Translated by Janar Rückenberg
I used to be 2 m tall and weighed 88.5 kg; now I’m 2 m tall and weigh 128.5 kg. First, two things need to be made clear. No matter who you are, muscle mass doesn’t come quickly or easily. If you have the patience to train hard, success will eventually reward your efforts.
My second recommendation is the article below, which is based on my own experience. It is certainly not the only right way, but it can be a big help.
Nutrition
When it comes to muscle building, nutrition is the most important factor. Remember: IF YOU DON’T EAT MORE CALORIES THAN YOU BURN, YOU WON’T GROW NO MATTER HOW HARD YOU TRAIN.
Approach nutrition with passion and dedication. You need to set aside enough time to prepare and eat your food; it takes time and attention.
For the first four years of my training career, I had practically zero success. I trained hard back then, but I knew absolutely nothing about nutrition. As soon as I started reading the relevant literature and applying it to myself and my training, things began to change.
But OK, let’s get started:
1. So you have to eat more than you burn. The growth process demands a lot of calories, and not just for a moment: you have to eat a huge amount EVERY DAY. This is actually where everyone fails (when we’re talking about bulking). If you’re already skinny and train hard on top of that, the calories burn off easily.
2. Now you’re surely asking: how many calories do I need? There’s a rule that to maintain/increase a positive nitrogen balance and build mass, you should consume 44-48 kcal per 1 kg of body weight. It’s only natural that when we’re trying to gain mass, we have to consume plenty of calories, or rather more of them. So work out how many calories you consume in your bulking phase and make the appropriate adjustments.
The ratio of nutrients should be 55/25/20: 55% carbohydrates, 25% protein and 20% fat. And if you still aren’t growing, add another 500 extra kilocalories to your daily calorie intake, and if you still aren’t growing, add more, and so on.
3. Try to have 3 larger meals a day plus 2-3 slightly lighter ones, spaced 2.5-3 hours apart. This meal spacing is extremely important. In total you need to eat 5-6 times a day to keep supplying your body with enough calories. Even more important to know is that a break between meals longer than three hours already starts to push our body into a catabolic state. That means the muscles start being broken down for energy.
This affects skinny and lean body types in particular. I don’t think any “growth-seeking” type would want that.
As long as your body is regularly supplied with nutrients, and especially with protein, all is well!
4. Breakfast is the MOST IMPORTANT MEAL OF THE DAY! You have just “fasted” for 8-10 hours, so you need to eat a lot to make up for that, and to prevent and avoid its effects.
A simple example of my breakfast:
Oatmeal
Protein shake
Egg whites (5)
4 – 5 slices of toast
If you have trouble eating in the morning, or find it hard to eat that much at once, you simply have to “learn” it in order to grow.
5. Don’t waste money on trendy, heavily advertised supplements. If you take protein, creatine, glutamine and a multivitamin/mineral tablet as supplements, that’s plenty. It covers 100% of your daily needs. Protein shakes are a great way to cover your protein needs and to replace lighter meals. After training, eat fruit, e.g. 2-3 bananas are a good choice + a protein shake. After a workout, the muscles are empty and exhausted, and to grow and recover you need to eat adequately and properly after training. I mix, for example, 60 grams of whey with milk, sometimes with quark as well, and take it along to the gym. There’s also no need to fear fat in your post-workout nutrition.
Training
Now on to training. I took a big step forward myself when I followed the program below.
1. Be sure to keep a record (a log) of your workouts. That makes it easier to manage your progress, and whenever possible you can always “look back” to see where something went wrong.
2. Remember that from time to time you have to keep changing your training routine so your body doesn’t adapt, because otherwise your progress will stall. You can “play” with everything: exercises, different set and rep schemes, “shock therapies” and so on. I have my own favorite exercises that I include in almost every routine, but for some muscles and exercises you have to vary constantly.
3. Let me say it again: the program below works great for me. However, it may not work for you or anyone else at all. Training each body part twice a week is not very popular, but for myself I’ve found that training each body part (muscle) every four days is the best scheme for muscle building.
I use this training scheme in so-called monthly cycles. In the first month
I train every other day, i.e. half of the body on the first training day, then a rest day, the other half of the body on the third day, a rest day again on the fourth day, and so on.
In the second training month I do three training days in a row, then one rest day, then three training days again, followed by another rest day, and so on.
As you can see, I always train in four-day cycles. In the third month I use the same scheme as in the first, in the fourth month scheme no. 2, and so on.
