 There has only been one occasion when I have text someone after a date explaining why I didn't want to see them again. It is always a gateway for them to try to lawyer you into dating them." This person had talked about themselves throughout our date, boasted about their job (which was incredibly dull IMO) without ever asking me what I did for a living, and only asked me one question; "Watch my beer while I go to the loo, yeah?". So, when they messaged a few hours after the date saying they'd had a great time and wanted to go out again, I decided to give them a piece of my mind. "You literally didn't ask me a single question, showed no interest in getting to know me, and just talked about yourself the whole time mate," I replied. Perhaps a bit blunt, but I thought I was doing their future dates a solid, saving them from an hour of self-involved monologue. They argued with me, quickly turning rude and nasty. A few weeks later, I was not surprised when I was met with frosty stares after bumping into them in Spoons. My point is: some people do not take well to feedback and may get defensive and lash out. But that's not always the case. Here, women who have critiqued unsuccessful dates explain what happened to them... 1."I have a few times when asked. Unfortunately each one of those people thought it meant I was open to debating about it, or having them try to talk me into another date. I wouldn't do it again." [via] 2. "Yes, only once. We had gone out on a date (and I knew it was a date because he asked me to go on a date with him). He had seen a girl from his calculus class walk in, and he said, 'Oh, there’s that girl from my calc class. She’s so hot!' As I’m literally sitting right there. "So when I got home later I messaged him and I told him that’s a shitty thing to do to someone. He apologised as he realised what he had done. I don’t even think he thought about it. Like he forgot he was on a date with me or something? Either way it’s the only time I’ve ever given anyone feedback on a date." [via] 3. "[I have feedback] only once because he requested it. I was honest [and said] that I found some things on his public Facebook wall that I disagreed with. He actually took it quite well and thanked me for my honesty. He promptly removed the stuff from his wall afterwards." [via]  4. "Literally every guy who has asked for feedback has fought with me about my perception of them. The worst was when my friend asked me for feedback as his female friend on how he was coming off to other women since he was striking out with a few of my women acquaintances. He got all defensive about it and wouldn’t talk to me for a while. Why ask for feedback if you're not going to take it?" [via] 5. "Not me, but my sister. The dude wanted to know why she didn't want a second date and she told him that their lifestyles weren't congruent. He is a work nomad and enjoys moving every couple of years. My sister's got a chronic illness and doesn't want to switch doctors and hospitals all the time, so constant relocation isn't something she sees in her future - and entering a relationship that's bound to go long distance didn't seem like a good idea. She doesn't do hookups, but that he knew from the start. "He told her she should have taken what she can get" |
 Overhead Circles With Medicine Ball - Stand with your feet hip-width apart with a slight bend in your knees. Keeping your spine in neutral, lift a medicine ball overhead. Begin to circle the ball to the right, in the largest circles you can make, while maintaining a still and stable torso. Circle eight times to the right; then repeat, circling eight times to the left. Do three sets. |  Twisting Wood Chop With Medicine Ball - Start with the feet a little wider than hip-distance apart. Twist to the left, raising the ball over to your left shoulder. On an exhale pull your abs toward your spine and "chop" the ball down diagonally across your body toward the outside of your right knee. Imagine you're chopping some wood at this angle and the ball is your ax — the move is a bit percussive. Focus on the rotation initiating in your torso. Control the ball back up to the starting position. This completes one rep. Remember, you are moving with force but also control. Don't give in to the momentum of swinging the ball around. Do three sets of 15 reps on each side. |
 Double Crunch Pulse With Medicine Ball - Begin lying on your back with your legs in the air, toes toward the ceiling, holding the medicine ball over your chest with straight arms. Engage your abs to press your lower back into the mat while lifting your head, neck, and upper back off the mat. Exhale and round your lower back so the bottom of the pelvis raises as you lift your upper body an inch higher off the mat. Aim the medicine ball toward your ankles as you perform this double crunch. Inhale, and lower pelvis and upper back an inch toward the floor. Continue this slow pulsing motion for a total of 20-25 reps. Do three sets. |  Medicine Ball Alphabet - Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, making sure your knees are not locked. Then try one of these two variations. For stability: Start with the ball at chest level, and slowly write the cursive alphabet in front of you. While your arms move around at all sorts of angles, you need to use your abs to keep your torso still. Think of keeping the area between your ribs and pelvis solid. For a more advanced version, try this move while standing on a BOSU. For mobility: Start with the ball at chest level, but increase the range of motion of your arms, making your alphabet larger, using your torso and rib cage to write the letters as well. Keep your abs engaged the entire time. For more of a challenge, try this version in a squat or a lunge. |
 Medicine Ball Slam - Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, with a medicine ball on the floor in front of you. Squat down and pick up the medicine ball, keeping your head up, and trying not to round the spine. Stand up, lifting the medicine ball above your head, fully extending the arms straight above you. Forcefully slam the ball down on the floor as hard as you can. If the ball is light enough, catch the ball as it bounces slightly off the floor. This counts as one rep. Complete 15 reps. |  Reverse Lunge With Twist - Stand with your feet hip-distance apart. Hold a medicine ball with both hands with your arms outstretched in front of you. Keep your core stable, and take a large step back with your right foot, planting your foot and then lowering your body until both legs are bent in right angles. As you sink into the lunge, twist your torso to the left. Bring your torso back to center, and exhale as you straighten your legs. Bring your feet back together, and then step back on your left leg, twisting to the right. This completes one rep. Do 10 reps for a set, and do at least two sets. |
5 Flat-Belly Moves Using a Medicine Ball
By Jody Braverman Reviewed by Andra Picincu, CN, CPT
The more you challenge your muscles, the faster they'll grow. You don't need an expensive gym membership to gain muscle mass. With just a few pieces of equipment or your own body weight, you can do challenging home workouts that will build muscle fast. You just need to know the important factors involved in muscle gain, and you can make them work for you anywhere you choose to work out.
Tip
To build muscle fast, you need to challenge each muscle group with high-volume, twice-weekly workouts.
To build muscle fast, you need to challenge each muscle group with high-volume, twice-weekly workouts.
