The Quickest Way To Build Muscle
When I started lifting weights dark ages ago, I asked a 20-inch-arm-behemoth about the quickest way to build muscle. He didn't know shit about training but promptly recommended: “Dude, if you want to grow, you need juice. No worries, I can help you with that.”
But to me, he looked more like a pregnant cow rather than a graceful athlete, and obviously was not one of the smartest people around. Fortunately, I'm the kind of guy who will always seek for sound answers, so I just ignored this benevolent advice.
Now, I'm not saying that I haven't done mistakes along the way. I've done lots of silly mistakes. When one trains naturally, progress inevitably drops after the newbie stage, so it's normal to try numerous fad routines and supplements, wasting time, sweat, and money in a illusory hope to find a muscle-building-holy-grail.
Long story short, over the years, I plunged into Arnold's six-days-a-week routines, Mike Mentzer's Heavy Duty, Robert Stuart's hard gainer philosophy, and everything in-between. I went from spending hundreds of dollars on bogus powders and pills to throwing all of them at the garbage.
Today I want to share with you 3 key points regarding the quickest way to build muscle and getting a head-turning physique. How real results are achieved and why you should be real to yourself. Hopefully, this will give you something to reflect about; something to test on your own. So without wasting another minute, let's get going:
1. Lift Heavy
“To be a great champion you must believe you are the best. If you are not, pretend you are.” (Muhammad Ali)
When it comes to building strong muscles and might, cramming another plate on the bar is not optional. There is no such a thing as a scrawny powerlifter or strongman, so you know what to do.
For those of you who are sissies, just suck it up, get under the bar, forget about pain, and squat or deadlift that weight no matter what. Pretend that you are a champion. Imagine your favorite classic bodybuilder doing the same set. If he did it, what a fuck, you can do it! (That's how I motivate myself.)
This lift-heavy-or-go-home principle is not something new. But what is the rationale behind it? Okay, don't give me the overused metaphor about Milo of Croton whose size increased along with the animal he was carrying on his shoulders...
The real reason is that when a heavy resistance is applied, your body has no choice but to make more use of its strong and massive fast-twitch fibers because the load is overwhelming for their weakling slow-twitch cousins.
2. Lift Light
The above statement doesn't imply that slow-twitch fibers have no growth potential. In fact, “bodybuilders who typically perform a greater number of repetitions per set and much shorter inter-set rest intervals appear to stimulate muscle growth equally in both fiber types. This would be advantageous for a sport dependent on muscle hypertrophy.” (Fry, 2004)
Now you know why there are so many fags who do nothing but isolation exercises and look more or less in shape. This can be really discouraging for someone whose training is based solely on the lift-heavy-or-go-home credo. (Probably for this reason, the skinny tovarich, Pavel Tsatsouline, acknowledged that his program is actually for toning not bulking. Blah, blah, blah!)
It's worth noting that slow-twitch fibers are better stimulated with highish reps and volume (they are very resistant to fatigue), and for this reason heavy training doesn't have much effect on them. So what do you do? Well, you give up your masculine ego for a bit or go in a corner where nobody can see you, grab the plastic dumbbells, and do some isolation work.
3. Don't Take Drugs
“The first casualty of drugs is the truth.” (Robert Stuart)
It goes without saying that the quickest way to build muscle is drug-assisted training. Steroids make a huge difference even if your workouts and nutrition suck completely. Heck, you could even train from the couch with the remote control and still gain lean muscle.
Most users will never tell you the truth behind their transformation. This, in my opinion, is the result of an inferiority complex that caused them to choose the easy way in the first place. Whether they were skinny, short, or just ugly, now all want to be looked upon as genetic wonders or fitness experts.
I remember a former skinny guy who was telling everybody that his secret weapon was taking zinc for boosting testosterone levels. So after reading some spurious studies on ZMA supplements, I readily took action. And guess what the result was... The only result was a zinc poisoning that made me feel like shit for weeks.
My point is that you don't need drugs to get muscular and ripped. With the strategy exposed in this article, you can attain your genetic limit in less than two years. I'm not saying that you will be huge because you won't. Nevertheless, you will have an impressive physique and you will be better than some steroid-drenched jerks whose workouts are a joke (like them).
But is taking this facile avenue at least worth it? Well, not for me. Yes, I would put on about 20 pounds of muscle in a matter of weeks. (Just imagine what 20 pounds is!) But I don't give a shit about being a competitive bodybuilder (especially nowadays), so what's the point? Plus, when a jealous bastard insinuates something about steroids, I can take it as a compliment and smile.
A Brief Primer on Muscle Fibers
The classic Henneman's size principle states that muscle fibers are activated in an orderly fashion, from slow-twitch to their quicker-twitching counterparts.
It's worth noting that muscle fibers of similar composition are grouped in operational units, under the command of a single motor nerve that is responsible for bringing all its subordinates into play whenever the situation calls for it.
Now, the difference between slow and fast-twitch motor units is enormous. It's like comparing 100 policemen used to prevent robbery to 10,000 special forces combatants, armed to the teeth, which, obviously, are mobilized only in a state of emergency. But this, once again, doesn't mean that slow-twitch fibers have no volume potential – when many units of regular-Joe policemen are hired, their size can add up.
It's important to mention that just stimulating the fibers without fatigue them won't have a tremendous impact on their growth. So keep in mind that the lazy slow-twitch are resistant to fatigue and also recover rapidly while the strong fast-twitch special forces respond better to multiple heavy sets with longer breaks between them.
Putting It All Together (literally and figuratively)
The quickest way to build muscle is to train optimally both fiber types. I always start my workouts with heavy compound exercises (squat, deadlift, or bench press) and finish with light single-joint movements.
I always track my progress for the big exercises because the main goal here is to tap the fast-twitch fibers (their size correlates with strength), but I don't bother writing down other information just for the sake of doing it. I just want to keep it simple, and you should do the same.
When you squat, deadlift, or press, lift the weight as fast as possible. Remember that force is a function of acceleration and mass, and the greater the force, the more fast-twitch fibers are stimulated. Don't worry about losing form because you won't be able to lift the bar that fast anyway.
Conversely, when you do isolation work, focus on time under load rather that rep number. The idea is to keep a constant tension on the targeted muscle, which also means that the rest between sets should be as short as possible.
Closing Point
In my opinion, the difference in fiber composition found by Fry between bodybuilders and other strengths athletes is due to a different training focus rather than genetic factors. Nature doesn't play a predominant role here because most of us have an even distribution of all fiber types. But nurturing what you already have depends on choices that only you can make.
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