Not everyone has the attention span or time to read a huge article. So, here’s a summary if you are in a rush.

1. You need to commit to some kind of resistance training. This can include lifting weights, using your own body weight (calisthenics), or training with machines, cables, resistance bands, etc. 

2. One set of an exercise that’s effective in targeting a muscle group is the minimum required to see growth in this muscle. You can increase the volume (amount of sets) you do for more muscle growth as long as you train in a way that allows you to fully recover before the next training session. The standard recommendation is 6 to 20 sets per muscle group per week. For an emphasis on muscle growth, each set should contain 6 to 25 repetitions.

3. Muscle growth is a process of adaptation. If you want your muscles to continue to grow (adapt to the stimulus you are providing), you need to progressively overload by increasing the weight reps or improving other things that can increase tension, like your form and execution.

4. You will get results more effectively and quickly if you train close to absolute failure, which means the speed of each repetition has significantly slowed by the end of the set, and you struggle a lot to finish another repetition. You will still grow within 3-5 reps shy of failure as long as you find ways to progressively overload, like by steadily increasing your reps and sets from session to session.

5. The training split you follow won’t significantly affect your ability to grow muscle as long as you are seeing progress and can easily and consistently fit the workouts within your schedule. If you can afford it, aim to train each muscle group at least 2 times per week, and design your split in a way that allows muscle groups to rest at least 48 hours before being trained again.

6. Protein is the most important macronutrient for muscle growth. The standard recommendation is eating 1.6 to 2,2 grams per kg and 0.8 to 1 lb per pound of lean body mass, which is your total body weight minus your fat reserves. While protein matters a lot, you will also want to get enough of all other key nutrients, including carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, minerals, and omega-3s

7. Get enough sleep, which should be around 7 and a half to 10 hours, depending on your genetics, physical activity, mental exhaustion, stress levels, etc. 

8. Drink a lot of water (roughly 1 liter per 1,000 calories) and increase if you are sweating or working out a lot in a given day.

This is the bare minimum that you need to know about muscle growth. If you only follow this summary, you will be at least 80 percent on the way to success. However, if there’s a perfectionist within you who wants to learn all the details and nuances of the topic, then read below as we expand upon each point, analyze additional principles and strategies, and go over the most common misconceptions and outdated myths.

The Pillars of Muscle Growth

Mechanical Tension

The foundation for muscle growth is mechanical tension, which is the stress you put on your muscles through various movements. When you experience mechanical tension, your muscle fibers get stretched or contract to lift a weight, move you across space, or to push and pull against an external force. This involves both an eccentric part - lengthening of the muscle, and a concentric part - contraction of the muscle. 

All resistance training exercises, whether done on a machine, with dumbbells and weights, body weight, resistance bands, gymnastic rings, etc., will experience some degree of mechanical tension. Studies have continuously shown how mechanical tension is closely linked to muscle growth, pinpointing it as a primary factor for muscle adaptations. 

Mechanical stress is often compared with other potential mechanisms for muscle growth, лике metabolic stress, and muscle damage. Here is why mechanical tension is the superior principle for muscle growth:

Mechanical Tension Compared To Metabolic Stress

When muscles work hard enough to accumulate waste products like hydrogen ions and lactate, this is known as metabolic stress. This accumulation leads to inflammation in the muscle, which sets off an adaptation reaction that promotes muscular growth. Metabolic stress can trigger some muscle adaptations and growth in muscle tissue and strength. 

However, metabolic stress is not a sufficient metric to build lots of muscle.  You will get some, but it's not enough to reach anywhere near your natural limit. Would you get a sick pump if you did 50 repetitions of bicep curls with 5 kg in each arm? Yes. However, the inflammation you get isn't enough to stimulate muscle growth because the effort you put in isn't sufficiently high to encourage your body to adapt. 

Metabolic stress (chasing the pump) is a sign you are in the right direction, but it's not essential for muscle growth. It plays a supportive role by helping the flow of oxygen and nutrients and signaling for adaptations. You can find as many studies as you want on how metabolic stress leads to marginal muscle gains, but if you go into a gym and talk with people who are big, you will quickly realize chasing the pump is not enough to grow long-term.

Mechanical Tension Compared To Muscle Damage

Intense effort damages the muscle fibers microscopic, which triggers an inflammatory reaction. Skeletal muscle hypertrophy is mostly due to injury caused by exercise. The tremendous mechanical loads that muscles undergo during resistance training cause the muscle fibers to undergo a condition called microtrauma. 

This microtrauma causes the body to undergo a sequence of processes that eventually result in larger muscles. However, correlation does not lead to causation. Muscle damage is a sign of an opportunity for muscle growth because it means you've been working hard, but it's not a prerequisite. Some muscle damage is an inevitable part of doing lots of heavy lifting, but tearing your muscles apart is not necessary for you to grow muscle. After a certain point, you strain your body so much that it’s busy healing instead of growing new muscle.

This is why it's usually recommended to do 1 to 9 sets per muscle group per workout. By spreading your weekly volume into multiple workouts, you trigger a signal for muscle growth multiple times while minimizing the damage that needs to be repaired. If you hurt your muscles too much, most of your nutrients will go toward healing the damage, not building new muscle.

