Flat out, around here, we love muscle!  

Muscle for the pure aesthetics of it AND for any other athletic performance goal, be it strength, conditioning, flexibility, speed, agility, explosivity...it's all about MUSCLE.

So how do we  maximize our gainz and get that delicious muscle we all know and love?

Contrary to popular belief, building beautiful, toned and conditioned muscle is more than what you do in a training room. 

For muscles to grow in size, maturity and conditioning (again-for aesthetics or performance) they need to be trained, nourished, hydrated and recovered.

Let’s take a trip down to your muscle fibers and see why that actually is...

When you're training, you're actually destroying the muscle fibers. 

You're coming in like a bulldozer and destroying the cute little town your muscle cells formerly lived in.   That's right; you are causing DESTRUCTION at the cellular level.

And just like a little city that wants to build itself bigger and stronger after attack from its enemies, so too, do your muscle cells!

The cool thing is that your body has it's own built-in systems which fix broken things.  And just like a city undergoing renovation and rebuilding, your body requires resources. 

It needs water to flush out the bad stuff and flood in the good stuff. 

It needs building blocks and a boatload of nutrients to rebuild the muscles bigger and stronger.  It also needs active rehab and recovery time to refresh itself.  

If we could give you the entire sequence in a Muscular DeVelopment script, it'd be like this:  Eat, Train, Eat, Sleep, Repeat.

Sure, there are supplements which augment the process.  But at the end of the day, you still gotta work, eat right and recover. 

Consistently. 

And for a long period of time, because muscle doesn't suddenly "grow" overnight.  

Nutrition and Recovery aside, let's roll out a TRAINING CONCEPT which is KEY to Maximizing Your Gainz:

#1:  If You Train The Same You Stay The Same

If you are performing the same movement over and over, with the same amount of weight, the muscle adapts-it does not increase in size, strength or ability.  It stays EXACTLY the same.  

You must challenge the muscle in new and different ways if you want it to grow. 

Here are a few suggestions you can immediately incorporate to your workout routine to get you started:

• Adopt a new exercise

• Incorporate prefatigue sets

• Use a heavier weight

• Push out more reps

• Slow down the tempo for your reps

• Change the angle of the movements

• Change up your grip (overhand/underhand; wider/narrower; vice/ring finger loading/Spiderman; etc.)

• Use straps, belts, grips and wraps

• Add supersets and/or dropsets

• Bring in some plyometrics, isometrics, and/or resistance bands

The options are literally endless as to what you can do to change things up a bit! 

Challenging your muscles keeps them guessing to spawn their development, and keeps your nervous system fresh, alert and dynamic so that you continue to grow (and don’t get bored!) in every way. 

Growth of any kind never comes from a comfort zone.  Change it up and get ready to Embrace Your Gainz!