For the first 30 years that bodybuilding existed most competitive bodybuilders believed that you needed to add fat in order to add muscle to your frame and increase your lean body mass. However things have changed and with the advent of the Natural Mr America and many other such shows, bodybuilders have discovered that muscle can be added without adding on the required 20 or even 30 pounds in the off-season.
The whole concept of adding muscle has changed as we now know that hard training for only 45 minutes will get you better results than training 2 or 3 hours at a time like in the good old days. Science has taught us that the basic ingredients of progressive resistance still exist but it can be improved on.
Increased strength means increased lean body mass and science has not managed to prove otherwise. This means that if you want to add more lean body mass you need to increase your core strength and the only way to do that which has been conclusively proven is to do the basic compound movements.
The Big Four they are called simply because they have always worked when the objective is to increase muscle because it increases your central core strength that you have. The big four are squats, dead-lift, bench-press and military press and these should be trained with a high intensity three times a week only.
Training hard for an hour doing all these four movements with as little rest between sets as you can manage will be able to make a big difference if you are eating correctly. Muscle is built on two pillars and they are progressive resistance and nutrition.
If you are eating correctly and increasing the weight that you lift just a little every week then there is no way that you will not be adding lean body mass to your frame. The variations are countless and you need to start listening to your own body to see which works best for you.
