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I read a bunch of different things saying 10-15 reps, 4 sets and a heavy set, and others saying all heavy sets for 4-7 reps... What will give me the quickest muscle mass gain?
No simple way of gaining muscle quick. Muscle gain is dependent on your genetics and lifting experience. Gaining mass in general is quick though. Mass is defined as a combination of fat AND muscle so eating 300-500 calories over maintenance will help you gain weight.
Generally, to build muscle you have to utilize many different methods to stimulate different muscle fibers. The slow-twitch muscle fibers (white) are more for slower reps to build strength and the fast-twitch fibers (red) are used more for endurance and stretching the fascia to expand the size of the muscle.
Rep ranges and set numbers are also variables that ALWAYS change. If you're wanting to grow bigger in size or strength, you need to understand how Progressive Overload works. This is a method of stimulating muscle growth through constant tension on the muscles. Either through increase in reps, weight, or increase in both.
Rep ranges fall in this category in Bodybuilding: 1-6 = Strength 7-10 = Size and Strength (more size) 11-20 = Endurance and definition.
NOTE: When doing endurance rep ranges, the muscle adapts by making itself smaller to last longer.
I generally do a mix of both strength and size. On compound exercises (Bench/Squat/Deadlift) I try to stay in the 5-8 rep range while increasing 5-10lb. every 2 weeks. On exercises such as Flyes or Preacher Curls where the muscle is isolated, I stick to the 8-12 rep range to build slightly more size without increasing strength since the muscles are too small to see any increase in strength anyway.
As someone who's well into their 10th month of bodybuilding and 2nd year of lifting, I recommend that you go on a 3-4 day split to start off with. This will help you get accustomed to lifting and making better gains before you can go off on your 5-day or 6-day splits. Also, for bigger muscle groups such as the Back or Chest or Legs, you really only need 2-3 exercises with 3-5 sets each. The smaller muscles like Biceps and Triceps, need only 1-2 exercises with 3-5 sets.
The most mass gain you'll see regardless of how you train though, will come from diet. Eating over maintenance and getting lots of protein in the body and fat will help you gain more weight.
General Rules of Training: 1. Heavy Compounds - 1-8 reps with good form 2. Keep big muscles to 2-3 exercises and smaller ones to 1-2 exercises 3. Abs and calves are the two that can be worked everyday, but don't need to be since they are used in other moves 4. Lift with a purpose, don't be THAT guy who only cares about arms 5. Rest 60-180 seconds depending on how heavy you go
General Rules of Nutrition: 1. Meal frequency and timing doesn't matter. As long as the body gets all its needed nutrition for the day, it will grow/burn fat/whatever 2. Get 1-1.5g of protein/lb., 2-3g of carbs/lb., and .3-.5g of fat/lb. 3. Fat is NEEDED. Saturated fats is good for testosterone. Fat in general is important to sustain insulin spikes to send nutrients to the muscles. 4. You WILL gain fat. No such thing as gaining 100% muscle. You WILL lose your abs. If you don't want that, then gaining mass will be hard and will take almost 4-12 months of time. 5. Eating carbs at night is fine. Eating fat is fine. The two main nutrients you want to be eating is fat and protein. Carbs can make up the rest. This is because carbs are not needed by the body, but they are easily digested for quick energy.
Good 3-Day Splits: Push/Pull/Legs Madcow's 5x5 Starting Strength
Good 4-day Splits: PHAT Legs/Shoulders and Tries/Chest/ Back and Bi's
Remember this my friend: Train like a champion, Eat like a king, and sleep like a baby. That is the secret to big muscles.
My father and mother both were body builders. To bulk mass, you first need to look internally for mass, and feed those muscles with Protein. Second, You want heavy weights. Close to but not quite your max out weight. Max out is the heaviest weight you an possibly lift ONCE. So if you can bench 210 and do 3 reps, I would stick around there. If you can do 5, I would reccomend going up a few lbs until you can only do 3 possible reps. Keep doing this until you get to 5. If you can do 5, go up weight. I would reccomend going up by 5-10 lbs at a time, and test its weight. If its not enough, keep going. Make sure your motions are slow, controlled, and with deep controled breathing. I would say do 3 reps, set it out for 5-10 minutes, when ever you feel comfortable, and then do another set of 3 reps. Do this 3 or 4 times. Dont over exhert yourself. And ALWAYS drink lots of water and give yourself down time by only excersising like this every other day. You have to give your muscles recovery time so the muscle can repair. If you are sore the day after that, just do one or two reps, and one or two sets. Just work through the soreness of the muscles, but Please be aware of your body, as you could experiance joint pain, which is different and should not be taken lightly.
to gain muscles doing low reps with high weights is best, reps should be 8- 10. but it really depends on the type of workout schedule u r following. like if u doing a low to high weight exercise routine than i start with 12 reps and then increase weight and decrease reps to 10, 8, 6 all the way to 2 or even 1 rep sometimes. this makes it like 7 sets for me. but on the avg 3 sets of one exercise is good the 7 set routine, i do it sometimes to give my muscle a shock. u gotta give ur muscles a shock every once in a while so that they don't get used to the same kinda workout everyday andstop progressing
theres is this training called Tabata training and it can be used for both running or lifting weights,but when you lift weights,it works best if you do an exercise that work multiple muscle groups,like squats.but you can use the traditional interval training aswell, i hope i helped dude
http://funadvice.com/r/15c5epoukv9
I have never heard of 4-7 reps :s but I'm pretty sure doing 10-15 would be using stamina and that won't build muscles so I would do 4-7 reps with 5 sets
