Work out: No muscle mass?

Question

I'm pretty thin, and don't have much body fat

When I work out, I just DON'T gain muscle mass, I get toned. I do 40 wide push ups, 20 triangle push ups, 40 sit ups, and leg lifts.

So my question is, what should I do to gain more muscle mass? Stick to the routine? Get a new routine? I won't drink Whey protein because I don't want to gain all sorts of weight when I get lazy!

Any help, information, or knowledge is greatly appreciated

Thank you

Updates

+1 y

I do intend on replying to all of your answers, for they are all very helpful!

So I haven't forgot, and thank you for the wisdom guys!

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

I agree with what kholland65 said for the most part. 8-12-ish reps on a bodypart split along with a high calorie nutritious diet is imperative. To tell you all you need to know about building muscle in one comment just isn't going to happen. So what I reccomend is that you google ELITEFTS.com and READ everything on their site about building muscle and gaining strength. Sites with highly experienced lifters like Elite will give you the info you need regarding rep ranges, programming, and nutrition. What it comes down to is listening to the right people who have been there and done what you are trying to accomplish and not listening to big box commercial gym wanna-be trainers who tell you a bunch of myths of and unproven BS stuff. Simplyshredded.com is also a good place to start as well as bodybuilding.dot com. Basicly, what you'll find from all these sources is that the basic underlying factors for gaining muscle are the following:

-Eat...ALOT. people who say they can't gain weight just haven't eaten enough. Eat a ton of protein, veggies, good carbs like rice, potatoes and pasta, and enough fat from meats and nuts. If you notice the scale isn't budging after a week or 2, EAT MORE.

- Stay consistent on your program. The guys who get really big and strong are the ones who don't "program hop" on a regular basis. If you overthink things to much and look for an easy way out to gaining muscle by switching programs every few weeks, you will end up spinning your wheels and not get to far. Find a tried and tested bodybuilding split for beginners and go at it hard. Get good rest every night and be FOCUSED in the gym.

-Don't trade the fancy sh*t for the basics. Fads like functional core training and TRX come and go and "cutting edge" programs get recycled over the decades just like fashion trends. Stick to the core movements that have helped shape the champions for years like benching, squats, dips, heavy barbell curls, pullups, etc. As you learn and get bigger/stronger you can decide for yourself what works best for your body though.

IT REALLY IS that simple; the missing part for a lot of guys though is patience and desire. Stick with it for the long haul and never forget what inspired you to gain muscle. It takes a LONG time to build any appreciable mass, but if you stay focused and do those basic things, you'll get there.

Best of Luck

kholland65 · Accepted Answer

First of all your workout routine is all wrong. Way to many reps, not enough weight. If you want mass, you should not be doing 20-40 of anything. That's basically a cardio work out for losing weight.

You should be lifting 5-10 reps per sex and with about 80-90% of your one rep max. Basically you should be almost turning blue in the face by the time you finish the last set. There is a reason all those body builders are grunting when trying to push out that last rep.

Lifting for mass/strength is very tough because it requires you to lift so much weight. You know you had a good workout when by the time you walk out of the gym you almost have 0 use left of those muscles.

You also are likely not eating enough. What you eat is more important that what you do in the gym and any trainer will tell you that. The rule of thumb is minimum 1g of protein per lb you weight. So if you weight 150lbs, you need to eat a minimum of 150 grams of protein per day. That's way to much to eat naturally which is why protein shakes come in. Eat a lot of calories as well but good calories. Eat 6 times throughout the day. 3 meals and 3 snakes. The snacks should be of good portion size and high in protein. Granola bar, string cheese, cup of peanuts, etc. You should be eating about every 2-3 hours. A protein shake can be a substitute for a snake.

Just google mass gaining routines and you'll find some good stuff. There is no perfect routine by the way. Many routines as long as they are in the ball park will suffice, as long as you stick to it and eat right. Cheating in and out of the gym will hold you back more than you think. Another workout I might suggest since I'm just now trying it myself is the 5-3-1 workout (google it). It's a well known routine amongst body builders and many people swear by it.

sadieJ · Accepted Answer

I've always understood that if you want to bulk muscle you should use more weight and less repetitions.

Your toning so you have muscle mass, it's probably just the way you are doing the exercise, kind of exercises, how often, and how consistently.

It's also probably based off of the body type you have. Some people bulk muscle easier than others. You're probably going to have to work harder for it and actually be consistent. Don't get lazy.

alzzey · Accepted Answer

eat more (so you can turn it into muscle), and get a couple diffrent workout routines, and switch them every month:p doing the same workouts all the time won't help you beacuse your muscles get use to it so after a while its not really a workout anymore lol.

Blobb · Answer

1. Make sure you eat enough. /see Johnny's post, it's good.

2. Make sure you rest your muscles in between workouts. Your muscles need to rebuild, so once you have the proper nutrition to make that happen, make sure you're sleeping well and at least 24 hours of rest between workouts on the same muscle group, that will let you build muscle easier.

3. Make sure you're sleeping enough, I said that in 2 but it's real important. It's during your sleep that your budy regenerates and hence builds muscle.

4. Drink enough water daily. Don't skip out on this, it's super important for your health and fitness in general.

5. Do more than just 60 pushups and 40 sit ups.

When I didn't have weights I did a sh*tton of pushups, I did em till I dropped.

So 60 is nice, but it's not stimulating your muscles for growth. You want to work them to utter exhaustion, when you had a 2 minute rest, you get on your hands and you can no longer do one full pushup anymore, then you can call it a day. That worked for me pretty well, combined with pullups, dips, situps and a good diet I made good gains.

