The 2 Most Important Keys to Gaining Muscle!

While working as a personal trainer, I spend most of my time helping people generally lose weight or get leaner for upcoming bodybuilding shows.

But I also get many emails each week from people looking to gain muscle fast.

Because I've learned over the years the most effective methods for losing weight and toning up, I've also realized that there are certain steps you must take to gain muscle and increase size.

You cannot just leave the process to chance, you must do certain things to gain the added weight and size you want.

I thought for a while what the most important steps were to gain weight fast and I came to the conclusion that there were 7 things you HAVE to focus on if you want to gain size and muscle weight.

Many people make weight loss and weight gain much harder than it has to be.

The only three areas that really need to be focused on are:

• 1. Nutrition

• 2. Cardio

• 3. Weight training.

Of course, the tough part is learning the correct amounts and methods of each of these.

Out of the 7 things you must do to gain muscle fast, there are two things that are probably the most important things you can do to add size.

The 2 most important things to gain weight fast and add size are:

1. Lift heavy weight for lower reps.

It's no secret that muscle growth is stimulated from lifting progressively heavier weight over time.

One of the quickest ways to increase the amount of weight you lift is to lessen the amount of reps and increase the amount of weight.

If weight/overload is what grows muscle, you are better off doing 6 reps with 150 pounds than you are 10 reps with 100 pounds.

Light weight for high reps will not create enough overload to the muscles to force them to respond and adapt by getting bigger.

If you're looking to gain muscle, I'm sure you'd like the majority of that new body weight to be muscle, not fat.

So to get big, you must lift big.

That is one of the biggest keys to gaining quality muscle mass.

2. The second most important key to gaining muscle is to make sure you're eating enough calories.

Muscle gain is calorie driven.

You will NEVER gain muscle if you do not eat enough calories to support muscle growth. It would be like trying to build a house without brick, wood, concrete, or steel.

Calories (specifically amino acids) are what the body uses to gain muscle. To add size and weight, you must create a calorie surplus.

To add muscle mass, you must create a calorie surplus.

If your body requires 2000 calories a day just to maintain its current weight, you will not gain muscle if you're only consuming 1500 calories.

Start taking in a little more than your maintenance amounts.

Use meal replacements or protein shakes to add some extra, quality calories.

Start eating 2200 calories a day for the first week and test your results.

If nothing happens, go to 2400 calories.

Adding calories a little at a time will allow you to find that number which will allow you to keep adding weight without taking in so many calories that you quickly start adding a lot of fat.

Adding good, quality weight takes some time, but you can speed up the process by ensuring that you are taking the necessary steps needed to gain weight fast.

Two of the most important steps are to lift heavy and to consume enough calories to be used for gaining muscle and weight.