Basically everyone has their own opinion on how many reps they should be doing in a set. The fact is that each range of reps stimulates different types of muscle fiber to grow. Lower rep ranges (4-6) stimulate the muscle fibers that produce strength. These fibers aren’t exactly designed to grow all that big. Mid rep ranges (6-10) are considered the bodybuilding range. The fibers stimulated in this range actually produce the most size. High range (10-15) will affect the stamina-based fibers. These don’t grow that large, but it’s always good for a change of pace.

Volume is another aspect of training that goes pretty much neglected by the average bodybuilder. Volume is basically the amount of weight you lift over a period of a week. The stress applied to it will stimulate muscle, but it will also be stimulated by overall stress for a week. If you have a week where you just seem to move more weight, you’re probably going to feel it and your body will have to respond to that. I’ve found that when you cycle volume, you get the best out of it. You can’t just pound away at your body all the time because it needs time to rest.

What I do is I cycle the volume between high, low and average. I usually do two weeks at a time. For example, I’ll start off with average. I’ll go to the gym 4 times a week and do my workout. This will continue for 2 weeks and than I’ll go to high volume. At this time I’ll go to the gym 6 days a week. After that I’ll move to a low volume week, which is two times a week. The idea is that I’m going to have average, than load up on the volume, and finally unload. It’ll keep everything in balance.

Lastly, everyone forgets about how much time you invest to resting. Sometimes switching it up can have a huge impact on your results. For example, when I first started out I’d rest for 2-3 minutes in between sets because I wanted to be able to “lift big”, but I decided to try shortening down the rest time to 30 seconds for a few workouts and I was surprised to see results. Throwing your body a curve ball will work great for stimulating more muscle growth.

Before I start into the two-step process, you have to understand that consistency is the name of the game. You’re going to want to start like a bat out of hell, but you must hold back. Start out at a tolerable pace that you know you can continue to produce for months. You don’t want to burn yourself out.

The process is coming up with daily plans. Some people might call these schedules. I don’t care what you call them, but you’re going to need them. You’re going to write down exactly what you’re going to eat and when. You’re also going to write down what you’re going to do for exercise and the time you’re going to do it. You’ll want to keep each day relatively similar. You don’t have to eat the same thing, but you’ll want to keep the times pretty much the same. Follow the plan exactly for at least 3 or 4 weeks.

You may have picked up on the first process, which is having a plan, but the second part comes from applying the plan for 3 or 4 weeks. What happens after 21 days is our body and mind creating a habit. That’s what we want; we want a bodybuilding habit. The next time you have that emotional roller coast low, you’re going to have bodybuilding as a habit, so no matter how you feel you’ll be on the right track.

It’s important to note that all my results come from my ability to control my diet. It doesn’t matter what I do in the gym, my diet always determines the outcome. A change in my diet turns me from a fat burning machine to a muscle-growing beast. Just thought I’d point that out, but I thought it would still be useful here to go through some of the exercises that I consider pretty much my big guns in terms of muscle gain.

Deadlifts

Deadlifts are by far my favorite exercise at the gym to do. I don’t exactly like them while I’m doing them, but I love the results that they give me. This is an exercise that is going to really put a huge amount of stress on your body. When you do it, you’re going to be using around 80% of the muscles in your body, so make sure you have a high carbs meal before you come to the gym to do them. Since this is such a significant exercise, I’ll often come to the gym and just do these for the day. They’re tough, but you’ll get amazing results with them.

Squats

I remember the first time I learned that I should be doing squats, I often wondered why. I always had big legs, so what exactly was the point to making them bigger. I learned pretty quickly after I started doing them.

Here’s the deal, squats are going to make your legs stronger, but they also have this amazing impact on your entire body. Not only do these exercises help make you grow muscles all over your body, but they also help you produce more testosterone. That’s the vital ingredient for putting on serious mass.

Bench Press

Bench press is about the oldest and most trusted exercise out there to have serious muscle gains. Out of all these great exercises, this is probably the one that the majority of new people will get right. It’s a compound exercise that focuses on those chest muscles. If you want to really get your chest looking like you have some real muscles on you, then this is the exercise you need to start doing.

All these exercises are great because of how powerful they are at overall muscle growth. Most of the other exercises you see people doing at the gym really are insignificant when you compare them to just these three. Make sure these exercises are in your routine and make sure you’re not wasting your energy on those little exercises before you get to these.

The next step is to get you off of the average Joe’s eating schedule and onto one that actually supports the body building muscle. Instead of eating three meals a day, spaced pretty far apart, you’ll want to start eating every 3hrs. Protein, as well as other nutrients, is required in the process of building muscle. After roughly 2-4hrs, your body will run out of the nutrients and will be unable to build any muscle at all. I aim for 3hrs and it has worked for me extremely well. This means your body will always have some nutrients available and your body will able to build muscle all day long.

Lastly, you’re going to have to maximize your muscle growth while you sleep. In the previous step I indicated that you need to take in food every few hours to make sure you always have enough nutrients available to build muscle tissue. Well, when you’re sleeping for 8hrs, it becomes difficult to get a bite to eat. Some people go to the extreme and get up in the middle of the night to eat something. I’m against this because I believe you’re getting much more benefit while you sleep. I do have a solution for this problem. By eating a high combination of fat and protein before bed you can actually slow down digestion, so it’ll last through the night. My personal food of choice that does this is cottage cheese. It’s lumpy, full of protein and fat. It should work well for you.

I think these are probably some of the most important points for a muscle building diet, and should help you get a lot more growth than simply focusing on your workouts.