The Beginner's Guide
To Mass Building
For
Men and Women
One of the many problems
when entering the gym or starting on a journey towards any goal is
that there are so many different voices to listen to.
Who is right?
Who is wrong?
Especially with it being the
internet age, information is more readily available, meaning clarity
in the mind of the beginner trainer is often lacking.
Suddenly the individual is
in the gym feeling completely lost, makes very little progress and
ends up either quitting or remaining the same year upon year, month
after month.
I don't feel this needs to
be the case, so the purpose of this article is to lay down a basic,
clear and specific guide or list of rules to follow in order to start
you on the road to building the muscle and/or strength you want to
acquire.
The rules:
- Track your progress
- Have a plan (with alternatives), set goals, know your goals- if you intend to stay natural, find some natural bodybuilders of a similar body type, join and checkout websites such as the NPA, the BNBF or the WNBF to look at what is realistically achieveable as a natural competitor
- Progressively overload (gradually)
- Use correct technique (overall, most men need to focus on anything requiring a straight back, bent-over row, good mornings and squats seem to be the worst culprits)
- Focus on the task in hand
- Train and eat like an athlete
- Never under any circumstances text, ring or check Facebook on your phone during a work out
- Be consistent and wherever possible do not skip work outs
- Hire a reputed Personal Trainer at least every couple of months
- EAT AND DRINK ENOUGH
- Allow for recovery
Track your Progress
First of all- GET YOURSELF A JOURNAL. You're probably spending far
more than you should on food, supplements, gym memberships and god
knows what else, but without writing down or recording your
measurements, the weights you are lifting and the things you are
eating how on earth are you going to know if you are progressing?
Looking into the mirror just simply isn't going to cut it, not when
you see yourself each and every day.
To continually build muscle you must increase the amount you are
working gradually over time, ideally you'll be changing around your
exercises every 4-8 weeks, so when you cycle back to old exercises
how are you going to know what you were lifting if you don't record
your progress?
If progress is actually the aim, quit being lazy, record everything
you do in the gym and use the time productively.
Have a plan
Matt Argall
x2 time NPA British Lightweight Champion
100% Natural
And ultimately the physique I am aspiring to achieve/ content with
Andrew 'Mezza' Merrifield and Mark Oakes
These men are examples of what you can achieve naturally, without the
use of anabolic steroids
When you enter the gym it is far too easy to just go in and 'do what
you feel like' and for more advanced athletes this can be fine, they
are far less likely to fall into the trap of 'let's train chest,
biceps and traps again.'
The absence of a plan when in the gym equates to a lack of focus.
Know what you are going to do when you get into the gym.
Also, especially if you are someone who must train at the busiest
times in the gym, you must have alternatives planned to every
exercise on your plan, you never know when a piece of equipment is
going to ruin your program, so by having some alternatives in your
back pocket, you minimise the chance of a piece of equipment ruining
your session.
This is such a big issue.
Look around your gym and see how many people seem to be following a
structured plan, the chances are that the number isn't very high, and
I'm willing to bet that very few of these people are making any
progress whatsoever.
Get a plan, get your head down and get it done in the gym.
If your gym work is a social event then you aren't training hard
enough and you're not going to make the progress you could.
Plan it, execute it, and get the hell out.
Setting
Goals
Setting goals is also massively important in keeping yourself on
track. Many of us have been indocrinated by pictures of absolutely
monstrous bodybuilders on the front of protein supplements, in films
and in the media, you must get the idea of being like this out of
your head. I feel the best thing to aim for is the top physiques in
natural bodybuilding, so to establish an attainable physique for you
I would check out npabodybuilding.co.uk or bnbf.co.uk to see what the
best natural bodybuilders in the country look like. These are not
drug enhanced, and it is a much more attainable look to strive for.
Progressively Overload
In order to stimulate muscle growth/stack on some muscle (the
adaptation you are striving for when aiming for muscle growth) you
must continually increase the amount of tension and stress placed
upon the individual muscle fibre over time.
Essentially this means that you must CONTINUALLY INCREASE THE AMOUNT
OF WEIGHT YOU ARE LIFTING IN ANY GIVEN EXERCISE.
