Build Muscle: The Ultimate Guide to Gain Muscle Mass

Addressing one of the most commonly asked questions by anyone who is aspiring to gain muscle mass: Can you stay lean while building muscle?

For modifying your body in any way that you would like, here are some extended free resources that I have that you can use anytime. I update these profiles constantly with new information to help you reach your goals in gaining muscle and getting ripped.

Welcome to your new job! Gaining muscle mass has wide array of components, but the most important is what, when, and how you are eating.

Here is a basic list of some of the absolute best foods that you can be consuming in order to gain quality, lean muscle mass.

What is nutrient timing and why is it so important?

Some of the obvious and sneaky enemies that you will be facing in your muscle mass gaining program.

One of the most effective eating methods that I have tested to date, to make sure that you gain a ton of muscle mass while minimizing fat gain.

Here is a list of some of the secret weapons (natural supplements) that I use to increase my gains.

In choosing to gain muscle mass, you have selected one of the most difficult and most rewarding challenges in the health and fitness world.

This is the mindset that you will have to embrace in order to accomplish your goals, shatter your plateaus, and break down any barriers that stand between the you of now, and the you that you have always wanted to be.

A list of the most effective exercises for gaining muscle.

The secret formula for exactly how to build your own mass gaining workouts. Giving you the precision knowledge, tools, and process that you need to create safe and effective workouts.

See attached for the downloadable PDF for how to build your own mass gaining workouts.

The amount of rest you take between sets is CRUCIAL for giving your muscles just enough time to recover. If you rest too little, you will fatigue too quickly, miss you repetition goal, and burn out. If you rest too much between sets, you fail to reap the benefits of muscular hypertrophy (gaining muscle mass).

Here is your official mass gaining training program! Keep your eyes open for updates to this lecture, and I will also be adding more options for mass gaining programs for this course.

*See attached for the mass gaining training program and your all-in-one PDF on how to gain muscle mass.

Running sprints after your workout is a great way to...

• Keep your heart healthy, without eating through your lean muscle (like long duration cardiovascular exercise can do.
• Help you minimize fat gain while you are building lean muscle.
• Recruit your explosive performance, Type II muscle fibers which will help you build lean muscle and anaerobic endurance.

I recommend doing sprints after your workout 1-3 times per week for 5-20 minutes.

See attached for details on how to sprint after your workout.

Barbell Bench Press

• Lay your back flat on the bench and plant your feet firmly on the floor, with your heel under your knees.
• Place yourself under the bar so that the bar is just directly at or just above your nipple line.
• Grip the bar at about shoulder width apart or just wider than shoulder width.
• With your palms facing up while gripping the bar, rotate your palms up toward the ceiling.
• Dismount the bar from the rack by pressing up.
• Lower the bar until your elbows are about at a 90 degree angle, right at or slightly above your nipple line.
• Drive your heels into the ground, and press the bar up toward the ceiling to fully extend your arms.

This should be performed similarly to the barbell chest press. Here are the differences.

Dumbbell Chest Press

• Setup: Sit down on the bench, resting your dumbbells on your thighs.
• Roll back slowly on the bench so that your back is flat, and rest the dumbbells on your chest and the fronts of your shoulders.
• Rotate your elbows out slowly and under control, while you press your dumbbells toward the ceiling to fully extend your arms.
• Make sure that the interior dumbbell heads are facing each other
• Bend both of your elbows to about a 90 degree angle, then press each dumbbell back up toward the ceiling, so that your fists are directly above your shoulders.

• Dumbbell Chest Fly
  • Lie down on the bench. Have your arms slightly bent, so that your hands are facing each other while gripping the dumbbells.
  • While keeping your elbows slightly bent, slowly lower your dumbbells to the outside of your chest until they are at chest level.
  • In a slow and controlled manner, press the dumbbells back to the starting position.

How to Complete a Proper Barbell Row

• Start this movement standing straight up with your feet shoulder width apart. Grip the bar underhand so that your palms are facing out, at about shoulder width apart.
• Bend over slightly, bending at the knees, and keeping your back straight.
• Bend your elbows and pull the bar toward your torso, so that the middle of the barbell comes between your belly button and sternum.
• Lower the bar to fully extend your arms.