I like this scheme because this approach guarantees intensity, since it “keeps me from burning out”. The workouts are intense, yet I still have time to “recuperate” and recover, which is extremely important. If you train 5 – 6 days a week year after year, there’s a risk of overtraining; it’s also psychologically draining and can affect motivation.
As you can see, I like to use medium- and higher-volume sets (by rep count per set).
First-month training program:
Training split: 1 workout, 1 rest day
Day 1: Chest/shoulders/arms
Day 2: Rest
Day 3: Back/legs/abs
Day 4: Rest
Day 5: Chest/shoulders/arms
Day 6: Rest
Day 7: Back/legs/abs
Day 8: Rest
And so on…
Day 1
Chest:
Bench press: 5×12,10,8,6,4
Incline bench press: 4×12,10,8,6
Dumbbell pullover: 3×15,15,15
Shoulders:
Military press: 4×12,10,8,6
Bent-over dumbbell lateral raises: 4×12,10,10,8
Biceps:
Preacher curl with an EZ-bar: 4×10,8,6,5
Alternating dumbbell biceps curl: 4×10
Seated incline dumbbell biceps curl: 4×8,8,6,6
Triceps:
Cable pushdown: 4×12,10,10,8
Lying French press: 4×10,10,8,6
Close-grip bench press: 4×10,10,8,6
Forearms:
Wrist curls: 3×15,15,15
Day 2
Rest
Day 3
Back:
Seated wide-grip lat pulldowns to the chest: 4×15,12,10,8
T-bar rows or bent-over dumbbell rows: 4×10,10,8,8
Seated cable rows (seated pulley rows): 4×15,12,10,8
Barbell shrugs: 3×10,10,8
Legs:
Squat: 5×15,12,10,8,6
Leg press: 4×12,10,10,8
Leg curl: 4×12,10,8,8
Calves:
Standing calf raise: 4×15,12,10,10
Seated calf raise: 4×15,12,10,10
Abs:
Crunches
Second-month training program:
Training split: 3 workouts, 1 rest day
Day 1: Chest/arms
Day 2: Legs/abs
Day 3: Back/shoulders
Day 4: Rest
Day 5: Chest/arms
Day 6: Legs/abs
Day 7: Back/shoulders
Day 8: Rest
And so on…
Day 1
Chest:
Bench press: 5×12,10,8,6,4 (On the last three working sets, I add so-called partial reps at the end)
Incline dumbbell press: 4×12,10,8,6
Decline barbell press: 4×10,8,8,6 (Anyone with shoulder problems should avoid this exercise; you can do, for example, decline flyes instead)
Biceps:
Alternating dumbbell biceps curl: 4×10,8,6,5
EZ-bar biceps curl: 4×10
Seated incline biceps curl: 4×8,8,6,6
Triceps:
Cable pushdown: 4×12,10,10,8
Lying French press: 4×10,10,8,6
Close-grip bench press: 4×10,10,8, 6
Forearms:
Wrist curls: 3×15,15,15
Day 2
Legs:
Squat: 5×15,12,10,8,6
Leg press: 4×12,10,10,8
Leg extension: 4×12,12,12,10
Leg curl: 4×12,10,8,8
Calves:
Standing calf raise: 4×15,12,10,10
Seated calf raise: 4×15,12,10,10
Donkey calf raise: 4×12,10,10, 8
Abs:
Crunches
Day 3
Back:
Wide-grip pulldowns to the chest: 4×15,12,10,8
T-bar rows or one-arm dumbbell rows: 4×10,10,8,8
Superset:
Pulley rows: 4×15,12,10,8
Dumbbell pullover: 4×10,10,9,8
Deadlift: 3×8,6,4
Shoulders:
Barbell front raise: 4×12,10,8,6
Bent-over dumbbell lateral raises: 4×12,10,10,8
Barbell shrugs: 3×10,10,8
NB! The exercises listed in the program make up the core of my training routine, but that doesn’t mean I’ve clung to the same exercises year after year. I change exercises constantly and continually, keeping progress and the body’s adaptation in mind!
IMPORTANT TO KNOW:
1. No training session/day lasts longer than 1 hour.
2. Rest no more than 2 minutes between sets.
3. Always try to increase the resistance or the rep count, but never do so at the expense of technique.
4. Keep a training log; that way you can track how your results develop and steer your training progress.
5. When you train, never try to “simply lift the weight”; feel the muscles working, be “in it heart and soul” – this also helps you increase intensity.
Remember that in bodybuilding, what matters most is how the muscles work, not how heavy the weights you lift are.
Author: Janar Rückenberg
Come and train! ArtGym
