Welcome back, let's talk about getting jacked. From my poll, muscle building received the 2nd highest number of votes and, surprisingly, most votes were from women (which is awesome). This post is about the basics of muscle building and the foundation of what I build my programs on. No earth-shattering secrets here (hopefully), just the most important, basic things that you can do to add muscle to your body; guy or girl.
I'll start off by saying that adding muscle to your body is absolutely one of the healthiest things you can do for yourself. Gone now are the days of "muscles are manly", "muscle is just for show", "muscles make you slow and un-athletic" and many other muscle myths. Everyone should have more muscle if they want to live a longer, healthier, and happier life. Here's the basics on how to do it...
1. Start with big, compound movements
The focus of your program should be on exercises that use a lot of muscle groups and multiple joints (what we call compound movements). These are exercises like squats, deadlifts, presses, pulling, loaded carries. These exercises should usually be towards the start of your workout and should be given the most effort and energy. The reason these are so important is because they give you the most bang for your buck compared to exercises that attempt to isolate one single muscle group. They build a ton of muscle, burn a ton of calories, and make your whole body stronger. This leads me to my next point...
2. Focus on getting strong
There is overwhelming scientific evidence that strength (particularly leg strength) is the SINGLE best determinant of how long you're going to live. No, seriously. You need to be strong to live a long healthy life and the sooner you get strong the better your life is going to be. So how do you get strong? You spend most of your time on the compound exercises discussed in point 1 and you use those exercises to move heavy weight. Research tells us that you will get the most strength gains using heavy weight for sets of about 3-6 reps, but higher and lower than that will still produce results, perpendicularly in people who are just starting out. This is why programs like 5,3,1 and 5x5 have been able to get people strong for decades now. Load some weight on the bar, do some squats, and live a long time.
3. Ditch bodybuilding splits
If you have known me for a while then you know I talk about this a lot. I am not a fan of typical bodybuilding splits i.e. chest and tris, back and bis, shoulder and arms, leg day, etc. Although workouts like this can work, I believe that there are better and more efficient ways for the average person to the bigger, stronger, and leaner. I much prefer full body workouts or upper/lower splits that will be more balanced and allow more focus on the basics. Not only can you see much better results if you focus more on training like an athlete and less like a bodybuilder, but those results will transfer to your daily activities better.
4. Don't overdo it, you grow when you rest
Contrary to what most people think, you don't grow (or shrink even) when you're in the gym. Lifting just create the damage and the stimulus that your body needs to produce growth. You really grow when you rest, giving your body the time it needs to repair the damage you have done to your muscle or adjust to whatever stimulus you gave it. (Side note, tissue damage is NOT the only way to make a muscle bigger. But I'll save that for another post). This is why it is important to take days off from intense exercise if your goal is really to get gains. Spend your time in the gym telling your body it needs to grow, then give it the food and rest it needs to make those changes happen. You may think that working out 6-7 times per week will make you grow the fastest but you're totally just wasting your time. 3-4 days of good quality lifting and 1-2 days of conditioning is all you need to get jacked.
5. Eat more calories than you burn.
In order to grow, your body needs a stimulus (see above points) which is usually going to be lifting weights. It also needs the materials to make the growth happen. This is where protein comes in. You need to eat protein if you want to make your muscles bigger (duh). I typically recommend a protein intake of about .8g per pound of body weight up to 1,0g per pound of body weight. This is what Dr. Mike Israetel and his team at Renaissance Periodization teach and why I use it. This means that a 200 pound guy should be eating somewhere between 160g and 200g of protein per day, This actually doesn't change (in my opinion) for weight loss either (also something for another post).
Also, and more to the point, the best way to ensure that you're getting enough calories to not LOSE your hard earned muscle, is to eat a caloric surplus. That means eating more calories than you body burns each day and will result in your body weight increasing. Obviously we want to keep as much of that increase as possible to increase in muscle, but it is completely Ok for you to add on a little extra body fat to make sure that you are getting the gains you want. That fat gain needs to be minimal and that is why strategies like Carb Cycling and high intensity conditioning can be beneficial during a massing period.
Hopefully you found some of this information beneficial. Again, this is only the biggest basics since I still have 14 more posts to make about Muscle Building. But also remember that the basics are the most important, and these 5 points should be mastered before too many details are added.
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See you tomorrow!
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