You already know what a barbell looks like and what you need to do on a Scott bench. Now it's time to start an adult conversation about what your workout should be like and how to properly shape and pump up your muscles.
You are no longer new to the gym, and you can even distinguish a pronated grip from a supinated one, however, all this is child’s play, and it’s time for you to learn everything about how to pump up your body at any age, even at 20 or 40 years old.
A complete guide from a professional to creating an intensive, smart training program. You'll learn concepts such as training load and volume, and learn how to optimize your workouts to achieve maximum results. The training complex for the whole body will be divided into 3 days according to the split format:
- How to pump up your chest and back muscles
- How to pump up the muscles of your shoulders and legs
- How to pump up arm muscles
How to quickly build up body muscles
The initial desire “I want to pump up”, thanks to which you got into the gym in the first place, should grow over time and transform into the desire to pump up correctly and avoid unnecessary injuries. Proper muscle development is based on knowledge of technique, load distribution, volumes, well-structured rest intervals and knowledge of body biomechanics.
When determining the intensity level to create an effective training program for the advanced, there are three things you need to think about first. These are volume, loads and avoiding overtraining.
Using different weights and different numbers of sets can be difficult, but it will allow you to overcome plateaus and not just build muscle properly, but maximize your genetic potential.
These variations can also change as you train different parts of the body, depending on your individual weaknesses.
Your goal in building your individual periodization strategy should be to reach an optimal level of training, accompanied by the effect of supercompensation. At this stage, you can plan no more than 3-4 strength exercises per week with the addition of supporting activities: yoga, cardio, stretching, trekking, swimming, etc. to improve your aerobic and general endurance.
The structure of strength training can be built in a split format, dividing the work of target muscle groups on different days, or follow circuit training for the whole body. In our article we recommend split training. Try this intensive three-day program for more advanced athletes.
Chest and back muscle training
We recommend starting each strength training session by working the abdominal muscles with one or two exercises. This way you will warm up your body perfectly and effectively load one of the most important muscles - the rectus and oblique abdominal muscles.
Three simple steps to get ripped muscles at home
When starting training, athletes want not only to become bigger, but also to give their muscles clear definition. Looking better and more attractive is the main reason why people go to the gym. This determines the priority of finding the most effective way to give muscles definition.
Many beginners try to independently search for supplements, exercise programs, diets and other means that allow them to achieve the coveted relief. However, if you are not a professional bodybuilder, you can try many methods and still not find one that really works. And in order not to waste precious time, get acquainted with three simple but truly effective methods and secrets of how to pump up your relief.
Strength Equipment Doesn't Guarantee Success
Raising weights, working out on exercise machines, and regularly visiting the fitness center are not priorities in pumping up muscles. You can build a sculpted body without the use of specialized strength equipment, by working out not in the gym, but at home.
What needs to be done for this?! It is necessary to take up aerobics closely, borrow exercises from rhythmic gymnastics for your training, and do not forget about the importance of quality nutrition, without going beyond the recommended diet. If you strictly follow these recommendations, then one hundred percent results are guaranteed.
Day 1 - Chest and Back
Body Twist - Russian Twist
- 4 sets of 20 reps
- Body Part: Press Equipment: No
Incline Dumbbell Press
- 4 sets of 12,10,8,8 repetitions
- Body part: Chest Equipment: Dumbbells
Dumbbell flyes lying on an incline bench
- 3 sets of 10-12 reps
- Body part: Shoulders Equipment: Dumbbells
Bringing hands together in crossover
- 3 sets of 12 reps
- Body Part: Chest Equipment: Block
Pull-ups
- 4 sets of 12,10,8,8 repetitions
- Body Part: Lat Equipment: Bodyweight
Reverse grip pull-ups
- 3 sets of 8-10 reps
- Body Part: Lat Equipment: Bodyweight
Downward pull of the upper block
- 3 sets of 10-12 reps
- Body part: Lat Equipment: Block
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Shoulder and leg muscle training
Today is the main day of the week and you are working some of the most difficult muscles. Starting traditionally with the abs, I recommend doing 2-3 shoulder exercises at the beginning of your workout. This will allow you to accurately control the trajectory of movement, better feel your body and avoid losing control of the technique.
