Few situations are more frustrating than the feeling that you’re wandering around the gym aimlessly. If you’re still not seeing the benefits you expect, there’s probably a reason. Building muscle requires both a focused strategy and consistent effort. Following a structured workout program, a protein-rich diet, and stress-reducing habits all play a role in maximizing results.
Luckily, seeing better results in half the time doesn’t require a drastically different workout plan or intensive weight loss program. Small changes can lead to big results if you’re willing to do the work. By focusing on a few key training and nutrition principles, you can accelerate muscle growth and get more benefits from each workout.
If you want to gain muscle fast, follow these trainer-approved tips.
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1. Apply progressive overload
dylan coulter
Increasing strength improves your body’s ability to recruit muscle fibers, especially those that make the biggest difference to your body composition. But to really get stronger, you’ll need to apply muscle building principles like progressive overload, which simply means doing “more” over time.
“It could be more sets, more reps, more weight, or any combination of those variables,” says trainer, strength and conditioning coach and owner Casey Lee. objective power. “One way to do this is what I call a ‘sliding scale.’ Over the course of four weeks, we add reps, then we add sets. For the most part, the weight stays the same, but if you’re feeling confident with the weight you’re using and you want to increase it, go for it.”
In practice, progressive overload may look like this:
- week 1: 2 sets of 6 reps, noting how hard you worked on the last set
- Week 2: 2 sets of 6 to 10 reps
- Week 3: 3 sets of 6 to 10 reps
- Week 4: 4 sets of 6 to 10 reps
Using this strategy, choose three exercises you want to improve: an upper-body push (like a bench press), an upper-body stretch (like a row), and a lower-body exercise (try the deadlift).
2. Keep an eye on your diet
Just as you want to be specific about your training goals and monitor your progress, you also want to keep track of your nutrition. Training hard won’t grow new muscle unless you’re eating enough calories, and a food journal gives you an objective measure of how much you’re actually eating. It also allows you to easily make adjustments if you’re not making the progress you expected. Write down everything you eat and drink along with the time of the day. If you’re not gaining weight, try to see where you can get more calories to speed up your progress.
3. Include compound and isolation exercises
James Michelfelder
Lifts that work muscles at more than one joint are known as compound exercises. These include deadlift, squat, press, row and pullup. Compound lifts recruit a lot of muscle fibers throughout your body, leading to efficient training and cause a large release of hormones like testosterone that promote growth, making them a cornerstone of your workout, especially if you’re new to training.
To build smaller muscles and add more mass, incorporate isolation work (curls, leg extensions, calf raises, triceps pushdowns, etc.). If you are an intermediate to advanced lifter, you will need to incorporate the isolation work you did as a novice, as new lifters can gain muscle using almost any program and are not so large or strong for compound lifts to cause too much fatigue.
4. Go to bed 30 minutes earlier
Recovery is essential for muscle growth, and there’s no better way than getting more sleep. In an ideal world, you’d get eight to nine hours of sleep per night, but that’s not always realistic. However, you can control when you go to bed, giving you the best chance of getting as much sleep as you can. Record those TV shows that would otherwise keep you occupied and in trouble.
5. Challenge yourself at the gym
According to Lee, one of the biggest mistakes in building muscle is not doing sets hard enough. There’s nothing wrong with doing sets that are light and allow you to optimize your exercise routine. But if every workout feels comfortable, you’re probably limiting your results. To build muscle, you need to constantly challenge yourself by doing tough sets in the gym that push your muscles close to their limits.
6. Train each muscle group 2 to 3 times per week
James Michelfelder and Therese Somerseth
Bodybuilding programs are typically divided up to affect each individual body part once a week. This means you go longer between workouts for a particular muscle group. If you can only lift weights three times a week, try switching to full-body workouts where you work the entire body in each session. This way, you’ll hit each muscle three times per week.
If you’re training four days per week, try an upper/lower split where you hit each muscle twice a week with about five sets. Increasing the frequency with which you work each muscle will allow you to make strength and muscle gains more quickly.
“Generally, if you’re looking for muscle growth, you want a baseline of 10 sets per muscle group per week,” says Lee. “This could look a few different ways. One way would be to crush that body part in one workout and do five different movements for a total of 10 sets. Another way would be to break those 10 sets into different workouts over the week.”
7. Don’t neglect your feet
Even if your goal is only to get a bigger chest and arms, you can’t forget about leg training. Firstly, muscle imbalances look bad, and secondly, heavy compound lower body exercises like deadlifts have a huge impact on your overall muscle development, even in your upper body. That’s because they recruit muscles everywhere — even in your shoulders and back — and they promote the release of hormones that build size and strength.
8. Eat more on “off days”
Linda Xiao
Just because you’re not training today doesn’t mean you shouldn’t eat more. Your days off are when most of your muscles are growing – the recovery phase – so it makes sense to have plenty of nutrients on hand to ensure the body gets the most benefit.
It’s OK – and probably prudent – to reduce your carb intake slightly on non-training days because you don’t need extra energy for training, but keep your protein high and make sure your total calorie intake doesn’t drop by more than 500 calories.
9. Eat your carbs
Low-carb diets are extremely popular for losing body fat, but this is the opposite of what you need to grow muscle. To bulk up, you can’t be afraid to gain a little fat, and as long as you’re eating clean and eating enough calories to grow — but not too many — then just a little fat will do.
As a starting point, include carbs in your pre-workout meal and post-workout meal, as well as the shake you take during your workout. From there, you can add or subtract carb meals depending on how you’re progressing toward your goals.
10. Weigh yourself regularly
Most people weigh themselves when they want to lose weight, but using a scale is also an excellent tool for tracking muscle gain. Weigh yourself at the same time every morning, preferably after you go to the bathroom and before eating. Track your changes week by week. If the scale isn’t moving up, your muscles aren’t growing. plain and simple. Try adding about a half pound per week to minimize fat gain, and use a mirror to make sure the weight you’re gaining is solid muscle.
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