Training To Technical Failure 

In most circumstances, you will need to train to absolute technical failure if you want to build as much muscle as possible. Pushing to the limit is necessary because it sends the strongest possible signal to your body that it must adapt to be better able to handle the same force next time. Each set should be pushed to absolute technical failure or very near to failure, where your form collapses, and you can not complete another repetition. As you approach failure, your repetitions will slow down.

There is an ongoing belief by many science-based lifters and beginners that you can train close to failure with 2-3 repetitions left in the tank and still see results. This is absolutely true. Studies have shown that training close to failure is enough to achieve muscle growth. 

However, just because you CAN, in theory, work close to failure doesn't mean you are LIKELY to know how to train close to failure. Most people are notoriously horrible at estimating how many repetitions they have in the tank. It's substantially easier for you to stop even when you are not close to failure because your muscles are burning, you are fatigued and afraid of injuring yourself, psychologically tapped out from grinding toward the second half of the workout, etc. 

What you think is "close to failure" for you may not be the "close to failure" observed by scientists at all. It's much more effective to go for technical failure in most cases instead of trying to calculate how many reps you have remaining in the task (unless you are very, very experienced). However, there are two exceptions:

1. Compound lifts - You can easily go to failure and beyond for isolation exercises. There is barely any danger for your muscles and ligaments if you are a natural when working with heavy dumbbell loads or doing cable exercises. However, the danger is much higher with compound movements. If you are squatting and deadlifting heavy, you will want to avoid technical failure unless you are very experienced. Since the inherent risk in the exercise is higher, it's okay to progress more slowly by going near failure but not beyond failure. 

2. Maintenance workouts - You don't have to go above and beyond in every workout. It's okay to have workouts where you go through the motions, ensuring your muscles remain intact and you practice your form and technique. It's actually better for your mental health and likely to reduce the chance of burnout. Especially for people with highly demanding degrees, jobs, and kids, you will not always be wrecking yourself for 2 hours straight in the gym. Maybe 18-year-old kids on social media have the luxury of doing that, but not most grown adults. 

The Importance of Progressive Overload For Muscle Growth - How To Continue Growing Over Time

Progressive overload means you consistently use the tension you put on your muscles after each couple of workouts. It's the most important principle behind long-term muscle gain because your muscles adapt based on the stimulus they are challenged by. If the amount of effort required remains the same, you have no reason to grow more muscle. So, you need to find ways to increase muscle tension over time. 

Here is how you can practically implement progressive overload into your workouts:

1. Improve your form during each repetition - When most people lift weights, they don't typically give the lifting or lowering phases much thought, but timing them gives you an additional avenue for improvement. The hardest tempo is a slow one where you are grinding each repetition as if your life depended on it. However, to achieve that, you shouldn't try to intentionally execute the movement as slowly as possible. Rather, you should try to keep your muscles tight and control the weight throughout the whole range of motion. Slower repetitions happen because doing an exercise in a controlled way through a full range of motion is significantly harder than bouncing weights around. Your tempo should be slow, but that's a result of high effort and proper form in each repetition, not vice versa. 

2. Raise the intensity of each repetition - This entails gradually increasing the exercise's weight, either by adding more dumbbells or plates to the barbell, adding an additional weight stack to a machine or cable, or all three. This is the most reliable way to make your muscles grow and adapt over time. You can usually increase the weight afer you can do 12-15 repetitions with perfect form.

3. Increase the amount of repetitions you are doing per set - Even though you used the same weight, you have undoubtedly grown stronger if you performed 50 kg for six repetitions two weeks ago, eight repetitions last week, and 10 repetitions this week. However, this is a temporary solution. After 15 to 20 clean and controlled reps, you should either increase the weight, or find other ways to make the exercise more challenging. 

4. Increase the number of sets you are doing in an exercise - There are times when you will be stuck on the same weight and the same repetitions for days or even weeks. Increasing the sets you are doing is an easy way to get more volume and increase the stimulus your muscles are getting for growth. However, set increases are also a temporary solution since you don't have the time and energy to be doing more than 4 sets on all exercises. Use this approach with caution.

5. Reduce the amount of time you are resting in between sets - This strategy can be effective for certain exercises if you care about enhancing your cardiovascular fitness and endurance. However, it's not an effective form of progressive overload for muscle growth. You can have short rest periods if you are in a rush or use advanced techniques, like drop sets (do a second set immediately with less weight), myo sets (do a second set after resting 5-10 seconds), or a superset (combining multiple different exercises one after the other). However, cutting on your rest time will lead to sloppy reps and a reduced ability to push yourself to the limit. 

Progressive overload can be both a proactive and a reactive process. 

You should proactively try to increase your repetitions by pushing to failure and giving it everything you have in each set. You should also proactively try to improve your form by controlling the weight, emphasizing the stretching part of the movement, and doing a full range of motion on most exercises. 

However, you shouldn't be adding sets or additional load for the sake of feeling you are progressing. Rather, they should be a reaction to the progress you are already seeing. There's no point in increasing your squat's weight if you can still barely do 5 reps with the current load. Instead, grind until you have a better form and higher strength that allows you to safely do 10 reps and then increase the weight.

How To Much Volume Do You Need Per Workout & Per Week of Training?

Volume is the amount of work you have done in a single workout or throughout the whole week. 

