The Holy Trinity
-
Train
You need to train with weights to build muscle. It provides a stimulus for muscle growth.
-
Eat
You need to eat lots of good food to allow your muscle cells to become bigger and stronger.
-
Recover
You need to recover from training so that you can do it again.
Consistency is everything.
It takes time to build muscle. It takes training over months to make initial noticeable changes. It takes lots of food, day after day, to fuel muscle growth. It takes lots of good sleep, night after night, to allow the cellular machinery to adapt to the stimulus.
Start with a simple training programme.
I saw the most gains in the beginning by doing the Starting Strength Novice Linear Progression. It is a simple but brutal strength training programme. It involves training whole body three days a week. The trainee also adds 1-2.5 kg load onto the bar every workout, depending on the lift.
After the Starting Strength Novice Linear Progression, I started doing more complex training.
Eat more to gain weight, eat less to lose weight.
If you want the number on the scale to go up, you need to eat more than your body needs. If you want the number on the scale to go down, you need to eat less than your body needs. You shouldn’t overdo either one. If you have medical problems or difficulty maintaining a healthy relationship with food, you should actually talk to a medical professional before making radical changes to your diet.
Recover from training.
Recovery means two things. First, you need to sleep. Second, you need to not do too much other strenuous physical activity. Recovery, for the most part, is the discipline on doing nothing.
