How to build muscle: a complete guide to making a bigger, stronger you
Updated
As a personal trainer of some ten years now, I’ve seen hundreds if not thousands of people transform their physiques from the classic ‘nine stone weakling’ to walking, talking mountains of muscle.
Unfortunately, I’ve also seen a lot of effort wasted in the pursuit of gaining muscle size. There are hundreds of training programs out there – some great, others not so much. There is also a tonne of fitness marketing that bombards us from all angles. Again, some are founded on science and real-world application, others amount to a barely concealed attempt to sell questionable dietary supplements. Deciphering the correct advice from the BS can be a bit of a minefield.
The good news is that there are some universal rules to muscle gain, which you can implement into your own training regime and see strong results. Along your journey, you will reach a point at which you must divert from the conventional routines and guidelines. in order to listen to your body and carve your own path. What works for you will be different than what works for others.
This article is written for the moderate to hard gainer, training naturally.
The Three Fundamentals of Muscle Gain
These are the absolute, undeniable basics, which no informed PT or fitness blog could argue.
1. Lift Heavy Weights. Heavy weights stimulate damage in your muscle fibres, thus forcing your body into responding with muscle growth. Essentially you need to teach your body that you are going to be lifting heavier and heavier weights on a regular basis, so it’ll have to respond with more muscle to handle the load. Simple.
2. Eat A Calorie Surplus. To fuel the growth of your new muscle mass you’ll need to be consuming a caloric surplus – i.e. enough calories to not only maintain your current bodyweight but also to power all that extra training and muscle growth.
3. Get Rest. You don’t get bigger in the gym; all working out does is create the damage your body needs to respond to. So, adequate rest is crucial in order to gain muscle mass. In that sense, gaining muscle is as much about what you do outside of the gym as inside. There are three fundamental rules to muscle gain
Considerations Before Starting a Muscle Gain Routine
It’s important to remember that a muscle-building routine will take a considerable toll on your central nervous system because you’ll be deliberately damaging your muscle fibre to promote growth. You’ll also be using some heavy weights, which will put a lot of pressure on your muscles and joints.
With this in mind, before starting any muscle-building training program, you need to familiarise yourself with the basics and make sure you're in good nick. Any aches, niggles, and muscles rendered vulnerable by previous injury should be checked out by a medical professional before you begin. Equally, it's best if you've already learned the correct techniques for lifting. Learning on the fly while pushing your body to new limits is a recipe for pain and failure.
The Holy Trinity of Exercise Concepts
You'll need to implement each of these in order to get the most out of your training.
Progressive Overload
Human bodies need a reason to gain muscle. At our core, we're survival machines, so your training efforts must convince your body that getting bigger and stronger is going to present a survival advantage. This is achieved by way of progressive overload – using heavier and heavier stimulus as time goes on.
It’s really simple to do – and rewarding because you can track your improvement. Here’s how it works...
If your training plan calls for 10 repetitions (the number of times you perform a given movement) and you start off with, say, 60kg on the bench press, then the second time you train you would raise the weight by the smallest available increment – to 62.5kg. And so on. The result is that the body cannot sit still; it has to keep adapting and improving.
There's a big caveat to progressive overload, which is that, inevitably, it cannot work indefinitely. Step forward the concept of 'variance' …
Variance
Our bodies are brilliant at adapting to a training stimulus, so its imperative that you maintain an element of variance in your training programs. Variance might constitute anything from manipulating your rep ranges, rest time, exercise selection or training goal altogether. The important point is that you keep an element of diversity to your workout. Essentially, it's about keeping your body second-guessing so it can't take shortcuts and stagnate.
You’ll also need to call upon variance when you reach (inevitable) training plateaus. At some point, you'll find you simply cannot bench press heavier weights. Identifying this moment and knowing to move on to a new exercise is a big part of building strong muscle.
Consistency
In the first stages of training for muscle gain, you're likely to see some pretty impressive results in a short period of time. Enjoy it – progressions here are known fondly as ‘beginner gains’ and they won't last forever. As your body becomes more accustomed to training and you approach your genetic limit of muscle mass, your results will begin to slow down. I'm afraid it's only natural.
A consistent approach to training is absolutely essential to developing a muscular physique and seeing results beyond that initial honeymoon bloom. Success is about doing the right things over and over again. The perfect meal followed by a great workout followed by adequate rest. Repeat, repeat, repeat.
In this manner, a natural lifter will always yield better results than a chemically enhanced trainer who lacks consistency.
Three Mistakes To Avoid
1. Overtraining
Probably the biggest pitfall of all. Overtraining is an accumulation of fatigue and actually a syndrome with its own symptoms such as a raised heartbeat, low mood, muscle aches and poor performance. It feels similar to having the flu and is the result of essentially giving your body more stimulus than it can recover from.