(You can calculate your volume by counting the number of hard sets [close to failure] you perform for each muscle growth. If you are doing compound exercises, count supporting/auxiliary muscles as half. For example, three sets of dips and three sets of push-ups would be only three toward your weekly tricep volume, but cable work or dumbbell isolation exercises all count as one set for your triceps)

Average numbers and studies aside, the amount of volume you need to do in a week is highly personal to you. Some people can handle more or less volume depending on their genetics, athletic background, lifestyle habits, job and occupation, etc. The sweet for you is anything more than 3-4 sets per week that also allows you to consistently progress, meaning it doesn’t cause excessive fatigue and muscle damage to the point of disrupting your recovery before the next training session).

If “figure it out yourself based on your needs” isn’t advice that makes you feel confident, then you can start with the general consensus, which is between 10 to 20 hard sets per muscle group per week and 6 to 10 sets per workout to maximize muscle growth. Use the consensus of 10-20 sets per muscle per week as general guidance, but listen to your body and experiment to find your sweet spot.

You want to spread your volume throughout the week to signal to your body that you need new muscle multiple times during the week. For example, doing 5-6 sets of bicep curls three times a week is much more effective than doing a workout of 15 sets once per week. 

You may get an insane pump and muscle cramps from the latter, but that doesn't mean it's optimal for long-term growth. If you group all your volume in one day (bro split), you lose multiple days where the multiple can be growing because mTOR signaling goes down significantly after 24 hours, and it's completely gone by 72 hours. You also cause excessive muscle damage that's not effective for growth. For optimal results, you want to stimulate the muscle to grow while causing as little damage as possible because excessive strain focuses nutrient resources on repair instead of growth.

You can find countless studies that suggest moderate to high volume maximizes muscle growth. However, the positive connection between volume and muscle growth works only until a certain point where you will see diminishing returns or risk injuring yourself.  Doing too much will cause excessive muscle damage, making your body too busy trying to heal and repair what's broken instead of building new muscle. You will also strain your bones, ligaments, and joints, release too much waste products into the blood, and even slightly tank your hormone levels. 

Finally, too much volume may be used as an excuse to skip putting effort into each individual set, which can stop you from growing because you are not going anywhere near failure. There is an inherent trade-off between intensity and volume. If you only have 2 sets per exercise and 4 for a muscle group in total, there’s much greater urgency to push yourself hard compared to 3 exercises with 4 sets each. Many people are afraid of missing out on the potential gains of high-volume bodybuilding splits, but all of the loss can be avoided if you keep the intensity high enough. 

In short, the risk of too little volume is not maximizing muscle growth. You will get results, but you could theoretically grow quicker if you did a little more. You can offset that risk by ramping up the intensity of each individual set you do. On the other hand, too much volume can make you more vulnerable to injury, create issues with recovery that impair your ability to progressively overload, and can reduce your drive and motivation for lifting because of the higher time commitment that’s required.

Other Important But Not Essential Factors For Muscle Growth 

1. High frequency - You retain and grow muscle because your body gets a recurring cue that you keep needing the muscle you have and/or need to build more. One hard workout can grow some muscle, but it’s not enough to retain the muscle for more than 2-3 weeks. A high frequency of training (2-3 times per muscle group per week) maximizes protein synthesis. Your sets must be spread throughout the week because each workout increases protein synthesis for up to 72 hours, but the peak is at 24 hours and goes down significantly by the time 3 days pass.  High frequency also helps you to increase androgen receptors in the muscles, which increases their response to testosterone and HGH. You will get some muscle from training once a week, but you can gain much more by increasing the frequency. Finally, a higher frequency means you have fewer sets within a workout, which means you put in more effort instead of going through the motions in the last sets.

2. Time under tension - Uninterrupted tension on the muscle for an extended period leading to failure is ideal. You want to train for at least 6-8 controlled repetitions in a set. Anything less than that will be more focused on strength, which partially overlaps with muscle growth but not entirely. Similar to that is the time you spend with tension on the target muscle. Ensure you are hitting the target muscle without cheating or compensating by leveraging angles, gravity, and other muscles. Otherwise, you are significantly reducing the actual tension that is placed on the muscle. As a result, you are greatly reducing the stimulus for muscle growth you are getting. You can employ cheating toward the end of a set or as a variation, but you still want the majority of your training to involve an exercise where you have direct tension on the muscle for multiple reps.

3. Intensity of the load with each repetition (how heavy you are lifting) - The higher the load of what you are pulling toward or pushing against, the higher recruitment you get of your high threshold muscles (fast-twitch fibers), which will make the most noticeable change to your muscle size. Studies show that you can technically get similar results with lower weights and higher repetitions as long as you go to failure. However, in real life, you are more likely to feel your cardiovascular baseline give out or feel mentally burned out and stop away from failure because your muscles are burning, the pain and discomfort become too much, and you are getting bored if it a set toward the end of your workout. We all know that pushing to failure is necessary, but it’s hard to convince your brain of this concept when it screams after your 19th rep on the barbell squat. You don't have to go to the extreme of lifting very heavy weights for 1-5 reps, but lifting heavy weights within the 6-12 rep range will build the most muscle because it allows you to reach failure before you fatigue yourself.

