How to gain muscle mass

Eight tips to help you build muscle mass

Building muscle requires a positive energy balance, which means that you must take in more calories than you burn. You need roughly 2,800 calories to build a pound of muscle, largely to support protein turnover, which can be elevated with training. By following these eight tips, you’ll be able to build muscle mass more efficiently and quickly.

Your body can build at most around about 227g of muscle each week, so if you eat too many extra calories trying to build more muscle, you will gain excess fat, too. We would suggest consuming an extra 250 to 500 calories per day. If you gain fat easily, stay on the lower end of the range, and if you find it difficult to gain weight in general, aim for the higher end of the range. It will take a bit of trial and error to find the right amount of additional calories to build muscle and stay lean.

In addition, research suggests that consuming lean protein 15 to 20 minutes before, during and within one hour of working out may help improve muscle gain. Since you are probably not going to be eating a steak or chicken breast at the gym, a protein drink or supplement may be beneficial immediately before, during or after workouts, but is not necessary.

However, it’s not all about protein. It’s about eating many meals that meet your calorific expenditure and provide you with the nutrition as part of a healthy, balanced diet that will help you to build muscle, lose fat and get stronger. Here are eight simple tips to help you get on track…

1. Eat Breakfast to help build Muscle Mass

This gives you an immediate burst of energy and helps you to stay full until your next meal or snack. It also sets the trend: you’ll tend to eat healthier if your day starts with a strong and healthy breakfast. Your best bets if your trying to build muscle mass are omelettes, smoothies and cottage cheese.

2. Eat every three hours

Eating the right thing at the right time is crucial for helping you boost your muscle mass. The easiest way is to eat your breakfast, lunch and dinner as usual, interspersed with meals post workout, pre-bed and with two snacks in between. By keeping your food intake up, it will mean you won’t be as hungry, because eating smaller meals more often versus a few big meals will decrease your stomach size. You’ll feel full more quickly and your waist will trim, while you’ll also have fewer cravings. Not eating for long periods can cause you to over-eat at the next meal or topping yourself up with unhealthy snacks from the vending machine. So to stop any cravings, eat at fixed times every day and your body will get hungry at those fixed times.

3. Eat Protein with Each Meal to Boost Your Muscle Mass

You need protein to build and maintain muscle. To achieve this, you should be looking to eat at least 1g per 454g of body-weight. That’s 200g/day if you weigh 91kg. The easiest way to get this amount is to eat a whole protein source with each meal. These include:
• Red meat. Beef, pork, lamb, etc.
• Poultry. Chicken, turkey, duck, etc.
• Fish. Tuna, salmon, sardines, mackerel, etc.
• Eggs. Don’t believe the cholesterol myths. Eat the yolk.
• Dairy. Milk, cheese, cottage cheese, quark, yogurt, etc.
• Whey. Not necessary but great for easy post workout shakes.
• Try vegan options too, such as lentils, tofu, seeds and nuts.

4. Eat fruit and vegetables with each meal

Most of them (not all) are low calorie: you can eat your stomach full without gaining fat or weight. Fruit and vegetables are also full of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and fibre which helps digestion, but just be careful to check the sugar content of some fruits.

5. Eat carbs only after your workout

While you need carbs for energy, most people eat more than they need. Limit your carbohydrate intake to after your workout only.
• Eat fruit and vegetables with all meals. These contain few carbohydrates compared to whole grains with the exception of corn, carrots and raisins.
• Another Carbs Post Workout Only. This is rice, pasta, bread, potatoes, quinoa, oats, etc. Avoid white carbs and eat whole grain.

6. Eat healthy fats

Healthy fats improve fat loss and health as they digest slowly. Make sure you balance your fat intake, eat healthy fats with every meal and avoid artificial trans-fats and margarine.

7. Drink water to help you build Muscle Mass

Strength training causes water loss through sweating which can impair muscle recovery and thus, it won’t help you increase your muscle mass. Drinking water prevents dehydration but also hunger since an empty stomach can make you think you’re hungry.

8. Eat Whole Foods 90% of The Time

To really get the results you want and to boost your muscle mass significantly, 90% of your food intake should consist of whole foods.

• Whole foods. These are unprocessed and unrefined (or little refined) foods that come as close as possible to their natural state. Examples: fresh meat, fish, poultry, eggs, vegetables, pulses, fruits, rice, oats, quinoa etc.
• Processed foods Usually contain added sugars, trans-fats, nitrates, corn syrup, sodium and more chemicals. Examples: bagels, fruit bars, cereals, pizza, cookies, sausages, frozen meals, supplements

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How to Build Muscle: What to Eat, How to Train & Everything in Between

While many of us are experts at gaining weight accidentally, what about intentional and healthy weight gain? I’m talking about putting on some lean muscle mass. At first, it might sound easy, but promoting muscle growth can be tricky for a lot of people. It requires an optimal balance of diet, training, rest, and consideration of a number of individual factors. It’s not as simple as eating more food and lifting weights.

So regardless of where you are with your muscle-building goals, here is key information, backed by the latest science and experts, to help you get the most gains possible.

Reach your full muscle-building potential with this free meal prep toolkit. Save time and money on your meal prep, and maximize gains with this simple step-by-step guide.

Introduction: Muscle Growth 101

Muscle growth is the act of increasing the physical size of your lean tissue. This can be accomplished by adding mass and changing your body composition through a combination of training, diet, and lifestyle. Muscle growth always involves a form of weight gain, because you are adding additional muscle tissue.

Even when fat loss occurs simultaneously and overall body weight decreases, increasing the size of your muscles will automatically mean increasing the weight of your lean mass.

Why is Muscle Important?

Maintaining your muscle mass is one of the best things you can do for your health. A higher amount of lean tissue has a number of benefits including:

Muscle does wonders for maintaining your weight and body composition for the long haul. The more lean tissue you have, the easier it is to stay active and maintain a healthy weight. This is because a higher percent lean body mass (LBM) often means a higher body weight— but you will often look more lean, toned, and smaller than someone at the same weight with less muscle mass and more body fat. And a higher body weight means you can eat more calories and stay the same size.

You store key nutrients in your muscles, including glycogen (primarily from carbs). And having more muscle often means you can process more dietary carbs efficiently and utilize your calories better.

And lastly, increased muscle mass may make you a better athlete, or at the very least support your overall fitness goals. P eople tend to think that losing weight alone is going to get them that six pack they’ve always wanted, but you can only reveal what you’ve already got, meaning you won’t look shredded or ripped unless you’ve built up some muscle definition underneath.

Muscle Quality Matters

It is important to distinguish between muscle mass and muscle quality in some individuals. Just having more muscle does not always lead to the health benefits noted above. It is possible to have a large amount of muscle without having improved strength and body composition, such as in the case of obesity.

Obese individuals are capable of having more muscle than others but often suffer from poor muscle quality due to lack of exercise and lifestyle factors (4). Thus, it is key to focus on overall body composition and a healthy lifestyle overall, including strength training, not just gaining muscle mass alone.

This is also why emphasis should be on gaining healthy weight. Any weight gain in a calorie surplus will involve some amount of muscle and some increases in body fat. The key is to tip the odds in favor of more muscle mass than fat. This results in better body composition and fitness outcomes.

How to Build Muscle

Muscles respond to calories, protein, exercise, and rest, and the balance of these key components can determine how efficiently you can gain muscle. In short, to promote muscle growth you need to eat more calories and protein, train your muscles, and allow time for recovery and rebuilding of tissue—eat, lift and rest.

