Archives for July 2008

What's up everybody,

Just got another great question and I wanted to share it with everybody because it's something that I struggled with and if you plan on building muscle than you're going to experience this too.

Ok so here's the question:

"Hi Rich! Ive’ been hittin at the gym for about 3months and i have gained 22 lbs. im from 128-150lbs now. but i have a problem. it’s been 1 month now and im still at 150. actually its my 4th month in the gym now and im not gaining weight anymore. could you give me some advice? i eat about 5 times a day

heavy lunch meal and a heavy dinner meal

tnx! i’ll wait for your response

-Anthony"

Let me just say thanks for the question Anthony, 22lbs gain is pretty impressive, keep up the good work bro.

Now what you're experiencing is a muscle "plateau" or a "ceiling" on your muscle gains. Eventually this happens to everyone and there's some easy ways to blast right through it.

First, let me give you some key pieces to the puzzle then I'm going to put them all together so you can see the "ENTIRE PICTURE" and never get stuck at a plateau again.

Muscle Plateau Tip #1

The Cause (Your Workout)

The reason why your body isn't growing any more is because your body "caught up" to your diet and your workout routine. Basically your body adapted to your stressful workouts and the amount of calories you're consuming each day and doesn't feel it NEEDS to grow anymore. Always remember, your body wants to be where its at right now...comfortable. The only way your body is going to change "build more muscle" is if it thinks its survival depends on it.

Think of your body like your house. It's just like having the roof of your house getting blown off after a snow storm. Once you realize "Wow, I better build a bigger, stronger roof just in case a storm like that happens again it won't do as much damage" - if you don't you put your survival in jeopardy because odds are you won't last too long with a tore up roof in a snow storm.

Well your body does the same exact thing. When you first start working out you're damaging your muscle tissues to the point where your body says "Holy crap, I better add more muscle and fast so the next time this happens I don't get so tore up" -at this point your body adds muscle out of survival.

Muscle Plateau Tip # 2

The Cause (Your Diet)

Next, your diet. As you know your diet plays a HUGE role in building muscle. Think of the food you eat as bricks for your house. After that storm blew the roof off your house, you're going to need EXTRA bricks in order to build it thicker and stronger than before. Same thing goes for your body. After a strenuous workout your body is going to need extra calories (extra bricks) in order to build more muscle to protect itself from such a damaging workout next time.

And that's where most of us begin to plateau. and there's three main reasons why people begin to stop building muscle after a certain period of time:

1- Your body has gotten used to the intensity of your workout
2- Your body has caught up to your diet.
3- A combination of the two.

As you workout your body will eventually grow big enough and strong enough to withstand the damaging effect of your workouts. "If the roof of your house is strong enough to withstand the snow storm why are you going to spend the resources to building it stronger - it's a waste of energy" Well that's EXACTLY how your body views building muscle. "Hey, if I'm strong enough to withstand these workouts why should I build more muscle when I don't have to"

Muscle Plateau Tip #3

The Workout Solution

There's several ways to go about breaking out of your muscle plateau. But the main goal is to "Expose your muscles to a NEW kind of stress". This doesn't mean just lifting more weight. It goes beyond that.

Here's some things you can do to expose your muscles to a new kind of stress:

- Changing the order of your workout routine around (do your first exercise last, do two or more exercises on the same muscle group back to back, mix the order of your exercises up, etc.)

- Increasing the intensity of your workout (THIS IS A BIGGIE):

• Decreasing the amount of time it takes to finish your workout (instead of 50 minutes, do it in 40 minutes)
• Increasing the amount of reps for each exercise in the same time or less than you normally do
• Decrease your rest time in between sets (instead of taking a 2 minute rest take a 1 min. rest)
• Change your rep scheme around (instead of doing 3 x 8 (3 sets of 8 reps) change it to 4 x 10 or 5 x 5) - I experienced the most gains when I changed my rep scheme around - it's always a good idea to change your rep scheme every 3 weeks to prevent plateaus

As you can see, the entire goal of this is to expose your muscles to a new kind of stress so your body feels the need to start tacking on more muscle to adapt to it. But even this isn't enough to fully BUST OUT of a muscle plateau, read on for the second part of the formula.

Muscle Plateau Tip #4

The Role Of Your Diet

As you probably realized your body doesn't like change. So once your body has caught up to your diet it's going to want to stay there. Let's say right now your body is comfortable with consuming and burning 2,000 calories each day. Now lets say you wanted to build some more muscle and you started working out and eating 3,000 calories each day. Ok, after a few weeks of some impressive gains you stop seeing any results. You're stuck!

What happened??

It's simple, muscle burns calories. It's not like fat that just sits there, your muscles actually need energy survive. Thus the more muscles you have, the more energy "food" you'll need to consume in order to maintain and keep those muscles. So what you basically done was built enough muscle so that your body can comfortably consume and burn those 3,000 calories each day no problem.

Even if you increase the intensity you won't necessarily start tacking on more muslce. Why?? because your body doesn't have enough bricks "calories" to build more muscle.

Now your body needs 3,000 calories to stay at the weight it's at and in order to build more muscle you have to give it more "bricks" to build with. Which means you're going to have to increase your daily caloric intake. (Simply put, you need to eat more "of the right things")

Muscle Plateau Tip #5

The Diet Solution

There's a few ways you can go about this. But ultimately the main goal here is to consume more calories than your burns off each day. Even if you increase the intensity, you still need to give your muscles "EXTRA" bricks so it can not only repair the muscle you have now but also to build "MORE" muscle on top of it.

So here's some things you can do to quickly and easily increase your caloric intake each day:

- Consume more nutrients during each meal (Add more protein, "good" carbs, and good fats to each meal)

- Consume smaller "muscle building" meals more frequently (instead of eating 4 small meals daily, eat 5 meals daily or even 6 (I personally consume 6 small meals daily, roughly every 3 hours)

- Consume more "muscle building snacks" in between meals (eat some lean meats, like tuna or chicken breast or some fruits and veggies in between each meal - nothing too big - just something to add to your stomach while your body is waiting for it's next meal

- Personally I'd recommend drinking more milk. It's the easiest way to add more calories to your diet. I drink milk with every meal and in between meals. It's by far the EASIEST way to add extra protein and extra good carbs to your diet and well as essential fats.

I wrote on a post on it as My Secret Weapon To Building Muscle Fast, you should check it out.

Well that's pretty much it. Breaking out of your plateau isn't hard. You just have to know how your body works and use it to your advantage and with what you've just learned you now hold the key to busting out of any muscle plateau you may face.

KEEP THE QUESTIONS COMING!!!

Leave me a comment if you have any more questions you want me to answer, and let me know if this post helped you or not.

Rich

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