4. Controlled eccentric - This is the “negative” part of a movement (ex. going down on a push-up, dip, pull-up, and dropping the dumbbell during a curl). You want to control the eccentric and not just drop the body/let go of the weight to tension your muscle is going through. Putting a muscle through a highly challenging stretch can increase hypertrophy since it creates a strong need to keep the muscle tight (passive and active tension happen simultaneously). Some studies suggest that partials in the eccentric may be more hypertrophic than partials in the concentric (squeezing) part of a movement, which means the lengthening parts of a movement are more important. While the science remains inconclusive, the reasonable takeaway is that both parts of a movement are important, so you want to control the eccentric for maximum tension and to reduce the chance of injury long-term.

5. Full ROM - A full ROM puts the muscle through a higher tension curve, leading to full contraction and extension. This also ensures you have no weak spots and adequately strengthens stabilization muscles, which can help you to increase the load more quickly over time. Furthermore, full ROM allows you to standardize your form, making it easier for you to know whether the 2 more reps you got now compared to your last workout happened under the same circumstances, which is necessary for accurate evaluation of whether you are progressing or not. Doing a full ROM during an exercise is highly beneficial, but you can mix it up with partial reps on the hardest portion of the movement as well (ex., the upper portion of pull-ups, the lower portion of dips and push-ups, etc.). It’s all about balance.

How To Choose A Workout Split That Works For You 

The most common splits, which beginners and intermediates follow, are:

1. Bro Split: This workout plan targets one major muscle group per day, usually over five days. It allows for intense focus on each muscle group, giving plenty of time for recovery before hitting the same group again the following week. However, you may be missing out on muscle growth by training each muscle only once per week, and risking lower set quality during the last few sets of a workout.

2. Push/Pull/Legs (PPL): This split organizes training days by movement patterns. "Push" days focus on the chest, shoulders, and triceps, "Pull" days target the back and biceps, and "Legs" days involve the lower body. The PPL split usually involves 3 days of consecutive workouts with a rest day before repeating again. It’s an improvement upon the bro split, allowing for the isolation of a few muscles while maintaining appropriate frequency, but it’s 

3. Upper/Lower Split: This plan divides workouts between upper body days and lower body days. It's versatile, allowing for 2, 4, or even 6 sessions per week, making it easier to adjust based on goals and recovery needs. Workout sessions tend to be lower compared to the bro and PPL split because you have more muscle groups to hit, but you can quickly adapt to the higher fatigue and energy demands. 

4. Full Body Workout: This split involves training all major muscle groups in each session. Typically done two or three times per week, this approach maximizes frequency per muscle group, which can be beneficial for muscle growth and strength gains. The major downside is that workouts take longer and are considerably more exhausting than other splits because you have many intense exercises. While you take a bigger beating during the workout, full-body workouts allow for your body to recover together, reducing the risk of overuse and injury. Furthermore, full body splits also allow your central nervous system to rest more because it isn’t being taxed multiple days in a row, which can boost your motivation and resilience if you struggle with fatigue and burnout and generally feel beaten down and demotivated.

Those are just the standard workout templates you should start with, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you must stick with them forever. Many bodybuilders eventually move to individualized workout splits, like upper/lower, with an additional day to focus on weak points, like arms, or a combination of the full body with upper/lower, depending on what muscle groups need to be emphasized and brought up. I highly suggest lurking on social media a bit and choosing a free program to start with from any of the most popular natural bodybuilders online, like Alex Leonidas, Bald Omni Man, Basement Bodybuilding, Natural Hypertrophy, Geoffrey Verity Schofield, etc etc. 

If you need some help deciding which program is right for you, I suggest relying on the following three criteria:

1. Enjoyment - Pick a split that’s enjoyable, meaning you feel good and fulfilled while doing the exercises and look forward to it instead of dreading your next training session. You can’t immediately know if a split will be enjoyable since there’s an adjustment period, but you will get a feeling about it after testing a split for at least a month. The more enjoyable your workout, the less likely you are to skip or merely go through the motions. If you have fun lifting, you are more likely to push yourself, which drives progress. The more you progress, the more momentum and motivation you get to keep lifting.

2. Sustainability - Muscle is built by continuously showing up, not by having a couple of brilliant training sessions a year. A workout split that allows you to manage fatigue effectively and doesn’t require an unsustainable time commitment is your best option to remain consistent. For example, if the gym isn’t close to you, or you have days with multiple free hours available, then choosing a full body split may be more reasonable because you have fewer sessions that will be longer, which saves you on traveling time and eliminates the need to worry about working out on days where you are much more busy. 

3. Relevancy to your lifting goals - Muscle growth is the primary goal of many people, but most lifters have specific parts of their body that they want to improve, like arms, chest, shoulders, etc. Depending on your muscle-building goals, you can choose a split that helps you bias certain muscle groups better. For example, you may want to bring up your arms, but you always find yourself totally drained by the end of a workout when it’s time to hit the biceps and triceps. So, you can do your arms in a separate workout or choose a split that leaves you more energy for your arms, like PPL or upper/lower with arms done during the lower body day. 