You see overtraining in pro sports all the time. It's not a great place to be and if you don’t get rest it’s possible to do yourself some permanent harm.
The best chance you have at avoiding overtraining is to listen to your body and rest when you know you need it, even if your training program says otherwise. You should also factor ‘active recovery’ (weeks where you don't train as hard) into your yearly planning. One week every two months should do it.
2. Failing To Track Your Workouts
I was guilty of this one in my early days of training. A simple training log must be kept each time you train if you are going to have an idea of how well you are progressing. Going to the gym each week and simply working hard isn’t going to cut it; you need to know you are in that sweet spot of over-reaching we discussed earlier.
3. Trying To Train Your Way Out Of An Unhealthy Lifestyle
An important thing to remember when it comes to fitness in general and particularly with muscle building is that you cannot train your way out of an unhealthy lifestyle. You need good nutrition and adequate rest – so if you're binge drinking alcohol, smoking, and/or eating poorly, you're going to see very little results (not to mention leave yourself at more risk of the overtraining syndrome mentioned above).
The Best Exercises For Building Muscle
Different workouts will lend themselves to different exercises, but, for the most part, you will be best served by utilising compound exercises (so named because they work multiple body parts). Isolation exercises (just one body part) also have a role to play, just use them sparingly in comparison.
Broadly, these are some of the best exercises for each body part...
Legs
Compound: Barbell squat, barbell deadlift, barbell lunge, Bulgarian split lunge
Isolation: Hip thrusters, leg extension, hamstring curl, calf raise
Back / Traps
Compound: Pull up, bent over barbell row, upright row, barbell shrug
Isolation: Lat pull down, standing pull down
Shoulders
Compound: Military press, seated dumbbell press, behind the neck press, Arnold press
When you first begin training for muscle gain, it’s important to take on a moderate program that will help you condition your muscles and deliver results without being so overwhelming that it forces you into overtraining.
The traditional ‘four day split’ is a good starting point. This refers to splitting up your body into four different body parts and workouts. In the example training routine below, we’ll incorporate both compound and isolation exercises for each body part and keep the volume relatively low.
Day 1: Legs
Barbell squat 4 x 10 Romanian deadlift 4 x 10 Leg extension 3 x 10 Hamstring curl 3 x 10 Calf raise 3 x 10
Day 2: Shoulders + Abs
Military press 4 x 10 Arnold Press 4 x 10 Seated medial raise 3 x 10 Anterior raise 3 x 10 Rear delt fly 3 x 10 Hanging leg raise 3 x 8 Weighted ab crunch 3 x 12
Day 3: Chest + Triceps
Barbell bench press 4 x 10 Incline dumbbell bench press 4 x 10 Cable crossover 3 x 10 Parallel dips 3 x Failure Tricep kick backs 3 x 10
Day 4: Back + Biceps
Wide grip pull up 3 x failure Bent over barbell row 4 x 10 Seated row 3 x 10 Close grip lat pull down 3 x 10 Barbell bicep curl 3 x 10 Hammer curls 3 x 10
As we’ve discussed above, your body will soon get accustomed to any routine. Below are some more advanced training regimes that will use various methods to force your body into muscle growth.
Advanced Training Protocols For Building Muscle
German Volume Training (GVT)
GVT is known as the ‘ten set method’ and is among the most challenging and effective training regimes you can try. It works by using 10x10 supersets with one minute rest periods. This really is a challenging training regime and requires a certain degree of conditioning and strength to even attempt it. You’ll notice results after just a few weeks but be sure to rest because it certainly takes it’s toll on your central nervous system. Typically you will select a starting weight with which you could comfortably perform 20 reps. You’ll move up in weight each time you successfully reach your desired rep range.
10, 8, 6, 20 - Rep Manipulation
The 10, 8, 6, 20 routine uses various percentages of your 6 rep max (the most amount of weight you could lift six times) This forces muscle confusion and in theory, allows you to hit different muscle fibres and shock them all into muscle growth. This training protocol works on a traditional 4-day split. The way to set your reps and weights up is as follows:
Set 1:10 x 50% of 6RM
Set 2: 8 x 75% of 6RM
Set 3: 6 x 100% of 6RM
Set 4: 20 x 30% of 6RM
HST - Hypertrophy Specific Training
HST is a training protocol that is designed to affect the minimum effective stimulus to your muscles that will lead to a response of muscle gain. This means that you’ll experience less central nervous system fatigue and less muscular aches (DOMS) after training. You’ll train frequently with full-body workouts which are carried out in the following rep ranges:
Week 1&2 - 2 sets of 15 reps
Week 3&4 - 2 sets of 10 reps
Week 5&6 - 2 sets of 5 reps
15x4 - Advanced Volume Training
The 15x4 method is a very advanced form of volume training that is met with scepticism by a lot of people because the volume of sets is higher than almost any other training regime and the rep range is so low it’ll feel like strength training rather than hypertrophy. This workout utilises three total-body workouts and just 15 second rest periods. This is certainly an unorthodox training phase, but it can be used to very good effect as a completely fresh stimulus.
