After reading comments and posts where I instruct members on how to increase their rate of growth, and after making comments such as "you can reasonably expect to gain 1/2 - 2 pounds of lean mass per week," a few people have asked me about how to increase their rate of hypertrophy naturally. A few have simply said it is not true.
In most of my posts, I have given the next reasonable step for the person I was addressing. In this post, I am going to briefly outline the background for you to consider and then outline the method of increasing the rate of hypertrophy for a natural athlete.
Briefly, I have seen people at every level of training make gains of 1/2 to 2 pounds per week for periods of 12 weeks and longer. I myself have trained for a year (and more) and including cycling through non-hypertrophy cycles of training, with gains in excess of 30 pounds of lean mass for a year.
I believe there is not a particular ceiling to the lean mass gains you can see in a year within reason…depending on your discipline and persistence. However, I put the “reasonable” level of natural lean mass gains at 35 to 40 pounds. A moderately high level of natural lean mass gains I would consider to be 40 to 75 pounds. Gains beyond that I would consider a high level of natural lean mass gains.
If you just choked on your protein shake, allow me make this feel a bit more within your reach.
In my initial writing of this, I will not include any references to original sources from which the information has come. If anyone is really interested in seeing journal articles that support any part of what I describe here, ask.
What I assume you know Lets start with what I assume you know and understand before I embark on the heart of the matter.
First, I assume you understand the basic principles of: Progressive Nutrition, Nutrient Timing, Meal Planning with Proper Nutrient Ratios for your body chemistry, Progressive Resistance Training, Variations in Training Intensity, Recovery, Training Layoffs, Tracking Body Composition Changes, and etc.
If you do not understand any of those things…then your best gains will be had first learning and implementing those principles. Let me say that another way. If there is any one principle that you just read that you are not using…then implementing it will get you the greatest gains at this moment.
My Gaining Mass post and that thread in general deals with most every one of those concepts. Get the basics under your belt first. Then come back to this concept.
OK? Good.
Now…Second I am going to assume that you have been training for over 6 months. That is, you have been training for over 26 weeks. And I am going to assume that your goal is Optimal Lean Mass Gains. In that at least 26 weeks, I assume you trained for 10-12 weeks and took 1-2 weeks off for two cycles of Hypertrophy type training. I am also assuming that you have seen some muscle gains.
If the situation is anything different, then keep in mind there are some different considerations for you. So I am assuming that AT LEAST 26 weeks of hypertrophy type training is under your belt.
Why? In short, there is a 6 week change in body chemistry that leads to Optimal Lean Mass Gains. There is a 6-8 week period where the basic ligaments and tendons develop a good foundation of strength. There is a period of learning proper form and learning to breath, concentrate, relax, prepare food, eat, etc. In short there is a whole skill set that I am assuming you have had time to learn.
For clarity, if you turn yourself over to me (or another skilled trainer) for 90 minutes nearly every day, then I would say you don’t need to meet these assumptions because you would have my experience every step of the way keeping you on the right path.
It does not matter what age you are as long as you are over 9 years old. OK? Still with me.
The keys to this concept Lets talk about some of the keys to this.
Gut efficiency. You need to teach your body to digest and utilize food optimally. That means you don’t want to put any nonsense food in your system when your body wants quality nutrients. That means you supply smaller balanced meals frequently and your body learns to get what it needs faster. Eat your veggies frequently! Veggies are loaded with supporting nutrients…including things you never heard of before that will help you get bigger.
Nutrient sufficiency. You want to make sure that at no time is your body likely to have any momentary deficiency of a key nutrient that will stop any process of synthesis of proteins. Again, smaller balanced meals frequently.
Mental Connection. You do not actively control many of the processes of the body. You can control a few. You can control the master controller. That is the brain. You can control what you think and this has a direct impact on what happens in your body. Doubt me? Can you close your eyes and fantasize and get physically aroused? Or better, try this…put on a heart rate monitor and sit quietly thinking of the most calming thing you can think of for 5 minutes. Look at the heart rate monitor. Now, I want you to start to think about warming up for the most monster workout of your life. This is going to be the biggest rush and pump of your life. Close your eyes and feel your muscle warming up…then see yourself loading the weights…then do a warm up set in your head and feel the muscles busting…now load it up and see yourself doing every agonizing rep. Look at the heart rate monitor. Why that change? Because you caused hormones, proteins, fats, carbs, DNA, mitochondria and all sorts of other things to act. Got it now? You can alter your body response in powerful ways with your mind. Accept it and move on.
Balancing acid and base in the body. You grow better and faster when you are not acidic. Eat your veggies, stay hydrated. Breathe deeply and slowly.
Have a good cardiovascular foundation. All the precursors that will travel through your body travel in your system better when your circulation is better.
Now, assuming everything made sense…lets look at the last parts of this.
Support high levels of beneficial growth hormones (gH, Test, etc) in the body. I have whole posts on this. Low stress. Low cortisol. High Test, High gH. Avoid anti-anabolics. Seek out anabolic supporters.