Equipment for Home Workouts
Do you really need equipment to build muscle and strength? According to Al Kavadlo, CSCS, the answer is a resounding no. Classic calisthenics exercises, such as pushups, pullups and squats, are enough for the beginner to start building muscle quickly at home. For the more advanced athlete, progressive variations can keep your muscles challenged and growing for years, Kavadlo says.
But some people like using equipment, and that's fine too. You can outfit your home workout space with the essentials — or more, depending on your budget — that will allow you to do a variety of fun and challenging exercises in your home workout. Consider using:
Fastest Way to Build Muscle
There's good news and bad news about building muscle fast when you're just starting a resistance-training program. The bad news is that during the first few weeks of your program, you might not make any gains at all.
A 2016 study in the Journal of Physiology found that while muscle damage — necessary for hypertrophy, or muscle growth — was highest among untrained subjects in the first three weeks of a resistance-training program, it was not associated with hypertrophy. This is because muscle protein synthesis during this time is mainly directed at repairing the damage, rather than building mass.
As the body adapts to exercise, there is less muscle damage after training sessions and greater muscle growth. The study researchers concluded that hypertrophy only occurs after accumulated intermittent increases in muscle protein synthesis.
Rate of Muscle Gain
The good news is that you only have to wait about three weeks until your body starts building, rather than just repairing, muscle. After that period, you will put on muscle relatively quickly. According to strength and conditioning coach Eric Bach, beginners gain muscle at a faster rate than intermediate and advanced lifters.
On average, the maximum rate of muscle gain for beginners is 1 to 1.5 percent of total body weight per month compared to 0.5 to 1 percent of body weight for intermediate lifters and 0.25 to 0.5 percent for advanced lifters. Of course, this depends on a lot of variables, including training intensity, body type and diet, among other things.
Volume and Frequency
Whether you're working out in a gym or at home, workout volume and frequency — in addition to your diet — are the biggest factors in building muscle fast. Although you should be conservative in the first few weeks while your body is adapting to exercise, after that you will build more muscle faster by working out often at a high intensity and with a high volume (sets and reps). Basically, the more you challenge your muscles, the more growth you'll stimulate in a shorter period of time.
According to a 2017 systematic review and meta-analysis in the Journal of Sports Science, volume is crucial for hypertrophy. In the 15 studies analyzed, the researchers found that each additional set of an exercise led to an increase in muscle size. This dose-response relationship means that the more sets you can get in, the faster you'll see growth. Having access to your home gym makes this easier, because a workout is always just a few steps away.
As for frequency, a 2016 meta-analysis and systematic review in Sports Medicine found that training each major muscle group twice a week proved more effective for hypertrophy than only training once a week. The researchers could not, however, determine if training muscle groups three times per week leads to greater increases, but if more volume leads to more hypertrophy, then it's safe to say getting in three workouts per week per muscle group certainly can't hurt.
Optimal Repetition Range
There are a lot of opinions on the best number of sets and reps to do and the best rest period length between sets to build mass. As far as reps go, the usual recommendation is eight to 12 per set for hypertrophy, with higher reps being more effective for muscular endurance and lower reps more effective for strength.
However, it might not actually matter that much. A 2016 study in Journal of Applied Physiology found that whether participants lifted lower weight for more repetitions or more weight for fewer repetitions, there was no difference in the amount of muscle growth at the end of a 12-week total-body resistance-training program.
When you're working out at home, it will mainly depend on your available equipment. If you only have your own body weight to work with, you'll need to do more reps to exhaust your muscles.
Sets and Rest
When you're starting out, aim for 10 to 12 sets per muscle group, per week. As you start to see results and your body adapts, you should add more sets for more volume. With this approach, you can build muscle at home and improve your overall fitness.
In a 2019 study in Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, participants who performed five sets per exercise per body part achieved significantly more muscle growth than participants who performed one or three sets. In total, the group that saw the most gains performed 30 sets for the upper body and 45 sets for the lower body per week.
Rest periods between sets for hypertrophy are generally 60 to 180 seconds. However, you may want to lean toward the end of that range. In an eight-week study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research in 2016, participants who rested three minutes between sets gained more mass than participants who rested one minute, even when all other program variables remained the same.
Do you really need equipment to build muscle and strength? According to Al Kavadlo, CSCS, the answer is a resounding no. Classic calisthenics exercises, such as pushups, pullups and squats, are enough for the beginner to start building muscle quickly at home. For the more advanced athlete, progressive variations can keep your muscles challenged and growing for years, Kavadlo says.
But some people like using equipment, and that's fine too. You can outfit your home workout space with the essentials — or more, depending on your budget — that will allow you to do a variety of fun and challenging exercises in your home workout. Consider using:
- A yoga or gym mat
- A pullup bar
- Resistance bands
- A stability ball
- Dumbbells — starting with three pairs, light, medium and heavy
- A weight bench
- A plyo box
- A barbell and plates
- Kettlebells
Fastest Way to Build Muscle
There's good news and bad news about building muscle fast when you're just starting a resistance-training program. The bad news is that during the first few weeks of your program, you might not make any gains at all.
A 2016 study in the Journal of Physiology found that while muscle damage — necessary for hypertrophy, or muscle growth — was highest among untrained subjects in the first three weeks of a resistance-training program, it was not associated with hypertrophy. This is because muscle protein synthesis during this time is mainly directed at repairing the damage, rather than building mass.
As the body adapts to exercise, there is less muscle damage after training sessions and greater muscle growth. The study researchers concluded that hypertrophy only occurs after accumulated intermittent increases in muscle protein synthesis.
Rate of Muscle Gain
The good news is that you only have to wait about three weeks until your body starts building, rather than just repairing, muscle. After that period, you will put on muscle relatively quickly. According to strength and conditioning coach Eric Bach, beginners gain muscle at a faster rate than intermediate and advanced lifters.
On average, the maximum rate of muscle gain for beginners is 1 to 1.5 percent of total body weight per month compared to 0.5 to 1 percent of body weight for intermediate lifters and 0.25 to 0.5 percent for advanced lifters. Of course, this depends on a lot of variables, including training intensity, body type and diet, among other things.
