Ok, the bottom line is that you want huge muscles and ripped abs. You want to make the biggest leap forward in mass gain in the shortest time possible, right? Every hobbyist enters the bodybuilding game with these goals, but along the way they drift into fancy workout programs and fun new supplements and forget what it really takes to gain muscle and keep fat at bay.
Goals are key
A critical first step is deciding what your goals are. Knowing this will dictate how you train and what you focus on. Your goals must be well defined. So ask yourself if you want to gain muscle mass in general, or if you need to take out a lagging body part, or if you need to lose some body fat. Each of these different goals will dictate different training and nutrition protocols. For example, if you want to gain muscle mass, you will have to consume more calories than you burn. You will need to stop all useless activities so that your body has time to rest from lifting heavy weights. If you want to burn body fat, you will need to add that cardio and cleanse your diet.
Of course, these are all generalizations, but the point remains that you need to know what it is you want so that you can adjust your training and nutrition to meet that goal.
Big means big
First of all, it must be remembered that large muscles are strong muscles. In order for an amateur bodybuilder to gain the muscle mass he desires, he must lift heavy weights. So forget about all that isolations, cable training, and plyometrics, and focus on lifting the most weights in the shortest amount of time possible. This is the fundamental principle that any well-muscled bodybuilder follows.
The fact is that muscles grow because they are stimulated to grow. They grow because they are forced to do something they have never done before (called a stimulus / response). They grow because your body doesn’t want to fail next time, so you add muscle mass to ensure success when lifting that weight the next time.
Rest is essential
If you want to gain muscle mass or burn fat, the amount of rest will be a critical factor. If you are looking to gain muscle mass then you need to give your body plenty of rest and be careful to get some more sleep. It is a little known fact that the body only builds muscle while sleeping. If you shorten your sleep, you will derail your muscle gains.
Rest can also be used as a stimulant in fat loss. By shortening rest and sleep periods by even 30 minutes a day, you increase calorie consumption and even adrenaline production. Both will help burn that body fat. So use rest as a tool to achieve your goals.
Exercise volume
In the same way that you regulate the rest to suit your bodybuilding goals, you can regulate the training volume to obtain the same effect. If you’re looking to cut back, increasing the number of sets and reps you do will mean a longer time under load, which means more calories burned. To gain mass, the object would be the opposite. You want all of your excess calories to go to building more muscle, so wasting your energy and time on longer workouts is only detrimental. You’ll want the fastest high intensity workout you can find. Come in, get out, and rest.