Here is the second part of the Charles Staley article on gaining mass.

The Can’t-Fail Mass-Gain Triad: Eat Big, Train Big, Sleep Big (Part Two)

By Charles Staley, B.Sc, MSS
Director, Staley Training Systems

In the first installment of this article, I outlined the fundamental components of training big.

As the saying goes however, your training is only as good as your ability to recover from it. That’s where big eating and big sleeping come in.

Here then, are your two “hidden” keys to no-fail recovery…

Eating Big

OK, take a deep breath because here comes some more advice you won’t like. Eating big means waaaayyy bigger than what you think it means. Literally, you have no idea what it means, because it you did, you wouldn’t be reading an article about how to gain weight. If you’re the prototypical 18-year old kid weighing say, 140 pounds at a height of 5-11 or so, you’re not likely to gain weight until you surpass the 5000-calorie barrier. That’s your daily intake by the way, not weekly.

Now aside from your palpable fear about the number I just threw at you, here’s another hard reality: you can’t do this eating “clean.” You’ll have to eat a lot of fat, including things like (take a deep breath) butter, mayo, pizza, ice cream, and high-fat meats and dairy products.

In all seriousness, your hourly fat intake will probably exceed the American Heart Association’s recommendations for daily fat intake.

Oh, and you’ll probably lose your abs (to the 76 percent of the remaining 14 percent of readers who left us earlier in the article- SEE YA!).

For the rest of you who are truly serious about gaining weight, just understand that the loss of visible ab development is part of the price you’ll have to pay. Later on, when you weigh 265, you can trim down to 220 or so and have your abs back, But for now, let’s just worry about acquiring something to trim in the first place.

Remember, this isn’t about lowering your serum cholesterol, looking good in a speedo, or becoming president of your local PETA chapter. It’s about laying down some serious muscle. And doing that means tricking mother nature into believing that new muscle won’t jeopardize your long-term survival odds.

If you’re still looking for specifics, I’ll give you a few:

Sleep Big

By “sleeping big,” what I really mean is getting enough rest and avoiding physical activity that doesn’t contribute to lean mass gains. Sleeping at least 8 hours a day is important, and possibly up to 9-10 hours a day, including naps if possible. My grandmother used to preach (and I happen to think she was right) that the hours before midnight are the ones that really count.

As for reducing “non-productive” physical activities, there is no absolute recommendation I can make. You simply have to decide if the calories you burn through skateboarding, playing Frisbee, or whatever it is you like to do is worth the cost in terms of reduced gains in lean mass. Clearly, “non-training” physical activities are not “bad” per se, they just interfere with muscle growth (in your case anyway). Only through careful reflection can you decide if the cost is worth the benefit.

Parting Thoughts

If you’re young and skinny with a raging metabolism, the advice I’m dispensing here will seem like a bitter pill to swallow. There is indeed a price to pay for carrying around more muscle than nature deems sensible. But take solace in the fact that those of us with the opposite challenge would love to have your problem!

So if you’re tired of being skinny, follow the roadmap I’ve just provided, and I assure you you’ll gain as much muscle as your genetics will allow. Just make sure you enjoy the process along the way!

I’m happy to be able to give you another article from Charles Staley, the developer of EDT. In this article Charles talks about the 3 basics of building muscle.

The Can’t-Fail Mass-Gain Triad: Eat Big, Train Big, Sleep Big (Part One)

By Charles Staley, B.Sc, MSS
Director, Staley Training Systems

If you’ve heard the expression “eat big, train big, sleep big” before, you’ve already been exposed to the key components of all successful mass-gaining programs.

If you’ve taken this advice to heart and acted in it, you’ve already experienced the synergistic power of reprogramming your metabolism.

If you haven’t tasted the Kool-Aid yet, what are you waiting for?

The rationale behind the “Big 3″ philosophy is rooted in simple evolutionary biology. If you consider the essential components necessary for successful species-propagation, you arrive at a few inescapable conclusions:

As you flesh through these 3 points, you quickly arrive at the idea physique for survival purposes: “skinny-fat.” So first off, congratulations are in order, because I’m guessing (by virtue of the fact that you’re reading this article), you’ve got the perfect physique for surviving to mating age!

OK, I get it- you just want to be bigger.

Been there, done that- at age 18, I weighed 148 pounds at 6’2″, and I wasn’t particularly lean either (today at age 49 I’m about 213 pound at that same height, and still not particularly lean, but I’m currently carrying about 177 pounds of lean mass, which is more than my total bodyweight was as a skinny 18-year old)

Hopefully I’ve managed to adequately explain the problem- mother nature doesn’t really buy into your plan to get all big and jacked.

Which leads to the solution- you’ve gotta fool ol’ mother nature. And we’re going to do that by convincing her that 1) you actually need more muscle in order to survive (“train big”), and that you’re taking in plenty of food- on a chronic basis- to justify those muscles (“eat big”).

And along the way, we’re going to further pacify your survival safeguards by sleeping big, which serves the purposes of reducing your energy expenditure enough to allow even more additional muscle growth.

Let’s discuss each component of the “Big 3″ equation in more detail…

Training Big

When I speak of training “big,” I’m really talking about adhering to a handful of tactics and principles. These concepts are not controversial, cutting-edge, hard to understand or implement. In other words, they’re not “sexy.” (If you’re among the 87% of readers who just closed this browser window- SEE YA!).

For the rest of you, let’s explore the tried-and true components of successful mass-gaining programs:

1) Restrict your training to multi-joint movements performed with free weights.

All forms of squats, deadlifts, presses, and pull-ups fulfill this requirement. The “non-approved” list is much larger: any & all forms of exercise machines, including pec dec, leg curl, leg extension, and leg press.

