Today, I am going to show you the best way to build muscle.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a skinny guy who wants to gain 20 or 30 pounds of muscle mass in a hurry, or you just want to put on 5 or 10 pounds of “Hollywood muscle” so you look good on the beach or around town this summer. This is a strategy that will work for everyone.
So, if what you’re doing at the moment isn’t working, please pay attention. What I have to say might be just what you need to get better, faster results.
Step one is to decide how many days a week you’re going to train. There’s no single training frequency that will work equally well for everyone. But for most people, training each muscle group once every 2-5 days is about right.
The first option is to train your whole body three times a week on alternate days, normally Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday or Wednesday, Friday and Sunday will work just as well. This is a great routine for beginners and works well during your first year or so of training.
Monday: Whole Body
Tuesday: Off
Wednesday: Whole Body
Thursday: Off
Friday: Whole Body
Saturday: Off
Sunday: Off
A beginner can train each muscle group more frequently than someone with a few years of training under their belt. That’s mainly because they can’t recruit as many muscle fibers in each workout, don’t create as much muscle damage, and so can recover more quickly. The longer you’ve been training, the more recovery time you’ll need.
Option two is to train four days a week using an upper/lower split. You hit the upper body on Monday, lower body on Tuesday, then take Wednesday off. Thursday is upper body, Friday is lower body and you have the weekend off. Each muscle group is trained twice a week. Of all the training splits I’ve used over the years, this one is probably my favorite.
Monday: Lower Body
Tuesday: Upper Body
Wednesday: Off
Thursday: Lower Body
Friday: Upper Body
Saturday: Off
Sunday: Off
If you’ve built a decent “base” of muscle and want to improve certain muscle groups, then the push/pull/legs split is one of the most effective routines out there.
You train either four or five days a week, doing the pushing movements (chest, shoulders, and triceps) on Monday, the pulling movements (back and biceps) on Tuesday. Then you take a day off before training legs on Thursday, followed by another day off on Friday. On Saturday you go back to the beginning and do the push workout again.
Week 1
Monday: Chest, Shoulders, Triceps
Tuesday: Back, Biceps
Wednesday: Off
Thursday: Legs
Friday: Off
Saturday: Chest, Shoulders, Triceps
Sunday: Back, BicepsWeek 2
Monday: Off
Tuesday: Legs
Wednesday: Off
Thursday: Chest, Shoulders, Triceps
Friday: Back, Biceps
Saturday: Off
Sunday: Legs
So you train for two days, take a day off, followed by one day of training, followed by another day off. Each muscle group is trained every fifth day. Because you don’t train on the same days each week, you’ll need a very flexible schedule to pull this one off.
While there are literally thousands of different routines available, these are the ones that will pack on the maximum amount of muscle in the shortest possible time.
The next step is to train very hard and concentrate on getting strong at pressing (overhead press and bench press), pulling (deadlifts, chin-ups and rows) and squatting.
If there is a secret to building muscle, it’s to keep on getting stronger in the 5 to 15 repetition range on a few basic exercises for each major body part. If you’re not getting stronger, there’s a good chance you’re not getting bigger either.
A total of 30 to 100 repetitions per muscle group per workout, distributed across two or three exercises, is all you need to trigger rapid gains in muscle strength and size. Contrary to a lot of the training advice out there, there is rarely a need to do more than 100 repetitions per muscle group.
Most of your training should be done using heavy weights in the 5-8 repetition range. For maximum muscle growth, you should also include some higher rep (10-15) sets in your workouts. There are numerous different ways to do this, from higher rep sets (10-15) and short (30-60 seconds) inter-set rest periods to a couple of back-off sets at the end of a series of heavy sets. Even just using a light weight and slowing your reps right down has been shown to help muscles grow.
Don’t get carried away with all the advanced techniques you read about in the magazines. Blitzing your muscles with lots of forced reps and descending sets might leave you feeling sore. It also leads to a greater stress on the neuromuscular system, which is going to extend your recovery time. But that doesn’t mean you’re going to grow any faster.
There’s no proven link between soreness and growth, and no rule that says you have to annihilate each muscle group in order to make it grow.
To repeat, building a decent amount of muscle means that you will need to get strong. There is no such thing as big without strong. Don’t let anyone try to kid you otherwise.
You will also need to get into the habit of planning your workouts in advance. Before you even set foot in the gym it’s vital that you know exactly what you’re doing when you get there. If you’re serious about gaining muscle, just “winging it” won’t be good enough anymore. That’s why I highly recommend keeping a training diary.
Probably the most important benefit of a training diary is that it will force you to face facts. Is what you’re doing working? Are you actually getting stronger? Or are you doing nothing more than simply repeating the same workout over and over again in the hope that it’ll suddenly start working?
What you do in the gym is only half the story when it comes to gaining muscle mass. Without enough food, much of your muscle-building efforts in the gym will go to waste. Here’s a quick and simple way to work out your calorie needs for building size:
- Firstly, calculate your lean bodyweight. For example, if you weigh 175 pounds at 20% body fat, you have 35 pounds of fat and a lean bodyweight of 140 pounds.
- Multiply your lean bodyweight by 20. Using a lean bodyweight of 140 pounds, that gives you 2800 calories per day.
If you find that you’re not gaining any weight, increase your calorie intake by around 250 calories per day until the scale starts moving in the right direction.
I know that might not sound like much, especially when you compare it with some of the 5000 calorie “bulking” diets out there. But you can’t force your muscles to grow faster simply by stuffing yourself with food.
That’s because there’s an upper limit on the amount of nutrients you can take in and turn into muscle. If you’re currently eating below this upper limit, then you’ll build muscle faster by increasing your nutrient take.
But once you hit your maximal rate of muscle gain, simply adding more calories won’t automatically lead to a faster rate of growth. All that’ll happen is that you get fat.
Once you have a decent training and nutrition program set up, the key to building muscle as fast as humanly possible is to stick with it. Frequently I read that you should keep changing your routine every few weeks to “confuse” your muscles and make them grow.
For most people, this is a mistake. There is no point in variety for the sake of variety, and the best way to make absolutely no progress at all is to keep jumping around from one routine to the next.
Ignore the latest muscle-building bandwagon that everyone else is jumping on. Forget about fancy training routines, exotic supplements or elaborate diets. Focusing too much on complicated techniques can distract you from the things that are really important and end up slowing growth instead of helping it. Just work hard, be patient and give your body a chance to grow.
SHAMELESS PLUG: If you want a complete step-by-step system that will help you build muscle, burn fat and build the body of a superhero, all while spending less than four hours per week in the gym, click here to download a copy of Muscle Evo right now.
P.S. If you enjoyed this post, please do me a favor and use one of the buttons below to share it with your friends and the rest of the free world.
Let Me Help You Burn Fat, Build Muscle and Get Strong
My name is Christian Finn. I run a private "members only" website that will help you burn fat, build muscle and get strong. If you want accurate, honest and in-depth reviews on the latest "hot topics" in the world of fitness, you're confused by all the conflicting advice out there, or you just want some fat-burning and muscle-building training routines that work, click here now to find out how I can help you.