Volume and Frequency
Whether you're working out in a gym or at home, workout volume and frequency — in addition to your diet — are the biggest factors in building muscle fast. Although you should be conservative in the first few weeks while your body is adapting to exercise, after that you will build more muscle faster by working out often at a high intensity and with a high volume (sets and reps). Basically, the more you challenge your muscles, the more growth you'll stimulate in a shorter period of time.
According to a 2017 systematic review and meta-analysis in the Journal of Sports Science, volume is crucial for hypertrophy. In the 15 studies analyzed, the researchers found that each additional set of an exercise led to an increase in muscle size. This dose-response relationship means that the more sets you can get in, the faster you'll see growth. Having access to your home gym makes this easier, because a workout is always just a few steps away.
As for frequency, a 2016 meta-analysis and systematic review in Sports Medicine found that training each major muscle group twice a week proved more effective for hypertrophy than only training once a week. The researchers could not, however, determine if training muscle groups three times per week leads to greater increases, but if more volume leads to more hypertrophy, then it's safe to say getting in three workouts per week per muscle group certainly can't hurt.
Optimal Repetition Range
There are a lot of opinions on the best number of sets and reps to do and the best rest period length between sets to build mass. As far as reps go, the usual recommendation is eight to 12 per set for hypertrophy, with higher reps being more effective for muscular endurance and lower reps more effective for strength.
However, it might not actually matter that much. A 2016 study in Journal of Applied Physiology found that whether participants lifted lower weight for more repetitions or more weight for fewer repetitions, there was no difference in the amount of muscle growth at the end of a 12-week total-body resistance-training program.
When you're working out at home, it will mainly depend on your available equipment. If you only have your own body weight to work with, you'll need to do more reps to exhaust your muscles.
Sets and Rest
When you're starting out, aim for 10 to 12 sets per muscle group, per week. As you start to see results and your body adapts, you should add more sets for more volume. With this approach, you can build muscle at home and improve your overall fitness.
In a 2019 study in Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, participants who performed five sets per exercise per body part achieved significantly more muscle growth than participants who performed one or three sets. In total, the group that saw the most gains performed 30 sets for the upper body and 45 sets for the lower body per week.
Rest periods between sets for hypertrophy are generally 60 to 180 seconds. However, you may want to lean toward the end of that range. In an eight-week study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research in 2016, participants who rested three minutes between sets gained more mass than participants who rested one minute, even when all other program variables remained the same.
Tip
Rest days are crucial for gaining mass. Your muscles grow between your workouts not while you're training them. Allow adequate rest between training sessions for the same muscle group. If you feel that you're getting weaker, not stronger, and you feel fatigued, you're not allowing enough recovery time.
Rest days are crucial for gaining mass. Your muscles grow between your workouts not while you're training them. Allow adequate rest between training sessions for the same muscle group. If you feel that you're getting weaker, not stronger, and you feel fatigued, you're not allowing enough recovery time.
Best Exercises for Fast Gains
Now the really confusing part — which exercises should you do to build muscle at home? The exercises you choose can be either compound, or multijoint, moves like squats and pullups, or they can be isolation, or single-joint, exercises like biceps and hamstrings curls. Which is better for hypertrophy?
This is hotly debated in the fitness field, but according to research, both are equally effective. In a 2015 study published in the Asian Journal of Sports Medicine, 29 male participants trained the biceps using either lat pulldowns, a compound exercise, or biceps curls, an isolation exercise.
At the end of 10 weeks, there was no difference in results between the compound and isolation group. The researchers concluded that exercise selection should be based on individual preference, time commitment and available equipment.
Compound Body Weight Exercises
You're not going to have as much variety at home as at the gym — no machines, maybe not even dumbbells or resistance bands. In that case, compound exercises that use large muscle groups and activate a lot of muscle fibers at once are going to be your best bet. Calisthenics expert and author Paul Wade recommends these exercises for your home body weight workout:
Of course, these are pretty challenging, and you may not be here quite yet. Start with the basic variation of each exercise and add on challenge and complexity as you get stronger.
If you do have resistance equipment at home, you can do heavy squats, dead lifts, military presses and other classic lifts that build mass. The key is to continue to progressively load the muscles, which is what will encourage the most muscle growth ASAP and over time.
How Many Days a Week Should I Work Out to Build Huge Muscles?
Workout frequency is a much-debated topic in the fitness world. Is more better? Or do muscles need more recovery to reach their full size potential? The answer is, unfortunately, not cut and dried. While research reveals some benefit to higher training frequencies, it may be total volume that makes more of a difference. Ultimately, it's whatever works best for your own body.
Now the really confusing part — which exercises should you do to build muscle at home? The exercises you choose can be either compound, or multijoint, moves like squats and pullups, or they can be isolation, or single-joint, exercises like biceps and hamstrings curls. Which is better for hypertrophy?
This is hotly debated in the fitness field, but according to research, both are equally effective. In a 2015 study published in the Asian Journal of Sports Medicine, 29 male participants trained the biceps using either lat pulldowns, a compound exercise, or biceps curls, an isolation exercise.
At the end of 10 weeks, there was no difference in results between the compound and isolation group. The researchers concluded that exercise selection should be based on individual preference, time commitment and available equipment.
Compound Body Weight Exercises
You're not going to have as much variety at home as at the gym — no machines, maybe not even dumbbells or resistance bands. In that case, compound exercises that use large muscle groups and activate a lot of muscle fibers at once are going to be your best bet. Calisthenics expert and author Paul Wade recommends these exercises for your home body weight workout:
- Pullups
- Body weight squats, pistols and shrimp squats
- Pushups
- Australian pullup variations
- Dips
- Bridges
- Handstand pushups (against a wall — lower skill, more effort)
- Leg raises
Of course, these are pretty challenging, and you may not be here quite yet. Start with the basic variation of each exercise and add on challenge and complexity as you get stronger.
If you do have resistance equipment at home, you can do heavy squats, dead lifts, military presses and other classic lifts that build mass. The key is to continue to progressively load the muscles, which is what will encourage the most muscle growth ASAP and over time.
How Many Days a Week Should I Work Out to Build Huge Muscles?