Add pullups pullups to your routine, they require more effort. So do pullups lots of em, and weighted pushups if you can/handstand pushups (all you need is a wall). If you can't do a handstand pushup, do a bunch of negatives, which is letting yourself down slowly in a controlled way; until you build the strength to push back up

For your abs, you can probably handle 150 situps. 40 seems a bit light.

But if you had to take just one thing from all of this, it would be: eat more of the right stuff -> see Johnny's post

MyNameIsJonas · Answer

Just saw that you cannot use a gym. Can you find any monkey bars around town that you can use? Check these guys out link Great channel with a lot of stuff you can do without a gym.

JohnnyTheBoy has some good advice for you in terms of nutrition. You have to eat more calories and more protein. Nutrition is half the battle!

As for your push ups and leg lifts you need to add more weight. You can do this with a back pack! weight up a back pack with about 25lbs and start doing the routine your at. Match it set for set and rep for rep. In college I was without a gym for awhile and had to bare bones it and loading up my back pack was what I did.

I do 3 sets of 30 squats with about 40lbs in my backpack (kill the legs! it will boost size and tes levels)

For push ups load up your back pack and do your routine. Try doing 3 sets of 30 with 25lbs in your back pack. Also try doing elevated push ups with your feet on a chair. It works upper chest and are a lot harder.

Also start doing hand stand push ups for shoulders. Do them up against a wall to gain form -

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=JGhdSLkf-8o

This will add some size and muscle onto the shoulders. I still do these with every shoulder workout.

JohnnyTheBoy · Answer

yes, download a pdf from 4shared called 5/3/1, do the boring but big template.

don't start to gorge and think it'll all turn to muscle, it won't.

just figure your maintenance calories (your weight in pounds times 10) and add 500 to that to account for exercise. if you want to gain muscle, eat 250 more than this muscle, when you are ready to cut a little fat, eat 500 less than this number.

spread your calories over five meals (9 am to 9 pm, eat every 3 hours) and be sure to include protein and mixed veggies in the majority of your meals. Reserve simple sugars for when you actually need them (waking up and before a workout). Complex carbs are important for building muscle so don't neglect these.

you should have at least .8 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight in your diet, once you start lifting intensely (the general public only needs .5 grams /lb bodyweight).

hope this helps. --johnny

DirtyDiaper · Answer

First off the stuff you do is called kitchen workout and you do that at home before bed on top of your actual workout. But even just wroking out you probably have insane metabolism just like me and you'll find you go from lifting 20 pound to 60 pound dumbells and gain like 3 pounds. You need to eat more. And when I say more I mean you take 2000 calories daily now, up that to 6000. And all healthy no McDonald's (once in a while it's fine for your metabolism). It's the hardest part a lot harder than the workout itself.

Ichron · Answer

You're doing a workout that is more or less tailored to toning instead of bulking.  Go with heavier weights (well, weights in general since you're not lifting it seems), with fewer reps.  Light weights with multiple reps builds lean muscle, not the bulk you're looking for.

Prof_Don · Answer

I think you're mixing up whey protein, with a weight gainer.

A whey protein shake will help your get the protein in your diet you need to allow your muscles to recover and gain in size.

Make sure you're eating more than your base metabolic rate. Remember the "calorie deficit" thing goes out the window when you're aiming to gain size. :-D

SovietMafioso59 · Answer

Well to gain muscle mass you NEED to lift weights especially "The big three" squats, bench press and deadlifts. Just doing body weight exercises like pushups and chins aren't really going to help you gain any muscle mass and as for Whey protein, just drink a small amount if you don't want to get "Arnold" crazy, it will help gain mass.

Roman9 · Answer

Diet is a very important thing in working out, specially if you want good results. Although, I'd recommend that you do more pullups, dips and even handstand pushups. Those are killer exercises which will give you results faster than ever.

raptor · Answer

If you workout with the goal of building mass but don't eat enough to sustain it then your workout is pointless.

What you have in your workout isn't bad, but overall it is very lacking. With this workout you're only working your chest, triceps, shoulders and core. You need to incorporate exercises for your back and lower body.

... and despite what many people say, you can build mass with pushups.

Kiran04 · Answer

Mass is all about max lifting.  You should do 3 sets at a weight you can barely do three repetitions of.  If you're doing things you can do 20 of you're gaining endurance, not mass.  Also, don't do more than two groups in one day.  You're liable to hurt yourself.  Hit two groups hard for a day, do some cardio.  Rest two days.  Do two different groups the next day, but lift at your maximum weight.  You should barely be able to get that sh*t off the weight stack.

Anonymous · Answer

you gotta eat big and lift big. push ups won't do sh*t for you because it's not enough weight. especially if you're doing it 40 times. you need to do bench press with a heavy enough weight you can lift 8-10 times.

Food is important too. growing muscle is metabolically costly and your muscles won't grow without enough calories to support that growth.

what you said about whey protein doesn't even make any sense. It's a good source of protein and only $15 at walmart. get it.

Anonymous · Answer

So, don't stop, gain it, gain it (gain it) Until you're cheddar header Watch the way I navigate Haha ha ha ha Feel good Feel good Feel good Feel good

blamalamadingdong · Answer

Protein, you need plenty of protein in your diet, have a steak

Opalivian · Answer

Muscle comes from fat. You just need to eat more (: Not McDonalds though =____= And try pushing yourself to do more everyday until your sore as hell.

Anonymous · Answer

High weight & low reps  What's the big deal about gaining muscle these days?

Anonymous · Answer

You're not eating enough or lifting heavy enough. And pushups don't really build mass.

Moloch · Answer

Why don't you hit the gym instead

Anonymous · Answer

Freeweights.

Work out: No muscle mass?

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