When performing a workout, your breathing should be more rapid than normal. This should start to happen within the first minute of your workout. Ideally, your breathing should not return to a normal pace until at least ten minutes after you finish your workout. If your breathing pace has not increased, then you are not training rapidly enough. This will seriously reduce your rate of muscle gains.
I have rarely seen guys at the gym willing to train at the required pace. An unwillingness to work hard is the number one reason for lack of muscle gains. To inspire maximum results from training, you must train hard. Your breathing and heart rate must be elevated. But you know what. Such a pace only needs to be sustained for fifteen to twenty minutes. Any additional length will prove a waste of your time and effort.
When I first learned this secret, I focused on this one factor almost entirely. Doing this had a direct impact on all of the other factors involved and really helped me to build muscle fast. Training the largest muscle groups of the body at an elevated pace, until momentary exhaustion, literally forces you to workout briefly. Fifteen to twenty minutes maximum.
By forcing a time constraint on your workouts, you immediately raise your level of intensity. Simultaneously, you will have managed to reduce the amount of time spent training. The absolute opposite of this method is working out six times a week, in a vain attempt to produce greater muscle gains. This is simply not an option. If that was what natural bodybuilding really required, I’d consider it to be a bad use of my time.