can use dips to hit the entire chest (I’m avoiding the topic of whether you can place emphasis on a particular part of chest more than another altogether, that’s a whole other can of worms).

Back: Pullups/Chin Ups

No, it is not the deadlift. You can scream at me all you want, but one can survive and build a fantastic back without deadlifting. I highly doubt someone can build an impressive back without doing some form of pullups (and if we were talking about taking out pullups, that would include any pulldown and pullover). Pullups not only destroy your lats, letting you build some great width to add to your hopefully growing medial delts, but they also hit your biceps hard and it can be argued that they play a role in developing other upper back muscles like the rhomboids and traps to an extent (even some tricep work can be attributed in there). Yes, they’re that fantastic. Barbell rows are great too, but the firepower of a pullup gun it to #1 on the list.

Legs: Lunges

Weight lifting exercises for legs are plenty, with many being lazy and focusing on some lousy machines doing leg extensions and hamstring curls. That’s not the way to develop big legs. You squat, you win. However, I dare say that lunging takes the cake for leg development. The lunge has all the great benefits of the squat, along with fantastic core strength required to balance yourself when doing each rep. We’re not discussing the core, however, so that’s just a cherry on top (and anyway, the same can be argued for squats). Lunges, however, are an entire different beast. Many people cheat on squats and do 1/4 reps, 1/3 reps, 1/2 reps, or anything of the sort. Even if you go down to parallel, you’re still leaving out a lot of benefits of the ATG (ass to grass) squats that activate much more of your hamstrings and glutes. With the lunge, you cannot cheat yourself. By varying width between short strides and long strides (and anything in between) you can activate any part of the leg muscle.

These are the 4 major muscle groups, and these are the suggested exercises that you should consistently have in your regimen more than others. It is great to rotate exercises and keep the gym experience fresh, but you also don’t have to. That’s up to you. What’s most important is eating above your maintenance calories and making sure you tax your muscles to the point that they reach muscle fatigue. These weight lifting exercises, although solid and effective, need to still be utilized properly (make sure the right muscle is doing most, if not all, of the work) and with the right knowledge (push the muscle to its limit each workout, and eat enough to grow) in order to achieve results. Work hard, eat well, and your results will come. Good luck!

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Playing around with how you execute your sets for a particular exercise can play a major role in taxing your muscles to their limits. The following are some weight training tips you can use in the gym to pulverize a muscle group and force it achieve muscle fatigue (therefore, progressive overload).

1) Super Sets – a super set is a combination of exercises done one after another without rest. There are 2 ways you can go about doing a super set:

a) Same muscle group – if you’re doing chest, for example, you can super set chest flyes with push ups. In this scenario, you’d perform a set of flyes and immediately follow it up with a set of push ups. Only after this would be completed, you would take a rest.

b) Opposite muscle group – arms are often a favorite for what is known as an antagonistic super set. In this scenario, you would perform a bicep exercise and follow it up with a tricep exercise immediately after. Only after this would be completed, you would take a rest.

2) Drop Set – these are usually saved towards the end of an exercise. Let’s say you’re doing 4 sets of bench press. After you have finished 3 sets, you would perform the 4th set, and instead of finishing that particular exercise, you would drop some of the weight, and push out as much reps as you can. Once you are done, you would drop some more weight, and do it again. Drop sets are very intense, and for best results make sure the weights you are using are combined in small increments (25s, 10s, 5s) instead of large weights (45s) because you don’t want to stand there changing the weights for a minute (as that defeats the purpose of a drop set).

3) Pause Reps – let’s say you’re doing bicep curls, instead of doing your set in  a regular fashion (with emphasis on the Mind-Muscle Connection!), you would perform each rep with a pause in the middle. In this scenario, you’d be curling the weight up half-way, holding the weight with your bicep for a couple seconds, and then finishing the rep up top. This is a way of increasing time under tension, a critical aspect of progressive overload much often overlooked (with everybody swinging the weight wildly, minimizing the benefits).