Progressive Overload
If you are lifting the same weights that you were a year ago, then
the chances are that you are the same size as a year ago. You must
increase the amount you are working, otherwise the body has no reason
to adapt.
The body will not adapt because you want it to, you must place in
under more and more stress.
The key point is, train HARD. You don't need to increase the amount
of weight (or reps ) every single work out, but the key is to lift
more and more gradually over time.
If you don't progressively overload, you won't grow to anywhere near
your full potential.
REMEMBER the connective tissues in your body take a little longer
than the muscles to recover, so increase the weight slightly every
few work outs, otherwise not letting these tissues recover will
result in injury, which isn't good for your work out goals!
Use Correct Technique
If you get injured, you are unable to train, or it makes training
more difficult as you strive to train around the problem.
On average, men seem to have far worse postural control and have
greater difficulty performing exercises such as the deadlift, squat
and bent-over row than women. This is partly due to having a heavier
skeleton than women and in general lifting heavier weights day to
day, it is often extremely embarrassing for men to have to take the
weights down and do an exercise correctly, which I think is a huge
contributor to the “I'm going to train chest and arms every single
work out” phenomenon.
Watch Youtube videos, hire a Personal Trainer, read articles and just
make sure you are performing all exercises correctly! Don't just
swing a dumbbell around and expect to know how to perform every
exercise just because you are in a gym!
Good posture while training = Far less likely to get injured, the
targeted muscles are activated correctly and you're going to be much
more able to be consistent with your training!
Practice and straighten your back!
Focus on the Task at
Hand
If mass building is your goal of choice then focus on it!
Research it away from the gym, think about what you want to achieve
in the gym before you get in there, and when you do, let no one
interupt your focus, you are there to cause your body to adapt, to
make it think that it needs to build muscle in order to survive.
So if you're messing about, with no focus on the task at hand, then
you're never going to get anywhere.
Put some headphones in, get the music on that gets you going, and go
after that goal like a man possessed.
You have plenty of time to talk to people after the session, when
you've earned it, and not before.
Eat and Train Like an
Athlete
it's only about 5-10% of gym members who get anywhere near to
training properly in order to progress towards their goals.
The rest may have good intentions, but they are probably resting too
much, not training hard enough, not making their work outs harder
over time, and will probably end up stagnating and falling short of
where they want to be. Simply because they don't want to or don't
know how to do the HARD WORK that is required to make progress.
Athletes live and breath the sports in which they play. When they
train, they train with a purpose. They get the work done, striving
each day to improve. 90% of the people in gyms don't train like
athletes, and 90% of people don't reach any significant exercise
goal. Gaining muscle from a skinny beginning seems to be a
particularly difficult starting point for people, so my advice would
be to get into the mindset that you are an athlete, or at least aim
to train like one until you are one.
Train harder, smarter and more consistently than everyone else in the
gym, and the odds are that you will make more progress towards your
goals than 90% of the other gym users around you.
WORK HARD AND RESULTS HAPPEN.
Never under any
circumstances text, ring or check Facebook on your phone during a
work out
I am sick to the back teeth of this. I see people texting away and
posting on Facebook all the way through their work out, then
rechecking after each and every set.
If you can check your phone during a session, then you aren't
training hard enough, it's as simple as that.
How can you focus on a training session designed at pushing your body
to the limit if you are thinking about what to reply to the latest
text, or thinking about your next witty Facebook post.
Put your phone away. If you can't go without it for an hour or less
then you aren't going to make any progress anyway. Put the phone
away, get some work done and go back to it afterwards.
Just so it sinks in....IF YOU CHECK YOUR PHONE EVEN ONCE DURING A
WORKOUT THEN YOU AREN'T WORKING HARD ENOUGH AND ARE WASTING YOUR
TRAINING TIME.
SORT IT OUT!
Be Consistent
You must place your body under enough stress to make it adapt, but
what about the progress you have made so far?
This is where consistency is key, in order to protect your gains and
continue on the ladder of progress you must consistently train,
consistently progress and consistently get the hard work done.