Workout frequency is a much-debated topic in the fitness world. Is more better? Or do muscles need more recovery to reach their full size potential? The answer is, unfortunately, not cut and dried. While research reveals some benefit to higher training frequencies, it may be total volume that makes more of a difference. Ultimately, it's whatever works best for your own body.
Total weekly volume may matter more than how many times you train each week.
Training Frequencies Explained
Training frequency is how often you train a single muscle group each week. There are many popular schools of thought on this.
According to competitive bodybuilder Doug Brignole, Arnold Schwarzenegger used to train each body part three times a week: chest, shoulders and back on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and arms and legs on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. That was his bodybuilding training frequency of choice — or at least one of them — and it worked for him.
On the other end of the spectrum, renowned strength coach Charles Poliquin touted the German Volume Training method in which each muscle group is worked only once per week in a very specific volume — 10 sets per exercise. According to Poliquin, this training frequency helped Canadian weightlifter and Olympic silver medalist Jacques Demers build his massive thighs, and it was used by professional bodybuilder Bev Francis in her early career to increase muscle mass.
Workout Frequency vs. Volume
You can't talk about training frequency without also discussing training volume. Training volume is the amount of work you do in each workout — the number of sets and reps. For example, Brignole explains that Schwarzenegger and his counterparts used to do 20 sets per body part per workout — 60 sets per week. That's quite a high a volume.
Poliquin's German Volume Training method only includes 10 sets of a single exercise per body part per week, which is significantly less than Schwarzenegger's routine.
What the Research Says
If you find such disparity confusing, scientific findings aren't going to do much to clarify. A study published in 2018 in The Journal of Strength and Conditioning concludes that doing eight sets per body part twice a week had only a slight hypertrophic benefit over doing 16 sets once a week.
A 2018 study featured in PeerJ compared the effects of equal-volume once-weekly or twice-weekly training sessions on muscle gain. The group training once a week had significant increases in biceps (elbor flexor) muscle thickness.
But a study published in 2015 in the Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness showed no differences in hypertrophy between equal-volume workouts performed either once or twice weekly. Another study published in Applied Physiology, Nutrition and Metabolism in 2018 determined that both a high-frequency, low-volume and high-volume, low-frequency training program increased lower body mass, but only the high-volume, low-frequency plan increased upper body mass.
Still More Research
Yet more research muddies the waters. A study published in 2018 in the Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research concluded that high-frequency training volume was no more effective than low-volume training frequency on hypertrophy.
On the other hand, another 2018 study in the Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research found that there were significant hypertrophic benefits of high-frequency training for a group that performed five total-body workouts each week compared to a group that worked out each muscle group only once a week.
And an additional study published in 2016 in the International Journal of Exercise Science showed that there was no difference between equal-volume high- versus low-frequency training.
Making Sense of It
One wonders if there is a real answer among all this research. There are many variables to consider: the training status of the study participants (trained versus untrained), the methods used to assess growth (lean body mass versus muscle thickness) and the relative difficulty of measuring hypertrophy versus strength, which tends to have much cleaner results, according to competitive powerlifter and trainer Greg Nuckols.
Nuckols conducted extensive analyses of the research on bodybuilding training frequency and found that untrained lifters saw better results from higher training frequencies than did trained lifters. And in studies that assessed hypertrophy using lean muscle mass versus muscle thickness, higher frequencies also tended to have a greater hypertrophic effect, according to Nuckols.
Overall, higher-frequency training had significant benefit over low-frequency training; however, Nuckols notes that this benefit was smaller for trained lifters.
Getting to the Point
The goal of lifting weights is to stimulate muscle protein synthesis, the post-workout state in which your body is creating muscle protein at a higher rate. Nuckols surmises that higher frequencies are more effective because they catalyze muscle protein synthesis more often throughout the week.
Whether or not more frequent sessions should be low volume or high volume is less clear. There is a dose-response relationship between training volume and muscle growth; more sets lead to greater muscle hypertrophy, according to a systematic review and meta-analysis published in 2017 in the Journal of Sports Sciences. If you do more per-session volume, muscle protein synthesis is increased and extended, explains Nuckols.
Because of that, it's unclear whether more frequent lower volume workouts are more or less effective than less frequent, higher volume workouts.
What Should You Do?
Ultimately, the answer is to do as much as you have time for but don't overdo it — which leads to overtraining and injury. If you're working out 6 days a week, you're not going to be able to do as much volume per session without it backfiring. If you only train once a week, you may find that you're fatiguing before you can get in as much volume as you'd like. Therefore, your sweet spot might be somewhere in between.
If you're not seeing the results you want with your current routine, first try adding frequency without adding volume, suggest Nuckols. Once you assess your body's response and ability to recover, you can add volume to each session.
Other Training Tips
Frequency and volume aren't the only factors involved in building big muscles. Rest periods between sets are also important. One to three minutes is the norm, but a study published in 2016 in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research showed that participants who rested three minutes between sets gained more muscle than those who rested only one minute, even though the workouts were otherwise identical.
Your nutrition is critical. Even if you found just the right bodybuilding training frequency, if you're not getting enough calories and macronutrients, you won't put on mass. To build muscle, explains body transformation expert Michael Matthews, you need to be in a calorie surplus and consume adequate protein and carbs. This gives your body the energy and raw materials it needs to build muscle.
Last, recovery is just as important as the work you do in the gym. If you sacrifice proper recovery for more gym sessions, you will sabotage your efforts. If you add frequency and find that your workouts suffer, drop the frequency back down.
Training frequency is how often you train a single muscle group each week. There are many popular schools of thought on this.
According to competitive bodybuilder Doug Brignole, Arnold Schwarzenegger used to train each body part three times a week: chest, shoulders and back on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and arms and legs on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. That was his bodybuilding training frequency of choice — or at least one of them — and it worked for him.
On the other end of the spectrum, renowned strength coach Charles Poliquin touted the German Volume Training method in which each muscle group is worked only once per week in a very specific volume — 10 sets per exercise. According to Poliquin, this training frequency helped Canadian weightlifter and Olympic silver medalist Jacques Demers build his massive thighs, and it was used by professional bodybuilder Bev Francis in her early career to increase muscle mass.