If desired, add a seated dumbbell press, a military press, or a Smith machine to the complex for a general workout of all the shoulder girdles.
Equipment for full training at home
Let's take a closer look at how to pump up at home, and where to start training? This requires a small amount of time and knowledge of the exercises.
The purchased equipment will help make pumping your body in a rocking chair at home more effective:
- Dumbbells with the ability to change weight. The heaviest one should weigh at least 32 kg.
- Karimat is a fitness mat. Needed for performing abdominal exercises.
- Horizontal bar. Now you can purchase a removable one or install a stationary one in the doorway.
- Bars. Houses are attached to the wall.
- Elastic bands with varying degrees of elasticity.
What to replace it with?
What to do to properly pump up your body muscles at home if you don’t have all the necessary tools?
Undoubtedly, in every apartment or house there are chairs with high backs - after strengthening them, you can use them as bars. Calf exercises can be performed using stair steps or high thresholds. With our legs tucked under the bed, we do sit-ups, crunches, and exercises for the back muscles. You can use any convenient items as free weights: plastic bottles filled with water or sand, pipe scraps. For weighted squats we use a heavy backpack.
It is strictly not recommended to use electronics or pets as cargo. Well, in order to effectively pump up muscles at home, don’t forget to create a program or use a developed set of exercises.
Day 2 - shoulders and legs
Crunches
- 4 sets of 20 reps
- Body Part: Press Equipment: No
Raising dumbbells in front of you
- 3 sets of 10-12 reps
- Body part: Shoulders Equipment: Dumbbells
Standing dumbbell lateral raises
- 2 sets of 10-12 reps
- Body part: Shoulders Equipment: Dumbbells
Elevated Back Lunges
- 3 sets of 12-15 reps
- Body part: Quadriceps Equipment: Barbell
Lunges with barbell to the side
- 3 sets of 12-15 reps
- Body part: Quadriceps Equipment: Barbell
Smith machine deadlift with straight legs
- 4 sets of 15 reps
- Body part: Hamstrings Equipment: Exercise
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Arm muscle training
At the end of the week, you will have the most enjoyable training. Your arms have been waiting in reserve and feel great after a few days of break after training the pectoral muscles and back, where their role was high. Start with the abdominal muscles and gradually move from joint to isolation exercises. It is advisable to finish with forearm training and a good warm-up.
Day 3 - hands
Crunches at the upper block while kneeling, working the oblique muscles
- 4 sets of 15 reps
- Body Part: Press Equipment: Block
Barbell curl
- 4 sets of 10 reps
- Body part: Biceps Equipment: Barbell
Alternating dumbbell curls while standing
- 2 sets of 12 reps
- Body part: Biceps Equipment: Dumbbells
Barbell curl
- 3 sets of 10 reps
- Body part: Biceps Equipment: Barbell
Dips
- 4 sets of 10 reps
- Body part: Triceps Equipment: Body weight
Seated French press
- 3 sets of 10-12 reps
- Body part: Triceps Equipment: Dumbbells
Wrist curl with a barbell while sitting on a bench, palms up
- 3 sets of 15-20 reps
- Body part: Forearms and wrists Equipment: Barbell
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Muscle recovery
A mandatory element of quickly pumping up your muscles is stretching after training. There is never enough time or energy for them, and the effect is not visible to the naked eye. But truly this one addition to your training routine will take you to the next level.
Bodymaster.ru recommends Fitness Trainers:
Just the fact that all the professionals, like bodybuilders, lifters, and CrossFitters, emphasize this advice in their interviews should pique your interest in stretching. We offer the following complex.
The next element of rapid muscle recovery is a personal massage roller. A full body myofascial massage will be a quality addition to your post-workout muscle stretches.
The theory of “anatomical trains” has quite confidently proven the importance of fascial massage for the speedy recovery of the body, and the location of functional lines in the body suggests which parts of the body should be trained in combination with each other.