Without consistently training 3-5 times a week (training hard at
least 3 of those sessions) your body simply reverts to it's previous
state, gets rid of all the gains you trained so hard to get, because
the muscular adaptations are no longer needed. This effectively puts
you back to square one. So without consistency, you really don't
stand a chance of making those gains.
Hire a Personal
Trainer
Ideally this would be a reputed Personal Trainer who knows what he or
she is talking about. We all get lazy with our programming, exercise
technique and progress tracking (amongst many other things.)
According to Malcolm Gladwell in the book Outliers it
takes 10000 hours of practice to gain mastery of a particular skill.
So when you first enter a gym, there is no doubting this, this is
100% correct, as little as you want to hear it, you are going to do
at least 50-90% of your training wrongly, which is why you should hire a
Personal Trainer at least for the first couple of sessions.
Failing that you should diligently practice your exercises, Youtube
is a fantastic resource. Film yourself training and compare your form
to the masters. These are the people who will aid you in getting to
exactly where you need to be.
A good Personal Trainer should be able to point out exactly where you
are going wrong and give you a plan of action for the future. And for
the small investment you must make in order to hire a Personal
Trainer, you are going to save SO MUCH time, confusion, effort and
money in the long run due to not buying loads of ridiculous
supplements you don't need, you will get a logical plan to follow
over the weeks and if technique is lacking in any way, the Personal
Trainer can help you out there too. Saving you much pain and
frustration should you get injured.
Speak to a few Personal Trainers before deciding on who you would
like to train with.
Remember, just because he's biggest, most ripped, most qualified
doesn't mean he is a good Personal Trainer at all. Speak to their
clients if possible and make an informed decision in terms of who you
want to train with.
Never be too proud to ask. If you aren't making the progress you
want, then a fitness professional such as a Personal Trainer is one
of the surest ways to get you back on track.
Eat and drink enough
to fuel growth
| Supplements | ||||||||
| Hydration | ||||||||
| Micronutrients | ||||||||
| Macronutrients | ||||||||
Total Calories |
||||||||
In the above pyramid, you'll notice supplements are placed at the top
of the pyramid. This denotes that SUPPLEMENTS ARE THE LEAST IMPORTANT
THING TO CONSIDER WHEN FIRST STARTING ON YOUR MASS BUILDING JOURNEY.
Just to clarify.
SUPPLEMENTS ARE THE LEAST IMPORTANT THING TO CONSIDER WHEN FIRST
STARTING ON YOUR MASS BUILDING JOURNEY.
Again.
SUPPLEMENTS ARE THE LEAST IMPORTANT THING TO CONSIDER WHEN FIRST
STARTING ON YOUR MASS BUILDING JOURNEY.
Just in case you missed it...
SUPPLEMENTS ARE THE LEAST IMPORTANT THING TO CONSIDER WHEN FIRST
STARTING ON YOUR MASS BUILDING JOURNEY.
Supplement companies have played a clever trick in making you think
they are needed to make any progress in the gym. This is because
people aren't prepared to put in the work consistently and see the
results. No supplements are needed to make progress and build a
fantastic physique.
They won't even guarantee any progress at all, for example, you could
have as many protein shakes in a day as you want, but if you aren't
consuming more calories than you burn, you won't grow at all.
Supplements can be brought in when everything else is sorted out.
So it's the total amount of calories you need to consider first of
all.
Fill out a food diary, and check how many calories you currently
consume on the average day, if you haven't put on any weight for a
while, the chances are that you need to increase your calorific
intake by a couple of hundred. Do this each week until you start to
see the weight going up nice and steadily, say .25-.50lbs a week and
stick with that calorific intake until the increase in weight slows,
at that point you can consider taking calories up again.
Now on to macronutrients (protein, fat, carbs.) I'm not going into
massive detail for the beginners as the total amount of calories is
likely to be the biggest issue (if you're really skinny, you probably
massively under eat and massively overestimate the amount you eat)
but in terms of how much of the macronutrients you need, I would
initially concentrate on the amount of protein you require within the
total amount of calories that you consume.