Workout Frequency vs. Volume
You can't talk about training frequency without also discussing training volume. Training volume is the amount of work you do in each workout — the number of sets and reps. For example, Brignole explains that Schwarzenegger and his counterparts used to do 20 sets per body part per workout — 60 sets per week. That's quite a high a volume.
Poliquin's German Volume Training method only includes 10 sets of a single exercise per body part per week, which is significantly less than Schwarzenegger's routine.
What the Research Says
If you find such disparity confusing, scientific findings aren't going to do much to clarify. A study published in 2018 in The Journal of Strength and Conditioning concludes that doing eight sets per body part twice a week had only a slight hypertrophic benefit over doing 16 sets once a week.
A 2018 study featured in PeerJ compared the effects of equal-volume once-weekly or twice-weekly training sessions on muscle gain. The group training once a week had significant increases in biceps (elbor flexor) muscle thickness.
But a study published in 2015 in the Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness showed no differences in hypertrophy between equal-volume workouts performed either once or twice weekly. Another study published in Applied Physiology, Nutrition and Metabolism in 2018 determined that both a high-frequency, low-volume and high-volume, low-frequency training program increased lower body mass, but only the high-volume, low-frequency plan increased upper body mass.
Still More Research
Yet more research muddies the waters. A study published in 2018 in the Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research concluded that high-frequency training volume was no more effective than low-volume training frequency on hypertrophy.
On the other hand, another 2018 study in the Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research found that there were significant hypertrophic benefits of high-frequency training for a group that performed five total-body workouts each week compared to a group that worked out each muscle group only once a week.
And an additional study published in 2016 in the International Journal of Exercise Science showed that there was no difference between equal-volume high- versus low-frequency training.
Making Sense of It
One wonders if there is a real answer among all this research. There are many variables to consider: the training status of the study participants (trained versus untrained), the methods used to assess growth (lean body mass versus muscle thickness) and the relative difficulty of measuring hypertrophy versus strength, which tends to have much cleaner results, according to competitive powerlifter and trainer Greg Nuckols.
Nuckols conducted extensive analyses of the research on bodybuilding training frequency and found that untrained lifters saw better results from higher training frequencies than did trained lifters. And in studies that assessed hypertrophy using lean muscle mass versus muscle thickness, higher frequencies also tended to have a greater hypertrophic effect, according to Nuckols.
Overall, higher-frequency training had significant benefit over low-frequency training; however, Nuckols notes that this benefit was smaller for trained lifters.
Getting to the Point
The goal of lifting weights is to stimulate muscle protein synthesis, the post-workout state in which your body is creating muscle protein at a higher rate. Nuckols surmises that higher frequencies are more effective because they catalyze muscle protein synthesis more often throughout the week.
Whether or not more frequent sessions should be low volume or high volume is less clear. There is a dose-response relationship between training volume and muscle growth; more sets lead to greater muscle hypertrophy, according to a systematic review and meta-analysis published in 2017 in the Journal of Sports Sciences. If you do more per-session volume, muscle protein synthesis is increased and extended, explains Nuckols.
Because of that, it's unclear whether more frequent lower volume workouts are more or less effective than less frequent, higher volume workouts.
What Should You Do?
Ultimately, the answer is to do as much as you have time for but don't overdo it — which leads to overtraining and injury. If you're working out 6 days a week, you're not going to be able to do as much volume per session without it backfiring. If you only train once a week, you may find that you're fatiguing before you can get in as much volume as you'd like. Therefore, your sweet spot might be somewhere in between.
If you're not seeing the results you want with your current routine, first try adding frequency without adding volume, suggest Nuckols. Once you assess your body's response and ability to recover, you can add volume to each session.
Other Training Tips
Frequency and volume aren't the only factors involved in building big muscles. Rest periods between sets are also important. One to three minutes is the norm, but a study published in 2016 in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research showed that participants who rested three minutes between sets gained more muscle than those who rested only one minute, even though the workouts were otherwise identical.
Your nutrition is critical. Even if you found just the right bodybuilding training frequency, if you're not getting enough calories and macronutrients, you won't put on mass. To build muscle, explains body transformation expert Michael Matthews, you need to be in a calorie surplus and consume adequate protein and carbs. This gives your body the energy and raw materials it needs to build muscle.
Last, recovery is just as important as the work you do in the gym. If you sacrifice proper recovery for more gym sessions, you will sabotage your efforts. If you add frequency and find that your workouts suffer, drop the frequency back down.
How to Make Your Arms Big Really Fast
Although it's impossible to naturally achieve huge muscle growth in just a few weeks, there are some steps you can take to dramatically speed up your progress. Your exact rate of muscle growth is largely determined by gender, age, body type and genetics. Over the course of a year, you'd be doing well if you steadily gained 0.4 pounds of muscle per month, but there are some things you can do to stack the deck in your favor and make gains as quickly as possible.
Exercise, Recovery and Nutrition
Step 1
Complete one or two resistance training workouts per week, targeting your biceps, triceps and shoulders. Use free weights or cable weight machines to perform one or two exercises for each muscle group. Regular curls, hammer curls and chin-ups will target the biceps. For the triceps, body dips, dumbbell kickbacks and triceps extensions will be effective. Shoulder exercises include overhead presses, lateral raises, shrugs and reverse flies.
Step 2
Do three to six sets of each exercise using a weight you can only lift six to 12 times using perfect form. A 2004 article published in the "Journal of Sports Medicine" concluded that the optimal load for muscle growth was between 80 and 95 percent of your 1-Repetition Max. A 1RM is the amount of weight you can safely lift for only one repetition, unassisted.
Step 3
Add multi-joint compound exercises to your lifting routine. Limiting yourself to exercises that only target one muscle at a time is not the best way to gain size, even for that muscle. Doing compound exercises like pushups, squats and compound rows release more anabolic hormones which are key for protein synthesis within muscle cells.
Step 4
Rest each muscle group for at least 24 hours, but preferably 48 hours or more before working it again. Full muscle recovery is key to muscle growth, so the belief that lifting more frequently will result in faster growth is flawed. Although it is important to stress your muscle fibers during a workout, the actual growth only occurs during the rest and recovery phase, and ideally, you want to give your body a full 48 hours to do its work.