But this explanation is drastically simplified and muscle growth tends to be fairly complex. The amount of muscle you can actually gain and how quickly is determined by many factors including genetics, food choices, training level, and hormones. And your starting body composition may also be an important factor to consider.

Muscle Growth Hormones

The key hormones that regulate muscle growth include:

Resistance training stimulates the release of growth hormone. GH then stimulates the release of IGF-1 from the liver, which promotes the use of fat for energy in the growth process, also preserving stored glucose in muscles, and stimulates the absorption of amino acids for use. Sleep can also help release GH (5,6).

Testosterone works to further enhance this process and stimulate more muscle fiber engagement to promote growth.

Cortisol is also released after training to promote recovery. But too much cortisol can negatively affect muscle growth since it promotes the breakdown of protein to preserve glycogen stores (7).

How Much Muscle Can I Gain?

The amount of muscle growth you are able to obtain depends on the following:

Those who are new to weight training and strength training in general, assuming they are not starting with a large amount of lean tissue, often have the ability to gain muscle more quickly than those who have been at it for some time (8,9). This makes sense because well-trained individuals have well-trained muscles that are more adapted to stress and biologically have less of a need to repair/build bigger stronger muscles than those that have little lean tissue, to begin with.

Some people are just genetically able to gain more muscle than others. This could be due to the number and proportion of their muscle fibers, hormonal differences or other individual factors.

How Long Does it Take to Build Muscle?

Similar to the amount of muscle you can gain, how quickly you can add mass is highly dependent on individual factors.

In reality, there is only so much food your body can process and turn into muscle, and gaining multiple pounds of muscle a week is not realistic for most, especially long term. Not to mention the faster you are trying to gain, the more likely you are going to see gains from water retention and increases in body fat, not just muscle.

Fitness for Muscle Growth

Years of fitness expertise coupled with research have shown us that strength training works to promote muscle growth. Although we aren’t 100% clear on how—there are a large number of variables and individuals differences to account for. And this lack of clarity has led to a lot of «Bro Science» and misinformation in the fitness world.

We do know that a key component of increasing muscle size is the act of wearing them down in the first place. Strength training exercise puts stress on your muscles and causes micro-tears, which your body then works to repair and rebuild stronger and bigger, leading to muscle growth (18). But it is also technically possible to gain some muscle without strength training, in some studies, higher protein intakes in a calorie excess lead to increases in lean mass in addition to increases in body fat, this approach is not nearly as efficient as including muscle building workouts in your plan and typically results in poor quality muscle gains (19).

Regardless, without some sort of strength training, you likely won’t be successful with your gains. But what type of training is best?

To help you get the most out of your workouts, we dug through the existing research and asked expert trainers for their advice on how to promote muscle growth through evidence-based hypertrophy training.

What is Hypertrophy Training?

Hypertrophy training is training for the goal of increasing the size of your muscles, by expanding the cross-sectional size of the tissue (20).

Two factors contribute to hypertrophy:

Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy relates to increases in fluid, giving you the appearance of larger, puffier muscles. This fluid portion contains water, minerals, glycogen, and phosphates and comprises nearly 80% of total muscle mass.

Types of Muscle Fibers

There are two main types of muscle fibers:

Slow-twitch are used to support endurance training like jogging or cycling, and fast-twitch are used in more explosive and quick burst exercise (21,22). Fast-twitch fibers are more likely to increase in size compared to slow-twitch fibers because fast-twitch fibers fatigue more quickly, leading to an increased need for repair and strengthening. This is also why strength training and CrossFit style workouts lead to muscle size growth more than running or swimming.

Large vs. Small Muscles

There are also large muscles and small muscles. Larger muscle groups include your upper legs, back, chest and glutes, and smaller muscles include your arms, shoulders, and calves. The distinction is important because larger muscles are easier to increase in size, and these muscles tend to be more foundation, support full-body training, and lifts.

What are the Best Workouts to Gain Muscle?

As it turns out, just about any type of strength training can lead to muscle growth, since hypertrophy is the result of mechanical tension. However, your focus should be on training volume or «time under tension» rather than how heavy you are lifting. The longer and more often you can stress your muscles, the more effective your hypertrophy training is. You can build muscle using bodyweight, light weight, or heavy weight; it all depends on your personal strength and fitness level.

So if you are just getting started, don’t feel like you need to jump right into Olympic lifts and heavy squats. Instead, take time to build your foundation and find a muscle building workout plan that meets your personal needs.

Building a Good Foundation

If you are new to lifting, you probably don’t want to go into and gym and start throwing around weight until you know what you are doing. Even many advanced lifters can benefit from taking it back to basics every now and then by focusing on their range of movement and flexibility.

Building a good foundation is essentially establishing fundamentals that you can build on, which results in improved training. Focusing on fundamentals can help reduce pain, future injuries, and other issues associated with poor form or incorrect technique during exercise.

When looking to train for muscle growth, make sure you’ve mastered the basics of core movements and can perform each movement correctly and fully before increasing the weight. Establishing these big core competencies will allow you to train harder and more often- which can support more muscle growth in the long run. In addition, being able to train with a full range of motion (ROM) engages more muscle tissue and may support better hypertrophy training (23,24).

Muscle balance and recovery are also important. You should not be training one side of your body more than the other.

Establishing a Mind-Body Connection

There is also growing research looking at the mind-body connection when it comes to weight training. By learning to focus your intensity throughout each movement, research suggests you can increase muscle activity and support more muscle growth (25).

You can establish a better mind-body connection by learning where you should «feel» each movement. If you are squatting to increase glute size or bench pressing to grow your chest muscles, make sure you can feel these specific muscles working before adding weight. It’s not about how fast you can lift, how many reps you can do, or even how heavy you can lift if you aren’t targeting and engaging the muscles you want.

Focus on Compound Lifts

Compound lifts are multi-joint movements that engage more than one large muscle group at a time. Examples of popular compound lifts include squat, deadlift, bench press, overhead press, and pull-ups. Compared to isolation exercises, like a dumbbell hammer curl, compound lifts are an efficient way to engage your full body and build more muscle, faster.

You can use multi joint movements at any fitness level. And working on big core competencies will add overall strength and muscle building capabilities.

Don’t Just Focus Heavy Lifts

Building strength and building muscle mass are often thought of as the same thing, but actually, they may require different training techniques. Muscle contraction is the result of motor neurons activated by your central nervous system—your brain sends an electrical signal to your muscles to excite muscle fibers and cause them to contract. And some research suggests that heavier lifting may engage your central nervous system more, resulting in increases in strength and power with training (28).

Heavier lifting relies on quick, powerful lifts (within a 3 to 5 rep range), with a focus on the external force you can exert on an external weight. Hypertrophy training, on the other hand, relies more on time under tension to stress the muscle for longer.

It is well documented that mechanical tension is a major proponent of muscle growth, so it would make sense the more longer you can create mechanical tension on your muscle (AKA the number of reps), the more muscle you will be able to build (29,30).

Increase Your Reps but Not Your Intensity

According to research the sweet spot for focusing on growth may lie somewhere in the range of 60 to 85% of max effort, and roughly 8 to 12 reps per set (31,32,33,34). Because this is based on a percent of effort, the amount of weight can look drastically different from one individual to the next. Beginners may be able to build muscle using just bodyweight, but the more advanced you become, you’ll need to adjust the weight accordingly.

