If you want more muscle growth, you need to be in it for the long term.
Most of the members at my local gym are high school and university students. Strength training has become more and more popular with the younger demographic over the past 20 years. In the 70’s, strength training was more of a subculture—men and women weren’t walking around with slabs of beef on their frames. Take a look at some old NBA footage on YouTube; athletes had significantly smaller frames back then. Today, strength training has become part of the mainstream; it is no longer a circus side show.
The kids in my gym want to get bigger and stronger as fast as they can. The majority of them use muscle building supplements, some use steroids, but what 90% of them have in common is that they over-train. My immediate advice to anyone with this mindset is to take a step back. If you think spending 6 days a week 3 hours a day in the gym is going to get you the results you want, think again. The musculoskeletal and central nervous systems of the human body can only take so much stress before they break down. Some bodies can handle more volume and intensity than others, but eventually even those with the best muscle-building genetics will fall victim to overuse injuries.
Mindset is everything. When you are truly committed to accomplishing a goal, whether it be inside or outside the gym, you need to be in it for the long haul. I have observed that the men and women who are in the best shape are not usually in their 20’s. Younger people tend to take their bodies for granted. It is people in their 30’s and 40’s. Their foundation was built in their younger years, but they have made a lifetime commitment to health and fitness. They train 3 to 4 days a week and their sessions last no more than an hour.
Below, I have outlined some rules for you to follow. They will keep you in the game long term so you can accomplish all your goals. You just won’t get there overnight.
If your schedule allows it, start training early in the day. You’ll increase your metabolic rate over the course of the entire day, as well as increase your nutrient uptake for a greater time period compared to working out in the afternoon or evening. You’ll have the rest of the day to utilize the majority of your daily protein intake, which means more muscle and less fat.
Put as much effort into your recovery as you put into your training sessions. Inflammation plays a critical role in immune system function and muscle growth. Inflammation needs to be dealt with. You can accomplish this through adequate sleep (no less than 8 hours per night), getting the right nutrition, and keeping your fluid intake high. If you have the means I highly recommend seeing an active release therapy practitioner or massage therapist once a week. If money is an issue, buy a foam roller and use it !
Make small changes to your program every few weeks. Eventually your body will adapt to the same movement patterns and you will need to change things up if you want to avoid overuse injuries. Switching from barbells to dumbbells, grip width or rep ranges will be sufficient.
Avoid all new fads and gimmicks you see on the Internet. The magic pills, fat burning belts and new testosterone enhancing products need to be avoided. Companies need to come up with new marketing ploys in order to sell you their products and they are more than happy to tell you whatever they think you want to hear. Stick with high quality food and hard work instead.
Don’t go 100% all the time. Training like somebody is holding a gun to your head on every last rep is not the way to go. If you train like that every day you will feel like crap and you will end up getting injured. You should always leave a little bit in the tank. A set of squats ends for me as soon as I see my form start to slip. Don’t make the mistake of waiting until you get pinned beneath a barbell to complete your set.