What is most important ingredient to muscle growth is intensity. Without intensity, it is impossible to really develop and strengthen your muscles. It is intensity that causes more blood flow and recruits more muscle fibers, and in turn, causes more muscle growth.

In exercise science, they define intensity as the amount of weight lifted for a given set. However, we are talking about a different kind of intensity. We are talking talking about the kind of intensity that forces the body to adapt and pack on more muscle.

Intensity Is A State Of Mind

Training intensity is about giving 100 percent of your mind, body, and soul to every repetition, every set, every exercise, and every minute of your workout. Intensity means hitting the weights so hard that all your sets end in absolute failure. You are pushing yourself until there is absolutely nothing left. Intensity is as much about the mind as it is about the body.

To train with intensity means that every time you step into the gym you are looking to give your best performance yet. You are always pushing for a higher level of excellence with every exercise, set and rep, regardless of what you’ve achieved in the past.

When you train with this type of intensity, improvements in your performance and physique improvement are inevitable. The higher your training intensity rises, the more effective you’ll be at strengthening and developing your muscles.

Here are some tips on increasing the intensity of your workouts:

Elevate Your Intensity Each Workout

Every time you enter into the gym, your goal should be to have the best performance of your life. This is the true path to maximizing muscle growth and performance.

Therefore, you must focus and mentally commit to continuously raising the level your training intensity. If you do, you will be astonished with the results you are able to achieve.

Don’t Confuse Activity For Intensity

There is a big difference between activity and intensity. Most people move around the gym from exercise to exercise just staying active. In other words, they are simply going through the motions.

Intensity is about getting focused and pouring yourself into each exercise and lifting like nothing else matters. The rest of the world fades away and there is nothing left but you and the weights.

Don’t Confuse Training Volume With Training Intensity

Many people believe because they are doing a lot of different exercises and many sets, that they are training hard. The truth is, the training volume means nothing without intensity.

If you are training with real intensity, you are not going to be able to do a high volume. You will be pushing yourself so hard on each set that your muscles will quickly become exhausted with fewer exercises and sets. If you able to complete more than just a few sets, you are not training with intensity.

Train For An Hour Or Less

When you are training with intensity, an hour or less should be adequate. In fact, if you are not reaching the point of exhaustion in an hour or less, you are not training with enough intensity.

Focus on pushing yourself as hard as you possibly can for around an hour and you will be take your your intensity to new levels.

Document Your Training Performance

A great way to increase intensity is to document your performance. This way you will know what you’ve done during your last training session and it will force you to strive for more this time.

Always strive for improvement in the gym. Progressive, incremental improvements accomplished over time will make your bodybuilding and training efforts more productive and enjoyable.