Building Muscle Fast

Today Jason Ferruggia, the author of Muscle Gaining Secrets joins us with an article on building huge legs and uses Tom Platz as a case in point. Tom is one of the best bodybuilders of the 1980′s and is a damn nice guy. Tom used the barbell squat as the basis of his leg training and used a variety of poundage’s and rep schemes in his quest for what are probably the best thighs ever in bodybuilding. And yes, I tried a couple of his leg training routines in the past, including 100 reps squats and yes I did get great results. Anyway enjoy the article.

A Muscle Building Program for Huge Legs

By Jason Ferruggia

If you have been around the Iron Game for a while, there is one name that comes instantly to mind when people discuss leg training. That name is Tom Platz. “The Golden Eagle” is widely regarded as having the most massively muscular legs in the history of bodybuilding. His thighs measured a whopping 35 inches and were shredded to the bone. Tom’s muscle building program that created those unforgettable wheels revolved around one exercise and one exercise only; the barbell squat. If you want to add some serious mass to your legs you had better familiarize yourself with this exercise in a hurry.

Since the quads typically have a very wide variance of muscle fiber types you can use a great range of reps in your quest to build pillar sized legs. Often times, Tom and other lifters with notoriously huge legs, would go as high as fifty reps per set on squats. When I was young and painfully skinny, high rep squats were one of the most effective discoveries I ever made and helped me and my brother pack on size faster than anything we had ever tried to date. The old 20 rep squat programs from the golden era of the Iron Game made a massive man of many a skinny boy. For over 15 years I have used high rep squats with hundreds of clients, and without fail they have always gained enormous amounts of size and strength; not to mention several inches of raw mass on their thighs.

Although high rep squatting leads to massive and rapid gains, I usually recommend starting with a few heavy sets in the 4-8 range first. Sometimes I even add in a set of 10-15 after the heavy sets, and finally finish with one all out set of 20 (and sometimes 30-50). When you use this rep scheme you ensure that you hit all fiber types and stimulate the greatest amount of muscle growth possible

Another note that needs to be added here is that high rep squats shouldn’t be done until you have mastered squat technique with several months of low rep training. You need to build the strength, coordination, endurance and stability needed to safely complete picture perfect low rep sets of squats first before you can move on to the high rep sets

Beginners should squat three times per week, intermediates twice and advanced lifters should probably only squat once every 5-10 days, depending on a variety of factors and how much running and other extra curricular activities you participate in

When putting together your muscle building program, be sure that squats are the focus of your lower body training; if not the only thing you do. Once you have mastered “the king of all exercises” you can then begin to think about adding in stuff like lunges, step ups and glute ham raises. Until then, and until you have gained significant size and strength from a steady diet of squats, I expect you to be spending a lot of time in the power rack.

Jason Ferruggia is a world famous fitness expert who is renowned for his ability to help people build muscle as fast as humanly possible. He has trained thousands of clients during his 14 years as a professional fitness coach, including more than 500 athletes from over 20 different sports. Jason has written hundreds of articles for numerous top rated training magazines and websites and has authored four fitness books. He is also the head training adviser for Men’s Fitness Magazine where he also has his own monthly column dedicated to muscle building. For more great muscle building information, please visit musclegainingsecrets.

If you have ever listened to the news, or read a magazine, you may have heard a great deal about protein shakes and unfortunately in the media, they do get a bad shake (forgive the pun). The important thing is that these shakes are essential to reaching your bodybuilding goals.

When you hear bad things about these shakes, it is usually tied to someone who replaced all of their normal meals with the shakes, essentially going on nothing more than a liquid diet. Obviously for anything other than a short period, this isn’t healthy.

Serious bodybuilders understand that it is extremely difficult to eat as much high quality protein as you want ans this is where protein shakes come into their own. They are highly convenient, giving you a high quality protein source with minimal carbs in an easy to drink form. Furthermore, bodybuilders have a one hour window after a workout to consume a meal with carbs and protein, in order to enhance muscle growth, and slow down or stop muscle breakdown. That isn’t enough time to shower, change clothes, get home, and cook a meal…or even to get to a restaurant to order a meal. Therefore, they arrive at their workout with an after workout shake in hand, and consume that shake immediately after the workout – and often before the shower.