Vary your training Your body adapts to stimuli and you want to keep moving the target so it keeps having to adapt. Adaptation is a process and growth is a result of the process.
Train only as much as is needed to stimulate growth, then get out of the gym. There is a general two school dialogue of how much to work and what is better.
a)whole body once a week.
b)whole body more than once a week.
The basic difference has to do with volume/load. If you train with a high volume/load then you need longer to recover. If however you train with lower volume, then you can still stimulate growth and you can recover faster. This latter concept relies on you not overtaxing hormonal, nervous, or other systems while stimulating the muscle/systems sufficiently to so that you get a growth response and then move on to growth as fast as possible. A note about this…your training cycles may vary and include both a and b over time. Some people are acclimated to one or the other and some people do not do well with one or the other either because of acclimation or other factors (nervous state, recovery, hormones, nutrition efficiency, etc.) Get it? You want to make the body more efficient in all the players to get the Optimal Lean Mass Gains. But if you have a unique limiting agent in your body, you need to resolve or make that agent adapt before you will see ultimate success.
Increase the frequency of training. We teach our bodies how fast to recover and be ready for more growth. If you are doing the above, “ move on to growth as fast as possible” part, then you can train again sooner as well. More cycles of training equals more cycles of recovery and growth and more overall growth.
Train with higher intensity overall. Do I need to explain this? If you go into the gym and warm up, load up the bar and do your sets and reps, checking them off in your log and resting between, then you cool down and you leave…you are probably not training with full intensity. You want to visualize how you will look and feel as if you look it NOW. You want to see yourself getting bigger and then feel it. You need to feel the pump to feel the bigger muscles. You need to feel the muscle fibers with every rep. Feel the swelling. You need to cut your rest times or increase your velocity or vary weights, angles, emphasis, etc.
Obey Nutrient Timing. You need to get that pre and post workout nutrition in your body. The body is in a special hormonal state during and after intense training. This is your chance to grow FAST. Do it.
Track body composition and changes weekly and make adjustments. Calipers, photos, tape measure, scale. Change your Workouts and Nutrition. Enough said.
Take a week +- break every 8-12 weeks When you take a layoff, huge rebuilding processes occur. The body is known to produce new (stem) cells while you recover and do not train. This means that you want that time off to grow optimally.
Train for muscle hypertrophy in all muscle groups and all muscle types Clear enough?
Is there more to it Yes
Are there tricks you can employ to make this even better? Yes. But if you do not have the foundation in place...you won't see the optimal results you want.
What is the KEY in all this? Increasing frequency of recovery cycles and making adjustments as frequently as you need to. Do not train beyond the threshold of fast recovery, but train intensely. Do not load up on volume and leave the nervous system or adrenal systems burned out. They are your friend in this. Stay motivated, keep images of your goals in front of you, be disciplined so it is easy to relax. When you leave the gym, have a life you enjoy to go to. You do not want to burn out or miss out.
Now, one little caveat. Though we can control nearly every facet of the expression of our genetics, everyone has slightly different chemistry. You need to listen to your body. I discuss this at length all the time on threads. People rarely listen. If you do not learn to understand what your unique chemistry needs are, and instead do what everyone else does, you may not progress optimally. If you have excesses or deficiencies or you are not eating right for your body or training right for your body, you will not progress optimally.
There are tests to see if you have excesses or deficiencies.
There are tests to determine your oxidative type and thus the optimal dietary ratios for your diet plan.
Last words before I invite you to ask questions… Just about every sentence I wrote above has an entire 5 page article to expand on it. That is a book I was writing! Just about everything I wrote has caveats! There are examples of research showing pro and con to everything, but we are looking for what works over and over again with every possible group. There are many many things I did not mention. I did not expand on many many concepts in order to get to the bottom of the basic concept. I did not tell you about all the roadblocks such as the body detecting you are gaining weight fast through pressure receptors and fighting you, or stretch marks, or blood pressure changes with fast weight gain and very high levels of muscularity and body weight.… I did not say to check with your physician before gaining 60 pounds this year…again I wanted to hit the main ideas and let you start to get what you need from me.
I will gladly expand anything. I will gladly give references for anything, though if you are competent at looking up references, you won’t need me to because everything I eluded to is fairly well documented and you can do it yourself.
Still have disbelief? Finally, let me say that this works. It is really based on simple principles. You might also say it is based in science. Here in Hollywood, nearly every trainer to the stars uses this basic method to train the stars and starlets to be buffer faster. It is no secret. There are training organizations that have employed the methodology and documented the results for thousands upon thousands of clients of every body type for decades. So set aside your disbelief. I did not discuss it directly, but your belief is critical to your success. Start believing that you can. I can provide you with legitimate documentation that this works (not testimonials) if you feel that it is just not true. Unlike gimmicks you have been inundated with, this is straight forward and can be long term.
OK…I am sure I have loads to amend and add! I wrote this fast intentionally.
Questions anyone?
<message edited by danmirage on Sunday, September 20, 2009 6:30 PM>