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Most of people (men usually) go to gym for one reason only – to increase muscle mass. While this can be done with a home workout and without the additional weight, true effect can be achieved with extra weight only. Muscle mass is all about increasing the number of muscle cells and muscle fibers. Also, inter cellular space in muscle tissue grows as well, and some say this is the main cause of the bulked up effect.

A plan

As in all other workout types, a plan is needed here too. It is pointless for a person to struggle with some high weight if a desired number of reps cannot be achieved. Also, weight should not be light and allow a practitioner to perform more reps than needed. This will not create the desired bulking effect. The weight should be just enough for a person to be able to do it as planned. Of course, after some time, this weight will have to be increased. This happens when a person feels that the exercise is becoming easy and lifted weight is no longer a problem. Increasing weight is the only way of ensuring the muscle growth continuance.


There are several ways to perform muscle mass building. There are those who are fans of pausing and resting between the exercises and reps and according to them, during the entire training session, muscles should be contracting (not all the time, of course). This should create even better effect when it comes to muscle growth. Although there is some logic in this theory, resting between sets and exercises should prepare muscles for the next challenge and they might perform better.

Also, there are some non standard variations that might be used. For example, there is a method that will catapult your muscle gain with partial reps and isometric contraction. Partial rep means that not complete motion is done while exercising, only a part of it. For example, when performing bench press, arms should not extend fully, only partially. By some theories, this should create even better effect because that final distance in regular bench press is not so effective so it can be skipped. As for isometric contraction, it is easily done. A practitioner needs to perform the motion but he stays in the contracting position for as long as possible. For example, when bicep curl is done, a practitioner tries to stay in a position when barbell is up and biceps in the maximum tension.

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