Finally, your recuperative repertoire should include a relaxing massage for athletes at least once a week.
Three effective steps towards building a sculpted body
First step
Doing bodyweight exercises
If for some reason there is no opportunity to go to the gym, then this training will replace working on specialized sports equipment
Push-ups, pull-ups, squats, bends, lifts and lunges are the most accessible exercises to perform at home. To increase muscle mass, do rhythmic exercises three to five times a week.
Tip: Be sure to take rest between workouts. As the intensity of daily exercise increases, the likelihood of fat burning increases. In order to build muscle while burning fat and excess calories, you need to maintain the intensity of the rhythmic gymnastics performed.
Step two
Cardio, aerobics
Aerobics will allow you to get rid of excess fat easily and simply.
The recommended training intensity is up to five times every seven days. The best way to start is to practice for thirty minutes. You can try brisk walks or cycling. If there is a need to constantly reduce body fat, the intensity is increased.
Important to know: Low-intensity exercise helps you get rid of fat calories, while high-intensity exercise, such as sprinting and running, helps you get rid of calories. Knowing these nuances when performing cardio training allows you to maintain a high metabolic rate for a longer time.
Step three
Proper nutrition
Eating five or six times a day may seem quite strange to many. However, those who want to gain muscle definition should adhere to just such a schedule. Moreover, the number of servings eaten is much more important than the contents.
General recommendations:
- Eating small meals frequently speeds up metabolism and reduces hunger;
- before and after each workout you need to consume proteins with carbohydrates;
- create portions that include foods with healthy fats, complex carbohydrates, and proteins.
Remember:
- You need to eat foods that do not contain extraneous additives, ingredients such as fats, sugar, salt, which can lead to disruption of the overall healthy eating plan.
- Increased activity not only during training periods, but also an active lifestyle throughout the day leads to muscle growth.
- Maintaining a normal weight and avoiding problems with extra pounds allows you to consume fewer calories than required. The main thing is not to overdo it. Excessively reducing the nutritional value of foods can lead to muscle loss.
How to properly pump up body muscles
Having dealt with training, let's look at how methods of varying intensity and alternating loads shape our muscles.
Increasing training intensity
There are various ways to pump up, but brave and determined guys are only interested in effective techniques.
Let's figure out how ways to pump up muscles with training of varying intensity can lead to the formation of a sculpted body. The need to constantly increase the intensity of training is ignored not only by the average gym goer, many experienced bodybuilders and competition participants also do not understand it. No matter what your fitness level, you all need to remember one thing: intensity is the key to progress.
If you do 4 sets of 10 reps of squats every day with the same weight for several months or - scary to think - years without trying to increase the intensity of the training, then you will not see strong muscles. Simply because your body will not put any effort into changing muscle size.
Just because you gain a little size after a workout doesn't mean you're stimulating muscle growth. This is especially important for experienced athletes, because after people have trained consistently for years, extreme measures must be taken to significantly improve performance and build huge muscles.
When it comes to preparation, the term "intensity" takes on many different meanings. When designing a workout, it is necessary to increase and decrease the intensity of the program in all its forms to pump up the muscles and avoid overtraining.
To do this, monitor your body condition daily, do orthostatic tests, especially after hard days. Knowing how your body reacts to different levels of intensity will allow you to use many different methods to increase muscle growth and properly tone your body.
Load planning
It is believed that for muscle size it is better to work with heavy weights in a small repetition range. This type of load will allow you to improve your strength, but you can’t expect a huge increase in muscle mass from such training.
The second option is to work with light weights and high reps. In this case, you increase muscle hypertrophy, leaving strength indicators at the same level.
It is a mistake to work only in one range, using only one type of load. A serious training program for experienced athletes should include heavy, medium and light loads.
To build muscle over a long period of time and make progress, use the progression method.
Increasing the maximum weight used for both high and low repetitions should be the ultimate goal of any training program, because this alone is one of the most important factors in pumping up huge muscles in the body.
