Fitness trainers out there! What is the right way to build muscle in the gym?How often should I up the weight?

I'm just a little confused as to how muscle is grown. I'm not sure if I should do more weight with less reps or less weight with more reps. I know there's a difference, but I want to see myself improve the right way. Is 19 a good age to start lifting weights?Fitness trainers out there! What is the right way to build muscle in the gym?How often should I up the weight?Yes, 19 is a suitable age to start building muscle.



The body responds to stress and effort by building muscle, so provided you follow the rules below, your body will enlarge your muscles in response to you making them do more work.



The most important things to note as a beginner are:



1. Progress: for the first 6 months you will make significant gains as your neural pathways adjust to the new exercises and your body makes quick, early adaptions. After that, progress will tail off - but don't be discouraged: by then you will have asked more questions and know the techniques for breaking through this plateau.



2. Overtraining, Injury and form: if you are keen, then you will almost certainly be tempted to train too often, with too much weight, or both. overtraining and injury are common amongst new starters - you should make a point of using correct form/technique from the start, only taking your muscles to failure occasionally and resting often enough. I would begin with 2 sessions per week and try not to go beyond 4.



3. Food: one of the key things for building lean muscle is to eat enough food, but not too much. Overeating is common amongst people who want to gain muscle because they are terrified that they will miss an opportunity for the body to build muscle. Have a look in the gym - you'll see a lot of fat people lifting weights. The body is more clever than that - it knows you have been stressing your muscles and will build muscle in its own time. The post-workout shake doctrine that tends to be peddled by magazines with steroid abusers on the cover is best for just that - people on steroids. The best advice for nutrition would be to eat when you are hungry and until you are satisfied. Your hunger will naturally increase as you do more weights. Eating natural food - plenty of meat, eggs, nuts, fruit and veg - will ensure that your hunger can be trusted. Eating junk confuses your hunger.



4. Variety: for an all-round lean and muscular physique, inject as much variety into your progam as you can. Don't get sucked into the gym-rat philosophy that moving faster than a walking pace erodes hard-earned muscle. Do circuit training, sprints, experiment with power-lifting techniques like clean and jerk. Intensive interval training is good for the natural release of growth hormone regardless of the exercise. And of course do weights as well and vary the number of sets and reps within the range that builds muscle (8x3 -%26gt; 3x15). This keeps things interesting and stops you getting that stuck-in-a-rut feeling that is inevitable if you do the same old weights routine each week.



5. Finally, patience: this applies to points 1-3. Impatience leads to overeating, overtraining and injury - if you do all these things right (i.e. patiently) you will make gains, but you will be happier and healthier in the process than if you had been impatient!Fitness trainers out there! What is the right way to build muscle in the gym?How often should I up the weight?
There are two dominant basic weight training philosophies:



1. HIT - HIT is an acronym for High Intensity Training. HIT calls for the trainer to workout 1-3 times a week with full body single-set routines. These are to be short but very intense workouts. The basic prescription is 8-12 reps per set always done to failure. Each and every workout is expected to produce an increase in strength so that when performing your next workout you should either look to perform more reps with the same weight or the same number of reps with a greater weight.

2. Periodization - Weight training programs based on this philosophy approach progressive overload in a different way. In a periodization program you may do light training for three weeks, followed by medium training for a few weeks and then do heavy training for the final cycle. Emphasis is not placed on achieving gains in every workout but rather on the cumulative gains after all phases. The basic idea is to change intensity and volume levels to prevent overtraining.



The above descriptions are brief and, in being brief, necessarily unfair to each philosophy. Each philosophy has much more to offer. In practice, they are much less strict then their presentation here. HIT, for example, in practice does indeed incorporate some variety in reps and sets which is essentially a form of periodization. The basic difference is that HIT recommends always doing high intensity workouts while periodization advocates cycling your intensity. Fitness trainers out there! What is the right way to build muscle in the gym?How often should I up the weight?Yes, 19 is a good age to start...you can work it either way, heavy weight with a rep range of 6 to 8 or moderate weight with a range of 12 to 15. In either case you must push the muscle group your working to exhaustion. That will stimulate the fast twitch fibers which are responsible for most of the growth. Only work 2 groups at a time, but work them hard. you can go the very next day if you don't work the same group directly again. Allow rest days, days away from the gym. Get enough sleep, eat the right things at the right times, drink plenty of water...something your muscles need when pushed. Drink a gallon a day and all during the workout. Get a measured container like I do so you'll know just how much your taking in...Protein is the key here as well. Protein rich food and maybe a protein shake too. Go for at least 1.5 grams of protein per pound of body weight...take that amount in on the days off as well...it's also good for recovery...Chose the way that you comfortable with and go with that...I switch off with heavy one month and moderate the next, but I've been doing this a long time and that works for me...put legs on a day by themselves..if you join a gym take advantage of the usual three free personal trainer assisted days...you can learn a lot in a short amount of time...get started, the improvements will come fast enough. Fitness trainers out there! What is the right way to build muscle in the gym?How often should I up the weight?
More weight and less reps will help you build muscle; less weight and more reps is for endurance. 19 is fine to start lifting weights.Fitness trainers out there! What is the right way to build muscle in the gym?How often should I up the weight?Hey Cali guy 818,



Its awesome that you want to see yourself improve and get better. 19 is great age to start lifting weights.



The number of reps you do isn't important as the intensity you train with. The general rule is low reps is geared towards strength and high reps is better for getting big. The truth is as long as your challenging yourself more everyday in the weight room you'll get bigger and grow stronger. But you do need a plan., so...



It seems that you're brand new to weight training so here's what you need to do to make some gains fast: (experienced lifters should follow this too)



First off, keep things simple. That goes for the exercise you perform, to your training split. Starting off you want to stick to basic compound movement that work the biggest muscle groups. The best exercises to start of with are the squat, the bench press, and the deadlift. With these exercises you'll gain strength and size the fastest.



Don't split your days up by muscle groups. You're a new lifter and there is no reason for this. Train your whole body 3 time a week with 1 rest day between each workout. for ex. lift on M,W,F rest on T,TH,S,Su.



Finally before you start lifting decide what your goals are and put them in writing. This will keep you motivated. Good luck man!



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