How To Master Exercise Selection

It’s true that you will gain muscle just by doing the basic exercises everyone does if you train hard and progressively overload. However, you can still set yourself up for success by carefully selecting which exercises you want to focus your effort on. Here are a few principles you may want to follow:

1. Variety is king - Exercise variety is important to cover different parts of the muscle, and sufficiently train the muscle through different angles, leverages, and resistance profiles for a balanced development. The most common combination variety combo is a compound exercise, which overloads multiple muscle groups alongside a few isolation exercises that put laser focus onto a single muscle. For example, squats will develop your quads and thighs, but the rectus femoris extends the hip, so it will see much more growth from a lex extension. A dumbbell or barbell bench shoulder press will beef up your front delt, chest, and triceps, but you will also want to combine them with a chest fly, lateral raise, and a tricep cable variation to isolate each muscle individually. While variety is important, you don’t want to do a thousand variations for each muscle. Usually, 1-2 compound lifts and 1-2 isolations for a muscle are enough to cover all bases. You can add more if you are willing to reduce the sets you do on each exercise or if you feel like rotating lifts across workouts.

2. Pick exercises that allow for steady weight progression - Long-term muscle growth requires progressive overload. While you can work on perfecting your form, adding reps, and other intensifiers, you will eventually need to add load. So, choose exercises where you can easily add weight and will not be severely limited by the weight available on a machine or by the equipment in the gym. This is a total non-concern if you are a beginner, but eventually,you will need to switch a few exercises when you reach the limit. For example, switching to weighted pull-ups if you max out the lat pulldown machine or trying out a machine preacher curl variation when regular barbell curls become heavy enough that you can’t properly stabilize your whole body while curling the weight up.

3. No strong pain or discomfort when performing the movement - There are cases where we feel pain in our ligaments and joints because we aren’t properly warmed up. For example, many people have elbow pain when doing a French press or skullcrushers for triceps, but the discomfort is almost entirely gone if they do a few sets of cable tricep extensions before moving on to the other exercises. However, there will be exercises where the pain and discomfort will persist no matter how much you warm up because the exercise is not compatible with your anatomy or because you lack the needed flexibility. This is often the case with many machines that accommodate the average height of a gym goer without accounting for people who are shorter or taller than average. In some circumstances, you can build up the tolerance for an exercise, like improving behind-the-neck mobility to do pressing variations in this plane. Whether you have the time and patience to build a foundation to avoid joint pain and reduce the risk of injury depends on you. 

4. Judge an exercise based on the results you get, not necessarily how it makes you feel in the moment - Your workout split must be enjoyable overall, but that doesn’t mean that every exercise within your split must feel nice. There are many reasons why an exercise can feel uncomfortable, even if you are growing from it. For example, Bulgarian Split Squats feel like self-inflicted torture for many people because you need to balance the barbell or dumbbells while squatting with one leg, which significantly increases balance and coordination demands. The exercise is an amazing quad and glute builder but highly exhausting. Similarly, many people feel weird when performing dumbbell or barbell preacher curls because the tension is highest when the biceps are stretched, so there isn’t much of a sensation, unlike many squeeze-based variations, like cable curls. Preacher curls are insanely stimulating, but since tension is highest during the eccentric and not anywhere near the contraction, you may mistakenly get the impression that your biceps are not working. All of those illustrations are yet another reason why exercise variety can be so helpful. 

How To Optimize Protein Consumption For Muscle Growth

Protein is the second biggest component of human tissue after water. It's made up of amino acids, which are the building blocks of cells. Amino acids are produced when protein is broken down after consumption. The intestine absorbs these amino acids, which are then expelled into the bloodstream. The amino acids are then sent to peripheral tissues, where they are absorbed and used to create tissue protein.  

Amino acids are required for tissue development and repair, neurotransmitter delivery and production, and cellular energy metabolism. 

The process of creating new proteins is called protein synthesis. This procedure takes place in every organ. Your protein consumption is also directly responsible for your body's ability to effectively repair itself and adapt after intense physical training. This process is called muscle protein synthesis. If your muscles are a wall, amino acids make up the bricks, and muscle synthesis is the process through which you lay new bricks into the wall.

How to maximize muscle growth through optimal protein consumption:

1. Get enough grams of protein per day - According to a 2018 assessment by Brad Schoenfeld and Alan Aragon, the ideal protein intake for building muscle and strength would be between 0.8 and 1.0 g/lb or 1.6 and 2.2 g/kg of lean body mass. You may want to go higher on the scale if you train every day, put in maximum effort with a highly intense program, and have a higher muscle mass to maintain on a daily basis. Protein is needed only for lean mass tissue, so exclude your fat weight when calculating. For example, if you are 20% body fat at 90 kg and highly physically active, then you'd need 72 x 2,2g = 158 g of protein per day if you train very frequently at high intensity. 

2. Eat 3-5 meals spread throughout the day of 20-40g protein each - Getting 20 grams of protein gives a nearly maximum activation for muscle protein synthesis, but you can get a further 10-20% increase if you eat 40 grams per meal. You can easily spread your protein intake by eating breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a post-workout protein shake after you are done training. 

3. Get 3g of leucine per meal - The protein kinase fuel sensor known as the mechanistic target of rapamycin, or mTOR, controls the anabolic effects you may experience after a workout. You will not grow much muscle if your mTOR doesn't allow for it. Strength training will activate the mTORC1, but you can increase the process of muscle synthesis further by consuming at least 3g of leucine per meal. Leucine is important because it's the amino acid that has been shown to best activate and regulate your mTOR, allowing for muscle growth. Luicine is highest in chicken, beef, seafood (salmon, sardines, tuna, etc), eggs, beans, and seeds. You can get enough leucine from plant-based sources, but you must eat a bit more protein overall in each meal.