How to Complete a Proper 1 arm bent-over row

• Start this position with one knee and the same side hand positioned comfortably on a bench.
• Your other foot can be placed behind your hips, stable, and on the ground with your weight in your toes. That same side hand is holding your dumbbell off of the floor, beside the bench.
• To set up the movement, straighten your back straight, and make sure your back and shoulders are parallel to the ground.
• Bend at your elbow to pull your dumbbell up toward your chest, and slowly lower it back to the starting position.

How to Complete a Proper Dead-lift

• Start standing straight up with your dumbbells or barbell gripped tightly. Your feet should be about shoulder width apart
• While keeping a straight back, hinge your hips backward and slide the weight along the front of your body.
• Keeping a flat back and neutral spine, push your hips back under control and bend at your knees to lower the weight to or near the ground.
• Slowly PULL (*do not jerk the weight off of the ground) the weight from the lowered position, back to the starting position, bringing the weight along the front of the body.
• Drive the hips forward and stand up straight at the top of the movement, as you did in the beginning.

How to Complete a Proper Lunge

• Begin this exercise from a standing position.
• Keep your chest forward and shoulders rolled back.
• Step one foot back behind or in front of the other, bend your knees and bring your rear knee to the floor (or as close to the floor as possible).
• When you are in the lowered position, both of your knees should be at 90 degree angles.
• Your shoulders should stay directly above your hips throughout the entire motion of this exercise.
• The weight in your front foot should be focused in the heel.
• Bring yourself up by driving your hips forward, and using the strength of your front leg to bring you back to the standing position.
• Do NOT jerk your shoulders forward to help yourself rise.

How to complete the proper dumbbell tricep extension.

• Hold the dumbbell by one of the ends, behind your head
• Keep your elbows as close to your head as you can.
• Fully extend your arms overhead, but make sure the dumbbell doesn't hit you in the back of the head.
• Lower your dumbbell to the starting position.

How to Complete a Proper Squat

• Begin this movement standing straight up with your feet at shoulder width or slightly wider than shoulder width
• Hold your dumbbell or kettlebell in the goblet grip position with your hands on the side.
• While keep a straight back, press your chest forward and roll your shoulders back--- push your hips back and bend your knees so that your knees DO NOT go in front of your toes.
• Keep your weight placement back in your heels, NOT your toes. This will ensure that you keep your knees at a safe placement.
• If you are able, lower your hips so that you make a 90 degree angle at your knee. If you can't get to 90 degrees, go as low as you can comfortably.
• Under control, drive your hips forward and straighten your knees so that you come back to the starting position.

How to Complete a Proper Back Squat

• Get underneath the bar while it is mounted on the rack.
• Make sure that your legs can almost be completely straightened before lifting the bar off of the rack.
• Place the load comfortably across the back of your neck and shoulder blades. If you need extra padding for comfort, use a bar wrap or towel around the bar, where is rests on your neck and shoulders.
• Stand of to bring the bar off of the rack, and take one step back to clear your squatting area.
• Begin this movement standing straight up with your feet at shoulder width or slightly wider than shoulder width
• While keep a straight back, press your chest forward and roll your shoulders back--- push your hips back and bend your knees so that your knees DO NOT go in front of your toes.
• Keep your weight placement back in your heels, NOT your toes. This will ensure that you keep your knees at a safe placement.
• If you are able, lower your hips so that you make a 90 degree angle at your knee. If you can't get to 90 degrees, go as low as you can comfortably.
• Under control, drive your hips forward and straighten your knees so that you come back to the starting position.

Chin-ups

• Use an underhand grip to grip the bar at shoulder width or slightly wider than shoulder width apart.
• Pull your chin above the bar, or get as close as you can.
• Slowly and in under control, lower yourself back to the starting position.

Form and Technique

• Grip the barbell at about shoulder width apart
• Keep your elbows tucked to your side
• Without jerking your upper body or arms to use momentum, fully contract your biceps and bend your elbows so that the barbell comes toward your chest.
• Fully extend your elbows to lower the barbell back to the starting position.

