Some muscle building websites focus on nothing more than teaching you how to gain muscle mass as fast as possible and as much as you can. I want to give you a broader picture and talk about how you can gain muscles and become more athletic in the process.
One of the main problems of muscle builders is that they bigger and heavier they get, the less athletic they get. You don’t see a really bulky NBA player, do you? No, their muscles are developed in an entirely different way. They have lots of definition but their muscles are big enough to get the job done and nothing more.
This idea of building functional muscles is something that I’m fascinated with because I believe that the athletically muscular body shape is the most attractive a men can get (don’t get me wrong, I did an informal survey with some women acquaintances and with the girlfriends I’ve had over the years to come to this conclusion).
However, this does take the focus away from just building mass to increasing flexibility, reach, recovery, strength and so on. You may not be as huge as you’d like to be if you also aim to become as athletic as possible, not just in looks but in actual ability.
Here are some tips on how to become more athletic:
1. Do more stretching than you normally do. Stretching is something that a lot of people neglect to do because they’re anxious to get to their weights. This isn’t recommended no matter how you train, but if your aim is to be more athletic, you’ve do to keep your muscles supple, elongated, and flexible. You will need to spend more time on stretching and do more complex stretching exercises.
2. Do lots of bodyweight exercises – Usually athletes don’t run around with dumbbells or other weights. Naturally, these guys and gals do workout in gyms a lot but their performance is judged by what they do on the track, court, or field. There, they have to be the best they can be by themselves. One excellent program with lots of body weight exercises and complex ones at that is the Tacfit Commando program, which I highly recommend checking out.
3. Do multi-planar movements – While lifting weights can often be limited in the direction and way you move, athletes need to make quick direction changes and be able to shift their body in all ways and forms. Multi-planar exercises are defined as those that require you to engage in exercises that make you move forward, backward, sideways, and include rotational movements as well. Do these a lot.
4. High intensity burst cardio is also recommended: sprinting, jumping, short range track runs can all help you improve your athletic ability and become a more able, better performing athlete.
5. Focus on this instead on becoming huge. I’m a big believer in how the mind influences and determines our results. If you always aim to be the biggest you can be, you will do the things that get you that way. If you aim to be more athletic, you will do other things. Keep your mind on your goal and you will find that you’re doing the right things to get you to where you want to be.
ManicMuscles Recommends
To build big muscles and to become more athletic at the same time, I recommend the Triple Threat Muscle program by Jason Ferrugia. This is a program that’s designed to help you gain mass but making this a functional muscle mass so that you have the best performance ability you can possibly find.
Jason Ferrugia has long been one of my favorite muscle building experts and I highly recommend that you check his program out to get bigger and become more athletic at the same time. Expect some hard work and a no nonsense approach from Jason but he knows his stuff for sure.