There are a few misconceptions about protein consumption that need to be cleared up as well:

1. What if you eat only 1-2 meals per day - It's not a huge problem if you eat only 2-3 meals per day as long as you hit a sufficiently high daily protein intake. Your body is smart and can process a ton of protein at once and store the excess for later usage. We've evolved in environments of high resource scarcity where meals were infrequent and often missing. So, it makes a lot of sense for our bodies to be highly adaptive. 

2. What if I can't get protein immediately after a workout - If you are training fasted, then not eating 1-3 hours after your workout may hurt your muscle gains because you've spent a lot of time without any calorie intake. However, if you've already had a meal earlier in the day, then you don't have to worry about that. Studies do show some benefits of consuming protein 1 hour after your workout, but that may be largely because the extra meal may be increasing your total daily intake. So, focus on eating a light meal 1-2 hours before working out, and keep your daily intake high. 

3. Do you need to take protein before going to sleep - If you want to go the extra mile and won't disrupt your sleep and calorie balance, go for it. It can be beneficial, but it's far from essential. If you are going to do it, go for a casein protein shake before sleep. Casein is slow digesting and less disruptive to your night metabolism than a full meal due to the high protein per calorie ratio. Studies have shown an increase in muscle protein synthesis during sleep if you consistently drink it 1-3 hours before sleep. 

The Importance of Sleep For Muscle Growth - How To Design A Robust Sleep Schedule 

Sleeping less than six hours a night will not help you grow much if any, muscle. Sleeping between 8 and 10 hours will help your muscles recover, keep your HGH, dopamine, and testosterone levels high, and lower myostatin and cortisol. From muscle tissue repair to hormone balance, sleeping is the most powerful anabolic cycle for natural lifters. 

Here is how to take your sleeping habits to the next level:

1. Stick to a schedule -  The best time to go to bed is between 10:30 and 11:30 at night and to wake up between 7:00 and 8:30. It doesn't matter how exactly you sleep as long as it's regular; gives you at least 7.5 hours, and works with your responsibilities, personal needs, and professional obligations. Your body adjusts more easily to regular sleep hours because it can predictably release melatonin and other sleep hormones at the appropriate time when it notices you consistently going to sleep at the same time.  

2. Minimize light exposure 2-3 hours before sleeping - Your eyes can't tell the difference between artificial and natural light. When it originates from an electronic gadget, the effect is considerably worse because your brain doesn't relax. Rather, it stays attentive and ready to digest more information. Either completely eliminate light sources or discover ways to limit them, such as using blue light-blocking eyewear and blue light filters on your phone, laptop, and other electronics. 

3. Spend time outside in the morning - At least five minutes in the morning in direct sunlight is the absolute minimum. Your body uses environmental cues or a sleep clock to control your circadian rhythm. Your body's capacity to prepare for sleep at the proper time is enhanced by the light you see in the early morning.  The length of time you must spend outside is determined by the time of year and your region. You need to spend more time outside if you live in the northern hemisphere or if winter is currently upon us. You can still receive plenty of sunshine even when the sun isn't directly visible, despite the fact that overcast and dark weather can give the impression that the sun has abandoned your area and it is useless to venture outside.  

4. Keep the temperature in your bedroom cold - Try turning on the air conditioning, opening a window while you sleep, or even just taking a hot shower before bed to see if it helps you feel better.  Your body temperature will drop over the night and you will be more likely to enjoy a good night's sleep. This explains why, in the summer, you might feel suffocated even with a single sheet, but in the winter, you might feel as though you sleep better covered in blankets.  

5. Allow yourself to wind down and do something relaxing - The trick is to do something that will not stress you out or excite you too much. Something too thrilling or stimulating could keep you up all night, you should ideally be doing something moderately boring. It's difficult to reach this sweet spot, so keep trying until you find something that keeps you from being bored without making you hyperactive. You can try out journaling, expressing gratitude, yoga, meditation (either alone or with a guide), reading a book, or listening to a podcast, are a few examples.

6. Keep your caffeine consumption low and entirely before noon - People frequently self-medicate by cutting back on these beverages to make up for their lack of energy. Caffeine doesn't make you feel less exhausted. Instead, it masks your fatigue, which leads to the development of a dependence that only gets worse with time and undermines your motivation and attitude because you will inevitably collapse later in the day, making you need even more caffeine. Avoid drinking coffee after midday if you are determined to maintain it in your life. It's acceptable to have two espresso shots in the morning or sip green and black tea if doing so helps you wake up more peacefully and provides you with a sense of structure. But anything you consume after noon puts you at risk of sleep disturbance since, depending on your metabolism, caffeine can linger in your system for up to 14 hours after you stop feeling its effects. 

7. Avoid eating and drinking before bed if you have trouble sleeping - If it takes you a while to fall asleep, you may want to stay clear of large meals 4 to 5 hours before bed and limit your water intake two hours before bed. Reduce your intake of coffee and other caffeinated beverages as well. It is more difficult for your body to go into sleep mode and shut down if it is too busy metabolizing everything you eat and drink. In addition, you should limit your intake of alcohol if you desire higher-quality sleep. Although alcohol can help you unwind, it also lowers the quality of your sleep, resulting in shallower sleep that is less restorative and healing. 