4) Triple Rep Set – using the same bicep curl example, this is often referred to as a “21″. In this scenario, you’d perform 7 reps half-way up, 7 reps half-way down, and 7 full reps to finish the set. Of course, it doesn’t have to be 7. You can do a 15, or even a 30. That’s up to you.

5) Negatives

All of these weight training tips are a great way to play around with how you hit a particular muscle group in the gym. They’re creative, provide a muscle group with a different angle of resistance, and help make sure that you reach that much desired muscle fatigue. Furthermore, these are things that can be thrown in at the end of a particular exercise, or used as the primary basis for performing an exercise (3 sets of only negatives, for example). Get fancy, it’s up to you. For more on what matters in the gym, visit our Gain Muscle article. Good luck!

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Calculating maintenance calories is the first and foremost step that needs to be taken before an individual can specifically target losing weight or building muscle mass. Maintenance calories, in this regard, are the fundamental starting point that can’t be omitted if you are really serious about achieving your fitness goals. After all, if you don’t know how many calories are needed to maintain your weight, how can you possibly know how many calories you need to lose weight or gain muscle? Let’s begin with the basics.

Calories In vs. Calories Out:

Following the basic laws of science, if you take in more calories through food per day than you wind up burning through activity that same day, over time you will put on weight. On the other hand, if you take in less calories than you wind up burning, over time you will lose weight. Of course, the key is consistency once you figure out your particular goal of weight loss or muscle gain. You can’t be all over the place (irregular) with your intakes if you wish to succeed.

Following this concept, how will you know if you’re over your maintenance calories or under if you don’t know that maintenance in the first place? Well, you can adjust your diet and weigh yourself each week, noting the results and making changes as you go along. However, that’s not exactly what we’re here for, right? Successful results take time, but with the same token, we can’t be wasting valuable time attempting to figure out if what we’re doing each week will yield results. It’s too troublesome, and often times you can wind up staying the same weight and losing a week of results in the process. Adding to this dilemma, irregularity in daily caloric intake can greatly hamper results, since you don’t bother counting calories as there’s no goal amount that you’ve established in the first place. Sounds like an escalating mountain of obstacles? It is. Fortunately, you’re here because you want to figure out your maintenance calories, and we’re glad to help you.

There are two very well known equations that you can use, and I’m not going to tell you which one is better because they are both popular equations for figuring out maintenance calories. Your best bet is to use both, and average out the final number for the best guesstimation.

Harris-Benedict equation: Maintenance (Men) = 66.47 + (6.23*your weight in pounds) + (12.67*your height in inches) – (6.76*age in years)

Maintenance (Women) = 655 + (4.34*your weight in pounds) + (4.69*your height in inches) – (4.68*age in years)

This method was the original method developed in 1919, it’s still very useful to this day (otherwise we wouldn’t be sharing it with you!)

Mifflin equation: Maintenance (Men) = (10*weight in kilograms) + (6.25*height in centimeters) – (5*age in years) + 5

Maintenance (Women) = (10*weight in kilograms) + (6.25*height in centimeters) – (5*age in years) -161

This method is pretty recent and takes into account our more modern lifestyle.

The two methods obviously have different measuring standards so here are the conversions:

1 inch = 2.54cm (Ex. Someone 6 feet tall (6*12 inches = 72 inches)(72*2.54cm =182.88cm)

2.204 pounds = 1 kilogram (Ex. Someone who is 180 pounds = 180/2.204 = 81.67kg)

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Before you go on with the calculations, you have to keep in mind that these numbers will be a guesstimate. You will not know the exact number no matter what you do, but you can definitely come close enough to where the difference is negligible. Furthermore, the end amount that will come from these equations will be determined without factoring in your activity levels. This is a very important problem, because although the calories needed to maintain weight may be the same for individuals with eerily similar stats, their activity levels might be extremely different and make that calculated maintenance quite a bit off. Clearly, the number you get from these equations will work better for an individual who lives a sedentary lifestyle (office job) as opposed to someone who does high a high level of activities (construction). We’re also not counting any gym-going.

