Men’s fitness and muscle building training methods

Progressive overload stimulation, a reasonable caloric surplus of 300-500 calories, a protein intake of 1.6-2.2g per kilogram of body weight, and an average of 7-9 hours of regular sleep per day. 90% of ordinary men who can achieve these four points can gain 10-15 pounds of pure muscle in the first year of training. The remaining 10% of extreme cases are either genetic defects or abnormal hormone levels, which have nothing to do with the training method itself.

There is no need to rush to search for the "latest muscle-building plan" or "exclusive exercises for great masters". I have been involved in fitness for almost 8 years, and I have seen people around me who are good at training using very different methods. No one's path is completely replicable.

Let’s talk about the controversy over training models. The most heated debate on the Internet right now is whether “differentiated training” or “whole body circulation” is better. I have two colleagues in my former company, one of whom is a stickler. They practice chest, shoulders, back, legs and arms for one day each week. Each practice takes 20 minutes to warm up with chest light, and bench presses, chest presses, and flyes at various angles for one and a half hours. After practicing for 3 years, my arm circumference is stable at 42cm with a weight of 75kg. When the body fat is 12%, the abdominal muscles are clear and full when wearing a T-shirt. The other one works in the Internet and works a lot of overtime. He can only train 4 days a week. Each training is 3 sets of squats, pushing, pulling, and core. He walks right after the training. The whole process does not exceed 1 hour and 15 minutes. After two and a half years of training, he still weighs 75kg, has an arm circumference of 41cm, and the bench press limit is 5kg heavier than the previous one.

Whose method do you think is wrong? All correct. To put it bluntly, differentiated training is more suitable for people who have a training foundation of more than one year and have a strong sense of muscle recruitment. The frequency of training a single part once a week is enough to provide sufficient stimulation and can also polish the muscle shape in a targeted manner. ； The whole body circulation is more suitable for novices or enthusiasts with less time. After all, novices have poor nerve recruitment ability. The effective stimulation of practicing 10 sets of a single part is not as effective as that of an experienced person practicing 5 sets. Practicing the same part 2-3 times a week can increase strength and muscle mass faster. There are also the three-part push-pull leg and high-frequency small-volume training that have become popular in recent years. The essence is to find the balance between "sufficient stimulation" and "recovery in place". The core can still achieve progressive overload - this month I can bench press 80kg for 3 sets of 8, and next month I can either do 3 sets of 10, or You can push 82.5kg and do 3 sets of 8. As long as one of the three variables of weight, number of sets, and reps is increasing, there is a reason for muscle growth. If you join the gym for half a year and the weight you use is still the same as when you first went there, no matter how standard your movements are and no matter how beautiful the training videos you shoot, you will not grow muscles.

Oh, by the way, there is also controversy over the choice of RM. Many people say that to gain muscle, you must use a weight of 8-12RM (RM is the maximum number of repetitions you can complete). This is true. It is the most efficient range for muscle hypertrophy in current research, but it is not a dead rule. I know a few friends who switched from powerlifting to bodybuilding. In the early stage, they all used heavy weights of 3-6RM to squat, push and pull. After the strength increased, the muscle mass was not bad at all. Later, they added light weights of more than 15RM to do hyperemia sets to polish the details. The resulting form was actually fuller than those who had been training with medium weights. To put it bluntly, as long as you can ensure progressive overload, either 3RM or 15RM is useful. There is no need to limit yourself to a certain range.