Volume increase
The volume of strength training is the sum of the exercises performed and the weight of the weight. If your goal is to maximize volume and build huge muscles, use high intensity and high volume training. This will allow another mechanism to be involved in the process - hyperplasia.
Unlike hypertrophy, which increases the size of your existing muscle cells, hyperplasia helps increase their number.
However, despite such super efficiency, a sharp and frequent increase in the number of approaches and repetitions can cause overtraining.
The best option here is to maximize muscle growth with high-volume training and do periodic low-volume training to ensure your body can keep up with the muscle-building demands you place on it.
Muscle failure
In this method of pumping up the body, you can use both large and small weights.
The set will simply continue until the point where another repetition can no longer be completed correctly without the help of a spotter partner. Training to muscle failure helps achieve more impressive results than with approaches stopped early. Although working to muscle failure is more effective, stopping the set shortly before failure can also produce large amounts of growth.
This is because the determining factor for muscle growth is overload, not failure. Constantly lifting heavy weights for varying numbers of repetitions will overload the muscles and speed up adaptation.
So how should you train? Strength growth does not always move steadily upward at an even pace; often its changes are similar to the ebb and flow of the tides. Therefore, training programs for experienced bodybuilders should contain both sets to failure and sets close to failure, as well as regular working sets.
Many of the benefits of training to failure can be reaped by performing sets very close to the point of failure. In this case, stopping the approach 1-2 repetitions before failure will sufficiently stimulate the muscle fibers without overloading the nervous system.
Rest periods between sets
Most bodybuilders use standard rest periods that they enjoy, staying within that comfort zone at all times. However, rest periods are another tool that can be used to increase the intensity of your workout and effectively pump up your body.
The length of rest between sets is directly related to how much energy is available to the muscles at the beginning of the next set. Rest of about 3 minutes after the approach allows the muscles to recover almost 100%, thanks to which you can use almost maximum weight in each approach.
This is why athletes involved in strength sports rest for so long between approaches. The use of long rest should be especially included in the training program for beginner bodybuilders, as this will help achieve progressive overload, and therefore the desired development of muscles throughout the body.
However, shorter rest periods of 60-90 seconds will restore approximately 85-90% of energy while having a greater impact on growth hormone levels than longer rest periods. Short breaks work great if the training is targeting hypertrophy with moderate to low load, high reps and high volume.
Research shows that the most dramatic increases in growth hormone occur when pumping muscles with a minimum of 10 reps per set and rest periods of 45 to 60 seconds.
If you want to experience consistent, sustainable muscle growth for years to come, remember these basic principles of load, volume, rest time and failure, and adjust them as needed.
Frequently asked questions and answers
Do I need to do push-ups every day if I want to build muscle?
It is better to distribute your workouts so as not to repeat the same thing every day. If you do the same exercises every day, your muscles do not have time to recover and grow. Try doing legs one day and upper body another.
How can I burn fat faster?
Interval training, also known as high-intensity interval training (HIIT), is the best way to burn calories through exercise. Take a look at this article that tells you how to do it: How to Do Intense Workouts. In addition to this, the most important factor in weight control is diet, so eat wisely.
What type of exercise should a teenager do to build upper body muscles?
Push-ups or pull-ups on a horizontal bar are a good option, but you can also use barbells and dumbbells, but be sure to use the correct technique.
I weigh 90 kg, how long will it take me to get pumped up?
The same as everyone else. The question is how quickly you can lose fat so that the muscles are visible. This depends on many factors, ranging from height and physical shape to what you eat and what you are generally willing to do for it.
Should you train on an empty stomach if your goal is to lose weight and if you want to gain weight, or is it better to eat something before training?
Sufficient time should pass from the moment you eat (from 30 minutes to 1 hour), but you do not need to exercise on an empty stomach, even if you want to burn subcutaneous fat. Everything will depend on the total caloric intake per day. If there is a calorie deficit, you will lose weight; if there is a surplus, you will gain weight. Also, be sure to drink fluids before you begin exercising.
What should be included in a diet for a thin person?
