Men’s fitness and muscle building training methods

Resistance training that achieves progressive overload, a controllable caloric surplus of 300-500 calories + adequate protein intake, and rest and recovery that matches the training volume. All the fancy training plans, Internet celebrity recipes, and sky-high-priced supplements on the Internet are all in vain if they are separated from these three cores.

Let’s talk about the training part that everyone is most concerned about. Two years ago, I took care of a brother who was doing back-end development. He was 178cm tall and just over 110 pounds. He practiced for three months following the Internet celebrity’s 5-differentiation plan. His chest, shoulders, arms, and legs did not fall every day, and his latitude did not increase by half. The first thing he said when he saw me was to ask if his talent was too poor. I looked through his training records and laughed on the spot - always use 10kg dumbbells for chest presses, 3 groups of 12 each, and the weight hasn't changed for three months. It's strange that this can increase muscles. To put it bluntly, the underlying logic of muscle gain is to force your body to adapt to a stronger pressure than before. This pressure can be increasing the weight, adding more sets of exercises, shortening the rest time between sets, or even slowing down the speed of eccentric contraction. It does not necessarily have to be to increase the weight. As long as you complete a little more each training than the last time, it is an effective progressive overload.

The same goes for the training divisions that are so noisy on the Internet nowadays. Some people boast that 5 divisions are the best, some say that pushing and pulling legs is the best, and there are also old-school players who insist on full-body training three times a week for the most efficient results. In fact, there is no optimal solution? Newbies who have just started have low muscle mass and recover quickly. They can train the whole body three times a week, and do 2-3 movements for each part each time. The stimulation is better than anything else. ； If you have one or two years of training experience, if your muscles need a larger volume of stimulation, it’s no problem to switch to push-pull legs or 5-part split. Even if you only have two days a week to work out, split upper and lower limb training can have good results. It’s a waste of time to have to fight over who is right and who is wrong. I used to have a friend who drove an online ride-hailing service. He finished work at almost 10 o'clock every day. He could only squeeze in three days a week to practice, and he did full-body training for 40 minutes each time. He also gained 6 pounds of pure muscle in half a year, without any restrictions on training differentiation.

Don't think that everything will be fine once you practice well. I have seen too many people practice harder than anyone else. After practicing, they turn around and drink cold beer. Or they eat boiled vegetables every day without any calorie surplus, and they can't see any changes after practicing for a year. There is also a fierce debate about protein intake now. Some say that 2g per kilogram of body weight is enough, some say that 3g is required to grow taller, and some old-school bodybuilders dare to go for 4g. My advice to ordinary enthusiasts is that 1.6-2.2g per kilogram of body weight is completely sufficient. If you have problems with your kidney function, don’t blindly increase protein, which will burden the body. Don’t engage in “dirty muscle building” if you have a caloric surplus. Just make fried chicken and milk tea every day. I have seen several brothers gain muscle and their body fat soared from 15 to 28 in two months. When the time comes, they will cry for their father and mother when they lose fat. Just eat 300-500 more calories, which is about the amount of one more chicken drumstick and one cup of whole milk. The slower the increase, the easier it will be in the later period. If you really feel hungry after practice late, don’t hold on and stop eating. Boil two eggs to make a cup of protein powder and nibble on half a corn. It’s better than anything else. It’s okay to have an ice cream occasionally. Just don’t make it every day.

Finally, the most easily overlooked thing is rest. To put it bluntly, your muscles really don’t grow when you lift irons in the gym. They grow when you lie in bed at night or slump on the sofa while scrolling through your mobile phone. There is no unified standard for sleep time. Some people say that you must sleep for 8 hours before you can grow muscles. I have also seen talented brothers sleep for 6 hours a day, and their training status is still full. Their latitude increases faster than anyone else. The core is the state after you wake up - if you sleep If you wake up after 6 hours and feel refreshed all day long, and you can press heavy weights during training, that's absolutely fine. If you wake up after 7 hours of sleep and you're still groggy and struggling to lift normal weights, then don't stay up that useless night. Going to bed early will be more effective than any supplement. Don't go to the gym every day and think that the harder you train, the better. I once had a student who practiced 7 days a week, even during his menstrual period, and had to do shoulder exercises. As a result, not only did he not gain muscle in half a year, but he also lost 3 pounds due to excessive fatigue. After doing heavy exercises, his legs were so sore the next day that he couldn't go downstairs. So don't insist on training your buttocks. Instead, rest at home for a day or go for a half-hour walk, which will make your recovery faster.

Speaking of this, someone will definitely ask about supplements, so let me put it here first: ordinary muscle-building enthusiasts, if they have the money to buy those fancy testicle boosters, nitrogen pumps, and imported muscle-building powders, it is better to buy two more pounds of beef and two cartons of milk. At present, the only supplements that are proven to be effective in the global sports nutrition community are protein powder and creatine. The former is to save you trouble when you don't have enough protein, and the latter is to improve training performance and muscle water storage. They are both auxiliary. If you don't keep up with your training, diet and rest, nothing you eat will be of any use. Not long ago, I met a young man who had just entered college. He saved up his living expenses for two months and bought three or four barrels of imported supplements. During training, he made up the number of strokes per group. After two months, he had not gained weight and had half a barrel of supplements left. It was a complete waste of money.

In fact, after all, building muscle is really something that pays off. There is not so much mystery, and it does not require any extraordinary talent. Among the ordinary men around me who have developed good-looking figures, none of them relied on any exclusive secret. They all achieved the result by pushing 2.5kg more every time they trained, eating an extra bite of eggs, sleeping half an hour more every day, and enduring for a year or two. Don't follow the trend and change plans every day when you find an Internet celebrity. Find a rhythm that suits you and stick to it. It's better than anything else.