Build Up Muscle

Build Up Muscle

I’ve written probably over 100 articles on weight loss but nearly as many on building up muscle and yet regardless of age or sex, muscle development is the key to excellent health.

Now I’m not necessarily talking about massive muscle growth but just building pure lean muscle which has great tone and gives that extra touch of sexiness to your body for both women and men.

The best reason for you to build up muscle is that muscle uses energy even in resting state so that means that your body will burn more calories the more muscle you have and this will be accelerated even more during and after exercise.

Even if your whole yearly plan is not about building a large amount of muscle, having a few months a year where you focus on going heavier to build up muscle is a fantastic variation technique that everyone should think about including.

Build Up Muscle: German Volume Training Technique

There are quite a few different variations in how to build up muscle, but the thing is that the greater number of variations we know about and try the greater chance we will be able to build muscle quickly and efficiently. With that said, let’s take a brief look at the German Volume Training approach to really mix things up.

I’ll first introduce you to the technique and then give you some guidelines on how alter it to prevent over-training. Ready?

The German Volume Training technique started in the 70’s and was used by weightlifters to build lean muscle up quickly during the off-season. It is now modernized and used by a number of coaches for a variety of competitive sports, especially ones where muscle strength has a serious advantage to the sport.

The idea is to do 10 sets of 10 reps on each training day. This sounds like a lot to all of us doesn’t it? Well we’re going to give it a twist and allow you to have some down time to allow your muscles to recover and grow because afterall it is during this rest time where growth is optimal if your nutrition is right on.

You’ll want to implement this split schedule which runs on a 5 day cycle:

Day 1 – Arms & Shoulders
Day 2 – Legs & Core
Day 3 – Off
Day 4 – Chest & Back
Day 5 – Off

Therefore on Day 6 you will want to start the cycle over again. Now for a sample routine for you to follow:

Day 1 Up Build Muscle – Arms & Shoulders
10 sets, 10 reps: Dips (view image)
10 sets, 10 reps: Incline Dumbbell Curls (view image)
3 sets 10 reps: Bent over Lateral Raises (view image)
3 sets 10 reps: Seated Dumbbell Lateral Raises (view image)

Day 2 Build Up Muscle – Legs & Core
10 sets, 10 reps: Squats (view image)
10 sets, 10 reps: Lunges (view image)
3 sets 10 reps: Ab Twists (view image)
3 sets 10 reps: Ab Rollouts (view image)

Day 4 Build Up Muscle – Chest & Back
10 sets, 10 reps: Cable Rows (view image)
10 sets, 10 reps: Chest Press (view image)
3 sets 10 reps: Chin Ups (view image)
3 sets 10 reps: Dumbbell Flyes (view image)

There you have it! Now if you’re asking “what about cardio?” then you may want to consider this as a circuit style of training where your rest period is only about 30-60 seconds between exercises which means you will have quite an elevated heart rate.

The thing with a muscle building phase is that it is not a bad idea to limit cardio a little so you can have the greatest muscle gain. If however, you are really concerned about gaining fat, then you can throw in a 8 minute HIIT training session after each workout and continue to do some light cardio on your off days.

Build Up Muscle: Nutrition

Because this workout is fairly intense both your pre-workout nutrition and post-workout nutrition are critical to your success.

For pre-workout try this: 60 minutes before have a ripe banana and a chocolate whey protein smoothie (Try Muscle Pharm’s Assualt or Gaspari Nutrition’s Myofusion for absolutely awesome chocolate flavours).

To give you maximum power and strength, 30 minutes before your workout have an energy matrix drink such as USPLabs Jack3d or Superpump Max.

For post-workout have a branch-chained amino acid recovery drink which will provide your muscles with the amino acids they need for growth & recovery, the best in the market are Scivation Xtend & Muscle Pharm Recon.

Conclusion: Build Up Muscle

I hope you enjoyed this workout plan to help you build up muscle in a very unique manner. If your body is used to the regular old style of workouts this will really spice things up and should show you some incredible results within 4 weeks time. I challenge you to give it a go and leave me a comment below to let me know if you came up with any questions or just mention how it worked for you.