Your body cant handle 85% and above for long periods of time, and lifting too heavy gives you less time under tension. However, many still argue that heavier weight, close to 85% max at 5 to 8 reps can still produce significant gains, and the research supports this (35,36,37,38). The reality is there may not be an exact rep amount to strive for across all styles of lifts and individuals differences will always be at play.

Decrease Your Cardio

High-intensity training and conditioning with light weight can work against your muscle building efforts. Since a calorie surplus is ideal for gaining mass, increasing your calorie burn with too much conditioning can make it harder to gain weight. Consider opting out of high-intensity training for a few months and allow yourself to focus solely on gaining muscle first. Then add conditioning back in later to help burn any body fat gained in the process.

Allow Time for Rest

In one study, training once a week was adequate in supporting muscle growth (40). But for more seasoned lifters, training more frequently might be more beneficial for growth, since they are able to recover quickly and can stimulate more MPS with more frequent training (41).

Overtraining doesn’t really exist, but under recovering does. Recovery is more than just sleep and time off the gym; you should also be massaging your muscle and working out the tissue to keep it healthy. You can train all day every day if you can recover just as much. A good rule of thumb is: the time you put in working should equal your recovery.

Keep it Challenging

Over time you’ll want to increase the stimulus by the number of reps, amount of weight, or a decrease in rest time. The more seasoned of a lifter you become, the more your muscles will adapt to the type of training you are doing. Just as bodyweight won’t cut it forever, you’ll need to keep challenging your muscles and switching things up to keep seeing progress. Aim to work a little harder each time you hit the gym and consider switching up your routine entirely every four to six weeks.

Muscle Building Diets

When it comes to gaining weight, the amount of food you eat is the most important thing to consider. Eating more calories than you burn will lead to weight gain. But the type of weight you gain—muscle vs. fat—can be heavily influenced by the quality of your calories.

Gaining muscle isn’t a license to eat whatever you want.

How to Gain Weight: Muscle vs. Fat

With any weight gain, you can expect to add a combination of body fat and lean tissue. But with a strategic dietary approach, you can increase the amount of potential muscle gain and limit excess body fat where possible.

Gaining fat only requires calories, but gaining muscle requires more. To promote muscle growth you’ll need:

Starting Body Composition

Step one before heading into any goal around changing your body composition should involve assessing your starting body fat percentage. This metric can also influence how successful you may be in gaining more muscle over fat.

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If you are lean from the start, you may be more likely to put on muscle than those who are less lean. Also, if you have excess body fat, to begin with, it might be worth starting with a cut to lose some body fat before thinking about going on any bulking diet.

For newbies, a higher starting body fat percentage might not be as detrimental, since they might be able to lose fat and gain mass at the same time. However, this process would ultimately require a calorie deficit or weight loss diet and not a traditional muscle gain diet.

How to Tell if You’re Gaining Muscle or Fat

The scale alone won’t help you decipher between fat and muscle, so the best way to assess how much muscle you are gaining is through body composition testing. This can be through an at-home device like a handheld reader or body fat scale, or through a paid service using skin-fold calipers, BodPod, hydrostatic weighing, or DXA scans.

Each method varies slightly in terms of accuracy, but the most important thing to remember is to use the same method of testing initially and when interpreting results. This will ensure you have the most accurate assessment of any changes in your body over time.

DXA scans are thought to be the most accurate measurement of body composition and many companies will provide multi-location testing options. DXA scans provide detailed imaging for muscle and fat storage throughout your body, showing you exactly how much muscle and fat you have and where. They also assess bone density.

How Many Calories Should I Eat to Gain Muscle?

You might have heard the common saying that it takes cutting 3,500 calories from your diet to lose a pound of fat. Many see this and assume eating the same amount will result in one pound of muscle gain, but calorie control for weight gain is not the same as cutting calories for weight loss. While it is easy to simplify the calorie equation and assume excess calories automatically turn into weight gain, it’s not a clear-cut as you’d think.

It has been documented in numerous research studies that somewhere between 2,500 to 2,800 excess calories are needed to produce one pound of lean mass. However, this amount can vary depending on your fitness level, body composition, and diet. For most adding 100 to 300 calories per day is sufficient in promoting healthy weight gain, but others may require much higher intakes.

How Much Protein to Build Muscle?

In addition to higher calories and strength training, protein intake is also essential for muscle growth. Protein supplies the essential amino acids needed to create muscle through muscle protein synthesis (MPS), and cannot be replaced by any other nutrient for this purpose.

Muscle growth occurs whenever the rate of MPS is greater than the rate of muscle protein breakdown. Muscle protein breakdown occurs during strength training and when protein intake is not high enough to support daily needs. Protein is crucial for a large number of bodily functions and your body will break down lean muscle to get access to more amino acids if you aren’t getting enough through diet. MPS occurs during periods of rest when excess protein is available.

There is a lot of argument and misinformation in the diet and fitness world surrounding how much protein is necessary to support lean mass, but here is what we know so far:

Your protein needs are most closely related to how much lean mass you have and how much you use your muscles. Protein is not just for building mass; it also helps maintain existing muscle, so the more muscle you have and the more you put wear and tear on them, the more protein you need.

Common bodybuilder advice recommends you eat at least 1 gram of protein per pound of total body weight, but the research varies on this topic depending on age, fitness level, and overall body composition goals (42,43,44,45,46).

This suggestion is supported by recent studies indicating at least 0.8 to 0.9 grams of protein per pound of body weight is needed (47).

Based on the existing research and nutrition practices, you need roughly one gram of protein per pound of lean mass for maintenance.

Excess protein is needed to support muscle protein synthesis. If there isn’t enough protein available, muscle growth is severely limited. Thus, additional protein intakes are needed to gain muscle.

A narrative review of the research and some smaller studies suggest that higher protein intakes between 1 to 1.5 grams of protein per pound of body weight during a large calorie surplus results in less body fat gain and more muscle gain overall (48,49).

Based on cumulative research and expert recommendations, as high as 1 to 1.5 grams of protein per pound may be necessary when looking to add lean mass using a calorie surplus.

How to Gain Healthy Weight

Good nutrition can support your muscle-building efforts in a number of ways. By balancing your bulking macros correctly, you can limit the amount of body fat you gain and promote more muscle mass. In addition, many vitamins and minerals play a direct or supportive role in muscle gain.

Lean Bulk vs. Dirty Bulk

There are two main types of muscle-building diets, clean bulk/lean bulk and dirty bulk. A dirty bulk typically involves eating a lot of extra calories from high-calorie foods to promote quick weight gain. A clean bulk uses a more moderate increase in calories in addition to healthier food choices.

A dirty bulk can seem more appealing to many because of the less restricted dietary choices and potential ability to gain weight more quickly. However, research suggests that a lean bulk may lead to better body composition, in the end, resulting in less body fat gain (50). A lean bulk also supports more nutritious food choices which can benefit muscle growth in other ways.

Interestingly, lean individuals who are new to weight training may be able to grab the benefits of a dirty bulk without the potential fat gain.

Best Muscle-Building Foods

The best foods for muscle growth are not drastically different from the foods that make up a generally healthy diet, with the exception of higher calories and protein. Thus any diet high in lean proteins, healthy fats, whole grains, and nutrient-dense fruits and veggies is a great start. However, some foods may offer unique muscle-building benefits like animal proteins and dairy.

