The fastest way to gain muscle involves increasing the volume of training without overtraining. The idea is to fatigue the muscles with a high volume of sets and reps, but not so much that your body can’t recover. There is a fine line between just enough training and overtraining. If you train too much you will just spin your wheels, since your body will be in a chronic state of being broken down. You can’t necessarily just listen to your body, like some would suggest. Your body wants to stay where it is at, so forcing your body to put on muscle is an uncomfortable state. Despite what many people tell you, you can expect to feel slightly fatigued when adding muscle. So how can you tell if you are over exerting?
Train “on the Edge” for Fast Muscle Gains
You have to push your body to places where it has never been to add muscle. The problem is that you can’t obliterate your body each exercise session or you will simply break your body down. The goal then is to train on the edge. Here are some ways to train on the edge without overtraining.
Aim for Cumulative Fatigue During Your Workouts Without Going to Failure
Lifting to failure is a guaranteed way to eventually reach an overtrained state. This works extremely well for steroid users, but is a recipe for disaster for a natural athlete. Not only will training to failure lead to quick burnout, it leads to weaker muscles. When you lift to failure, you are “failing” on that lift. It sends negative feedback to your nervous system that you aren’t strong enough to lift that weight. Over time this leads to weaker signals to the target muscle. Don’t lift to failure, and don’t ever do forced reps.
Spend 2-3 Months Aiming for Fatigue Alternated With 2-3 Months of Gaining Strength
When you fatigue your muscles you are breaking them down a bit and they will eventually increase in size as you recover. The problem with training to fatigue is that it isn’t the most effective way to gain strength. The good thing about gaining strength is that it builds actual muscle tissue. This is called myofibrillar hypertrophy. Although strength training isn’t as good as building large muscles, it increases muscle density and makes for better looking firm muscles. So the best approach is to alternate periods of fatigue for the fastest way to gain muscle, but throw in low rep strength training to firm up those muscles.
Add in Creatine Instead of Increasing Calories
Since the goal is to gain fat free mass, it doesn’t make sense to increase your calories when training to gain muscle. A better approach is to eat at a maintenance level and then you will add muscle without body fat. To insure that you add muscle mass simply supplement with creatine. This is the fastest way to gain muscle without putting on extra body fat.
