Sunday 4 August 2013

Natural Muscle Gain: 4 Myths

By Sean Nalewanyj


If you want to dedicate yourself to natural muscle gain, you cannot follow everyone's advice. As fitness and bodybuilding is a billion-dollar industry, there is an ever growing number of websites that appear daily pushing some "breakthrough" workout or supplement. 

You can accomplish your goals without the "magic" pills, powders or "miracle" workouts pushed by "experts" out to make money fast.

Use extreme caution when soliciting advice; bad advice can completely negate your progress.

In order to get natural muscle gain, be certain to avoid these 4 bodybuilding myths. 

Myth #1: You can only obtain muscle gain by getting a "pump". How large your muscles become is based on how much of a pump you get. 


A “pump” describes the sensation you receive when blood is trapped in your muscle tissue during a workout. As a result, your muscles look bigger and you feel stronger, thicker, and tighter. 

Although a pump feels great, it doesn't promote natural muscle gain by increasing the size of your muscles. 

Having more blood flowing to muscle tissue is just a natural product of physical exertion and has no bearing on how successful your weight gain workout is. The only way to measure your progress is by documenting your workout sessions. You will know if you are achieving natural muscle gain when you are lifting heavier weight weights for more reps.

Myth #2: Once you start building muscle, you can kiss speed and flexibility goodbye. 


In fact, gaining lean muscle mass with dramatically improve your speed. 

Your muscles control all of your movements, including running, jumping, and throwing. Ultimately, when you gain muscle mass you can increase the amount of force you apply to these movements. 

You can throw a ball farther with stronger and bigger shoulders just like you can run faster with stronger legs.

Myth #3: It is essential that you maintain perform form. 


While good technique is a must for your workouts, constantly stressing over using perfect form will not help you achieve natural muscle gain. If you always seek to use perfect form, you increase your chances of injury while lowering how much you stimulate and stress your muscles. 

It is far more beneficial and important that your movements are done in a natural manner when you are weight training. This could vary from including a bit of back sway during curls or including some body momentum when doing barbell rows. 

Myth #4: You can only gain muscle mass when you "feel the burn”.


This is another myth with no basis in reality. That "burning" sensation is just the result of the accumulation of lactic acid (a metabolic waste product) into your muscle tissue when you exercise.

Instead of promoting natural muscle gains, lactic acid accumulation may actually work to hinder muscle gains. Limit your sets to 5 to 7 reps instead of the more commonly used 12 or more to decrease lactic acid secretion.

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