Step 5
Get a full night's sleep every night. Sleep is important for muscle growth because that's when the body produces hormones that stimulate protein synthesis.
Step 6
Consume enough protein daily and vary your protein sources; 1.6 to 1.7 g of protein per kilogram of body weight per day is recommended. It's important to choose a variety of protein sources so that you get adequate amounts of all of the essential amino acids. The amino acid leucine is especially important to muscle growth. Healthy sources of protein include poultry, fish, eggs, nuts, seeds and legumes.
Things You'll Need
Exercise, Recovery and Nutrition
Step 1
Complete one or two resistance training workouts per week, targeting your biceps, triceps and shoulders. Use free weights or cable weight machines to perform one or two exercises for each muscle group. Regular curls, hammer curls and chin-ups will target the biceps. For the triceps, body dips, dumbbell kickbacks and triceps extensions will be effective. Shoulder exercises include overhead presses, lateral raises, shrugs and reverse flies.
Step 2
Do three to six sets of each exercise using a weight you can only lift six to 12 times using perfect form. A 2004 article published in the "Journal of Sports Medicine" concluded that the optimal load for muscle growth was between 80 and 95 percent of your 1-Repetition Max. A 1RM is the amount of weight you can safely lift for only one repetition, unassisted.
Step 3
Add multi-joint compound exercises to your lifting routine. Limiting yourself to exercises that only target one muscle at a time is not the best way to gain size, even for that muscle. Doing compound exercises like pushups, squats and compound rows release more anabolic hormones which are key for protein synthesis within muscle cells.
Step 4
Rest each muscle group for at least 24 hours, but preferably 48 hours or more before working it again. Full muscle recovery is key to muscle growth, so the belief that lifting more frequently will result in faster growth is flawed. Although it is important to stress your muscle fibers during a workout, the actual growth only occurs during the rest and recovery phase, and ideally, you want to give your body a full 48 hours to do its work.
Step 5
Get a full night's sleep every night. Sleep is important for muscle growth because that's when the body produces hormones that stimulate protein synthesis.
Step 6
Consume enough protein daily and vary your protein sources; 1.6 to 1.7 g of protein per kilogram of body weight per day is recommended. It's important to choose a variety of protein sources so that you get adequate amounts of all of the essential amino acids. The amino acid leucine is especially important to muscle growth. Healthy sources of protein include poultry, fish, eggs, nuts, seeds and legumes.
Things You'll Need
- Free weights
- Access to a fitness center
Tip
Eat a small meal or snack that combines protein and carbohydrate immediately before or after a workout, to optimize potential muscle growth. Remember that in order to gain weight, you'll need to eat more total calories. Just beware of consuming too much saturated fat.
Eat a small meal or snack that combines protein and carbohydrate immediately before or after a workout, to optimize potential muscle growth. Remember that in order to gain weight, you'll need to eat more total calories. Just beware of consuming too much saturated fat.
Warning
Always use proper form when exercising. Anabolic steroids are not deemed safe and should not be used.
Always use proper form when exercising. Anabolic steroids are not deemed safe and should not be used.
If you won an event, unlike today, you didn’t get a fancy gold medal, or a sponsorship with Nike, or a multimillion-dollar TV deal with ESPN.
Nope. They gave you a laurel wreath. A small crown made out of commonly available bay leaves. Worth about thirty cents on the open market, and after about a week you had to throw it out as it started to wither.
I.e. a fleeting object, not worth very much in the grand scheme of things.
This was a metaphor for the fleeting nature of victory.
In other words, those red carpet moments, those moments on top of the podium, look great for the camera, in reality, they don’t last very long. You’re better off worrying about something more substantial.
As Philip Larkin said, “What will survive of us is love.” Exactly.
Nope. They gave you a laurel wreath. A small crown made out of commonly available bay leaves. Worth about thirty cents on the open market, and after about a week you had to throw it out as it started to wither.
I.e. a fleeting object, not worth very much in the grand scheme of things.
This was a metaphor for the fleeting nature of victory.
In other words, those red carpet moments, those moments on top of the podium, look great for the camera, in reality, they don’t last very long. You’re better off worrying about something more substantial.
As Philip Larkin said, “What will survive of us is love.” Exactly.
From Airbnb to Uber to eBay, these apps may help you earn some dough in the gig economy.
Working 9 to 5: What a way to make a living.
Or not.
Roughly one in four Americans now earns at least some of their income from the gig economy — be it driving an Uber or Lyft, selling goods online on a site like eBay or babysitting through Care.com — according to research published in 2018 by market research firm Edison Research. For 44% of gig workers, that side hustle is their primary source of income.
So what are these workers earning? It varies widely (though it’s important to point out that it’s often not enough, as 80% of gig-economy employees whose work is the primary source of income say that an unexpected expense of $1,000 would be difficult to pay, Edison found).
People who participate in the leasing gig economy (like renting a home on Airbnb) earn the most, at over $2,000 a month on average, according to data from JPMorgan Chase. But most others earn significantly less with the average across sectors only about $800 a month.
Working 9 to 5: What a way to make a living.
Or not.
Roughly one in four Americans now earns at least some of their income from the gig economy — be it driving an Uber or Lyft, selling goods online on a site like eBay or babysitting through Care.com — according to research published in 2018 by market research firm Edison Research. For 44% of gig workers, that side hustle is their primary source of income.
So what are these workers earning? It varies widely (though it’s important to point out that it’s often not enough, as 80% of gig-economy employees whose work is the primary source of income say that an unexpected expense of $1,000 would be difficult to pay, Edison found).
People who participate in the leasing gig economy (like renting a home on Airbnb) earn the most, at over $2,000 a month on average, according to data from JPMorgan Chase. But most others earn significantly less with the average across sectors only about $800 a month.
How much workers in the gig economy earn, by sector. JPMorganChase
Despite sometimes low earnings, people choose gig work for a variety of reasons, including flexible scheduling and loss of a traditional job. And thanks to myriad apps and sites, they have a lot of options for side hustle work — as this fascinating graphic from lending company TitleMax shows.
