How to build massive strong muscles without steroids

WHY DO WE DO THIS TO OURSELVES? WE EXERCISE WITHOUT KNOWING WHAT WE ARE DOING, OR IF WHAT WE ARE DOING, IS GOING TO HELP US GET WHAT WE NEED. WE MINDLESSLY ATTEND THE GYM AND DO A CLASS OF SOMETHING OR OTHER HOPING THAT THIS WILL GET US THERE BUT THE REALITY IS FOR THE MOST PART WE JUST HAVE NO IDEA AT ALL.

My definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result yet still getting the same result. Another way of putting it is, if you do as you have always done then you will get what you have always got, so do not expect any different if you are not prepared to change what you do. As we always say, change your mind first, your body next, and your life forever. The ancient Greeks knew this many centuries ago so i though i would remind you.

Get inspired, motivated, and educated, before you take your first step, which brings me to my first rule of life. That is, do one thing at a time, finish what you start, and never start anything you cannot finish. Therefore, if you are not prepared to changes then stop reading because you will be just wasting your time, which brings me to my second rule of life. That is, you can choose to do anything you need, absolutely anything, as long as you do not hurt anyone or anything, including yourself.

For those of you that are still with me, please prepare yourself to learn the first lesson to begin with.

In order to change a characteristic of a muscle such as size, shape, strength, endurance, or power, you must challenge the muscle to survive by adaptation. This can only be achieved by exposing the muscle to its limit. I will repeat it again; muscle characteristic adaptation can only be achieved by exposing the muscle to its limit.

In summary, lesson one is that if you need  your muscles to grow in some way, whether it is size, shape or performance, then you must choose the appropriate exercise, the appropriate weight, and the appropriate volume of work to be performed, set duration, speed of movement, and rest period. Only then can you expect to see a change by the very next workout.

In our lesson today i need to emphasize the fact that a muscle needs to be warmed up thoroughly before it is exposed to its absolute limit.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Let us take the lower body for example. I would suggest that you expose the lower body to absolute failure through the use of an exercise such as a squat; however this should only be done at the end or the warm up phase. Prior to the final exercise, or squat, you need to have exposed 100% of all muscle fibers for each contributing muscle of the lower body to warm up overload.

Warm up overload is achieved through the use of a weight that is approximately 50% of your maximum weight that can be propelled through the full range of motion and within the precise speed of movement or tempo far the particular exercise chosen for each of the contributing muscles of the lower body for 1 repetition.

This will obviously take some time to figure out however in subsequent articles i will assist you with determining this.

Therefore, we can use leg extensions for thighs, lying leg curls for hamstrings, and donkey calf or standing bent knee calf raises for calves. The tempo as an example is 1 second up, hold for 1 at the top, 2 seconds down, and hold for 1 at the bottom, repeated for 12 reps. When you have determined that you can do 1 repetition of leg extensions at this tempo at 40 kgs or 88 lbs then half the weight and do the exercise over the 12 reps as used as an example earlier.

Three to four sets as described for each of the warm up overload exercises with a minute rest in between is enough to warm up the lower body muscles enough to make 100% of the fibers available and engorged with oxygen rich blood for them to be totally overloaded in the final exercise.

The final exercise would be a squat and this needs to be done with a slow decent of 3 seconds, hold for 1 at the bottom, then up for 1 with no rest at the top.

You need  to do as many reps as possible within 70 seconds and preferably within a squat rack or power cage for safety because you will eventually experience momentary muscle shutdown and this is dangerous because you will begin to fall momentarily before you recover just as quickly as the fast twitch fibers engage.

I love to do 70 seconds of a set, wait 10 seconds, and repeat. I continue to do this for usually three repeats. If you cannot even complete one set then your weight is too heavy. I would suggest that you start at 50% of your body weight as resistance descending in the squat until hamstrings are parallel with the ground. Do one set, rest for 10 seconds with the weight on your back, and then repeat for a second set and so on. If you finish your third set then increase the weight by 20% on your squats next workout as it is obviously too light.

Your body will never adapt to this type of training, so if you have the heart, courage, and determination necessary then you can basically look anyway that you need  assuming you also feed the body appropriately however this is another article altogether.

There is, only has been, and always will be only one way to build real muscle and you have just heard it.