8. Track your sleep score to feel more motivated to get better every day - The effects of poor sleep are felt the next day, but it's very easy to ignore them, make up an explanation, or grow accustomed to the sluggishness, lack of drive, and unstable emotions. Even though sleep deprivation is terrible and leads to a lot of issues, you might not feel motivated to act immediately.  That changes instantaneously when you track your sleep using a phone or an electronic watch (the specific model isn't really important) since you can observe the quality of your sleep in a clear and measurable manner. Additionally, when you observe increases in your score, it's easy to become more motivated when you know how your sleep is currently going. And finally, being aware of your daily accomplishments instantly inspires you to improve upon your previous performance.

Turning Resistance Training Into A Lifestyle - How To Become More Dedicated And Consistent 

No matter how much you read about muscle growth, it won't actually give you a jacked and muscular body. It's one thing to be told to work hard and show up consistently, but it's something else completely to build a routine, system, and lifestyle around frequently working out. Here are a few strategies that can help you to get started:

1. Follow a program that's compatible with your schedule - Have limited time in the week, but still can spare a few hours? You can try a full-body workout split three times a week. If you can go more than 3 times, you can try the upper/lower body or the push/pull/legs split. You won't know what works immediately, which is why it's important to experiment. When trying out a program, you should see if the volume in a workout feels too little/too much, how much you are enjoying the workout itself, and what your priorities are at the moment. The program should allow you to do the most work possible relative to how much time you have available while still enjoying what you are doing. 

2. Reduce the effort required to start with a workout - Once you do a few sets, it's significantly easier to keep going. The problem is entering the grind zone in the first place. If you visit a gym, you should get a change of clothes prepared, pack your water bottle and snacks, and get your backpack ready the night before so you don't have to bother to do it on the spot. You can also get yourself some equipment for home workouts. It won't be the same as going to the gym, but you can do tons of high-intensity movements with a pair of dumbbells, a pull-up bar, a set of gymnastic rings, and a backpack you can load with weights.  

3. Make workouts as enjoyable as possible - There are compound movements that you should be doing even if you find them boring, like bench presses, squats, pull-ups, dips, etc. You can be a disciplined tryhard for them who pushes beyond discomfort. However, the majority of your workout should consist of exercises and variations of a movement you enjoy doing. You are far more likely to skip workouts or come up with reasons not to go if you detest performing them. You can also make the experience more pleasant by blasting music during resistance training or listening to a podcast if you find cardio boring.

4. Find someone to workout with together - If you are doing resistance training for the first time or coming back from a break, exercising may not be fun in the beginning. Your joints will hurt, muscles will ache, and you will feel totally destroyed after a heavy workout. You may also take a hit to your ego if you compare yourself to other people or to your previous self if you used to lift heavier weights. There's nothing like working out with someone else who can spot you, critique your form, push you to go to failure when you don't feel like it, etc. The term "gym bro" exists for a reason. If you are not the lone wolf who trains in their basement, finding people to work with can keep you consistent because it creates social pressure to keep showing up for one another. 

5. Track your workouts and have clear goals that give you a sense of control - Select measurable, easily trackable, and unambiguous goals. For example, you should choose an exercise or a new skill that you can readily track your progress toward. Being able to bench 100 kgs or do 15 bodyweight pull-ups is a very specific goal, which is much better than "wanting to get more muscular". You want to focus on strength-based performance versus how you look day-to-day because that's not entirely in your control. You can't control if your bicep will get bigger by an inch in three weeks, but you can push yourself to failure on most sets or go to the gym 5 times a week. Quantifiable goals make it much easier to get a sense of accomplishment, track your progress, and feel like you are steadily improving. The more in control you feel of your progress, the more motivated you will feel to keep going.

FAQs 

Do You Need Fitness Supplements To Grow Muscle?

No, you don't need any supplements to build muscle. 

However, there are three potential reasons to use supplements in specific circumstances. 

1. Convenience - Not enough time to make a whole meal in your schedule today? Drink a protein shake with whey or casein protein. Working late a couple of weeks in a row but still want to do your workouts? Get up early and drink caffeine or a high-quality pre-workout to perform at your best on days when you have lots of heavy lifting to do. Nothing wrong with taking protein powder and caffeine sources depending on your circumstances, but don't let it become an excuse not to improve your schedule long-term and prepare your own meals down the line. 

2. You want to go the extra mile - Training intensely, sleeping enough, and eating well will get you 95% of the way. If you are a perfectionist you may want to supplement to optimize your routine. The supplement with the most evidence behind it is creatine. Studies have shown time and time again it can increase energy and strength and make your muscles look more pumped. The effect is marginal, especially if you eat a diet high in natural creatine, but at least the science supports a certain benefit. 

3. Put a temporary band-aid for issues with your lifestyle habits - This category includes vitamins and minerals, like magnesium, zinc, vitamin D, boron, and other macronutrients, like omega 3s, that people are commonly deficient in. You can technically compensate with pills indefinitely, but I'd strongly suggest fixing your diet because food sources come with certainty of the dosage you are getting, have more bioavailable forms, and don't cause digestion issues. 

Does Cardio Overlap With Resistance Training?

No, in most cases, cardio does not overlap with resistance training. 

Even if it does, you should still be doing cardio for its health benefits. This is one of the worst and most outdated bro science myths. Cardio overlaps with resistance training only if you have horrible endurance and cardiovascular fitness, which is why you should be doing cardio to get better in the first place. It also partially overlaps if you are doing intense HIIT drills, sprinting, or any other form of highly taxing cardio.