Despite sometimes low earnings, people choose gig work for a variety of reasons, including flexible scheduling and loss of a traditional job. And thanks to myriad apps and sites, they have a lot of options for side hustle work — as this fascinating graphic from lending company TitleMax shows.
Everyone who’s saddled with bad credit has a unique story. A man burdened with $6,000 in unpaid bills. A mom of nine held back by an error on her report. A couple recovering from job loss and foreclosure. A single mom with a terminally ill child. A young woman with so much debt she couldn’t even get a credit card. What all these people have in common? They used a free online service called Credit Sesame to improve their credit scores — one man got his score up 277 points in six months.*
If you need some motivation, read through these real-life stories. Chances are, you’ll find you have something in common with at least one of them. Then, take a look at your own score and get some personalized recommendations from Credit Sesame. It takes less than two minutes to sign up, and who knows? Your story just might end up in this article six months from now.
Man Had $6,000 in Unpaid Bills — Then Raised His Score 277 Points
Before discovering Credit Sesame, 50-year-old Atlanta resident James Cooper, had $6,000 in unpaid bills. He’d never had a credit card, and his credit score was 524. He tried using a credit repair service — one that promised to improve his score… for a fee. Needless to say, he got burned.
Since Credit Sesame is free, he figured he’d give it a try. Within a few minutes, Cooper had access to his credit score, his total debt owed and even personalized recommendations to help him improve his score. “They showed me the ins and outs — how to dot the I’s and cross the T’s,” Cooper said. “I applied for my first credit card ever.” After opening a credit card, which improved his score, Credit Sesame recommended he request a credit limit increase. That too bumped his score up (re: credit utilization). In a span of just six months, Cooper watched his score increase 277 points. Now Cooper uses the lessons he’s learned from Credit Sesame to teach high school students the importance of good credit through his nonprofit, Fedup-4U.
Mom of 9 Didn’t Know She Had an Error on Her Credit Report
After Salome Buitureria got laid off, she struggled to find work and was forced to use credit cards. The bills stacked up, and her credit score dropped — to 524, which is considered “very poor.”
Once she got back on stable ground, she started focusing on improving her credit. Her dream has always been to buy a home, and she knew the important role her credit score would play.
She got on Credit Sesame and assessed her debt, and that’s when she found a major error — a supposed unpaid medical bill from when her daughter had been sick that’s definitely been covered by Medicaid. But here’s an unfortunate fact: One in five credit reports have errors, according to the Federal Trade Commission. Yup — you can do everything right, but an error could be holding you back. Credit Sesame showed Buitureria how to fix the mistake, then she took additional steps to raise her credit score from 524 to nearly 700. Now? She’s focused on buying a home. “We want a place where the kids can come home,” she says, “where they don’t have to worry, a year or two down the road, ‘Oh, Mom’s got a new house.’”
Guy Falls on Hard Times and Couldn’t Stomach Checking at His Score In 2008, the housing bubble burst, and Jerry and Vivienne Morgan’s home fell into foreclosure. Not long after, Vivienne lost her job. “No one plans on being in that situation,” Jerry said. “Frankly, with the experiences we have gone through, I was embarrassed to even check my score.”
Nearly 10 years later, the Morgans were gainfully employed and got approved for a mortgage remodification. Things were looking up, so Jerry decided to finally check his credit score… It hovered around 500.
He came across Credit Sesame and decided to give it a try. He liked how the site clearly explained what affected his credit score — and how he could improve it. He opened another credit card (increasing his account mix and decreasing his credit utilization rate) and also took out an auto loan when he bought a new car (also boosting his account mix). Making on-time payments toward that loan helped as well. Within six months of signing up, Jerry saw his score increase 120 points. When we last talked to him, Jerry was continuing to take steps ot improve his score and felt hopeful of his financial future.
Single Mom Overcame Credit Card Debt and a Bad Credit Score
In 2005, Melinda Smieja’s 13-year-old daughter was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor.
“So here I am, a single mom, and my daughter gets sick,” she said. “And I’m like, ‘What am I gonna do?’” She used credit cards for dinners and a place to stay. Soon, she’d maxed them all out — 11 cards, to be exact. She had somewhere between $20,000 and $30,000 in debt. Her credit score was down to 480. Then she stumbled upon Credit Sesame. It quickly made her overwhelming situation way more manageable.
“I could look and I could say, ‘OK, this is what’s all going on here. This is my debt. This is what’s happening. This is what’s making my credit [interest] high,’” she said.
And she could finally tackle her debts, one at a time. The work wasn’t quick. It was slow and steady — but it paid off. In 2016, for the first time, Smieja’s credit score hit 680, crossing the line of what lenders consider “good credit.” By late 2017, it was up to 764.
30-Year-Old Was Stuck in Debt and Didn’t Know Where to Go
At 30, Dana Sitar’s history with credit cards, student loans and medical bills was tough to face.
Student loan interest was piling up. Hospital bills were out to collection agencies. No one would give her a credit card. She landed a loan for a new car by the skin of her teeth. Her security deposits for car rentals and apartments were through the roof. She wanted to fix it but didn’t even know where to start. Then Sitar, a personal finance editor, found Credit Sesame in 2016, and today, she’s breathing a little easier. Credit Sesame is “answering all the questions swirling in my head, keeping me awake at night and threatening a panic attack every time I authorize a credit check,” Sitar wrote in an article for The Penny Hoarder. Since she started tracking her credit score with the app, she’s watched it rise — slowly but surely — by 68 points, thanks to Credit Sesame’s recommendations.
“It offers real recommendations you can use — one step at a time — to get out of a very confusing hole,” she says. Heck, it even let her know she could refinance her car loan and save a ton of money on interest over time. She’s also been able to find a credit card she could actually qualify for.
Since signing up, Sitar has caught up with her student loan payments and is even ahead on her car payments now. Her goal is to improve her score a little more so she can qualify for a personal loan to consolidate her debt. Inspired? If you want to see how you can improve your credit score, signing up for Credit Sesame is totally free — and it only takes about 90 seconds to get started.
*60% of Credit Sesame members see an increase in their credit score; 50% see at least a 10-point increase, and 20% see at least a 50-point increase after 180 days.