Don’t do curls, ab exercises, or calf movements. Also avoid all forms of running, swimming, cycling, aerobics, stretching, and/or dance classes. Refrain from any form of pilates, functional training, spinning, tae-bo, yoga, body pump, and/or any device/method you see on a TV infomercial, including Total Gym, Bowflex, P90X, Hip Hop Abs, The Perfect Pushup, Iron Gym, etc. If I’ve missed anything (and I have, trust me), simply line up the questionable exercise you’re thinking of with the first sentence above: “restrict your training to multi-joint movements performed with free weights.”

2) Train 3-4 days per week.

Not 1, 2, 5, 6, or 7, or any number higher than that (no two-a-days, in other words). Can you train 3 days one week and 4 the next? Yes. This should be the most simple recommendation to understand and follow, so I’ll move on to the next point…

3) On your “work sets,” use weights that are heavy enough to prevent the performance of more than 10 reps in a single effort.

Yes, that means you have a lot of flexibility in the weights you select, and the set/rep brackets you use, all the way from singles with super heavy weights to 10 reps with more moderate weight. There is no single “ideal” set x rep equation- anything in the “10 reps and under” category will prove effective.

What really matters is how many “quality” repetitions you perform in a session. By “quality” I mean reps where you expose large muscles to high tensions. Let’s explore that in just a bit more detail…

Creating High Tensions: Load VS Speed

If you load up a bare to a weight that’s just slightly less than you can lift, and perform one rep, you’ll have exposed your muscles to a very high tension- that’s probably obvious. What’s less obvious to a lot of people is that you can get similarly high tensions by lifting lighter weights.

The way you do this is with acceleration. Using between say, 65 and 75 percent of a weight you could lift only once, performing sets of maybe 2-5 reps per set, using as much controlled speed as possible on the “positive” (concentric) phase of the lift, creates as much tension as a very heavy weight would.

And it’s both safer and more fun to boot. So in your mass-training, use a variety of weights, but always move every rep as fast as possible.

4) Limit (And Time) Your Training Sessions.

Most experts would say that 60 minutes is a maximum ideal length for a weight-training session, but I’ll go out on a limb and use 90 minutes instead.

The reason for my recommendation is that if you’re using effective exercises (as described earlier), you’ll need a relatively large number of warm-up sets before you can tackle your work sets for that exercise. So for example, you don’t need to do much of a warm-up for tricep kickbacks or the adductor machine, but you do need a significant warm-up for a deadlift workout or a heavy bench press session. This is especially true once you get stronger- which you will.

5) Limit each training session to no more than 4 exercises.

The reason for this recommendation is dictated by the previous suggestion regarding workout length. If your total session is limited to 90 minutes, and assuming that you’re using effective exercises as recommended earlier, you’ll only have 22.5 minutes per exercise, and that includes warm-up sets. That’s not a lot of time if you’re working hard. So remember, the recommendation is no more than 4 exercises- in many cases, 3 is even better, and very often 2 exercises per session is absolutely ideal.

It’s not about hitting the muscle from all angles, muscle confusion, or any other bullshit you’ve picked up on the internet somewhere- it’s about picking 1-2, or maybe 3 big, hard movements, and working the piss out of them.

Stay tuned for Part 2!

Today we have an article from Jimmy Smith, the man behind the Muscle Bible, talking about getting big.

How To Build Muscle

By: Jimmy Smith, CSCS,
www.ineedmuscle.com

How to build muscle? Is the question that I am often asked
about. While most people want the magic pill, what they
really need are a few simple tweaks to their training
programs that I am about to outline.

1) There are two things that people can do immediately to
build muscle

A) People can focus on both full body training and body
part splits. We’ve knocked training “arms” for too long but
the only thing that will make us grow is training a muscle
with a big amount of volume. At that same time, we can also
use an upper body day to get stronger. It is the best of
both worlds B) People can sleep more. It sounds simple but
going to bed by 10:30 and not getting up before 6 am will
go a long way in helping us build muscle.

2) Train your legs more. Leg training is so essential for
growing muscle everywhere. By training your legs hard you
raise the anabolic signals in your body that tell you to
grow. Nothing stimulates more muscle heavy squats or
deadlifts. They raise your natural muscle building
hormones, which cause you to grow

3) Use the correct sets and reps. To build muscle we need
to realize that, we have to perform enough volume so we
breakdown muscle then build new muscle. So that being said
I usually advise sets and reps like 4 sets of 8 reps or 6
sets of 4 reps. Remember, low reps can make us grow to
simple because our body adapts to whatever we do for awhile
so we need to change it up.

4) Use this secret trick. First, if everyone isn’t doing
pull-ups or squats then they need to do it right now. My
best piece of advice is to tell everyone to do a back off
set per exercise. For example, if you are training on the
bench press and doing 4 sets of 8 reps then do a 5th set of
20-25 reps. This will push more blood into the muscle which
will force more grow.

Building muscle is all about the quality of your workouts.
Most people get caught up in the typical 3 sets of 10 reps
dogma. While that will work for a certain period of time,
it won’t work forever. In my opinion, the best way to
design your training for growth is to use 4-6 week spurts
of volume phases where you train with sets of 3-4 and reps
of 8-15. For the next 4-6 weeks, you should go with more
sets of 4-6 and lower reps of 5-8. Both of these methods
will lay you to have both muscle and strength gains.

Jimmy Smith,CSCS

Author, Muscle Bible
—————————————————-

Jimmy Smith,CSCS, is the author of the Muscle Bible and is
a training advisor for Men’s Fitness and Maximum Fitness
magazines.His Muscle Bible program has helped thousands of people gain muscle. His muscle building course guarantees that you
will add 10 pounds of  lean muscle onto your frame without drugs, expensive supplements or by spending all day in the gym  or your
money back plus some. His muscle building secrets can be found here.