Super-Charge your Muscle Mass Building WorkoutsHere are some tips on supercharging your muscle mass building workouts. From now on you'll be leaving the gym with a huge pump. Give yourself some time before a workout to digest, in order to maximize your efforts in the gym. Training on a full stomach will limit you from performing certain exercises... mainly when working the abs or doing cardio. Another reason why you might want to wait for at least one after your meal is that more growth hormones are released when training on a semi-empty stomach. You'll notice that you get bigger pumps this way. Drink water while working out. There is no rule in my book as to how much water you should drink and how often during muscle mass building workouts. I tell people to drink whenever they're thirsty. But if you'd prefer following a specific guideline, I would suggest drinking a few sips of water after every 3 sets or so. This will help keep you energized and your muscles looking more pumped. If you're using crazy heavy weights (which is something I don't suggest) give yourself a good 3 minutes rest in between sets. You don't want to wait much longer than that because you'll lose momentum. Three minutes gives you enough time to recuperate your strength without losing that natural flow of lifting heavy. Also, if you wait too long your pumps will not be as big by the end of the workout. Conversely, if you lift heavy but wait only 30 seconds, for example, you're risking burning out the muscles being worked (which limits their growth) or worse, injury. You shouldn't feel tired when working out. If you often do, that's probably a sign that you're not waiting long enough in between sets. You may even want to try decreasing the weights a little. I can't stress enough how important it is to feel strong throughout your entire muscle mass building workout. If you feel weak, then that means you're not in control... And if you're not in control, you are not training to your maximum potential, and you are also increasing your chances of getting hurt. If you're using light to moderately heavy weights, then you want to wait about 30-90 seconds in between sets. There are many factors to take into account when training, and you're looking to have perfect harmony between all of them. Of course, you can choose to change one factor, but then most likely every other factor will have to change as well. Always listen to your body. Only you know when the best time to start your next set will be. The second you feel re-energized and anxious to start the next set, you're ready. Have a training partner there to spot you. I suggest this mostly for beginners. Get someone with at least a few years experience to spot you for your heaviest sets and especially for press exercises (ex: bench press, overhead barbel press, etc). This will allow you to push yourself to your max... which is something I live by when it comes to weight training. Personally, I hardly ever use a spot anymore because I don't go heavy relative to other guys my size. Still, I always push my muscles to the point of exhaustion. This could be dangerous when using excessively heavy weights, but like I said... I go light. It's my little trick. I get a better pump then most people this way. You can get a great pump by lifting moderately heavy weights, as long as someone is there to help you through the sticking points. I hope these tips will help bring your muscle mass building workouts to the next level.
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