Aim for 1.2-1.5g of protein per lb of bodyweight.
For example a 150lb man consuming 1.5g per lb of bodyweight would be
consuming 225g of protein per day.
1.5g per lb is on the high end for people to achieve at first, but
given a couple of weeks practice to get used to the dietary changes,
and you should be fine.
For those that want fats and carbs percentages, usually I recommend
getting 25% of your calories from fat and the rest of your calories
from carbs.
Micronutrients are next on the list. Simply make sure you are eating
plenty of varied fruit and veg, try to vary the sources where you get
your protein from and try not to neglect any of the major food
groups.
If you're a baby and can't handle veg, you might want to take a
multivitamin to make sure you aren't deficient in any vitamins. This
is less important while in a calorie excess, but nutrient
deficiencies will get in the way of your progress and are to be
avoided wherever possible.
Hydration comes next in my pyramid. Personally I try to drink 5
litres every day, but for most people that simply isn't doable or
convenient to drag around such a large bottle of water. The beginner
mass gainer should be absolute fine regulating their hydration levels
using thirst alone. Drink plenty of water whenever your thirsty, and
perhaps add an extra glass of water per meal and you shouldn't have
anything to worry about in terms of hydration.
To go back to a previous point.
SUPPLEMENTS ARE THE LEAST IMPORTANT THING TO CONSIDER WHEN FIRST
STARTING ON YOUR MASS BUILDING JOURNEY.
Supplements are pretty much always the first things that people ask
me about when starting to put on mass. But consider all of the above,
and they aren't even needed for anything other than convenience.
For example when winning the Novice Lightweight Yorkshire Natural
Bodybuilding title, the only supplement I used was a protein shake,
and the only reason for that was to save myself energy not having to
cook another meal per day.
But no doubt people are still going to ask anyway.
So the supplements I take:
A whey protein
Creatine
Branch Chain Amino Acids
TurboNox
The only reason I now supplement is that I have been training for a
number of years, and the additional 5-10% these supplements give me
could potentially be the difference between 1st and 7th
in my next show.
So before considering a supplement more than a protein shake, get
everything else down first, then if you still feel you are lacking
(please get a second opinion on this) you MIGHT consider taking some
supplements similar to myself.
Recovery
Listen to your body. It needs to recover and can't lift heavy each
and every day.
I usually have at least 2 days off a week from training, particularly
after heavy leg days.
Some people need more recovery than others, others need far less.
You'll probably need more rest as the weights you lift get heavier
over time and as you progress up the ability ladder.
Eating the correct amount will certainly go a long way to help you
optimize your recovery and subsequently grow in the way you want to
grow. So without these days off your body simply will not have the
time it needs to grow and get stronger for your next work out. Allow
recovery. More work outs doesn't mean more gains.
What should I train
and when?
At first you will make progress no matter how you split your training
week. But for those wanting a more specific answer it seems best to
train each body part twice a week, rather than the traditional 'smash
each body part into the ground once a week.'
My training split is as follows:
(This seems to be working for me however it may not work for you)
Monday- Lower Body Hypertrophy (8-12 reps per exercise)
Tuesday- Off/ Some cardio
Wednesday- Back and Shoulders Hypertrophy (8-12 reps per exercise)
Thursday- Lower Body Power (3-6 reps per exercise)
Friday- Upper Body Power (3-6 reps per exercise)
Saturday- Off
Sunday- Chest and Arms
5 workouts a week certainly aren't needed.
A four workout week might look something like this:
Monday- Lower Body Hypertrophy (8-12 reps per exercise)
Tuesday- Upper Body Hypertrophy
Wednesday- Off
Thursday- Lower Body Power
Friday- Upper Body Power (3-6 reps per exercise)
Saturday- Off
Sunday- Off
Train hard, but not too much that you don't recover.
Eat more than you burn, but not so you pile a load of fat on.
Be smart, hire a professional or get the research done yourself.
Get in, get out, get the work done.
By Chris Kershaw and Jennifer Ward
Level 3 Advanced Personal Trainers
Call 07703679622 for your initial complimentary session while spaces
are available!
