Many people seem to think that it’s easy to learn how to gain muscle mass. The problem is that most of them don’t do enough research. So what happens is that they make a lot of mistakes, and then they become frustrated when all their efforts don’t pay off.

There’s a Right Way and Wrong Way to Gain Muscle Mass

To avoid such problems, here are some clear-cut rules you need to follow so that you will gain muscle mass more effectively:

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• Define your focus. Some people think that bodybuilding and weight loss are synonymous, but for workouts, these are two completely different objectives. That’s why high intensity training is good for people who want to lose weight, but it’s actually counterproductive if you’re a pipsqueak who wants to be bigger, stronger, and more muscular. For that, you need heavy weights and lots of calories.
• Eat more. We’ll presume for the moment that you’re on a sensible diet and you’ve actually done your research on what and what not to eat. But when you start learning how to gain muscle mass, you’ll need calories. About 500 more calories than your usual intake should suffice. Do not take too much calories though, because you’ll just turn the extra calories into fat instead of muscle.
• Space out your meals. Instead of three big meals a day, try eating 6 small meals. This keeps you from getting hungry, and the meals also provide you with the protein and carbs you need.
• Drink protein and carb shakes. Whole foods are great, but then protein shakes are good too. With shakes (Recommendation: Zeal for Life Protein Shakes), you make sure you get adequate carbs and protein that your diet may not provide. For the most part, they’re also much easier to digest.
• Don’t forget to stretch. Quite a few people keep forgetting the very important step when they work out. Stretching is not just for yoga fanatics. Stretching before and after a workout makes you more flexible, improves your recovery, and also prevents you from getting injured.If you keep on having pains after working out, that may mean you didn’t stretch properly.
• Limit your cardio workouts. About twice or three times a week of jogging should suffice. And don’t jog for a couple of hours at a time. Instead, keep it to 30 minutes. Your best bet is to sprint for a full minute then alternate with a couple of minutes of jogging.
• Don’t spend too much time on your lifting exercises. Your proper weightlifting workout for the day should last for just 45 minutes. You should make sure you warm up before your workout, and you need a cool-down routine as well. About a dozen sets for each muscle group is okay, but more than 20 sets is overkill. Your reps for each set should range anywhere from 6 to 12, so that you only spend 40 to 70 seconds each set. When you lift weights, after an hour your body will start producing cortisol in response to the physical stress, and this will impede on your progress. Cortisol signals your body to store fat and burn muscle.
• Perform exercises that focus on several muscle groups at once. These exercises include pull-ups, rows, deadlifts, and squats. You can train your entire body or concentrate on either your upper your lower parts, but this is more efficient than working on just a single muscle group per session. By doing this, you reduce the risk of injury when you work out. You become stronger and your muscle development gets better. Besides, it helps you look so much more attractive.
• Change your workouts regularly. The body has a strange way of adapting to various strenuous events. So after a month or so, you may want to vary your workout a bit. Your 45 minutes per workout is enough for about 6 to 8 different exercises, and each one should have alternatives. Or, you can just vary the sequence of the exercises instead.
  You should note down your workout details in your journal, so that you have an accurate record of what you’ve been doing.
• Get enough rest. Make sure that you give your muscles enough time to heal, grow and develop by resting them after a workout. Get enough sleep as well.

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Learning how to gain muscle mass also means appreciating the time needed to attain noticeable results. Shortcuts aren’t recommended because they may eventually become harmful for you. Just make a habit of lifting weights and following your muscle building program. Give it time and dedication and you’ll begin to gain the muscle mass you want.

Going to a gym five or more days a week to build up your muscle mass can be time consuming, really expensive, and it’s something that not everyone wants to do or can afford. Even if money is not an issue, the fact of having to “go to the gym” is.

What’s the alternative though?

The answer is that you can start building muscle mass right now and do it without using any weights or exercise equipment at all. Many people believe that you have to “pump some iron” or use heavy resistance equipment to build muscle mass. In reality, there are some really effective exercises you can do right in your home or office that can provide some really great results.

Using Your Own Body Weight to Build Muscles

The easiest and most common exercises you can do without using weights would be squats, pull-ups and push-ups in their most basic form. If you’re severely out of shape, beginners yoga or isometric exercises can be good, but some of these types of exercises can be tricky and it’s important that you perform them correctly.

Some Tips on Building Muscles Without Weights

Push-ups: When doing pushups, you might find that you can’t even manage to do a single push up. If this is you, then try to doing them on your knees as this reduces the difficulty greatly. If this is still too much for you then do your push-ups off the wall standing upright.

Once you can do a set of 10 start increasing the difficulty gradually like moving from standing upright to a set of stairs. Once you can do a set of 10, increase again by doing your pushups on your knees. Next, move to the full body pushup and once you get used to these, and you will in time, go back to the stairs putting your feet on the first step or two with your head facing downward for an even more intense muscle building workout.

Pull-ups: For doing pull ups you need a pull-up bar which can be mounted between a doorway. Pull-up bars are relatively inexpensive and it’s very important that the bar you use can easily sustain the weight of your entire body – plus some. If you can’t afford or do not have access to a pull-up bar, go to your local playground and use the monkey bars as your pull-up bar.

Just as in doing push-ups, if you are unable to do one single pull-up ask your spouse or a workout partner to help you take some of your weight off by assisting you in doing your first pull-ups. If help is unavailable or you’re just too shy to ask, use a stool to help reduce the weight that your arms need to lift. Continue with this help until you can do two pull-ups, and you will, then work on your own. Push yourself in each workout session until you can do 3, 4, 5…

And you will.

Squats: When you do squat exercises you want to put your hands behind your head then squat down while making sure that your knees do not go over your toes. What you want is to push your butt out and try to keep your knees behind your toes.

It’s a good idea to stretch your legs a bit before starting your squats then begin by squatting down as far as you can and then stand back up fully erect. These can be challenging at first but as you begin building up your leg muscles, and you will, they’ll get easier. Soon you’ll be doing complete squats and you’ll develop your ability to do more and more reps as time goes on.

Key Points When Building Muscles Without Weights

A key point to remember when you’re building muscle without using weights is that as you improve, and I’ll say it again… you will improve if you keep after it, is to constantly challenge yourself to do a little more in each session.

Another important point is that adding more reps without adding additional weight will increase your endurance level but not be as helpful at increasing your muscle mass. So, you’ll want to get creative of finding ways to keep up the intensity of your exercises.

A good way to increase your intensity is do things like placing your feet on a step or sofa while doing push-ups. When this gets easy to do move on to doing one arm push-ups… one arm pull-ups and one legged squats.

You get the idea. Just keep adding more resistance if you want to keep building muscle mass. Something as simple as a backpack with some bottles of water inside could do the trick once you get to this point. Each quart of water weighs right at 2 pounds each so you can easily judge what you’re adding each time.

As you can see, you can get pretty far at building muscles without buying weights or gym memberships just by using a little creativity. Visit http://MyFitnessNut.com for more muscle building tips and fitness ideas.