How to Build Muscle
Building muscle is done in one way and one way only, you have to lift weights. Now, that does not mean going out and lifting as heavy as possible right away. The types of weights, exercises, reps, and sets you do are based on how trained you are when you start lifting. A beginner is not going to do what an expert is doing. The first thing you need to do is look at your diet and increase your protein intake to 20% of your daily calories. The next thing you need is to put together an exercise program that starts with getting over neurologic gains and progressing to a build up of medium high weight and ending with a mix of high weight low reps and medium-high weights and medium reps. I will delve into more specifics below.
Diet
There are different diet plans out there for different goals. Runners typically have a diet higher in carbs and weight lifters typically have a diet higher in protein. Everything you do starts with what you eat. If you want to be successful in your sport or activity of choice, you have to know what you should be doing, starting with your calorie intake. I go into more detail about that in my post, “How to Lose Weight.” Here I am only going to talk about optimizing building muscle and losing body fat. I am really passionate about this topic because this is my number one issue when I do my muscle building phase of my annual routine. My problem is when I am going through my muscle building phase, I lose too much body fat. I know a lot of people are probably rolling their eyes, but too little body fat is just as bad and dangerous as too much. When my body fat gets too low, I get sick more often. When I am at the height of my routine, I get sick for about two weeks in the fall and two weeks in the spring, if I am not careful. The takeaway from that is that diet in your routine should be a priority.
So why is it that 20% of calories should be from protein when you are trying to build muscle? Let’s look at an example of a 30 year old 150 pound male lifter. Using 20% of calories from protein, which is the generally accepted standard of muscle growth (). That means that the 150 pound person would need 2800 calories a day, using a calorie calculation and factoring a 5-6 day/week heavy lifting routine. Then, 20% of 2800 is 560 calories from protein a day. To convert that to grams, if you are using food labels, that is 140g of protein a day (560 cal/4g per cal).
How does that affect the other macronutrients? Well, there are still carbs and fat to factor into the program. The basics to understand is that if carbs are not used, then they are converted to fat, so we want to minimize our carb intake to ring us to just enough for the muscle work we will be performing. As for fats, you need fat to build the cell walls and energy production, so fat is very important In terms of numbers, carbs should make up 55% of your total calories and fat should be 25%. However, it is all about the quality of the carbs and the protein. Simple sugar carbs, like white bread and pasta, are not going to help you reach your goal. You need to stick to whole wheat options, the carbs should be as unprocessed as possible. The same goes with fat, you want more poly- or mono-unsaturated fats. Of the 25% of fats 10% or less of that fat should be saturated fat (meat or butter). When dealing with fats, think of olive oil and nuts as good sources.
Exercise
The second half of the equation for building muscle is exercise. This is not just to lift weights; this is mapping out your progress based on your goals. You need to have a detailed plan of exercises, an idea of how your reps and sets will look, and how to progress without injuring yourself. To do this you have to think of weight lifting on a sliding scale. Low weights and high volume increase size, but so does high weight and low reps. You want to optimize the effects of both of these methods. It helps to create active rest days and also it can help break plateaus and monotony in your routine.
As I mentioned earlier, if you are a beginner to exercise, then you have a slight delay to when you will see results. Not only do you have to get past neurological gains (I mention this all the time in my posts), but you have to get your body used to the volume of reps and weights you will be doing in your routine. You should plan your routine to incorporate about 4 weeks of progressive exercises to get past neurological gains as well as getting up to the number of sets and reps you are going to do. A typical routine will looks similar to something like:
Week 1: Push, Pull, Legs 3 sets 10-12 reps
Week2: Push, Pull, Legs 6 sets 12 reps
Week 3: Back and legs, Chest and Shoulders, Back and legs, Chest and Shoulders
First Two days should be a total of 9 sets 8 reps each muscle group
Last two days should be 6 sets each 8 reps each muscle group
Week 4: Back and legs, Chest and Shoulders, Back and legs, Chest and Shoulders
First Two days should be a total of 9 sets 8 reps each muscle group
Last two days should be 9 sets 8 reps each muscle group
As you can see in my example above you are steadily increasing the workload. This will significantly decrease your chance for injury, but adequately prepare you for the next increase in workload. However, you should be factoring in rest periods before each increase in workload.
Rest
One of the biggest factors in getting gains is rest. If you are treating the body like an engine, then think of it as a cool off period so the engine doesn’t burn out. There are two main types of rest for the muscles 1) rest between sets and 2) rest between lifting days. Both have their importance and understanding them is a great way to improve your results.
Rest between sets has to do with energy systems. I go into greater detail with this topic in my post “Muscle Activation and Energy Systems.” My main focus here though is how much time you should be resting between sets. This goes back to what you are trying to achieve. When you are doing a 12 rep max for each set in the first two weeks, you only need to rest about 1 minute between sets. When you get to the higher weights and less reps which is a 3 rep max, then you want to do closer to 3-5 minutes of rest. Again, the rest intervals are all about the energy system you are working and how long it takes those energy systems to recover after each set. There is more to this, but for just starting out, this will get you to your goal.
Rest between lifting days is different than rest between sets. Here it is not about allowing the energy system to recover, but the muscles. The muscles need to grow and recover, especially after high volume (either reps or weights). Full muscle recovery depends on multiple factors, including training, but the general rule of thumb is 48 to 72 hours between lifts. This is why you see a lot of people talk about working opposite muscle groups or “Push, Pull, Leg” days. This is a method known as “active rest.” Which is a fancy way of saying your working muscles that you did not work hard in a previous workout session. It is a great way to optimize the 7 days you have to workout in a given week.
Conclusion
There is a lot of information in this post, but it is only scratching the surface. If it seems like it is a little too much information, just start with one or two things. The more you apply the information, the easier it will be to incorporate it into your routine. The best thing to do is get started and have some fun!