Animal sources of protein tend to be more protein-dense than plant-based proteins— providing more protein per calorie. They also rank higher in terms of bioavailability and digestibility, meaning you absorb this type of protein more efficiently (51,52,53).

Also, all animal proteins are also complete proteins, supplying all the essential amino acids needed at once, and many plant proteins are considered incomplete or lacking in key amino acids. While there is no research to suggest that plant-based diets are deficient in amino acids overall, consuming more complete proteins and adequate protein in the hours following a strength training workout may have positive muscle building benefits (54).

Macros for Building Muscle

It is well established that higher protein intakes are needed to gain mass, but what about fat and carbs?

However, excess fat, beyond your recommended amount (30% of your calories) may not provide any additional advantages. Fat is easily stored as body fat in a calorie surplus, and according to research, some individuals may be more prone to fat storage (57). The type of fat you choose also matters, with some research suggesting unsaturated fat may be less likely to promote fat storage and offers health benefits (58).

Carbs, on the other hand, are slightly more difficult to convert to body fat than dietary fat and contribute to muscle gain in unique ways. Higher carb intake promotes increases in glycogen storage, which supports your training and may also help with muscle recovery (59). Moreover, carbs (in addition to protein) generate an insulin response which is beneficial to weight gain (60).

Calculate your Macros using this calculator:

How to Build Muscle Fast (gain 25lb naturally)

More strength is more muscle. The heavier the weights you lift, the stronger your body becomes, and the bigger your muscles grow. Your muscles increase in size so they can lift heavier weights. This is why strength is size – lift heavy weights and you’ll gain muscle mass naturally.

Most people try to build muscle by doing high rep isolation exercises until pumped and sore. But this rarely works because you can’t lift heavy enough to trigger muscle growth. Only lifters who are already strong or use drugs can build muscle by doing mostly isolation exercises like curls and flies.

Natural lifters need compound exercises to build muscle. You need to mostly Squat, Bench, Deadlift, OHPress and Row. You need to lift heavy. Do this and you can gain up to 43lb of muscle without using drugs or training more than three times a week. This even works for skinny hardgainers like me.

This is definitive guide to building muscle naturally.

Introduction

How to Build Muscle

The biggest muscle building mistake people make is training like a bodybuilder. Many bodybuilders use drugs but won’t tell you. And they rarely built the bulk of their muscle size with the routines they do now. That’s why bodybuilding routines don’t work for most people. This is what works…

Rate of Muscle Gain

Most guys can gain 0.25kg/0.5lb of lean muscle per week when they start lifting. That’s about 1kg/2lb of muscle per month or 12kg/24lb in a year. This assumes you do an effective training program like StrongLifts 5×5, eat well, and are consistent. Muscle gains slow down after the first year.

Your body-weight can increase by more than 1kg/2lb per month when you start lifting. Your muscles store glycogen to fuel your workouts. Glycogen binds to water which causes water retention and a fuller look. This water weight increases your body-weight. But it’s not pure muscle tissue.

Some guys can gain more than 1kg/2lb of muscle per month. Teens gain muscle faster because they have more testosterone. Skinny kids gain muscle faster because they start under-weight. People who lifted before gain muscle faster thanks to muscle memory. Drugs change everything.

On the other hand, older people gain muscle more slowly because they have less testosterone. Same with females – they usually gain only half the muscle or 12lb the first year. Strong lifters gain muscle more slowly than weak lifters because they already have more muscle mass.

But on average you can expect to gain about 1kg/2lb of muscle per month during your first year on an effective training program. So if you’ve been going to the gym for a while but never did a program like StrongLifts 5×5, you can still gain 12kg/24lb of muscle in the next 12 months.

Most of your muscle gains will happen the first three years. In the beginning you’re weak and have little muscle. So you gain strength and muscle fast – these are the newbie gains. I started out skinny-fat at 60kg/135lb. My weight climbed to 80kg/175lb the first three years, most of it the first year.

But my weight hasn’t changed much since then. The more strength and muscle you have, the harder to gain more. This is the law of diminishing returns – it takes more work to get more, and the return is smaller. Luckily the gains are easier to maintain, and come back faster after a break.

It’s harder to build muscle than to lose fat or get stronger. You can easily lose 0.5kg/1lb of fat per week by eating slightly less. You can easily add 2.5kg/5lb per workout on Squats for weeks with StrongLifts 5×5. But you can’t build more than 0.5kg/1lb of muscle per week. Compare…

This explains why you can’t look like top bodybuilders, fitness models or celebrities in three months. They’ve usually been training for years – Arnold was lifting weights for eight years before winning his first Mr Olympia. And don’t ignore the lightning, tanning, photoshop, drugs, …

You can’t gain more than 1kg/2lb of muscle per month. This is the human genetic limit. The only way to gain muscle faster is by not going slower. It takes a year to gain 12kg/24lb of muscle and make a big change. Be consistent and stay focused so it doesn’t take you two years to get there.

Muscular Potential

How did Ronnie get 65lb bigger than Arnold?

Your maximum muscular body-weight depends mostly on your height and bone-structure. Tall people can build more muscle mass than short people. People with large, thick frames can gain more muscle than people with narrow builts and small wrists/ankles like me.

Casey Butt Phd has come up with formulas to determine the maximum amount of muscle mass you can gain naturally. His research is based on the muscle size of the world’s top bodybuilders before anabolic steroids existed (source). I’ve turned Casey’s formula in a simple table below.

These numbers assume a wrist size of 17.8cm/7″, ankle size of 22.9cm/9″ and body-fat of 10%. The biceps size is contracted at the largest point. These numbers are for males only. The female muscular potential is lower since they’re usually shorter, smaller and have less testosterone.

These numbers are based on the achievements of the best bodybuilders that ever existed, including Reg Park. It’s therefore unrealistic to expect gaining as much muscle. These lifters had better work ethics and genetics than the rest otherwise they wouldn’t have become champions.

So be proud if you reach 90% of your muscular potential in lean condition. I’m 5’8″ with 6’7″ wrists. I weigh about 175lb with maybe 12% body-fat. That’s 90% of 190lb. This is why although I’m not a big guy, and may look small on paper, people I meet always notice I lift weights.

These numbers show most guys won’t build a 200lb lean and muscular body. The average height for males in the US is 1m75/5’9″. Unless you’re taller, the only way to get to 200lb is to let your body-fat increase… or take anabolic steroids. Working hard won’t make it happen for natural lifters.

The point isn’t to demotivate you. Quite the opposite – I don’t want you to get demotivated because you set unrealistic goals like 21″ ripped arms. Reg Park had 18.5″ arms, competed at 214lb and was 6’1″ tall. He could Squat 600lb and Bench 500lb. You’re unlikely to do better than him. Really.

It’s true that training and nutrition methods have improved. People gain strength and muscle faster today than in Reg Park’s time. But human genetics haven’t changed – there’s still a limit to how much muscle you can gain naturally. And this still depends mostly on your height and frame size.

What has changed a lot is anabolic steroids. Arnold Schwarzenegger competed at 235lb/6’2″. Three decades later Ronnie Coleman competed at 300lb/5’11”. They both worked hard, both Deadlifted over 700lb, Arnold even admitted using drugs. But one clearly used more to get 65lb bigger…

That’s why natural bodybuilding competitors rarely weigh over 200lb. They can’t get lean enough to show up ripped. Most people compete in the lighter 165lb class because that’s where you end when you drop to single digit body-fat. 200lb ripped, life-time natural physiques are rare.

