If your primary goal is to build muscle in the gym, then you need to lift weights, weights and more flamin' weights! And you can't just go in and do any kind of weight training you want either. You have to do certain exercises, a certain amount of sets and a certain amount of reps per exercise.
I learned this the hard way. When I was sixteen (the legal age to lift weights in a gym in my country for insurance reasons) I joined a gym at 5 foot 8 inches and 8 1/2 stone! A twig to say the least! I went in for my first session and was taken through an induction by a fitness instructor. I told him I wanted to gain muscle and he took me to every weight machine in the place, showed me how to use it and told me to do four sets of 10-12 reps at each machine 3 times a week to buff up.
So away I went, green and naive, three times a week for a year and a half to the gym. And guess how many pounds I gained? Zero! I thought to myself that something was wrong, and decided to take matters into my own hands. I downloaded a program for myself to follow from a body building expert, learned all about the subject, and away I went!
Back at the gym I never even touched a weight machine again. I went straight in, warmed up on a treadmill for 5 minutes and went straight over to the free weights. Free weights are much better for gaining muscle because they don't work on just one muscle, you have to use one or two primary muscles, followed by a group of secondary muscles to do the exercises. For example, if you were doing leg curls (when you lie down on your stomach and curl weights using your hamstring muscles) you're only actually exercising your hamstrings. But if you want to hit your hamstrings using free weights you do dead lifts. This is when you hold a barbell at waist length, arms relaxed, and slowly bend over as if your trying to stretch your hamstrings and touch your toes. When you feel the stretch in your hamstrings you slowly move back up to the starting position again. When doing this exercise properly, you're not only working out your hamstrings, but all your lower back muscles and your calf muscles too!
There are obviously other exercises that workout the rest of the muscles in your body. If you exercise each muscle only once per week (2 warm up sets and 4 workout sets) you will become much much stronger than you would by using weight machines, I guarantee. And combined with a guided and specific diet, you too can gain solid muscle mass! I have gained over 2 stone now and am still gaining!
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