When you are trying to get in 6 plus meals a day, a high quality protein can really help. Preparing and eating 6 full meals a day is extremely time consuming and taking a couple of shakes a day really makes a difference. When you have a quick break at work or study, you can though down a shake to help meet your requirements.

The good thing about today’s shakes are that they mix easily in water, taste great (especially good news if you tried them years ago and are very high quality protein (I personally stick to the WPI (Whey Protein Isolate) and casein varieties)

A lot of people have difficulty in getting their calves to grow. In this article Jason Ferruggia, author of Muscle Gaining Secrets gives his take on getting your calves to grow.

How to Build Big Calves
By Jason Ferruggia

How to build big calves… it’s a question that I pondered for many years as a kid, being born with calves like string beans. After much experimentation, what I finally realized was that high volume works great for calves. They are probably the hardest muscle to build. Just doing a few sets for them never did anything for me. Since I had no desire to train them and preferred to focus on strength, athleticism and bigger compound lifts they stayed that way for years.

The only time they finally responded was when I hit them with very high volume. I usually do this for about a month and then I am bored to tears and stop training calves again for another year. Also, you can’t really tolerate the high volume loading for too long before you will start to develop some ankle/achilles problems. If you are an athlete and run or jump a lot, don’t even consider doing high volume calf work.

But if how to build big calves is a question that you obsess over, and you just want to get them jacked then you need to really increase your volume and frequency. I once put two inches on my calves in just over a month! Now, don’t get me wrong, my calves are still nowhere near huge, but the point is you can add significant size to your calves if you really want to.

They were Arnold’s worst bodypart and he dedicated all his time and effort to bringing them up. He even cut all of his pants off at the knee so he had to suffer the embarrassment of having his calves exposed wherever he went.

One option is to do a set of calves between every set of every exercise you do at each workout. Be sure to go heavy, get a good, deep stretch and hold it for a second (and up to ten seconds) at the bottom and get all the way up on your big toe at the top while flexing your calves hard. When you do standing calves your knees should be slightly bent on the way down and then locked out on the way up.

Another option is to start each workout (or each lower body day) with calves. One day per week would be heavy standing calf raises for 5-10 sets of 5-8 reps and the other day would be seated calf raises done for 4-5 sets of 15-30 reps.

You should also consider training the tibialis anterior muscles. These are the muscles that run down the front of your shin. Some people develop imbalances from too much ankle extension and not enough ankle flexion. When this happens and becomes a problem, the calves will not grow. So train these muscles by hanging your feet off the end of a bench and holding a dumbbell or DARD device between them and flexing your feet up toward you for a few sets of 10-20 reps, twice a week.

After you finish up with standing, seated and donkey calf raises and the tib raises, try doing farmers walks for up to five or even ten minutes while remanining on your toes the entire time. This will absolutely smoke your calves.

Finally, finish up your workouts with 10-20 minutes of jumping rope.

The above strategies should definitely get anyone’s calves to grow rapidly in a couple of months. Just be sure to ease into the extra volume slowly and gradually and take a step back if your ankles start to bother you.

If you are currently doing only 3-4 sets of calves twice per week you should slowly add a set or two at every workout until you get to about 10 or so. Ten hard, heavy sets plus the farmers walks and jumping rope should be more than enough for most people to add an inch or so in a month.

Now you know how to build big calves. For more information on adding size to the rest of your body check out MuscleGainingSecrets now.

Train hard,

Jason Ferruggia

Jason Ferruggia is a world famous fitness expert who is renowned for his ability to help people build muscle as fast as humanly possible. He is the head training adviser for Men’s Fitness Magazine where he also has his own monthly column dedicated to muscle building. For more How to Build Muscle Fast tips, check out musclegainingsecrets.