Remember to warm up first, and then stretch before any vigorous exercise!
Many magazines and personal trainers like to complicate this topic with various equipment and program designs but weight gain can be explained in less complicated terms.
To add muscle to the body you must fatigue the muscle. It's as simple as that.
This can be done by the use of rest intervals, exercise order, or many other methods. That being said it still takes hard work and once again consistency is the key.
Tips :
Keep your rest intervals between sets at 45-60 seconds. This will give your muscles enough time to recover but still keep them fatigued.
Always train biggest muscle groups first. The bigger muscle groups are supported by the smaller ones, which tend to fatigue faster. So if they are trained first the bigger muscles will not have the opportunity to get worked out properly. Here is how the sequence should go:
The big muscle groups are the thighs (quads and hamstrings), back, and chest. They should always be done first. If they are trained on the same day then it doesn't matter which order they go in.
The smaller muscles are the shoulders, biceps, triceps, and calves. The shoulders should never be trained before the chest or back. The triceps should never be trained before the chest or shoulders.
The biceps should never be trained before the back, and the calves should never be trained before the thighs.
Never train abdominals before exercises that require core stability (squats, lunges, shoulder press, power cleans)
For faster results, use mostly compound exercises. Compound exercises are those that require the movement of more than one joint. This means that it uses more than one muscle group so more energy is burnt, and more muscle fibres can be hit within the one exercise. They enable you to lift more weight so strength increases come faster as well.
Don't fall into the 'Split System' pit. The split system is when you break muscle groups up into various days of the week. Don't get me wrong, this can provide great results, but too many people do this and only this. What you need to do is to follow some full body programs, some 2 day splits, and some 3 days splits. You need to keep your body guessing.
Change your program every 6-8 weeks. There are many ways you can change your program (see Acute Training Variables) and sometimes the smallest changes can be all the difference.
Make sure your program is balanced. Many guys at the gym do just as many exercises on biceps as they do on chest. This is crazy. The biceps are much smaller than the chest so they don't need to be worked as hard. Also remember that the shoulders get worked with the back and chest, the triceps get worked with the chest and shoulders, and the biceps get worked with the back so you are probably already training them hard enough.
Don't believe everything you read in books. Many articles written in muscle magazines are written from a 'hard core' perspective. When they say that you must wait at least 48 hours before training a muscle group again, that is because they are doing 5-8 exercises per body part. If you are doing a full body program where each body-part is only worked with 2-3 exercises, you can get away with training 2 days in a row. In fact, one of the fastest ways to fatigue the muscles is through full body training on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, with Wednesday and Sunday as recovery days.
If you sustain a joint injury, some exercises can add to the pain.
Shoulder: upright row, pec deck, lat pulldown, incline dumbbell press.
Lower back: squats, deadlifts, back extensions, any exercise where you are bent at the waist.
Knee: leg extension.
Don't fall into the trap of only doing "Beach Weights"! This is when you primarily train chest and biceps, just the muscles people like to show off. This will lead to an imbalance in the joints, which will cause injury. But more importantly for the person looking for substantial increases in muscle mass, it will limit your growth. The back muscles make up a huge portion of the upper body so by building it up you will give the impression of a thicker, more muscular body which in turn will make your chest stand out more. The same goes for the arms. The triceps make up 2/3rds of the arms and the biceps 1/3rd but most young guys primarily train biceps. Work the triceps hard as well and your arms will grow 2-3 times faster!
The best repetition range to build muscle is 8-15. Use this as your guide to how much weight you lift. If you can get 15 then it is too light and you need to increase the weight . If you can't get 8 out then it is too heavy and you need to decrease the weight.
