One way to stimulate muscle growth is to superset two exercises that use the same muscle groups, but in a different fashion. For example, perform a deadlift for six reps, then go into a discontinuous broad jump for eight reps. Among others, this activates the glutes, hamstrings and quads with a high-load, low-velocity stimulus, immediately followed by a low-load, high-velocity stimulus. In this case, the first exercise will increase the neural drive to the muscle for the second set, meaning you’re more likely to activate the maximal number of muscle fibers in the involved muscles.

In order to stimulate muscle growth, you need to provide your muscles with an overloading stimulus. It is a well-known fact that you can’t perform maximally, mentally or physically, if you’re dehydrated. In order perform each set with maximal focus and intensity, you need to be properly hydrated. Ensure that you’re drinking adequate water throughout the day. During your training, consuming a drink with some carbohydrates, like POWERADE ZERO, will help maintain adequate hydration and electrolyte levels.

Excessive conditioning is one of the biggest workout mistakes people make. Your body can only adapt to so many stressors. Excessive conditioning can increase your cortisol levels, which is a catabolic (breakdown) hormone. For “hard gainers,” burning extra calories will make it increasingly difficult for you to add mass. If you aren’t an athlete, and you move throughout the day, you can get away with a few training phases without any conditioning.

Quality sleep improves your anabolic (growth) hormone profile and facilitates recovery. Simply put, this allows you to train harder, recover faster and make better progress. Individual sleep needs differ, but you should aim to get between seven to nine hours of motionless, drool-pooling sleep a night.

Zinc Magnesium Aspartate (ZMA) is a mineral supplement reported to improve your anabolic hormone profile. Anecdotally, ZMA supplementation will improve the quality/deepness of your sleep. Regardless of whether the mineral supplement improves your anabolic hormone profile directly (unlikely if you aren’t consuming a zinc-deficient diet) or indirectly through improving your sleep quality, most men agree that it works.

Research suggests that heavy sets lasting from 30 to 70 seconds are ideal for stimulating muscle growth. Traditional training programs call for a certain number of “reps” per set as an indirect way to reach specific “time under tension” lengths. Realistically, most men perform sets of 10 to 12 reps in less than 15 seconds. Performing sets for time guarantees that your muscles are stimulated for the time periods necessary for stimulating hypertrophy. Use timed sets sparingly, as they can be extremely taxing on the nervous system.

Most men focus on what they take in after they’re done training. While consuming a rapidly digesting protein and carbohydrate drink immediately after your training will help replenish your muscles’ energy stores and stimulate protein synthesis (muscle building), it still takes time for these nutrients to be digested and absorbed. Taking down a drink is better than eating a chicken sandwich because it takes less time to be digested and absorbed. For the same reason, consuming your training drink immediately before and/or during your training session (if your stomach can handle it) will help ensure that the nutrients are being delivered to the working muscle as quickly as possible, leading to a faster recovery process. Using this strategy will also provide your body with nutrients while you’re training, which can give you the extra push you need to get through your last few exercises.

Most men spend way too much time on single-joint exercises (like the chest fly and dumbbell curl) geared toward isolating a muscle and getting a “pump.” While a few isolation-based exercises are OK (and probably necessary), the majority of your program should be made up of multi-joint exercises, like deadlifts, chin-ups, dumbbell chest presses, and lunges. Multi-joint exercises activate/stimulate more muscle mass per repetition, which increases anabolic hormone production.

The most common complaint among men who want to add mass is that they “can’t put on weight, no matter what they do.” If you’re struggling to gain weight, you need to eat more. If you think you’re eating a lot, you aren’t. Eat more. Sneak in calories whenever you can. Add Parmesan cheese to your salads. Put peanut butter on your fruit. Get 2% or whole milk instead of 1% or skim. If you’re extremely lean, your body can probably tolerate a higher amount of calories from quality carbohydrates, so try to add more whole grain bread, pasta and quinoa to your diet, especially early in your day and on training days. Every couple weeks, spend three or four days writing down everything that you eat, and feed it into an online tracking system like the one at FitDay.com to see how many calories you’re taking in and where they’re coming from. If you’re built like Gumby and you aren’t adding muscle, you either aren’t eating enough or your training program is garbage.