Bulking Up Muscle - A Beginner's Guide

Since I have been bulking up muscle, I have heard the same sort of initial questions from beginners looking for info on getting started with a weight training program. By no means treat this article as gospel. Think of it as a starting point to direct your own research. Everyone is different and will need a slightly different approach to suit their needs and goals.

Bodybuilder Muscle image

Here is a compilation of my research that got me started. It is a culmination of probably 40-50 hours of research over a couple months.

Anyway, a bit about me. I am a 29 year old male, ectomorph, 6 feet and 155 lbs. I have never really weight lifted seriously before. I was 150 two months ago when I started training!

I have learned a lot about bulking up muscle since I started (all-natural)2 months ago. Using the following info, I've seen great progress already!

To give you an idea, here are some of my size achievements:

In terms of strength, I was able to add 5-10% more weight each week on most things, so I am now lifting double the weight I started at for some exercises!

For bulking up muscle, you can always expect to make some quick gains when you first start lifting, then you will get used to the stress and then it doesn't change as quickly. So get started properly and take full advantage of your "Newbie Progress"!

I owe a HUGE thanks to people on forums. The least I can do is pass along what I have learned so far. I still do about an hour of weight lifting research per day if I can. There is so much to know, and I am always trying to learn something!

OK, lets get down to bulking up muscle...

Bulking Up Muscle - Getting Started

Take a soft tape measure and record your "girth" in several places. Biceps, chest, quads, waist, shoulders, etc...

Try to take a "before picture” and then try and take a "progress picture" at least once a week. Also, keep track of your weekly average weight. Use the SAME lighting and ideally the same camera lens at the same distance to avoid any optical anomalies between your photos. The only thing that you want changing in your photos should be YOUR BODY!

It may sound cheesy to take pictures, but this combined with the numerical values of your measurements are great ways to track your advancements, keep you motivated, and see what is working for you.

You'll also want to keep a "work-out journal" to track specific info at each work-out, I'll get into that when we discuss the routine further down.

Bulking Up Muscle Strategy

Plan to build your WHOLE body regardless of what "show muscles" you want to aim for... training the whole body (including legs which most people find boring) is important as it promotes growth hormone release systemically, and that will enhance ALL areas of training and muscle development...

Set Realistic Goals

Be sure to understand that you will not get a "six pack" or much enhanced muscle definition while bulking up muscle. You can work your abs seven days a week, but the only way to reveal your six pack and other muscle definition, is to reduce the layer of fat hiding it. That is a whole other partcalled "cutting" where you reduce yourfat levels to 10% or less.

It is near impossible to build muscle and lose fat at the same time - so don't try to. You can do a "cutting" phase after you bulk, to show off your new body, and all of your hard work.

Don't blindly say something like "I wanna gain 25 pounds by new years", or "I wanna be benching 250 before the summer". People post crap like that all the time in the forums. They have no idea what is or isn't possible, and set themselves up for disappointment or injuries when they push themselves too hard.

Look at your progress and be happy with small gains as they come. As far as weight gain goes, I think 0.5 to 1 pound a week of lean muscle mass is a pretty great rate of growth. I don't think it is possible to do much better then that with out "roids", so be happy if you can achieve that.

Your THREE MainBulking Up Muscle Concerns:

  1. Diet
  2. Routine
  3. Supplements

1) DIET:

If you don't already know your body type and "basal calorie burn”, you need to determine that. Here is a link to help with Body Type

For bulking up muscle, you want to try to get at least 18 calories per pound of lean body weight. Try to get 1.5 or 2 grams of protein per pound of lean body weight.

I am aiming for 30% protein, 50% carbs, and 20% fat. Some people suggest 40% protein, 40% carbs, and 20% fat, but I can't eat that much protein to save my life, so for now, I am sticking with 30%.

As for Carbs, try for complex carbs instead of simple sugars. Have sweet potatoes, brown rice, whole wheat bread, etc.

With fats, avoid saturated fats. Things to look for are fish, natural peanut butter, olive oil and flax seed - they have the "good fats".

You also want to drink 4 to 6 liters of water! That’s a gallon for you Americans.

Since I am an ectomorph and not worried much about fat gain, I rounded up and my target daily calorie total to 3000 (I weight 155). As long as the ratios are good, I would rather error on the side of too many calories. If I notice obvious fat gain, I will scale it back, but so far no issues with that.

At first I couldn't imagine how I would eat that much. My usual before was probably 2 crappy meals, making up a total of aprox. 1800 calories. I always used to skip breakfast...

The way to do it is to plan to have 6 small meals/day (500 calories or so). It isn't very hard now that I am used to it and NO SKIPPING breakfast! Anyway, back to the ratio:

30% of 3000 = about 220 grams of protein. Here is a good formula to know:

Ideally, You'll want to track your diet. That can be a real chore, but unless you are actually getting your proper calories and correct amounts of protein, all your work is for nothing.

Even the best gym routine will be minimal if you don't feedwell enough to gain leanmass. The way the body looks at it, having extra muscles is a liability. It takes more calories to sustain themeven at rest.

If memory serves, each additional pound of muscle burns 13-20 calories, AT REST! So you really need to convince your body that you are going to feed it well enough that it can afford to use the extra resources and actually build muscle.

I thought that it would be impossible to accurately track my diet, who has time to do it having a busy life style? But then I was introduced to an awesome site that makes it easy. check it out: www.DietPower.com

2) ROUTINE:

Train eachgroup hard ONCE per week, and try to keep gym time under an hour. Don't do cardio within 8 hours of a workout. I could go into detail about the reasons why, but that’s a long story.

It is mainly to do with mental intensity and biochemical factors.Tthere is an optimal window of about 45-55 minutes for making gains, and then it fades into exhaustion and is counter productive to go any longer. (Look up "catabolic" for more info on why not to combine cardio and lifting, and why gym time should be relatively short.)

A lot of people say they are sore for a day or two, but then feel fine so they should be able to work those same muscles again 2-3 days later. This is believed to be WRONG by the majority of the community.

Just because you aren't feeling, "DOMS" doesn't mean you are "healed" and ready to train again. I have read a lot about this lately, and from what I have found, the muscles only really begin to grow and heal AFTER the pain stops. The idea is that YOU DON'T GROW AT THE GYM, so spend some time AWAY from the gym to grow and repair.

Most of what I have read says to work a muscle group ONCE per week or even less. Some sources even say work a group once in 8-10 days!

With bodybuilding LESS is MORE. I hear that a lot, so don't try and rush it. Eat properly and work hard on each workout then REST between them, and the gains WILL come.

You'll want to plan to take a FULL WEEK OFF from lifting about every eight weeks or so. Take that time to let your body rest, and maybe tweak your gym routine and come back with some minor changes. (Examples of things to change: order of exercises, different exercises, numbers of sets / reps, etc...) The idea with weight training is to keep your body guessing. As long as you are "shocking" your muscles, they WILL GROW!

This is my current split, it is pretty basic but I have had good results.

Day 1: Chest / Triceps

Day 2: Legs / Calves

Day 3: OFF or Cardio / Abs

Day 4: Back / Biceps / Forearms

Day 5: OFF or Cardio / Abs

Day 6: Shoulders / Traps

Day 7: OFF or Cardio / Abs

This bulking up muscle article by Steve Thorne was provided courtesy of Marc David and www.freedomfly.net. Marc is a lifetime natural bodybuilder and freelance writer and author of "The Beginner's Guide to Fitness and Body-Building" Questions and Answers for Bodybuilders Who Want to Succeed Without Spending a Fortune.

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