When it comes to training, there’s a lot of information out there and it can be very confusing to new trainees on what they should and shouldn’t be doing.
There’s a lot of BS out there, but I’m going to give you three proven ways that you can build muscle.
Prioritize Compound Lifts
The traditional approach to building muscle that a new trainee tends to take is one that sees them doing a lot of movements like bicep curls, tricep extensions, lat pulldowns, leg extensions etc.
But this is not the optimal approach to building muscle, and I’m going to tell you why.
Multi-joint compound exercises like heavy squats, deadlifts, rows and bench presses provide a high level of muscle activation and mechanical tension that isolation exercises don’t.
This is because with multi-joint movements, we’re using multiple joints to complete the movement, AKA more muscle groups being used at once.
If we’re performing and progressively overloading these types of movements on a regular basis, we’ll be accumulating much more volume across multiple muscle groups, and more volume with progressively heavier weight is a big key to building muscle mass.
Prioritize compound movements, and save isolation exercises for the end of your training session.
Full Range of Motion
How often have you been in the gym and seen somebody bench pressing but only bringing the bar halfway to their chest, or doing pull-ups and only lowering halfway down.
While partial range of motion can be useful in specific circumstances, it is not optimal if the main goal of the trainee is to facilitate muscle growth. Because again, we’re trying to elicit high levels of muscle stimulation and mechanical stress, and performing exercises with a full range of motion delivers this.
I’m talking squats to full depth, pull-ups from a dead hang and bench presses all the way to the chest.
If the weight you’re using is too heavy to reach your full range of motion, take some weight off and work back up with a full range of motion.
Calorie Surplus
Yes, being in the gym and training hard is important for muscle growth, but it won’t do much for you if your nutrition isn’t aligned with your goals.
When you’re incorporating all these things we’re talking about like high levels of muscle mechanical tension and damage, we need to be consuming enough energy to repair and grow.
Most will spend all this time in the gym but be eating like a rabbit outside of the gym. While there is some muscle growth to be had here, your progress will quickly stall out.
The best way you can make sure you’re in a calorie surplus is by tracking your calorie intake and staying in a surplus of 10-20 percent over your maintenance calories.
So if my maintenance calories are 2600 calories per day, I’d want to be eating somewhere between 2860 and 3120 calories on a daily basis.
This will give my body the excess energy it needs to repair and grow muscle.
If you want to watch our full-length video on this subject, click here
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