You have probably been working out for a while now and have not really noticed any significant difference with your body still. Sometime you wonder why you even go to the gym. Even if you do tons of resistance training or do a lot of reps on your exercises, if you do not have the proper diet for mass gain, you probably will not be able to get the body you are aiming for. The important elements on gaining muscle is nutrition, lifestyle, and of course, resistance training. Practicing one without the other two will leave you disappointed.

One of the goals that you need to keep in mind is to stimulate, not annihilate. You can do this by increasing the volume of your training gradually. Next is to add resistance to your movements consistently. This way, the growth of muscular contractile elements are encouraged and develops the neurological aspects of strength. It also ensures that you do not injure yourself because of excessive volume.

The Mass Gain workout includes moderate hypertrophy-specific training, alternate mesocycles of moderate weight, and moderate-high, heavy strength volume routines. Some active recovery phases and metabolic conditioning are also included to enhance performance.

The program is based on 1-week microcycles of either hypertrophy or strength mesocycle, each ending in an unloading microcycle. One 7-week macrocycle involves 2 strength microcycles, 1 unloading hypertrophy microcycle, 3 hypertrophy microcycles, 1 unloading strength microcycle, and 1 unloading hypertrophy microcycle. Maximum load testing is also incorporated into the schedule to calculate training loads and measure the progress.

Details that need to be addressed during this program are the following:
- Set/Rep Notation
- Prescribed Loading
- Interset Rest
- Abs-Back Circuit
- Push-Pull Circuit
- Strength Cycle Max Days
- Unloading
- Rest Days
- Testing Days
- Record Keeping

As mentioned earlier, nutrition is also one of the factors to getting results with gaining mass. One saying I can vouch for is that looking good is 70% what you do in the Kitchen and 30% what you do in the gym. There are a couple of nutrition plans associated with the mass gain program: the Zone and the Cyclic Low-Carb.

The Zone is where you calculate your food intake, as well as your body's protein requirements. You'll need to find out what your lean body mass is and incorporate that with the level of activity you do each day to get the number of blocks you need for your diet. The blocks are a unit of measure used in the Zone. For example, a block is equivalent to 9g carbohydrate, 1.5g fat, or 7g protein. Depending on what your base block is, you will also need to up your body fat so your energy intake is proportionate to your output. You will have to eat more than that if you want to gain more mass.

With the Cyclic low-carb approach, you either have the option of getting a full day of high carb intake, totalling to 300-500 grams of carbs every 3-5 days; or you can do 1-2 meals every third or fifth day and take in 300-500 grams of carbs. Choose foods high in starch or glucose to fructose ratios, allowing your muscles to be filled with glycogen. Keep your fat intake low on your high carb meals.

Intermittent fasting is also one key to success in the Mass Plan. You can fast for a brief period to enhance insulin sensitivity and performance, increase nutrient lifespan, decrease inflammation, enhance insulin sensitivity, and alter nutrient partitioning. Two main methods are involved with fasting: the alternation of fasting and eating days or compression of daily meals into a 5-9 hour window (where you eat all of your meals within the timeframe and then fast for the rest of the day). You can also consider a hybrid approach where you can fast every 2nd or 3rd day.

Recovery is often dismissed. You can ignore recovery if you are genetically gifted to recuperate faster than your average person. But how about the average person? It is important that your body gets enough rest. Sure, it would be no problem if you are young and strong. For the average person, you'll need to get at least 8-10 hours of sleep every day if you can; take 3-10 grams of fish oil per day with your meals to help recuperation; do some cryotheraphy or sit in a tub of ice cold water; manage your stress - it will negatively affect you. I find one of the best pieces of advice to follow is that if your mind doesn't want to go to the gym, don't go. But, make sure to go the next day.

It's a long-term commitment to achieve significant progress. You may need to temporarily sacrifice aspects such as extreme metabolic conditioning to allow your body to grow and repair itself. Once your body has recuperated, you can then go for the bigger guns.