Personal Training for Muscle Building: How to Train Clients for Building Mass | Exercise.com Learn: Your Fitness Business Resource

Personal Training for Muscle Building: How to Train Clients for Building Mass

Personal trainers for building muscle are vitally important when your goal is to build some serious muscle mass. If you are a personal trainer wanting to build muscle in your clients or someone looking for the best personal trainer for building muscle mass, read on to learn how a personal trainer can help build muscle.

Tyler Spraul is the director of UX and the head trainer for Exercise.com. He has his Bachelor of Science degree in pre-medicine and is an NSCA-certified strength and conditioning specialist. He is a former All-American soccer player and still coaches soccer today. In his free time, he enjoys reading, learning, and living the dad life. He has been featured in Shape, Healthline, HuffPost, Women's...

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UPDATED: Jun 5, 2021

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  • Personal trainers can craft a perfect muscle-building workout for clients to follow.
  • A skilled trainer knows the right exercises to select and the appropriate intensity in which to train the exercises.
  • Trainers can also advise on proper diet and rest for muscle recovery.
  • Stick with a trainer possessing specialized experience with mass building workouts.

Learn how personal trainers build muscle mass in clients. The classic physiques of old-time and modern-day bodybuilders may be inspiring to you or your clients. After all, physiques showing off solid muscle are definitely impressive.

There’s no secret to how all that muscle grew. A bodybuilder’s muscle mass comes from a dedication to working out hard in the gym.

Randomly choosing exercises and lifting heavy, however, won’t lead you to your maximum potential. A proper mass building workout creates the thick look of a muscled lifter.

Many great sources of training information exist out there, and researching various lifting programs makes sense. So does hitting the gym hard.

Those struggling to see gains despite their best work probably should seek out a personal trainer. With proper instruction and guidance, building up muscle mass just might become more attainable.

Tracking your daily victories with our advanced stats will keep you motivated and focused on your big goals! If you are a fitness professional, get a demo of our personal trainer workout software today!

Personal Trainers Devise the Right Program

Personal trainers work one-on-one with clients to help them achieve their desired fitness goals. A common assumption is personal trainers only work with people wishing to lose weight.

Actually, a talented personal trainer can assist a wide range of clients to meet varied goals. Certified personal trainers with a great deal of weightlifting experience can help you build muscle mass.

Working out with a personal trainer can help with mass building in the following ways:

Putting Focus on the Best Exercises

Compound movements represent the core exercises for mass building. In the very early days of bodybuilding, legends such as Steve Reeves and Reg Park focused very heavily on compound exercises such as the bench press, squat, military press, and the like.

Isolation exercises, however, do not really promote muscle building since it focuses on light weight and high reps. Isolation exercises help during the cutting and definition phase.

When hoping to build up mass, you need to work on compound exercises that pull several muscle groups together to lift heavy weight.

A trainer knows what exercises are best for you to perform and avoids those that wouldn’t be beneficial to muscle building.

Advising on the Right Amount of Rest

Muscles don’t grow when you work them out in the gym. When lifting, you put your muscles through a tough time. Afterward, the muscles grow in the recovery stage when the body remains at rest.

People hitting the gym too often, too long, and for too many days per week deny their bodies the rest necessary to build muscle.

A trainer knows your workout schedule. He/she usually writes one tailored for you. A smart pre-planned workout also factors in appropriate rest to ensure better recovery and to avoid over-training.

Keeping You Away from Bad Diet Choices

Increasing calorie intake must be done in order to build muscle. The body requires a calorie surplus to pack on added muscle, which creates a delicate balancing act.

Eating too much leads to adding fat as well as muscle.

A trainer can provide basic advice on a clean muscle-builder diet to help you stay on track to gain size with a minimum of added body fat.

Protein intake is vital since protein helps muscle repair itself. Trainers can advise on the best protein supplements and real food choices to maximize protein benefits.

A savvy trainer can also guide you away from overpriced and unnecessary supplements.

Working You to Failure on Reps

The number of sets and reps you perform can vary. Some trainers opt for a 5×5 workout while others may prefer 4×10. Regardless, muscle building requires lifting enough weights that the muscles grow.

Training to failure, the inability to finish the last set due to fatigue, helps the cause.

A trainer can guide a client through training to failure in an appropriate and safe way. Training to failure without proper instruction and supervision could lead to an injury.

The trainer may even choose to delay training to failure until you have already developed a decent base of muscle mass, or the trainer could limit training to failure to one body part per week.

All these approaches derive from the knowledge and experience necessary to deliver results.

Reducing the Chances of Injury

Pushing yourself in the gym helps with getting results, but trying to lift far too much weight on any exercise creates the potential for injury. Being unable to lift an overloaded barbell on a bench press could lead to a catastrophe if the muscles give out.

A responsible trainer doesn’t allow someone to add an unsafe amount of weight to a bar.

The trainer also ensures proper form is employed during workout sessions. The right form cuts down on the chances of experiencing an injury. Proper form also maximizes results.

For example, locking the arms out on a shoulder press or bench press helps build muscle in the triceps. Those who don’t hit their triceps properly during these exercises won’t see their arms fully develop.

These points highlight only a small amount of benefits from working with a personal trainer. One-on-one trainer absolutely can an inexperienced lifter achieve better muscle building results than if he/she struggled during solo gym sessions.

Even experienced lifters find a personal trainer can assist them to overcome plateaus. Both newbie and long-time lifters should follow two bits of advice in order to truly maximize their sessions.

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Choose the Best Trainer for Muscle-Building

When seeking a trainer for workouts intended to build muscle, select someone with experience devising mass-building programs.

The trainer doesn’t have to be massive him/herself or a bodybuilding competitor. They should be someone who knows a lot about these kinds of workouts and supported other clients meet the same goals.

A trainer who specializes as a strength and conditioning coach probably doesn’t focus on building up muscle mass and might not be the best choice.

Put the Right Amount of Time With a Trainer

Building up muscle mass takes time. While those who never trained before may experience some quick “newbie gains,” significant increases in muscle mass take time.

A minimum of six months of training is required for just a beginner mass building program. That is a lot of time before moving onto an intermediate program.

So, you do need to be committed to working out with a trainer for an extended period of time.

Great Trainers Are Out There

You can find a great personal trainer easily these days. Social media and video sharing platforms display a lot of information about local trainers.

Look at the type of workouts they promote and check out their teaching style. This way, you can get an idea if the trainer is right for you and your mass building goals.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

How many days a week should I exercise?

Three to five workouts a week is recommended for best results.

How do I create my own mass-building workout plan?

You can create your own, but be sure to enlist the help of a personal trainer!

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