Lots of fruits, green vegetables and whole grains. Eat protein-rich foods such as eggs, chicken, farm cheese, fish, etc. Eat healthy fats, including a variety of nuts and egg yolks. Reduce your sugar intake. Work harder.
I'm a skinny teenager. Can I do the exercises described above?
Yes, these exercises are suitable for thin people. Accompany these activities with a good diet, and you can easily gain several kilograms of muscle.
How long will it take before the muscles become noticeable?
It depends on genetics. For some it is easier to gain muscle, for others it is more difficult. In general, it will take at least three months before you notice any growth. However, you can feel the difference much earlier.
Do I need to take any nutritional supplements to promote muscle growth?
The main thing is what you eat: you need to maintain a ratio of 50% carbohydrates, 35% protein, the rest is healthy fats. Some people add quality protein to their shakes or oatmeal to increase their protein intake. Read more in the article about which supplements are best for gaining muscle mass.
How long will it take to get results?
The first results can be seen in 1-2 months.
I'm pretty fat (but not fat), what diet should I choose and what should I eat if I train at home?
You'd better focus on protein foods and sources of complex carbohydrates, as well as vegetables and fruits. Eliminate sweets, flour and fast food to avoid gaining excess weight in the form of fat. If you are satisfied with the volume of the available mass, then you should try to dry it. Read what drying is and how to do it correctly, or try cardio as your main workout.
How can I build muscle during rehab?
It is better to engage in recovery and only then move on to gaining weight, so as not to harm your health.
Is it possible to build muscle at 40?
All of these aspects of training depend on each other, and if one is adjusted, then all the others must also be adjusted accordingly. Those who aspire to be true bodybuilders must be more conscious when increasing the intensity of their training.
This set of recommendations gives the most complete picture of strength training technology and opens the doors of the gym for both young and older athletes. There is no restriction to start building muscle at 40 or 50 years old.
Getting pumped up and sculpted muscles for a man or woman after 40 years of age is no more difficult than for a young person. More often than not, older athletes are more disciplined, while younger athletes find it more difficult to put together a training program. A person with an established career can afford sports supplements and the right amount of rest time and massages, while young guys are most often limited in this.
The human body easily adapts to everything, and if new conditions are not given to it, it will have no incentive to change. Try to create a plan that challenges you with its high intensity and have fun training.
Still in doubt? Watch the training of Alexander Yashankin, one of the brightest popularizers of bodybuilding in the CIS.
Sports nutrition will help speed up the process of quickly pumping muscles - proteins, creatines, gainers, arginines, BCAA, amino acids. These supplements are specially designed for athletes and fitness-active people of different fitness levels. Such drugs are completely safe, and their effectiveness has already been proven.
The Ideal Strategy for Building Muscle
Focus on strength training
They do not require a lot of exercise. It is better to immediately select several of the most progressive trainings, increasing the weight every week.
Don't neglect proper nutrition
Even the best cardio workout will not help you get rid of body fat if your diet is poor. Without a properly composed menu, all training, loads and other efforts will be completely in vain. In other words, the energy and time spent will not bring results.
To avoid feeling hungry, include complex carbohydrates in your menu and do not violate the established regular nutrition plan. You can maintain muscle glycogen by consuming five grams of carbohydrates for every two sets you perform.
Do strength training
A particularly important point for those who adhere to a strict diet. Strength exercises allow you not only to build, but also to maintain muscle tone, without requiring any special effort.
It is enough to perform simple lifts two to four times a week. If this is the first experience for a novice athlete, you can choose a basic strength training program and master it.
Run twice a week
Running does not take up much time and easily fits into the routine of even busy people. Beginners who have never done any activity before should start running at a slow pace. Weekly jogging quickly burns fat, the disappearance of which allows the muscles to show their definition.
The amount of cardio exercise directly depends on genetic predisposition. Some people require little or no exercise to lose fat; others, on the contrary, need to make maximum efforts. Regardless of this, it is the load received while running that allows you to lose “extra fat” in a short time.