After talking about the training side, let’s talk about the controversy about eating this. I guess many people were confused by the quarrel between “clean muscle building” and “dirty muscle building” when they first started working out. The year before last, I met a sophomore student who had limited living expenses and no way to cook for himself. Every day, he bought three skinless chicken legs, four taels of rice from the cafeteria, and a spoonful of protein powder in the morning. Occasionally when he got greedy, he and his roommate would eat fried skewers and drink a bottle of iced Coke. His weight increased steadily by about 1 kilogram every month, and his body fat only increased by 1% in half a year. After practicing for two years, his shoulder shape in short-sleeved shirts is better than that of many people who have been practicing for three or four years. Another friend was anxious to get results when he first started working out. He heard others say that he could gain muscle quickly. He had hamburgers, cola, and fried chicken every day. He gained 20 pounds in two months. The result was that his body fat increased by 8%, and 70% of it was fat. Later, he applied fat brushing for three months and lost 12 pounds, of which 6 pounds were muscle. It was like a wasted half a year.

There is no absolute right or wrong here. If you pursue a good-looking figure with low body fat and don’t want to suffer from fat loss later, just build muscle cleanly and control your daily caloric surplus at 300-500 calories. When converted into food, it is about the amount of eating an extra egg and a glass of milk. You don’t need to eat boiled vegetables all the time. It doesn’t matter if you eat some junk food occasionally, as long as the total calories and protein are enough. If your main focus is strength training and you don't care if your body fat is higher, and you want to increase your base weight first, it's not impossible to build muscle. You just have to be mentally prepared to lose fat and lose muscle later on. There is also controversy over protein intake. Some people on the Internet now say that 3g per kilogram of body weight is enough, while others say that 1.6g is enough. The latest clinical research has actually confirmed that for people who naturally exercise, consuming 1.6-2.2g of protein per kilogram of body weight is enough to support maximum muscle hypertrophy. Efficiency, eating too much will either turn into calories for energy, or be excreted in the urine, which is a waste of money. Those who advocate eating more than 3g are either professional athletes who use anabolism, or merchants selling protein powder. Ordinary enthusiasts really don’t need to spend that wasted money.

What many people tend to overlook is recovery. I had a former student who was so exhausted when he first started working out that he went to the gym 6 days a week and practiced for 2 hours each time, including doing aerobics. As a result, after half a year of training, not only did he not gain muscle, but he also lost 4 pounds, and his bench press weight dropped by 10kg. Later, I asked him to change the training frequency to 4 days a week, and control it within 1 hour and 20 minutes each time. He should sleep for 8 hours every day regardless of the situation. After only a month and a half, he had gained 3 pounds, and his bench press increased by 15kg. To be honest, muscles really don’t grow in the gym, they grow when you rest after training. Heavy training will not only tear muscle fibers, but also consume your nerve reserves. Sometimes you feel that the muscles are no longer sore, but in fact, the nerves have not recovered. At this time, hard training will only get worse with more training. Of course, some people say that they can build muscle even if they sleep for 6 hours a day. This is indeed an individual difference. Some people have strong recovery capabilities, but for 99% of ordinary people, sleeping for 7 hours is the minimum threshold for building muscle. This is really useless.

Oh, by the way, don’t stare at the scales and circumference measurements every day. Muscle growth is measured by month, not by day. You measure every day. Today you are 2 taels heavier and tomorrow you are 2 taels lighter. It is of no use except to make you anxious. Fix a time every week and measure once on an empty stomach. If you can gain 0.5-1kg in weight every month, and the body fat increase does not exceed 1%, it is a perfect muscle gain speed. Don’t be superstitious about internet celebrity movements or supplements. If you practice the three major items of bench press, deadlift, and squat, it will be much more effective than practicing 100 fancy isolation movements. In supplements, apart from protein powder and creatine, which have been proven to be useful, other testicle-stimulating and nitrogen pumps are essentially icing on the cake. If you fail to achieve the four core points, it will be useless no matter how much you eat.

In fact, building muscle is really not that complicated. If you are just an ordinary enthusiast and don’t want to compete, just follow the four core elements. You don’t have to worry about any school or method. The best method is the one that suits you and can be sustained for a long time. After all, in the final analysis of fitness, the battle is not about whose method is more advanced, but who can persist. If you practice for three to five years, you will naturally practice better than 90% of people.