Bulk up/gain muscle fast...? *Experienced*

[Trrmo]

I gained 14lbs this way in a month and only about 3 pounds of fat (estimate).

According to that calculation you gained 11 pounds of muscle in a month, the
research I have done says that this is not possible without the use of drugs. THe article I referred too kind of explains how when you work out/ eat big at first you feel that you are just gaining muscle, but you dont really notice the large fat gain, which is not really visible in the first couple of months of starting out weights. I know this is what happened with me as I was downing my protein shakes, litres of milk, and 6 meals a day! I felt like I was mainly gaining muscle as I was filling out.

According to this article
"There is not a chance in heaven that you will gain 5 or even 10 pounds of dry muscle in one month or even 3 months - not even close. I hate to be the messenger of this bad news but unless you are using growth enhancing drugs...

... it's IMPOSSIBLE.

Many of you might be upset or discouraged about the TRUTH of how much you can actually build but this knowledge will help you to eat and train with a more realistic perspective. So how much muscle can your body actually manufacture?

Under the BEST possible circumstances (training, diet, supplementation, recovery) the average male body can create between *0.25 and 0.50* pounds of dry muscle tissue per week. That's the natural amount that your body chemistry will allow"



Feel free to correct me if this is wrong

[PunchDrunk]

Trrmo holding down the fort!

[elfag]

I did have a huge post with a routine but I figured **** it since I only focus on strength now I kinda lost the knack for hypertrophy routines which was evident as I was making the routine, was unsure wtf I was doing.

Just stick within 8-12 reps for true hypertrophy, 5-7 for both strength and hypertrophy and for certain body parts such as legs and forearms you need higher reps. Do big compound movments, heres a short list: DEADLIFT, SQUAT (and variations), bench press, bent over rows, weighted pullups, weighted dips, overhead pressing, high pulls, power cleans, snatches. Those are in my opinion (and many others) the best exercises, add some isolation if you want but keep in mind most of your size and strength will come from the compound movments and isolation exercises should be used last to finish off the muscle in question. Hit every plane of movement you can with compound moves before you use isolation. Calves should be hit freakin hard with supersets and such.

For hypertrophy 8-10 sets for small muscle groups and 12+ sets for larger muscle groups is the template I used.

I agree with all of this. If he is wanting to gain as much muscle in a short amount of time then focusing on compound exercises is key and dont worry too much about the isolations and if you do them at all then at the end of the workout after the compounds are done. That and eat alot.

[El_Boxeador]

Can anyone tell me about creatine?? Is creatine good or bad to use?

[elfag]

Can anyone tell me about creatine?? Is creatine good or bad to use?

It gave me some stretch marks on my shoulder/arm pit area which you see a lot of guys getting but I never had them until creatine. They say it causes water retention in the muscles so it was probably the bloat from water retention combined with the muscle growth in a short time that caused my stretch marks.

It will help with muscle growth and helped me put on some weight but being that Im slightly vain I havent used it in a long time because I dont want more stretch marks and also just cause I havent been trying to gain any mass in a long while anyways.

[Landon S]

Trrmo holding down the fort!

lol

I wouldn't base everything on 1 article, different people have had different experiences and educations. For the most part thats true but you can REGAIN muscle at a faster pace (look up "the colorado experiment"), which is what I was doing. I was also taking creatine so some of that could have been water weight.

During the "Colorado Experiment" two experienced lifters (who had fairly recently lost weight) did "special" workouts with nautilus machine and had excellent diets. 1 man regained an astonishing amount of muscle in about 1 month (40 or so pounds, I call bull****). The other still regained a ******ed amount of muscle mass (about 17lbs if I remember correctly) in a month. Theres a link in 1 of the newer T-Nation articles I believe.
So if I was regaining muscle and packed on at least 3lbs fat and gained some water weight (lets say another 2 lbs) in 1 month its really not unreasonable. I also have a buddy who just started lifting a few months and gained 5lbs last month and according to his bf% tests he only went up 1%bf, hes now 145, (5'7"ish) so theoretically he gained 3.5lbs.

[Richie-G]

Good Thread!!

[RichGriff]

your name is richie g????

my name is richie g

Richie Griffin

thats why my name is richgriff lol hahaha