How to Gain More Muscle Mass and Strength

1. Weight train two or three times a week. When your goal is to increase muscle mass and strength, training every day is counterproductive. Your muscles need a chance to repair themselves in between training sessions. Without adequate rest periods, you won't achieve the body mass you want.

   • As your body increases in mass, you can reduce your workouts even more, because you'll need longer rest periods to repair your larger muscles.
   • On the days when you aren't weight training, you can still be physically active. Do cardio workouts such as jogging, swimming, biking, or even power walking to keep yourself moving.
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   Make your training sessions short. There's no need to train for hours at a time - in fact, if you train for too long, you risk damaging your muscles, which can lead to a forced rest period. Your sessions should last from 1/2 hour to an hour.
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   Train different muscle groups on different days. Rather than training your entire body during each session, it's a good idea to split up your muscle groups so that some parts of your body have time to rest while others are getting a workout. Create a training schedule and stick to it, so you don't accidentally overtrain a certain muscle group.
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   Train to failure. Body builders have found that training in short, intense sessions leads to greater mass and strength than easier, longer sessions. "Training to failure" means doing an exercise until you can't physical repeat it one more time. You'll need to find the appropriate train to failure weight for each of your muscle groups to do this effectively.

   • To find your train to failure weight, choose a weight you can use for 6-8 reps before your muscles give out. If you can do 10 reps without breaking a sweat or feeling too fatigued, you need to add weight. If you can't even do 1 or 2 reps correctly, reduce the weight.
   • Attempting to lift too much weight before you've gotten strong enough to lift it can damage your muscles, and it's also counterproductive. Start with your appropriate train to failure weight and give your muscles time to build strength. Soon you'll find that the weight you've been using has become easy; when that happens, increase the weight by 5 or 10 pounds until you're back to the 6-8 rep sweet spot.
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   Use the right training form. Another essential aspect of gaining strength and muscle is using the right form. If you don't, you'll risk injuring your muscles, and you also won't be training as effectively as you could be. Keep these pointers in mind during your training sessions:

   • Start each rep with your arms or legs fully extended. This makes it more difficult to lift the weights, as opposed to starting with your elbows or knees bent.
   • You should be able to complete each exercise using the right technique. If you can't press your dumbbells over your head with your arms fully extended, for example, then you should probably be using less weight.
   • Don't use momentum to swing your weights into place. Lift with controlled, steady movements. Lower weights back to their starting position slowly rather than letting them drop.