Wondering How To Get Big?
It goes without saying that men and women are very different. We have any number of differences universally, and that almost always includes how we approach the gym. As an Austin personal trainer for over 20 years, I can assure you that 99.9% of the time the reason men are working out is to get bigger and stronger. Women on the other hand are usually looking for tone and weight loss. I’ve written elsewhere on this site how to lose weight as well as how to get toned, so today’s blog will address the age old manly query of how to get big.
To begin with, that oft heard cliche of no pain, no gain, should be abolished along with the nonsensical, though still preached and practiced measurement of a maximum heart rate by subtracting your age from 220. Just imagine if you have 10 – 40 year olds in the room training simultaneously. Is it even remotely safe to assume they all have the same maximum heart rate? There’s no room for silly and oftentimes dangerous cliches in the weight room whether you’re asking how to lose weight or how to get big. There’s only 1 cliche that I will give any creed to and that is addressed towards the end of this blog post. Every other time, you’ll need an individualized approach, paired with a consistent effort, if you truly want to know how to get big.
You’ll be hard pressed to recruit all of the muscle fibers every time, but you can certainly come close. The best way to go about this is 2 fold. Firstly, you want to make sure you have ridden yourself of all tightness and imbalances you may have. For example, if your levator scapulae is tight and you’re working pectorals, you’ll find it virtually impossible to not shrug when doing a chest press. Why is this a concern? If you shrug while doing a chest press, you shift away from the pecs being the primary muscles, and have now deferred the task to the anterior delts in their place. Basically, you’ll get zero bang for your buck chest wise, and furthermore, you will exacerbate your imbalance.
The same can be said of any exercise we do. For example, if you’re trying to get your biceps to grow from curls, it would behoove you to not shrug your shoulders, or swing the weight, as you have simply lessened the load on the biceps. While you may get more repetitions that way and satisfy your ego, you have done less to stimulate bicep muscle growth. This is how one builds a false ego as opposed to building muscles.
The second thing you want to do if you are wondering how to get big, in order to recruit as many muscle fibers as possible, is vary the weights and reps. By not just doing heavier weights for less reps, like the old cliche says, but throwing in some aerobically fueled sets of higher reps with lighter weights, you’ll be recruiting both the fast, as well as the slow twitch muscle fibers. Since skeletal muscle is comprised of both, ignoring 1 or the other because of gym cliches and silly t shirt slogans will leave your cup half full. If you truly want your cup to runneth over, you will be free of all imbalances and work both kinds of muscle fibers to exhaustion… and then let them rest and grow. That is the gym side of the how to get big question answered.
Of all the gym cliches I’ve heard over my many years as a fitness professional, the only factual one that comes to mind is that if you want to get big, you will need to eat big. On a humorous note, that doesn’t mean go eat a big person, but it does mean you’ll need to eat a lot if your body is to stand a chance of growing. Your body is like a sculpture in that you’ll need more material in order to make it grow. When sculpting, you’ll add more clay as needed, and with getting bigger, you’ll need more calories, and from the proper sources.
How to get big is a relatively simple riddle to solve on the surface as it will require consistent and diverse regimens employed in the gym, as well as a good nutrition plan with a surplus of calories comparatively to what you currently are ingesting. The trick is to personalize this little formula to your own body’s needs and traits so you don’t end up with a big midsection, or devoid of all energy as you’ve overdone it in the gym. Take notes, take measurements, and use your sense of feel to understand what is working, and what isn’t. Adjust your calories to suit your metabolism, and be sure you’re getting enough of all of the macronutrients to fuel both the workouts, as well as the recovery and subsequent growth. That’s how to get big.
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Andy
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