Form and Technique

• Grip the dumbbells at the center
• Keep your elbows tucked to your side
• Without jerking your upper body or arms to use momentum, fully contract your biceps and bend your elbows so that the barbell comes toward your chest.
• Note: You can grip the dumbbells so that your thumb OR the heel of your palm is facing your shoulder.
• Fully extend your elbows to lower the dumbbells back to the starting position.

Thank you so much for enrolling in this course, and congratulations on completing it! If you need absolutely anything while moving forward with your mass gaining program, do not hesitate to ask. Feel free to send me a personal message or post in the discussion section anytime, and I would be more than happy to answer your questions and/or create additional lectures to help you.

I want to hear about your progress! Please send me messages and let me know how the program is going and how your progress is coming along. Remember that YOU are the next mass gaining success story. Don't forget that.

If you enjoyed this course, I would love for you to give me an excellent review so that I can continue to help others transform their lives with health and fitness. I would be incredibly grateful for your support in creating more tools, courses, and programs like these to enhance the lives of others like you.

Thank you!

-Jack

As a rule of thumb for gaining muscle mass, I have personally seen my best results in eating 1.25-1.5 grams of protein per pound of body weight. You will find a ton of different recommendations out there that range from 1x to 2x+, but in the end, you should test different macronutrient balances and see what works best for your body type.

The one thing that you ABSOLUTELY NEED to gain quality muscle mass, is not the first thing that you would expect.

Do you need to incorporate cheat days in your mass gaining program?

Crockpots or slow-cookers are excellent for gaining muscle because it saves you hours of time in the kitchen. Since feeding is going to be one of your biggest commitments in gaining muscle, we want to...

• Minimize the time that you have to spend in the kitchen
• Maximize the amount of great tasting food that you can make
• Use the rest of your time to focus on eating, training, and recovery

With crockpots you can prepare massive quantities of excellent tasting food with a minimal amount of invested time and cooking know-how.

Here's a link to my Pinterest board which includes over 100 free recipes that can help you build muscle mass.

https://www.pinterest.com/trainerjack/the-real-food-board/

One of the biggest mistakes that you can make when gaining muscle isn't necessarily what you would think. Many of us make the mistake of chasing too many goals at once, instead of just focusing on one goal at a time. This is typically an inefficient and ineffective training method that will make sure that you do not get to ANY of those goals.

The best thing that you can do to overcome this stalemate, is to focus on one goal at a time. In your case, focus on gaining muscle mass and nothing else. See what kind of results you can get in 3, 6, 9, or 12 months when dedicating yourself solely to building muscle.

If you want to gain muscle mass but don't have time to go to the gym 4-6 days per week, you are just in luck. I have successfully trained clients who have gained 20+ pounds of muscle mass by only working out 3 days per week.

The key with this program is train every major muscle group in the body 3 times per week (Mon., Wed., Fri.), while focusing on eating, resting, stretching, and recovering for the other 4 days of the week.

See the attached downloadable PDF document of this program to get started on your 3 day per week, mass gaining training plan.

I had a student request to me recently to add a visual of the seasonings, spices, and sauces that I use to make my healthy meals taste incredible. Here's a sneak peak at what I stock my spice cabinets with to make every meal taste delicious.

Why adding 4-10 minutes of sprints at the end of your workout can be one of the best solutions to prevent fat gain and preserve lean muscle.

Simple prescription for enhanced calf growth.

Do three sets of single calf raises (on each leg) every day for 2 weeks. For your reps, they need to be perfect. Stand on one leg, push from the ball of your foot and raise your heel off of the ground. Hold for 2 seconds. Then lower your heel. Stop when you hit the point where you are too tired to continue, or your technique goes bad (bending your knee).

Work to your max on each set. Your goal for each set is to get to 20 perfect reps on each leg by the 2 week mark. You can break up your sets throughout the day. I recommend doing one in the morning, one in the afternoon, and one in the evening.

If you aren't at 20 reps on each leg within two weeks, repeat for another 2 weeks.

It has been often held that there is a magic anabolic window that you NEED to get between 30-40 grams of protein within an hour after you finish working out. Recent research has shown that is NOT the case, and here's why...