Do NOT Confuse Muscle Strength With Muscle Mass!

People have told me that they gain strength using certain techniques (such as HIT, also known as "High Intensity Training"), but do not grow in muscle size, and this seeming contradiction must confuse many who aim to improve their physique. It is very important that you do NOT mistake strength gains with muscle building, as you may find yourself using a significantly higher weight in all exercises six weeks after starting a new routine, but have yet to gain any measurable muscle mass, and this will cause you to believe that waiting a few weeks longer will allow muscle size to "catch up" with strength improvements. However, it will prove to be a very long, disappointing few weeks if you take this approach, because your muscle size will not change! Do not mistakenly believe that a routine is "working" just because you are now bench pressing more than you were a few weeks ago, because the only way to determine if your routine is providing legitimate progress is to MEASURE muscle growth (I will teach you how this is done). You can gain strength AND muscle size SIMULTANEOUSLY if you eat and train correctly, but there are routines that will actually cause your strength to improve with little associated muscle size increases (such as H.I.T., as well as others), and this is a very important distinction that you must realize.