Credit Sesame does not guarantee any of these results, and some may even see a decrease in their credit score. Any score improvement is the result of many factors, including paying bills on time, keeping credit balances low, avoiding unnecessary inquiries, appropriate financial planning and developing better credit habits.
If you need some motivation, read through these real-life stories. Chances are, you’ll find you have something in common with at least one of them. Then, take a look at your own score and get some personalized recommendations from Credit Sesame. It takes less than two minutes to sign up, and who knows? Your story just might end up in this article six months from now.
Man Had $6,000 in Unpaid Bills — Then Raised His Score 277 Points
Before discovering Credit Sesame, 50-year-old Atlanta resident James Cooper, had $6,000 in unpaid bills. He’d never had a credit card, and his credit score was 524. He tried using a credit repair service — one that promised to improve his score… for a fee. Needless to say, he got burned.
Since Credit Sesame is free, he figured he’d give it a try. Within a few minutes, Cooper had access to his credit score, his total debt owed and even personalized recommendations to help him improve his score. “They showed me the ins and outs — how to dot the I’s and cross the T’s,” Cooper said. “I applied for my first credit card ever.” After opening a credit card, which improved his score, Credit Sesame recommended he request a credit limit increase. That too bumped his score up (re: credit utilization). In a span of just six months, Cooper watched his score increase 277 points. Now Cooper uses the lessons he’s learned from Credit Sesame to teach high school students the importance of good credit through his nonprofit, Fedup-4U.
Mom of 9 Didn’t Know She Had an Error on Her Credit Report
After Salome Buitureria got laid off, she struggled to find work and was forced to use credit cards. The bills stacked up, and her credit score dropped — to 524, which is considered “very poor.”
Once she got back on stable ground, she started focusing on improving her credit. Her dream has always been to buy a home, and she knew the important role her credit score would play.
She got on Credit Sesame and assessed her debt, and that’s when she found a major error — a supposed unpaid medical bill from when her daughter had been sick that’s definitely been covered by Medicaid. But here’s an unfortunate fact: One in five credit reports have errors, according to the Federal Trade Commission. Yup — you can do everything right, but an error could be holding you back. Credit Sesame showed Buitureria how to fix the mistake, then she took additional steps to raise her credit score from 524 to nearly 700. Now? She’s focused on buying a home. “We want a place where the kids can come home,” she says, “where they don’t have to worry, a year or two down the road, ‘Oh, Mom’s got a new house.’”
Guy Falls on Hard Times and Couldn’t Stomach Checking at His Score In 2008, the housing bubble burst, and Jerry and Vivienne Morgan’s home fell into foreclosure. Not long after, Vivienne lost her job. “No one plans on being in that situation,” Jerry said. “Frankly, with the experiences we have gone through, I was embarrassed to even check my score.”
Nearly 10 years later, the Morgans were gainfully employed and got approved for a mortgage remodification. Things were looking up, so Jerry decided to finally check his credit score… It hovered around 500.
He came across Credit Sesame and decided to give it a try. He liked how the site clearly explained what affected his credit score — and how he could improve it. He opened another credit card (increasing his account mix and decreasing his credit utilization rate) and also took out an auto loan when he bought a new car (also boosting his account mix). Making on-time payments toward that loan helped as well. Within six months of signing up, Jerry saw his score increase 120 points. When we last talked to him, Jerry was continuing to take steps ot improve his score and felt hopeful of his financial future.
Single Mom Overcame Credit Card Debt and a Bad Credit Score
In 2005, Melinda Smieja’s 13-year-old daughter was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor.
“So here I am, a single mom, and my daughter gets sick,” she said. “And I’m like, ‘What am I gonna do?’” She used credit cards for dinners and a place to stay. Soon, she’d maxed them all out — 11 cards, to be exact. She had somewhere between $20,000 and $30,000 in debt. Her credit score was down to 480. Then she stumbled upon Credit Sesame. It quickly made her overwhelming situation way more manageable.
“I could look and I could say, ‘OK, this is what’s all going on here. This is my debt. This is what’s happening. This is what’s making my credit [interest] high,’” she said.
And she could finally tackle her debts, one at a time. The work wasn’t quick. It was slow and steady — but it paid off. In 2016, for the first time, Smieja’s credit score hit 680, crossing the line of what lenders consider “good credit.” By late 2017, it was up to 764.
30-Year-Old Was Stuck in Debt and Didn’t Know Where to Go
At 30, Dana Sitar’s history with credit cards, student loans and medical bills was tough to face.
Student loan interest was piling up. Hospital bills were out to collection agencies. No one would give her a credit card. She landed a loan for a new car by the skin of her teeth. Her security deposits for car rentals and apartments were through the roof. She wanted to fix it but didn’t even know where to start. Then Sitar, a personal finance editor, found Credit Sesame in 2016, and today, she’s breathing a little easier. Credit Sesame is “answering all the questions swirling in my head, keeping me awake at night and threatening a panic attack every time I authorize a credit check,” Sitar wrote in an article for The Penny Hoarder. Since she started tracking her credit score with the app, she’s watched it rise — slowly but surely — by 68 points, thanks to Credit Sesame’s recommendations.
“It offers real recommendations you can use — one step at a time — to get out of a very confusing hole,” she says. Heck, it even let her know she could refinance her car loan and save a ton of money on interest over time. She’s also been able to find a credit card she could actually qualify for.
Since signing up, Sitar has caught up with her student loan payments and is even ahead on her car payments now. Her goal is to improve her score a little more so she can qualify for a personal loan to consolidate her debt. Inspired? If you want to see how you can improve your credit score, signing up for Credit Sesame is totally free — and it only takes about 90 seconds to get started.
*60% of Credit Sesame members see an increase in their credit score; 50% see at least a 10-point increase, and 20% see at least a 50-point increase after 180 days.
Credit Sesame does not guarantee any of these results, and some may even see a decrease in their credit score. Any score improvement is the result of many factors, including paying bills on time, keeping credit balances low, avoiding unnecessary inquiries, appropriate financial planning and developing better credit habits.
Written, Compiled & Edited by
The Bergen Review Media Team
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