Muscle Shape

High vs low biceps insertions. Notice the difference in peak.

Your genetics determine the shape of your muscles. People’s muscles look different for the same reason their faces look different. You can increase the size of your muscles by lifting heavy weights. But you can’t change their shape because you can’t change your genetics. Examples…

Note that you can’t isolate parts of a muscle. You can’t work your lower or outer biceps, or your inner-chest. You’re either working the whole muscle, or you don’t. What you can do is increase the overall size of the muscle so it fills out more. You do that by lifting heavy and eating more.

Role Models

Hugh Jackman, Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Craig have different body-types, and thus look different.

Don’t try to look like some celebrity or model. Everyone is built differently as already explained. Your genetics determine the shape of your muscles. So unless you have the same frame size, limb length, and muscle insertions as that celebrity or model, you won’t able to recreate their look.

In fact, movie stars don’t look the same either. Notice in the top picture how Hugh Jackman looks like the biggest of the three. Chris Hemsworth has a longer torso with a smaller lean. Daniel Craig’s torso is shorter and looks more bulky. Their chest and shoulders have different shapes.

Even if you lift and eat the same, you won’t look the same. I trained with my mentor for two years. We did the same sets. reps, and exercises. But I looked different because different genetics. My brothers look different too despite having the same parents. This only works for identical twins.

Most people can’t stick to celebrity workouts anyway. They’re grueling and time-consuming. Actors have time. They get help from personal trainers and cooks. They get motivated by big paychecks. But most hate lifting, quit as soon as filming ends, and get fat. Check Gerard Butler after the 300.

Gerard Butler in the 300, and then in Barbados…

Truth is, most actors don’t look like in the movies the whole year. They only have to look good for a few shirtless shots. And their muscles are accentuated by using special angles, lightning, make-up or even CGI. For the movie posters there’s good-old photoshop. Lots of smoke and mirrors.

And then there’s steroids. Actors are on a tight schedule. They get older but still have to look ripped. Their salary depends for a big part on their looks. Competition is high. This makes steroids tempting. But few are open about using – they don’t want to get problems or disappoint their fans.

The point is that it’s fine to get inspired by celebrity transformations. Chris Pratt goes from fat to fit in six months – cool. Hugh Jackman is still big and strong in his late 40s – great. Just don’t try to get the same results in the same amount of time using the same routine. It won’t work.

More important – don’t try to look like someone else. Build a better body that makes other people want to look like YOU. Do this by increasing your strength and muscle mass first, and then lowering your body-fat to get ripped. This will make you look great regardless of your genes.

Training

Foundation

You can’t build a great building on a weak foundation. And yet many people try to build a great body without doing the basics first. This is why so many of them fail to gain muscle mass. You need to build a strong foundation in order to build a great body. Here’s what that means…

It’s tempting to skip this step and go straight after the pump with high rep isolation. But if you build a foundation of size, strength and form first, you will get better results with whatever you decide to do later – whether that is aesthetics, endurance or even more strength.

The challenge is that everything works in the beginning. You can gain muscle by jumping straight into high rep isolation routines. But you won’t build the maximum amount of muscle mass you can build in the shortest amount of time. And you’ll eventually get stuck because you never built a foundation.

This is where many people start to blame their genetics or age. This is where they start buying more supplements. This is where they start considering anabolic steroids. They lack experience to see the issue is their training – they’ve failed to build a strong foundation first.

This muscle building guide is about spending a year on building a foundation of form, strength and size. After that you can specialize if you want. Most people are happy with how they look by training for strength. Some want more aesthetics. But it always starts by building a strong foundation.

Strength Is Size

Arnold Schwarzenegger and Franco Columbo could Deadlift over 700lb

More strength is more muscle. If you lift big, you get big. This is why the best bodybuilders that ever existed were strong like bulls. They knew strength equals size.

Here’s how this works: your skeletal muscles are attached to your bones by tendons. Your muscles contract to move your body and lift the weights. The heavier the weight on the bar, the more gravity pulls it down. This forces your muscles to work harder to lift and control the weight.

Lifting heavy weights stresses your body and muscles. It stimulates them to grow stronger and bigger so they can better handle that same stress next workout. This is the stimulus – recovery – adaptation cycle aka what doesn’t kill you make you stronger. Put simply, you lift big, you get big.

Arnold Schwarzenegger agrees. He won the Mr Olympia title seven times. But he also competed in olympic lifting, powerlifting and strongman before becoming a bodybuilder. Arnold could Deadlift 710lb, Bench Press 440lb and Squat 473lb. Here’s what he said about strength…

The truth is that not all bodybuilders are strong, especially those who have done most of their training with weight machines. But years of power lifting and working with free weights had given me massive biceps and shoulders and back muscles and thighs. I simply looked bigger and stronger than the rest.

Arnold wasn’t the first or only bodybuilder that understood strength equals size. There’s a long list of top bodybuilders who can lift big, heavy weights. Here are some examples…

These bodybuilders DID high rep isolation routines at one point to chisel their physique. But they were strong first. And they didn’t get strong by doing isolation like curls and flies. They got strong by doing heavy Squats and Deadlifts. This is how they increased their overall size and muscle mass.

Bodybuilders and powerlifters actually used to train the same way. It was normal for them to compete in both. Bodybuilding competitions even used to include feats of strength. Joe Weider changed this in 1946 when he created the IFBB and turned bodybuilding shows into beauty contests.

But strength is still size. That’s why so many strong lifters can pass as bodybuilders if they diet down. Just look at powerlifter Dan Green and olympic weightlifter Dmitry Klokov. Dan Squats 848lb, Dmitry lifts 511lb overhead. Most people couldn’t tell if they do bodybuilding or strength training.

Dan Green and Dmitry Klokov showing that strength is size

Now they won’t win bodybuilding competitions against real bodybuilders. But you probably don’t plan to compete. Most guys want to build muscle to get laid (hey, even I did). I don’t know any girl who wouldn’t like a body like that. I don’t know any guy who wouldn’t be happy to look like that.

And sure, they might sneak curls in here and there. But the bulk of their training consists of heavy Squats, presses and pulls because that’s what their sport demands. Their physique is therefore the result of doing a lot heavy lifting. This illustrates the principle of form following function.

Some people think strength training doesn’t build muscle because they’ve seen fat powerlifters. First, they have muscles, big muscles, or they wouldn’t lift big. It’s just hidden behind fat. Powerlifters don’t win by being more ripped than their competitors. They win by lifting heavier weight.

Two, those 300lb pro-bodybuilding mutants are of course more ripped than 300lb powerlifters. The former is strict about his diet, uses all kinds of drugs to get more cut, and is tanned. The latter just eats a ton to maximize muscle recovery and break world records. Different goals.

Here’s how to compare – take a 180lb powerlifter and 180lb natural bodybuilder. Put them side to side without tanning and at similar body-fat levels. The average person wouldn’t be able to tell who the powerlifter is. They’d probably call them both bodybuilders. Heck, they call me a bodybuilder.

Other people think strength training can’t make you big. This contradicts the last point. Plus Andy Bolton Deadlifted 1000lb and weighs over 300lb. I met him, he’s huge. Weight classes in powerlifter go up to 140kg. These guys do tend to be fat. But it’s not all fat because fat doesn’t move weight.