In order to solve this problem, we can go about it in 2 different ways:

1) Shortcut Method:
Upon calculating your maintenance calories from the equations above, you can go buy the Jawbone Up3 Activity Tracker. It’s not necessary to do so, but if you want to cut the amount of work you are required to do, this is the most accurate gadget of the lot. The product basically allows you to wear a wristband which counts the amount of calories you are burning not only through activity, but even simple tasks such as breathing and sleeping. What’s good about it is that it actually does this accurately, and if you’re looking for something this precise the Jawbone Up3 is the best out there. Check out our Jawbone Up3 review if you want to know more about this. If you’re not inclined to spend money, no problem! Continue on with method #2 discussed below, it’s less precise, but it will certainly get the job done.

2) Trial and Error Method:
Upon calculating your maintenance calories, we have to do a little bit of improvising. This step is important, and it’s solely up to you. You have to account for your own activity levels throughout the day and guesstimate accordingly from there. If you hit the gym a few times a week, whatever your maintenance becomes, you’ll want to up it up to 500 calories (depending on how intense you are with your workouts, etc.) If you play sports, you do the same. For a ball park figure, I’d up the calculations 250 calories, and below you’ll learn what you can do from there.

Once you’ve estimated what your maintenance is (including the slight increase mentioned just above), it’s time to put it into action. Step on the scale and measure your weight for the next 3 days, each morning upon waking after using the bathroom. Take the average weight you get and use that as your body weight. For that next week, eat at the maintenance you’ve calculated here. Of course, you don’t need to hit it perfectly, round the number to the nearest 100^th. After a week, record your weight. If you’ve dropped a bit, it means you’re in a slight caloric deficit, if you’ve gained a little, you’re on a slight surplus. Since this article is simply about calculating, we’ll finish up by saying that whatever the result is after that week, it will determine your next step.

If you’re on a surplus, drop the calories a bit. If you’re on a deficit, up the calories a little bit. Do this for another week (remember, this is the trial and error part), and you should have a steady weight at the end of that week (anything up to a pound of a difference, because we have to account for possible water weight based on the type of food you eat). Also, keep in mind that you can skip this last step if you already know what you’re trying to do. If you are attempting to lose some weight, you don’t have to up the calories and adjust to find your maintenance…just keep going with the same amount you were using and balance from there as you continue to drop weight (less weight = less calories needed to maintain = small drops in maintenance to continue at the same pace). Of course, vice versa if you’re attempting to build size. However, the step is necessary if you first want to get your maintenance for sure, so that you can track your progress perfectly from the very beginning. Including the extreme that you wind up dropping weight during the time you’re trying to find your maintenance (and you’re attempting to build size), it follows that you’ll up the calories quite a bit more to not only remove the counter-productive deficit but also go above maintenance. It might sound confusing, but it’s not! Just stick to the Calories In vs. Calories Out understanding and you’ll be fine.

(Below you’ll find some guesstimated/rounded maintenance calorie counts – little to no physical activity)

Males:

Age: 20, Height: 5’10, Weight: 180lbs – 2,200 calories

Age: 25, Height: 6’1, Weight: 200lbs – 2350 calories

Age: 30, Height: 5’7, Weight: 160lbs – 1975 calories

Females:

Age: 20, Height: 5’2, Weight: 110lbs – 1,460 calories

Age: 25, Height: 5’7, Weight: 135lbs – 1670 calories

Age: 30, Height: 5’4, Weight: 120lbs – 1500 calories

Once your maintenance calories are figured out and you’re on the right track, for best results in regards to your specific goal, visit our Calories Per Day? article so you know what the best caloric surplus/deficit is for muscle gain/fat loss respectively. Good luck!

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