The Casual Lifter

Alright, time to let the phat outta the bag. I'm gonna tell you the secret to getting extremely strong through weight training.

It's a simple truth about the way the body and your muscles work, in spite of all the gibberish you're likely to find by searching the internet: heavy weights and low reps, light weights and high reps, overemphasizing each up and down motion with the weight so you spend four seconds going up and seven going down... it's all crap.

There's one thing you need to worry about if you want to increase muscle mass: use the weights that challenge your muscles after anywhere from 3-10 repetitions, rest for a minute in between sets, and decrease the weight slightly after each set. Keep on going down like that for three or four sets, sometimes five if you feel the need.

Your muscles don't know numbers. They don't care if you tear them apart lifting 190 pounds or 110 pounds; you just have to tear them up, then rest for the next two or three days AT LEAST, eating protein-rich food whenever you can. Supplements and shakes, however, aren't necessary.

You should feel some soreness around 24 hours after your workout-- called delayed onset muscle soreness-- and if you did your job during the training session, it should last for a couple of days, maybe more.

If you didn't feel soreness, or it didn't last for a day or two, then you need to modify your routine so that next time, it does. I don't mean you should pull muscles; not all pain is good, just a soreness in your muscles when you use them in the couple of days following your workout.

The beauty of this is that you don't have to overdo it. If you can get five minutes in and really work those muscles through a few sets, you're helping, so long as you feel it the next day. You CAN be a casual lifter, lifting once every week or week and a half, and make progress.

But before you start trying to tear t-shirts off of yourself Hulk Hogan-style to impress people, remember that results require patience and dedication. Progress comes literally overnight (so get sufficient sleep), but the results you envision may not.