For most people this is not easy and I’m not going to be one of those people who tells you it is to try and boost sales…because I have nothing to sell! There are 4 solid principles that must occur to start gaining muscle mass.
- A sufficient stimulus must be present to break down the muscle tissue (weight resistance exercises)
- You have to eat enough calories and protein to build up the muscle tissue you have broken down.
- You have to allow your body enough time to repair said tissue before applying further stimulus (rest)
- You have to have progressive overload or you will plateau.
Before we get into details about the above principles I will retouch in more detail what the “reasonable expectations” are for most trained individuals regarding how much muscle mass they can expect. If you have never worked out in your life (or at least in a few years) you can expect to gain quite a bit of muscle in the first year or two should you follow the above principles and use this narrow window to optimize your muscle growth potential (don’t waste the window like I did by eating an extreme hypocaloric diet during these years). If you are fairly (or extremely) obese you can likely expect a window of “body recomposition” where you will be able to lose fat AND gain muscle mass even if you are on a hypocaloric diet, once again, don’t waste this narrow window if you have it. If you are a relatively young male (or female, but not to the same degree) you can expect a decent amount of muscle growth in the first few years (especially if you are new to working out) IF you are eating enough calories and protein to support maximum muscle growth. That young twenties testosterone and metabolism benefit doesn’t last very long people, so take advantage of it. There are studies that show that pregnant or recently postpartum (new baby) mothers have a metabolic edge when it comes to losing fat and gaining muscle as well, and this is mostly due to the severe hormone fluctuations. If you are breastfeeding you will notice the fat loss impact even more as this burns a ton of calories. You may have seen this phenomenon in mothers who “bounce back” to being in shape relatively quickly.
The last category is everyone who isn’t in the above categories. This is your average mid-twenties or older person who has dabbled in working out but never been serious about it, or that person who has been lifting for years with not much to show for it. If you couple the following principles and advice with that given in my Weight Loss post you will see results, but you can’t expect to have your cake and eat it too (lose fat and gain muscle). You have to go through cycles of building up and stripping down. You can make these cycles as dramatic or subtle as you wish by tinkering (gain 30 pounds on your mass phase for instance). If you’re only focus is becoming a beast in the gym and you don’t care about a little body fat, then the following advice still applies.
A sufficient stimulus must be present to break down muscle tissue. Our first principle is actually probably only the second most important (your caloric intake being the most important). You HAVE to lift weights people! If you want to build muscle you have to break it down first. The best way to do this is through sufficient resistance training (body weight, lifting weights, etc.) When you first start out you are going to be sore as all hell due to the lactic acid build up. You aren’t used to it and the whole process is a shock to the body. That’s why you need to start slow and work your way up. To help curb this (for those of you who don’t love the burn like some of us), take an ice bath. I’m serious, exposing your body to cold temperatures after an intense workout (which all of your workouts will be to those new to working out) actually halts the buildup of lactic acid which is the compound responsible for that burning sensation you get after you workout. Why do you think you see professional athletes in ice baths after intense training? I will talk more about training splits and rep ranges in a separate post (and a little bit later in this post), but in the beginning just pick a few exercise for each body part and aim for 6-12 repetitions for each set. I would say about 3-4 sets per exercise and about 3-4 exercises per body part should be a sufficient starting point. If you are too sore after this (usually you will notice peak soreness about 24-72 hours later) then either back off a little the following week or simply don’t do MORE (i.e. repeat the same thing) until you notice you’re getting less sore from the same workout. Most seasoned lifters “chase the burn”. If we stop getting sore, that’s when we know our stimulus isn’t great enough and we have to add weight or change something up. I use the burn to let me know I am getting the work done.
You have to eat enough calories and protein to build up the muscle tissue you have broken down. Seems extremely vague and simple at the same time doesn’t it? If you have read my Basics of Nutrition post (or other post) you have hopefully estimated your TDEE at this point. I recommend starting at about 500 calories more than your maintenance TDEE states. I have personally found my maintenance TDEE to be more of a range than a solid state number (2400-2800 for me is where I tend to stay the same weight each week). You are aiming for about 1-2 pounds gained every couple weeks to a month. I have found that putting on weight any faster than that results in a fast accumulation of body fat. As stated many times before, this process takes time, tinker with it by 250-500 calories if you are gaining too fast or too slow. I personally eat about 250g of protein a day in 50g increments (50g with each of my 5 meals). Women can probably get away with half that amount. It depends on which studies you look at but having at least 25g of protein in each meal is a must. The reason you see body builders eating so frequently is because studies have shown that the influx of branched chain amino acids (what your protein is broken down into that helps build new muscle fibers) and nitrogen retention last for about 3 hours and then sharply and steadily decline. This tells you that in order to optimize your muscle growth and make sure our muscles have the required building blocks to grow we should OPTIMALLY be eating sufficient protein amounts every 3 hours. Please read my Weight Loss blog under the Macros section if you have worries about this level of protein intake. Spoiler alert* its fine.
You have to allow your body enough time to repair said tissue before applying further stimulus (rest). I can’t state enough how important this is. Rest is almost as important as the stimulus itself. If you don’t give your muscles time to build up and repair themselves you are cheating yourself. This depends on the person somewhat, but more so on the level of stimulus you placed on it in the beginning. For instance, if you mix back and biceps twice a week you are likely only applying half the stimulus to your biceps as someone who does a dedicated “arms day”, but you are doing it twice a week so your “rest period” is shorter than the weeklong rest period of the dedicated arms day. The muscle group in mention should no longer be sore from the prior workout (or be minimally sore) by the time you apply stimulus again. Now there are many ways to do this correctly depending on your split (the schedule/order/day you work out certain body parts) and we will discuss this in a separate post. Last but not least..SLEEP! I myself am a very light sleeper and admittedly don’t get enough of it. Sleep is where muscles grow the most, so you don’t want to shortchange yourself here.
You have to have progressive overload or you will plateau (your gains will stop or slow). This is a sensitive subject not only because it is commonly misinterpreted, but also because it tends to have people focus too much on the numbers rather than the way your body feels. Progressive overload is basically just increasing the stimulus from principle one over a period of time. This can be done by adding weight to each exercise, adding more volume (number of repetitions, sets or exercises) or increasing the metabolic demand on the muscle (changing the way you’re doing things entirely – AKA shocking the muscle). I tend to mix all of it up. I focus on trying to increase my weight by a little bit every month, while varying my rep ranges and also substituting a new/different exercise in once a month or so. I personally do believe that focusing on heavy weights and compound exercises will increase your strength and hypertrophy (muscle swelling) more than other schemes (aka maximize muscle growth), but I also think lifting very heavy DRAMATICALLY increases your risk for injury. If your career is bodybuilding or you are a strength athlete then you are taking on this risk and are likely not reading this post because you already know what you’re doing. For the rest of the population I would urge you to be careful with heavy weights as this places an inordinate amount of stress on your joints, tendons and ligaments and an injury to any of these will only set you back and possibly cause permanent damage that impairs you in the future. Arnold himself quit lifting heavy once he stepped off the stage (both bodybuilding and actor stage that is).
Well that is a very large subject covered in a nutshell, so I imagine people will have questions about specifics or something I didn’t comb over. As always, I encourage you to comment (email me in the contact us page if you are too shy) with questions or comments about ideas for new posts, but keep it civil. We are trying to create a fitness community here where people feel comfortable and open to ask for help. If I am not the best person to answer you questions in the future I will work my tail off to find someone who is for you!
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