The confusion happens because they’ve seen a light weight powerlifter. In the video below you can see Sergey Fedosienko Squat 300kg at a body-weight of only 58kg. Naive people will conclude he’s not big so lifting heavy weights don’t make you big. This shows a lack of common sense.

Why doesn’t he have more muscle? Why aren’t his arms 18″? Because your maximum muscular body-weight depends mostly on your frame size and height. This guy is only 4.9″. He can’t weigh 100kg without turning fat. 58kg is perfect for his height. But that means no 18″ arms for him. Normal.

Again, powerlifters win by lifting heavier than their competitors. And since there are weight classes, they manipulate their body-weight to end in the category in which they’re most competitive. Small powerlifters often eat strictly to avoid weight gain. They don’t want to end in a heavier category.

But strength is size. Even celebrities have caught on and are now lifting heavy. It’s the most effective way for them to quickly increase their overall muscle mass so they look big on screen. Just look at Hugh Jackman and Henry Cavill Deadlifting heavy for the Wolverine and Superman movies…

Hugh Jackman Deadlifting for Wolverine, Henry Cavill for Superman

Hugh Jackman pulls 461lb and he’s almost 50. He had a point when he wrote on twitter: “if the bar isn’t bending, you’re pretending”. Curls don’t bend bars. Heavy Squats and Deadlifts do. Maybe you don’t care about strength, you just want to build muscle. But lifting heavy is what it takes.

Strength is size doesn’t mean you have to Deadlift 700lb like Arnold. I can’t do that. But get stronger. You’ll see a massive difference by increasing your Squat to 140kg/300lb, Bench to 100kg/220lb, and Deadlift to 180kg/400lb. You can easily do that with StrongLifts 5×5.

And yet most people will make all kinds of excuses to not lift heavy. They’ll do gazillion of exercises and chase pump instead. But this doesn’t work because building size requires gaining strength. You need to lift heavy to increase your overall muscle mass naturally. Get started, today.

Progressive Overload

Milo of croton training for strength and size in ancient Greece

In Ancient Greece, Milo of Croton trained for the Olympics by carrying a calf on his back each day. The calf grew bigger which forced Milo to lift heavier weights. Milo’s body became stronger and bigger as a result. He became the strongest guy in his time, winning the Olympics 6x.

It’s a legend. But it illustrates the principle of progressive overload used in effective training programs like StrongLifts 5×5. Gradually increasing the weight stresses your body and muscles. It triggers them to gain in strength and size so they can better handle heavy weights in the future.

Strength is size as already explained. You got to lift big to get big. Progressive overload is how you do it. Start light, add weight each workout, do this as long as you can. Always try to lift more. Because if you’re not lifting heavier weight today than last year or month, you’re not gaining muscle.

It works the opposite way too – Progressive Underload. You’ve seen people getting less active as they age. They use their muscles less by becoming sedentary. They become skinny, weak and fat because what you don’t use, you lose. Your body needs a reason to be strong and muscular.

Besides the fact that progressive overload works, it’s is also the simplest way to progress. The sets, reps and exercises can stay the same. You just add weight. So you know if you’re making progress by looking at the weight on the bar – if it increases over time, you’re gaining muscle.

Most people get addicted to training programs that use progressive overload. They find it motivating to see the weight on the bar increase each workout. They end up looking forward to going to the gym and see how far they can take it. They don’t have to drag themselves as they used to.

Now you can’t add weight forever. Otherwise everyone would be Squatting 700lb. But most people are amazed by how long they can add weight. Of course this is simple but not easy. It’s hard work. Some people don’t have what it takes to push themselves to add weight over and over again…

So many people chase pump instead. They hammer their muscles with high rep failure training. But all this does is bloating up your muscles with water. As soon as you leave the gym, the pump is gone. It’s also hard to pump anything up if you don’t have much muscle mass to start with…

Other people chase soreness. They think being sore after a workout means you’re building muscle. But there’s no link between soreness and muscle growth. Novelty usually causes soreness – a new exercise, weight, rep range, etc. What builds muscle is lifting heavier weights over time.

Some people try to confuse their muscles. They keep changing exercises, sets and reps. This makes it hard to improve your form because you’re never doing an exercise long enough. You also can’t know if you’re making progress because you’re changing too many variables at the same time.

Muscle confusion only ends up confusing you. You gain strength quickly the first weeks you do a new exercise. But this isn’t because you’re building muscle. It’s because your form is improving – you’re getting more efficient. You’re switching exercise before the muscle growth kicks in.

If you want to confuse your muscles, add weight on the bar. This gives your body new stimulus to grow stronger and bigger muscles but without confusing you. Start light to build momentum. Use small jumps of 2.5kg/5lb per workout. Or just do StrongLifts 5×5 – it uses progressive overload.

Compounds

To build muscle you must do compound exercises that work several muscles at the same time. The bulk of your routine must consist of the big five – Squat, Bench, Deadlift, OHPress and Rows.

Most people try to build muscle with isolation exercises like curls, flies and leg extension. This is ineffective because the weight is too light. Only one muscle group lifts the weight while the rest is taken out of the movement. This limits how heavy you can go. Yet size requires strength.

You can go heavier on the Squat than leg extension because your hips help your legs lift the weight. You can go heavier on the Bench Press than flies because your arms help your chest. You can go heavier with compound exercises because several muscle groups are involved.

The heavier the weight you lift, the bigger the stress on your body, and the bigger the stimulus to grow stronger and bigger muscles. You lift big, you get big. You lift bigger weights with compounds than isolation exercises. That’s why compound exercises are more effective to gain muscle mass.

Progressive overload is also easier to apply on compound exercises. More muscles are working and the weight is heavier. Adding 2.5kg/5lb to a 50kg/100lb Bench is a 5% jump. But moving from 40lb to 50lb dumbbell flies is a 25% jump. You can add weight longer with compound exercises.

Compound exercises build more muscle symmetry. Since every exercise works several muscles at the same time, you can’t favor the mirror and beach muscles. So you don’t turn into a captain upper-body with big arms but no legs/back. You build a more balance physique instead.

Compound exercises work your body the way you use it in the real world. You never use only one muscle group outside the gym. Your body always moves as one piece. That’s why the strength you build with isolation exercises doesn’t transfer outside the gym. They build fake gym strength.

And since compound exercises work several muscles at the same time, you don’t need to do more than three exercises per workout. This saves time compared to doing isolation exercises where you need double the amount of exercises to work your whole body.

Many people think you need to work a muscle directly for it to grow. If this was true we would have powerlifters with a barrel chest from benching but pencil arms from barely curling. Yet their arms grow bigger because they hold and press the weight when they bench. This triggers growth.

That’s why your triceps doesn’t need much work after benching heavy. One exercise to pump and shape it, maybe. But not five. That can be counter-productive because your arms are small muscles that need recovery to grow. They can’t if you keep hitting them with a ton of isolation.

Much of the confusion comes from seeing bodybuilders doing mostly isolation. But again, many of the top bodybuilders were strong as bulls. They built strength and size by doing mostly compound exercises first. They only did isolation later in their career. Quote from Arnold again…

“Reg Park’s theory was that first you have to build the mass and then chisel it down to get the quality; you work on your body the way a sculptor would work on a piece of clay or wood or steel. You rough it out””the more carefully, the more thoroughly, the better”” then you start to cut and define. You work it down gradually until it’s ready to be rubbed and polished. And that’s when you really know about the foundation. Then all the faults of poor early training stand out as hopeless, almost irreparable flaws. [..]

