8 Weight-Lifting Fixes for More Muscle (article)

YassSpartan

8 Weight-Lifting Fixes for More Muscle

I'm a sports-performance coach. For 20 years, I've been hanging around in gyms, coaching thousands of football, basketball, and track-and-field athletes on how to build muscle and lose weight. I show up before the gym rats and leave after they jump ship. And that means I've seen every mistake that is humanly possible to make. Stupid mistakes. Dangerous mistakes. And maybe worst of all, time-wasting mistakes.

Time is always a crucial factor, whether a guy is trying to survive training-camp cuts or hustling back to the office before the boss puts him in for the next round of layoffs. Save a minute, add more muscle. It's a principle you can build on.

Here are the most common mistakes I see in the gym. Let this be the last time I warn you.

1- You Don't Use a Training Log

It's hard to break records that don't exist. So invest in a clipboard. Then focus on lifting more total weight each workout. It's the key to building muscle. Here's how: Multiply the amount of weight you lift for each exercise by the total number of times you lift it. Then increase that number every workout by moving heavier weights, increasing your repetitions, or doing more sets. So if in your last workout you did three sets of 10 repetitions of the bench press with 150 pounds, your total to beat is 4,500. Accomplish that goal by doing four sets instead of three, 11 repetitions instead of 10, 155 pounds instead of 150, or a combination of the three.

Beginners take note: Training logs aren't just for the big fellas. In a 2002 study, YMCA researchers found that 70 percent of exercisers who set goals stuck with their programs for the entire year. By contrast, three-quarters of those who didn't set goals dropped out.

Read more: http://www.menshealth.com/mhlists/get_more_muscle/