Nutrition Basics
Getting the right nutrition is at least half the battle when it comes to putting on muscle mass. Ideally, you will be on a 10-20pc caloric surplus depending on how lean you are at the start or how fast you want to gain weight.
To work out your required calorie intake, you can follow the below equations:
Men: Multiply your weight in pounds by 18 (those who are least active), 20 (moderately active), or 22 (very active)
Women: Multiply your weight in pounds by 16 (least active), 17 (moderately active) or 18 (very active)
With that overall figure in mind, should look to eat a healthy amount of the following ...
High Protein Intake
Protein is the building material your muscles are made from. This means that you’ll absolutely have to have a high protein intake to provide your body with the resources it needs to gain muscle mass. There is some contention as to the exact amount of protein to take in for muscle building, but most people will see great results with 0.8g per pound of bodyweight. Your sources of protein should be high-quality meats, mushrooms, high-quality protein powders, beans etc.
Maintain High Fats
A mistake a lot of people make is to avoid taking in dietary fats for fear of actually getting fat. When you are seeking to gain muscle mass you absolutely need a healthy intake of good fats in your diet. They are essential for good health and, in men, maintaining a high level of testosterone.
To work out how many fats you need to take in, multiply your number of pounds in bodyweight by between 0.3-0.6. Healthy fats are best sourced from foods such as nuts, seeds, oils, avocado and fish.
Carbs
At times your workouts are going to be gruelling, so you’ll need to fuel them adequately. This is best achieved with low G.I carbohydrates as a part of your main meals, though there is also a time and place for higher G.I carbs, particularly pre- and post-workout.
To work out how many carbs you need, multiply your protein intake by four, multiply your fat intake by nine, and add the two results together. Now subtract the result from your overall caloric need and divide by four.
Here's an example, which hopefully makes a tricky-sounding equation look reasonably simple ...
For a 180lb male who is training moderately for muscle gain
Caloric Intake = 180 x 20 = 3,600 Protein = 180 x 0.8 = 144g Fat = 180 x 0.4 = 72g Protein + fat = (144x4) + (72x9) = 1224 Carbs = (3600 - 1224) / 4 = 594g
Frequently asked questions
I’m a naturally skinny guy. What should I do differently to gain muscle?
The very slim – or ectomorph – body type can find it difficult to gain muscle mass due to a rapid metabolism. The upside is that ectomorphs put on very little body fat as they come up in weight, which means less time spent cutting and a more muscular look year-round.
As an ectomorph, you can process more carbs than other body types so keep pushing your caloric intake higher and higher until you reach your sweet spot. If that still does not work, try reducing your activity from other forms of exercise temporarily.
Do protein powders really work? Which one should I take?
Well, there is a lot of hype out there. The important thing to remember is that protein shakes don’t ‘do’ anything, they are simply a convenient way of taking in calories and grams of protein in a liquid form. In terms of which one to take, you’ll want to aim for high-quality protein sources. In terms of which protein shake to take, generally, I would recommend a vegan blend for nutritional diversity; whey protein isolate would work well too.
Do I need to eat within 15 minutes after my workout?
This in my opinion is more the result of hype and a degree of fear-mongering from the early days of supplement marketing. Many people (including myself) are getting fantastic results from intermittent fasting. I wouldn’t worry about the ’15 minute window’, just try to eat a balanced meal within 2 hours of completing a tough workout.
How should I phase my workouts?
There are two schools of thought to this. Some people like to ride a training protocol out until there is a loss of results or a plateau in progression, which makes a lot of sense, though in my opinion can get a little repetitive. Personally, I like to schedule a training phase followed by a one week rest period every 4-8 weeks, depending on how challenging the training protocol. For example, I wouldn't push German Volume Training to an 8-week phase purely because of the effect it has on the body.
Generally, I will rotate 3-4 training phases that are tried and tested, then experiment with a new training protocol alongside some time to pull back and work on other goals like callisthenics or flexibility. It’s important to have diversity in your approach to fitness training.
Are the guidelines the same for women?
Women have a similar amount of muscular potential as men, it's just that male and female anatomy is a little different and training needs to be adapted to reflect that. Most of the training protocols outlined above were originally created for use by male lifters.
Female lifters generally will not be able to lift as much weight or generate as much power as their male counterparts (clearly there are exceptions). However, generally speaking, women can train more frequently, at a higher volume and recover quicker than men, so taking these traits into account when designing a training protocol would be wise.
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