I was building up, bulking, going after the mass, which to me meant 230 pounds of sheer body weight. At that time, I didn’t care about my waist or anything else that would give me a symmetrical look. I just wanted to build a gigantic 250-pound body by handling a lot of weight and blasting my muscles. My mind was into looking huge, into being awesome and powerful. I saw it working. My muscles began bursting out all over. And I knew I was on my way.”

Let’s say you still think flies will build a bigger chest than Bench Press. If you double your Bench from 110lb to 220lb, you double the strength of your chest, shoulders and arms. So you can now do those flies with more weight than before. That means you get better results from the isolation.

It’s actually fine to do some isolation as long as it’s not the only thing you do. Pareto principle can be a good guideline – 80% compound exercises like Squats, Bench, Deadlift, OHPress and Row. Then 20% isolation like curls to pump and shape muscles. That’s is if you still need to, I don’t bother.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Training or Diet More Important for Building Muscle?

Training matters most for building muscle. Because training stimulates your body to build muscle. Lifting heavy weights stresses your body. Your body reacts by getting stronger and adding muscle mass so it can better copy with that stress next time.

This doesn’t mean nutrition doesn’t matter to build muscle. But there’s not that much to do – just eating enough calories, hitting your protein needs, and drinking enough water. That’s basically only need in terms of nutrition to support the muscle building process.

Many people will tell you that bodybuilding is 80% diet. If you’re taking massive amount of steroids to make up for bad/no training, then yes all you have to think of is diet. But for people who train naturally like us, training matters more than diet for building muscle.

Diet only matters more than training when it comes to losing fat. Which thus includes getting visible abs. To get your body-fat down, you’re going to have to eat less calories than your body eats. But to gain overall muscle mass, you need heavy lifting in the first place to stimulate growth.

Can I build muscle without counting calories?

You’ll build muscle if you’re eating enough calories to grow, AND lift heavy (training is number one, see above). You don’t need to count calories, and I haven’t done so in years. If you’re on the skinny side and want to gain a lot of muscle mass, counting calories can help ensure that you’re eating enough to grow.

Can muscle turn into fat?

No. Muscle and fat are two separate issues. The number one thing that makes you fat is eating too much food – more calories than you burn. If you stop lifting, you’re burning less calories. And lifters usually eat more to support their training. So it’s the combination of not lifting and not eating less that turns some muscular guys into fat guys.

But muscle can’t turn into fat, just like mud can’t turn into gold. If you quit lifting, your muscles mass will decrease over time because there’s no training to stimulate your body to keep it. And your body-fat level will increase if you don’t start eating less (since you burn less). The obvious solution when you stop lifting is to also stop eating so much.

How can prisoners build muscle on bad meals?

Because again, training matters more than diet for building muscle. Prisoners can train hard – there’s not much else to do. They can train consistently unlike most guys who get distracted, busy, and skip workouts. Prisoners have plenty of time to rest. They can train harder, consistently, and thus build more muscle.

Prison food isn’t as bad as people think. Prisoners often get three meals a day. Meals need to meet a certain amount of calories. You don’t need that much protein to build muscle, but prisoners can buy protein powder (and also extra food like oatmeal). Prisoners aren’t underfed in most western countries. The diet may not be optimal, but it’s sufficient to build muscle.

Of course, some prisoners may have access to steroids. And not all prisoners get huge. But they can focus on training day after day after day. It’s that repeated training that explains why prisoners can build muscle, even on an average diet. Training is king for building muscle.

Is building muscle easier than losing fat?

No. Building muscle is harder. You have to train hard, consistently, and get stronger. At best this will make you gain half a pound of muscle per week or 2lb per month. But you can easily lose 1lb of fat a week by eating 500kcal/day. That’s 4lb of fat a month without going go the gym. Building muscle is harder than losing fat.

Can you build muscle while losing fat?

Yes. Obese guys can build muscle while losing fat when they start lifting – their bodies can use their bigger fat reserves for fuel. People who have lifted before, and who lost muscle mass/got fat during a break from the gym, can also easily build muscle while losing fat (see picture below from Rolf)

Rolf lost 1.5″ waist in 5 months while building muscle.

But skinny-fat guys who are new to lifting will have a harder time to build muscle while losing fat. They end up eating either too much food to lose fat, or not enough food to build muscle. So they end up spinning their wheels going back and forth between bulking and cutting.

For skinny-fat guys, it’s usually better to focus on one goal. I usually recommend to build muscle first because losing fat is easier. And a low body-fat is useless if you don’t have muscles to show for. So build the muscle first by lifting heavy and eating enough (don’t eat like a pig though). Then lose the fat later.

How can I build muscle without getting bulky?

You will not turn bulky like Arnold. Building muscle mass is not easy. You need to train hard, and do so consistently. Most guys already fail at that. Let’s say you don’t, then you can expect to gain about 0.5lb of muscle a week or 24lb in a year. Add 12lb the second year, 6lb the third. Most guys are maxed out after gaining 40lb of muscle.

And you still don’t look ilke Arnold after gaining 40lb of muscle. I don’t. I look bigger than most, people notice that I lift, but I’m not bulky. I wear regular clothes and can do regular things. And that is despite working hard in the gym for years and years on.

If your concern is not to look like some big 300lb bodybuilder you’ve seen on youtube – you’re obviously not going to look at that. It’s impossible to weigh a lean, muscular 240lb as discussed above. Guys of average height need steroids to get that bulky. Stay away from steroids and you won’t get bulky.

How much protein do I need to build muscle?

1.8g protein per kilogram of body-weight (0.82g/lb). That is 126g of protein if you’re 70kg/154lb.

There is no benefit to taking higher amounts of protein. You won’t build more muscle by eating more protein. Pro bodybuilders using drugs may benefit from higher protein intakes. But natural lifters like us won’t. Taking more protein will only make the supplement companies richer.

The more muscle mass you already have, the less protein you need to eat. Because your body is more efficient at preventing muscle breakdown from lifting weights. Plus there’s less muscle is built after your training because you’re already close to your genetic potential.

If you’re a beginner with little muscle mass, you’ll need more protein. But you don’t need more than 0.82g/lb. This is good news. You can save money on expensive steaks and protein shakes, buy more cheaper carbs instead, so you get your daily caloric intake consistently.

How do I get enough protein to build muscle?

You get 20-25g of protein for every 100g of chicken, beef or fish you eat. So if you eat 300g/12oz of steaks or chicken breast a day, most guys will already get close to half their protein intake (60-75g of 135g/day for a 75kg/165lb guy). The rest you fill up with eggs, yogurt, cottage cheese, and maybe whey protein.

What are the best sources of protein to build muscle?

Animal food sources are best. They typically contain more protein per serving than plant-based sources. And the amino acid profile is more complete. Examples:

Should I eat 30g of protein per meal max?

No. You can eat as much protein as you want in one meal. It’s a myth that your body can only absorb 30g of protein per meal.

Think of your ancestors. Tens of thousands of years ago food and protein was scarce. Humans had to hunt for food. Hunts would often fail which could lead to periods of famine. When a hunt was successful, the obvious thing was to bulk on the protein. You had no idea when the next successful hunt would be after all.

It would have been suicide for our ancestors to stop eating once they hit 30g of protein. It would have been ineffective if our body wouldn’t have bene able to deal with massive amounts of protein in one meal, but just piss or poo it out.

