9 Rules of mass building by Chris Aceto

1. Stop All Aerobics
Doing aerobics will interfere with recovery and strength gains. At the same time, it depletes glycogen and branch chained amino acid (BCAA) essential for muscle growth.

You can do aerobics while cutting.

2. Explosive lifting
The amount of muscle growth you will create is proportional to the amount of force a muscle generates. Force is defined as mass (the weight you use) multiplied by acceleration (the speed at which you push a weight against resistance). To generate more force, progressively increase your poundages while lifting explosively – in this context, you actually increase speed during the second half of the rep.

This is true. :)

Arnold "The Austrian Oak"

3. Emphasize the negative portion of the movement
Muscle growth is the logical byproduct of muscle contraction. Much emphasis is placed on the concentric phase of a lift where the muscle shortens as it contracts. But the stretching of the muscle during the eccentric, or negative, phase where the muscle lengthens while maintaining tension can directly cause muscle hypertrophy, too. Emphasizing the negative is an easy technique to overload muscles and promote radical gains in mass.

I realize people tend to focus only on the positive and neglect the negatives. Hurmm. Best to do both.

4. Go Fish
The key here is the omega-3 which makes the muscle more sensitive to insulin.  They fuel glycogen storage and amino acid entry into muscles while also preserving glutamine stores.

Omega3!

5. Up your sodium intake
Well, i know that you might think sodium increases water retention. However, it can also enhances carbohydrate storage and amino acid absorption while also improving the muscle’s responsiveness to insulin.

This is new info for me.

6. Eat in the middle of the night
Anabolism depends on an excess of calories. As you are well aware, bodybuilders eat four to six times per day to increase the absorption of nutrients and to provide a steady influx of carbs, protein and fat. Expanding on the four to six meals per day plan is to include a protein drink in the middle of the night that can encourage additional growth. Glutamine EFX, providing 30 grams of protein and carbs along with the ‘big three’ (creatine, BCAA and glutamine), is a good option for this late at night infusion of nutrients.

I think if this is hard for you guys, we can try taking something like casien or cottage cheese right before bedtime.


7. Powerlift
Why? To increase strength. Your muscles respond to training in three ways. When you train with high reps (more than 15), there is an increase in endurance with no substantive improvement in size or strength. The six to twelve rep range – the range that all big bodybuilders rely on – promotes an increase in both size and strength. Powerlifters generally stay with low reps, two to four per set, which supplements strength with slight variances in size. However, if you set aside one week of training to pile on the weights with low reps the subsequent improvement in strength will make you stronger when you return to the six to twelve rep routine. Here’s the formula: More strength equals more tension on the muscle which equals more growth.

No doubt about this one.

8. Rest
Many bodybuilders are unable to pack on mass because they are always training and, therefore, always recovering from those grueling workouts. Taking a couple of days off can restore glycogen, increase anabolism and allow hormonal indexes such as testosterone and cortisol to return to optimal levels.

Personally, it is hard not to train but giving myself some rest once in a while isn't that bad lol.

9. Supplementation with the "Big Three"
Glutamine:
Glutamine is known as the immunity amino. If you are overly stressed from dieting or training, the immune system kicks in, releasing glutamine into the bloodstream. Having low levels of glutamine will inhibit muscle growth – that’s why supplementing with glutamine is important.

Creatine:
Creatine is associated with added power and the ability to produce more adenosine triphosphate (ATP) – the chemical fuel source for training and growth. Supplementing with creatine allows bodybuilders to raise creatine levels in the muscle – therefore enhancing strength and ATP – without the unwanted fat that you’d be saddled with by getting all your creatine exclusively from food.

BCAA’s:
Branched chain amino acids act as a handy fuel source when glycogen stores are low. Adding BCAA to your nutritional program will increase your nitrogen balance while preventing the dreaded catabolic state that derives from overtraining or overdieting.

The italic part is my opinion on it. Great tips. Peace, out.

Source : Chris Aceto, procardnutrition.com