What is the most important thing to do to gain muscle?

This post has been edited by alien9: Jun 19 2013, 10:52 PM

Calories @ food. If you don't gain muscle, you eat more. It's that simple. I read another post from you at another thread and at 1500 calorie maintenance per day, that is for male children's level.

So what is you current priorities here? You are at 25%bf and you want to gain muscle mass or you want to lose those bf%? You want to gain muscle mass yet you want to keep the bf% stagnant? Nope, you can't do that. How ever clean is your bulking, you'll get that bf% increase no matter what.

If you do read more on nutrition, you'll know that you need calorie surplus to gain mass. You've tried 6 months of eating at calorie maintenance and you gain no muscle mass at all. I don't think that you need a clearer proof to that 2nd part that I've bolded that what you have been told is wrong.

You know, there are a lot of what people says out there. Feels free to take whatever they said but when you have tested yourself the theory that people out there have said and it fail, you need to move on. No point of keep trusting what they say and what you've read but you gain nothing from it.

Trust me man. You should at least able to see the result within 2 weeks for muscle gain because of the newb effects. If you don't see any result in 3 months, you won't be seeing any result within the next 3 months. Heck, you strength gain will also hampered. You even lose bf% while on your current calorie intake.

Why don't you try this, consume more than 1500kcal for 2 weeks, see whether you'll gain any muscle mass. Then if not, you can go back to test your previous theory. 2 weeks ain't that long compared to 3 months no?

Sure do that. 2 weeks, not a long time to do some experiment right?

If I'm on cutting plan, I would have a 7 days of calorie deficit, same goes if I have a bulking plan. Even if I'm having a cheat day, those cheat meal must be within my caloric requirement. That's how you stay true towards your goal

NP at all. Do update once the 2 weeks period have ended

I guess it's gonna be awkward for me to comment here

1. Strength gain =/= muscle gain to a certain limit. You can still gain strength if you are not in calorie surplus but you can't gain hypertrophy is a non calorie surplus environment. That is why I advise you about it earlier on.

2. Choose your goal. Pick either bulking or cutting but non of those two because it have opposite objective. If you feel that you need muscle mass, do bulking but do remember that you'll gain fat along the way. If you feels that your 25% bf is a huge number for you, do cutting. Pick a goal, pick a phase.

3. Pick a goal either gain muscle mass or lose the 25%. Pick either one, choose the phase. You are currently have two objectives that are opposite of each other. Yes, you can do both of them tbh and it's called recomp but even Mikehuan said he got little clue about it (he is much more senior than me here).

You should try to have not so much of calorie deficit or you'll burn more than you bf. 10%-20% calorie deficit is the safe range. More than that, you'll lose muscle mass as per what happened to you.

Of course you need intensity in your routine. Most of the time, a routine will dictate how much rest you need between each sets (you can refer to 'Blood and Guts' by Dorian Yates). If you are on a bodybuilding splits, 30sec - 1 min is the range of rest time recommended between each sets, But if you are squatting 400lbsx6 for example, you do need more rest time to recuperate.

Of course it is okay. You need to at least let your muscle rest for 2 days before training it again. If you done back for yesterday, do chest today and tomorrow train leg, then shoulder and repeat the same pattern for next week. That would be called a split routine.

I just brought my girlfriend to the gym with me on last Friday and the first exercise that I thought her is Squat

During my 2 years on and off weightlifting, I always involved my gf to become part of my changing lifestyle. At first, she don't want to join but she do lots of cooking for me. 2 extra large chicken breast with sambal tuckked with cheese, lots and lots of mee goreng for my macro intake you named it. Then, you show your progress to here. Ask her to google some stuff for you (I asked her to learn 'deep tissue massage ). Let her be part of your weightlifting lifestyle and sooner than later, she'll come to join you.

No use forcing her or trying to change her mind and straight go to the gym. Women, it's hard to change her mindset

She's got quite an ass, but I want them to be more firmer

This post has been edited by alien9: Jul 2 2013, 02:53 PM

That is the after pic that I am gunning for her. With that ass, I'm gonna follow here where she'll go

You can set your leg training anytime you want tbh. But if you trully train your leg, expect that you'll have some tough time playing futsal during the night or the next day. What I would suggest is that you find a fix time for your futsal game (it hard if your team is the kind of 'on call' for futsal game) and then try to slot in the leg day and give it a 1 day rest at least.

Some of the methods that you can try.

1. Pause reps. Re rack the weight and take a 10 sec pause, and then continue to lift.
2. Ask for spot. For the last set, ask someone to spot you and try to get to your intended reps.

For above methods, it would be best for you to assume that you didn't complete the set normally you need to repeat it again on the next workout.

3. Stop at 6. Next workout aim for clean 8 reps.

If you do concern about your micronutrition, then go ahead take Animal Paks. It gives a lot of vits.

Them micronutrition? I don't think most people who even count the calories of their food counts the micro-nutrition that comes with the food. You can try the animal pak and I'm sure that you will get something out of it. The magnesium, zinc is part of ZMA supps so more or less Animal Pak is one tube of micronutrition greatness.

Who said that high calorie food have high sugar? Almonds, nuts are calorie dense food but they don't have sugars in it.

I've done SL 5x5 as my 1st training routine. Cannot say much about that when my diet was effing bad when I just started weightlifting. Then I did a few researches and interestingly I found out that muscle imbalance can appear from SL 5x5 and Starting Strength as both of these focused just purely on compound (no accessory training like Weider 5/3/1). Maybe it's true, I'm currently not at the level of judging workout routine / programme.

But if you want both size and strength, you can try for PHAT by Dr. Layne Norton. He created a workout routine for Power and Hypertrophy, a 5 intense and heavy ass days workout routine.