Your genetics are still mostly the same as those of your ancestors who hunted for meat. I have no idea how much protein your body can handle in one meal, but it sure is more than 30g.

Note by the way how 30g of protein just happens to be the amount of protein in one serving of whey protein sold by supplement companies. That’s probably where the myth got from.

Do you need supplements to build muscle?

No. You need to lift weights to stimulate muscle growth, and you need to eat to support that muscle growth.

Supplements are as the name imply just that – a supplement to your training and diet. If building muscle is 80% training and 20% diet, then supplement would be maybe 1% of the diet part. Because the two best supplements to build muscle (whey and creatine) are present in food.

How to Gain Muscles with a High Metabolism

This article was co-authored by Danny Gordon. Danny Gordon is an American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) Certified Personal Trainer and Owner of The Body Studio for Fitness, a fitness studio based in the San Francisco Bay Area. With over 20 years of physical training and teaching experience, he has focused his studio on semi-private personal training. Danny received his Personal Trainer Certification from the California State University, East Bay and the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM).

There are 8 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page.

This article has been viewed 98,246 times.

Whether you want to bulk up your muscles for a sleeker-looking body, get stronger, or simply put on mass, it’s possible even with a high metabolism. Often, it seems hard to put on any weight when you’re a “hardgainer” – but it’s not impossible to bulk up, you just have to know how to do it. Eating the right diet and number of calories, and doing the right exercises for your fast-burning body can help you gain muscle no matter what your metabolism is.

How to Gain Muscle Quickly and Naturally (A Step-by-Step Guide)

Qualified and experienced vegan fitness trainer and online coach. Read full profile

People often want to gain muscle in order to look their best, but building muscle has many benefits beyond the aesthetic. With more muscle, you can be more active without feeling pain the next day, create more supported joints for greater flexibility, and decrease your risk of certain diseases.

If you really want to learn how to gain muscle quickly and naturally, you’ve come to the right place, but there are no magic answers. What we do have is research-backed workout programs, nutrition coaching, and motivating support. Read on to learn how you can increase your muscle mass quickly and naturally.

Table of Contents

What Is Muscle Mass?

One of the reasons I joined martial arts classes years ago was that I hoped that training regularly would give me a Bruce Lee body, and it didn’t, of course.

I lacked a fundamental understanding about how building muscles works. Martial arts gave me the necessary skills for self defense and improved my endurance, but it didn’t make me a Dwayne Johnson lookalike.

What I only later realized is that your muscles only build themselves up on a microscopical level when they need to. And you, as a macroscopic human, can foster that need in your muscles.

To gain muscle, you have to train on a specific rep range and on a specific frequency.

Healthy Vs. Unhealthy Muscle Gain

To gain muscles in the first place, you have to put your body under stress. Training itself is not altogether healthy for you. You’re losing precious body fluids in the gym, emptying your energy resources, and creating micro-tears in your muscles. It’s only when your body feels uncomfortable that you build muscles in the first place.

Losing weight is also a stressful situation for your body in the short term. You’re taking in less energy than your body desires, which forces your body to restructure your organism in a way that needs less energy. In a non-scientific term: Your body starts burning fat if you eat less calories.

The common denominator of those two scenarios are necessity. Robert Greene, author of the international bestseller 50 Laws of Power, calls necessity the ruler of the world, as humans only act when they need to. Necessity implies being under stress.

Remember, healthy is always relative. Forcing an alcohol-addict to stop drinking may hurt them drastically in the short-term, regarding stress hormones, but in the long-term it might be a great decision when we consider the alternative.

In the sense of learning how to gain muscle, extreme muscle gain might be harmful, but if the alternative is obesity, it can be considered healthy, as it increases the life-expectancy for the individual more than being obese. [1]

What makes muscle growth healthy is the recovery phase. The pinnacle of a healthy muscle gain would be to do it on a plant-based diet, with plenty of sleep and a stress-reducing personal life. [2] Also, without the help of anabolic steroids, of course.

How to Gain Muscle Naturally

Here are the 7 steps that you can take today to achieve maximum, healthy, natural muscle growth in the shortest time.

1. Commit Yourself

The first step to every long-lasting change is your mindset. This may sound cliché, but if you’re not committed to changing your lifestyle, you might just as well stay on your couch.

Write down exactly why you want to gain muscle. Is it to impress that crush you have, to get more confidence, or to make your everyday life a little easier? Write it down and keep it where you can see it every day.

Pro tip: Use inspirational pictures to increase the effect.

2. Set a Goal

While you already have your pen and paper out, write down your goals. There’s something special about writing your goals down on paper. This is another side of commitment.

Make sure you’re setting your goals the SMART way—Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-bound. These are called SMART goals, and they work.

To build muscle mass is not a goal; to increase your bodyweight by 5 pounds of muscle before the end of July is. To measure your success, be sure to take before and after pictures to compare your results.

3. Find the Right Training Routine

I have a client in the fitness center that I manage for whom I just recently designed a full-body workout. After a month, he came up to me and confessed that he wasn’t following my training routine anymore. He was shocked when I told him that was fine. He expected me to be frustrated by his actions, but I wasn’t. I know that you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink, and I know that the right training program or routine is the one that works for you.

You could have the best workout routine in the world, but if you always have to drag yourself to the gym and never feel excited, it’s not the right routine for you.

While the traditional, recommended repetition range for muscle growth is between 6-12 (based on studies of time under tension), there are also studies citing that 5-7 repetitions may be more optimal. [3] The exact same thing goes for training sets and rest periods between those sets. [4]

I generally would advise you to keep your rest periods between 1-2 minutes. Start with a whole-body training plan (yes, even train your legs), and aim for about 8-12 repetitions as a beginner. When you’re experienced, meaning you’ve been training for more than one year, you can decrease the number of repetitions.

Do about three sets per exercise and aim to spend no longer than 1.5 hours in the gym. This way you’re minimizing muscle protein breakdown due to avoiding a long training session, and, most importantly, you’re not neglecting your personal life.

4. Be Consistent

Having the right training routine when you’re learning how to gain muscle is key because it helps you be consistent. If you’re going to the gym regularly for 3 years, you will see results. It doesn’t matter if you have the best exercise program or your genetics; commitment will pay off.

If you need help creating an exercise habit, check out Lifehack’s 30-Day Resistance Band Workout Challenge. This will help you stay committed to a routine for a month, which can help you move more easily into a muscle-building schedule.

5. Focus on Progression

Progression is the major key when you are trying to build muscles.

Adding more weight in the long term adds mechanical stress to your muscles. Your body has to see a reason to adapt, and a great way to make it adapt is to add mechanical stresses. [5] Each week or month, try to bump up the amount of weight you’re lifting or the number of reps you’re doing.

6. Eat More of the Good Stuff

7. Switch up Your Routine

This is similar to progression. Again, you want your body to keep guessing in the long-term, as once you hit a plateau in your training, you have to try a new approach.

Implement different exercises, and train at a different rep-range. Have fun with your training, and experiment. You never know when you will find what works for you.

Final Thoughts

Muscle growth is an extremely complex process that involves many different physiological functions and variables. You can spend hundreds of hours studying it and barely scratch the surface, but building muscles isn’t that complicated. Most people who have built a great body in the gym are not renowned scientists; they’re regular people following a proven plan. They have committed themselves to the gym, and they are being consistent with their routine while seeking constant progress. This is possible for anyone who is motivated enough to try. Use my advice above and get started building muscle today!