Building muscle aka “Bulking” is the act of putting on muscle through weight lifting and proper eating. Bulking is a pretty straight forward process for the most part but it can become difficult depending on your bodytype. When bulking it is important that you keep in mind the following points.

When bulking you are going to be spending and focusing more time on lifting weights than on cardio. For the most part when bulking you should cut down cardio to about 2 sessions a week and they should not be done on the same days that you weight lift. Weight lifting for mass requires a heavy amount of weight with fewer reps. The most common rep range for bulking is between 6-8 reps. Now it is also very important that you focus on compound exercises such as the bench press, squats, shoulder presses, and lat pull-downs. These types of exercises hit more than one muscle group, thus working out a broader range of muscle fibers. This in turn helps to build more muscle.

Through personal experimentation I have found that building muscle is better done through free weights. This is because free weights force the use of your smaller stabilizer muscles in order to keep the weights balanced. I have also found that using dumbbells over barbells have also worked a lot better as well. The reason in my opinion for this is because I have found that using a barbell your stronger side or dominant side tends to handle most of the weight especially when you start getting into heavier weights this can also cause uneven development. Dumbbells stop this as each side has to push and handle the same amount of weight. Lifting with dumbbells also provides a greater range of motion, which uses more muscle fibers, and promotes more muscle development.

The idea when it comes to nutrition for bulking is really quite simple. Eat more than your body can burn in a day. Now before you go and start stuffing your face with all kinds of junk it is important to state that the food you eat has to be clean healthy foods such and whole grain breads, fruits, vegetables, lean meats, and dairy. Most commonly you should try to eat about 500 more calories a day than your body burns off. This should gain you roughly a pound of mass a week.

You should stick to foods with good amounts of complex high quality carbs with low fat, as well as high quality protein. It has been shown through studies that in order to gain muscle mass it is required that the individual take in at least 1 gram of protein for every lb of bodyweight. Personally when bulking I try to stick to a ratio of 60% carbohydrates, 30% protein, and 10% fat. *Note that there are 4 calories per gram of carbs and protein and 9 calories per gram of fat.*

Most commonly when bulking it is a good Idea to get yourself a high quality protein powder that you can consume right after a workout. The reason for this is because once you have finished your workout your muscles have been broken down and need a quick dose of both simple carbs as well as protein. Since the body digests food in liquid forms faster, consuming a protein shake will help to feed your muscles faster. The absolute best protein powder that I have tried is Optimum 100% Whey Protein. The best tasting and does not clump.

While working out your muscles are constantly using vitamins and minerals that your muscles and cells within the body need in order to function. Taking a multi-vitamin before or after a workout; will help to replenish your body, with these vitamins and minerals. When choosing a multi-vitamin it is also important that you try to avoid multi-vitamins with iron added into them, as this can cause constipation. The best multi-vitamins in my opinion are AST Multi Pro 32X, and Optimum Opti-men/Optimum Opti-women

This is a very useful product if you are a hard gainer. Basically if your metabolism is crazy fast and you find that putting on any kind of weight is very hard to do then this is going to work wonders for you. It is packed with carbs, and protein, as well as all of the necessary amino acids our body needs. I have also personally used a weight gainer as I have a hard time putting on weight and along with regular meals I also work in a shake or two and this has helped me to gain 15-20lbs. I have a few weight gainers and the 2 that I would recommend are the cytosport cyto gainer and the Ultimate Nutrition Muscle Juice 2544.

As previously mentioned in the protein paragraph your muscles are in desparate need of quickly digesting carbohydrates in order to refill the lost glycogen stores. Now the easy and less expensive way of going about it is to add some fruit into your protein shake however there are carbohydrate powders out there that you can mix into your drinks that have been formulated for this exact purpose. Again I have tried a few of them and they do work however they do cost. Of the carbohydrate products I have tried I would recommend the Nutrex Vitargo CGL and the NOW Carbo Gain.

This product is not really needed for muscle growth. Without this product along with many others you will be able to gain muscle with just eating correctly, adequate protein, and a multi-vitamin. The reason that I am throwing this in here is that I recently picked this product up to try it and to be honest I could not believe this stuff. I followed the directions and sure enough in about 20 min I started to feel a big boost of energy. I went into the weight room and I was able to add about 5-10 lbs on to every exercise, and the best part was the pump, I looked huge afterwards. I would definitely recommend BSN NO-Xplode.

Rest is one of the most important factors of building muscle. This is the factor that a lot of individual fail to follow through with. People are under the impression that the more they lift and the longer they go the better. Well that may work for somebody on steroids but not for those of us going about it the safe and natural way. Our muscles repair themselves when we’re at rest, mostly when we’re sleeping. So it only stands to reason that working out every muscle 7 days a week would actually harm you as your muscles would keep getting further broken down with no adequate amount of rest for them to heal and build. I would recommend that if you are working out 4 times a week doing a split body workout regimen that your workout every other day, and you hit a certain muscle group no more than 1 to 2 times a week. I can guarantee that if you do not allow for enough rest that you will actually start to lose muscle instead of gaining it.

That’s it, these steps are really the basics behind building muscle. Now again there are all kinds of products and supplementation out there that promise the world, but the truth is, is that you don’t need them to gain muscle, sure they probably help, but I can promise you that if you eat properly, supplement properly, lift hard, and rest enough you will without a doubt build muscle. I know because its worked for me.