Gain Mass Fast

 

     I received a question the other day via email.  It was succinct and to the point—and, when first received, I thought a bit generic.  “What’s the easiest way to gain mass fast?”  I get quite a bit of questions, and they are usually more in depth.  Most of them, truth be told, are the opposite of this question.  I find that a good many lifters have too many questions, usually because they overthink things too much or they are somehow searching for the “perfect” workout program (which doesn’t exist, by the way).  In the case of this questioner, I responded with a small litany of “the usual” advice for someone in need of quick mass gains: full-body workouts, compound movements, high-frequency training, the “big 4,” plenty of calories, lots of protein… yada, yada, yada.

     Then last night, while I was watching one of those cozy little British murder mysteries on PBS and trying my absolute best to not think about lifting—but, alas, to little avail—I thought of this: probably the easiest way to gain mass fast is to focus on getting stronger on a handful of exercises.  Seems simple, right?  Well, it is.  In fact, it might seem so simple that lifters are apt to discount the wisdom.

     Let’s unpack this a little.

     I suppose I should backtrack just ever so slightly.  There isn’t really an “easy” way to gain muscle mass or strength quickly.  Now, before you get into a tizzy and say to yourself, “Now, hold on, Sloan.  You’re always going on about ‘easy strength’ this and ‘easy muscle’ that, so you’re clearly contradicting yourself.”  Understand that “easy” in that case refers to the effort applied in the workout, but they are not “easy” in the sense that you do have to lift very frequently, and you still have to put the effort in on “big” movements, and, you know, all the other stuff that’s required to pack on the mass and the strength.  So, while there may never be an outright “easy” method of gaining mass and the strength to go along with it, there are some simple and straightforward strategies that can add up to quick gains.

     So, perhaps the best way to put it might be the SIMPLEST way to get gain mass fast is to focus on getting stronger on a handful of compound exercises.

     Pick around 5 movements, perhaps a couple or three more if you’re advanced, and work on getting strong on those movements over the course of 6 to 8 weeks.  Here’s 5 movements that would be great: squats, deadlifts, bench presses, military presses, barbell curls.  Here’s another: front squats, power cleans, weighted dips, one-arm dumbbell overhead presses, weighted chins.  And here’s a 3^rd: deficit sumo deadlifts, power snatches, farmer walks, bottom-position bench presses, thick-bar curls.  I hope you see the pattern.  Big, “bang-for-your-buck” compound movements with free weights are the key.  If your list instead consists of leg extensions, cable crossovers, lat pulldowns, cable curls, and triceps kickbacks then you need to, well, re-think your damn list.

     All 5 (or however many) of your lifts could be barbell exercises, dumbbell movements, kettlebell versions of the big lifts, or heck, they could all be done with thick bars or even with sandbags or stones.  Trust me, if you’ve never tried a workout consisting entirely of sandbag versions of any of the aforementioned lifts, you’d be in for a treat.  Well, assuming you think of a hard-as-hell, ball-busting workout as a “treat”—which I most assuredly do.  Sandbag squats (bear hug the sandbag), sandbag deadlifts, sandbag cleans, sandbag curls, sandbag overheads—the list could go on and on; the point is that that you would gain more muscle than anyone else at your gym if you stopped going to the gym, bought a sandbag (or few) and focused on getting stronger on a handful of lifts using your new muscle-building tool.

     For gaining muscle­—as opposed to just strength—the key is to focus on getting stronger at higher rep ranges.  By “higher” I mean 5 reps or more, but not necessarily high reps in the neighborhood of 15-20, though that might work for a certain segment of lifters.  In general, focus on sets in the 5-10 range.  If you increase your 8 rep max on 5 different lifts, you’ll get bigger not just stronger.

     As far as the actual training goes, you have options.  Quite a few, in fact.  You can follow a full-body workout program, training 2 to 3x per week.  Train all 5 of your selected movements at each session and just work on slowly coaxing up the numbers on your lifts.  You can follow a “full-body split” workout, where you train, say, deadlifts, overhead presses, and barbell curls at one workout and squats, bench presses, and chins at the next session (or something such as that).  I like that sort of split, as you get the benefits of a full-body workout but with each lift getting a little more rest.  Or you can always just follow a one-lift-a-day program.  Train squats on Monday, bench presses on Tuesday, power cleans on Wednesday, overhead presses on Thursday, and barbell curls on Friday.  If you like to do a lot of sets on a lift and train with plenty of intensity, that’s probably a good training route for you to take.

     Whatever path you decide to take with your training, stick with the program for around 8 weeks then make some changes.  I believe there are, essentially, just two truisms in strength training.  #1: Everything works.  #2: Everything works… for about 6-8 weeks.

     At the end of 8 weeks (or whatever length you run your program), you basically have three options, all perfectly viable.  You can stick with the same program and change exercises.  You can stick with the same exercises but change programs.  Or, and this is probably the best option if you’re advanced, you can change exercises and programs.

     If you’re having trouble gaining mass, then take my advice here.  Pick a handful of compound movements and work on getting stronger on all of them.  It may not be easy, but it is a simple, straightforward method for attaining results.