If you are concerned about the overlap, do your strength training first and then finish with moderate-intensity cardio while cycling, rowing, running on the treadmill, walking, etc. 

In the vast majority of cases, having high cardiovascular fitness will actually improve your gains. 

Doing cardio regularly (3 times a week is the bare minimum) is essential to enhance your working capacity, improve your tolerance for pain, muscle burn, and discomfort, increase blood flow (oxygen and nutrients) toward your muscles, and also magnify capillary density, which allows you to build more muscle long-term.  This is why many endurance athletes make crazy progress when they transition to strength-based training - they have the cardiovascular fitness needed as a key foundation for muscle growth.

How Much Water Do You Need To Drink For Maximum Muscle Growth?

Water is the most essential compound in the human body, especially when it comes to muscle recovery and growth. 

Water is crucial because it helps to increase protein synthesis and turn off catabolic processes, improve amino acid absorption, keep HGH and testosterone levels high while myostatin is low, enhance blood flow of oxygen and nutrients to the muscles, and filter out waste and toxins from the body. 

Furthermore, not drinking enough can tank your workout performance as well. Even mild dehydration during workouts lowers energy levels, total strength, pain tolerance, fatigue threshold, etc. Finally, water and proper hydration are also needed to get a pump because lactic acid pulls water into the muscles, and fast twitch fibers need water.

You will need to drink at least one gallon a day, which is around 3.5 liters. If you want to be more specific, one liter of water is needed for every 1000 calories you consume. The amount you need is likely to be even higher if you eat a lot of protein because lots of water is needed for the breakdown of amino acids. 

Do You Need To Bulk To Build Muscle?

No, you don't need to bulk to gain muscle, but being in a slight caloric surplus will definitely make the process easier and faster. 

You can easily encourage muscle growth even if you are eating at around maintenance. However, you may find it easier to grow new muscle if you are at a slight caloric surplus of 100-300 calories because you get more protein, have more fuel to use as energy during intense workouts, and get more essential vitamins and minerals due to the higher amount of food you are eating and drinking. 

Bulking is usually encouraged when you are young or just starting with resistance training because you are experiencing "newbie gains", which is a period where you grow a significant amount of muscle. 

Still, at the beginning of your lifting journey, you may not be used to eating the amount of food required to keep up with strength training, even if you feel more hungry after workouts. If you need help with bulking, you can try out the following:

1. Snack on nuts and seeds throughout the day.  

2. Drink water after a meal to stretch your stomach. 

3. Have heavy meals full of protein and fiber later in the day. 

4. Plan your meals and make a rough estimate for your entire day to avoid skipping.

5. Stick with recipes that you can easily make and eat for multiple portions at a time.  

6. Find ways to make food more tasty by using spices, herbs, and low-calorie dips and sauces. 

7. Drink calories after you are done with your meals when you want to get calories in without chewing. Protein shakes with flaxseeds or chia seeds, olive oil, or peanut butter are some high-calorie additives you can include. 

Remember, the point of a bulk is to give your body more fuel to handle the higher physical strain that resistance training puts it through. It's not an excuse to excessively indulge in junk food and snacks. 

Can You Cut Without Losing Muscle?

No, going on a cut will end up with you losing some of your muscle, even if it’s a small percentage. It's still worth it for many people because seeing the muscle striations and separations is very attractive and makes your physique stand out. You can also take a lot of steps to significantly minimize the amount of muscle you lose by doing the following:

Do A Moderate Caloric Defecit

Losing weight is a marathon, not a sprint. 

A sharp cut for a prolonged period of time (600+ calories below maintenance) will send your body into starvation mode. 

This will slow down digestion, break down lean mass and muscle tissues, tank your hormone levels, and make you more lethargic and fatigued, impacting your ability to push yourself to the limit when working out.  Even if you lose weight and look more shredded, you are likely to regain most of it back once you jump off the diet (the yo-yo effect) because your body becomes desperate for nutrients. This means you are not only losing muscle while not getting long-term body fat reductions, but you are also losing weeks of progress in your workouts because you have lower energy and strength levels. 

Instead, maintain a moderate caloric deficit of 200-300 calories below maintenance. This is more sustainable, less stressful on the body, and less likely to lead to serious vitamin and mineral deficiencies, which can cause additional complications. 

If you really want to lose weight quickly, you can still do more serious forms of cutting, like eating only two meals a day at a large caloric deficit, fasting twice a week, etc. However,  you must be more mindful of your limits and take frequent breaks. For example, you can do a 48 fast and then eat at maintenance for the rest of the week, or spend a week eating 20% fewer calories and then spend another week at maintenance. If you want to cut aggressively, take breaks so your body and mind don't crash in the middle. 

Pack Your Meals With Protein And Fiber  

When you are cutting, you will need to ramp up your protein intake to 2 g to 3g per kg to ensure your body has enough fuel in the form of amino acids to repair your muscles after workouts and preserve their size and strength. Furthermore, high-protein diets can help you lose weight more quickly for several reasons.

Research has shown that people who consume meals high in protein feel more satisfied and full afterward than those who consume fewer proteins. 

On a diet with 30% protein, those who are free to eat as much as they like consume much fewer calories per day on average than those who eat only 10% protein. Protein has the highest thermogenic effect (20-30%), which means a large amount of the calories you consume end up being used to break down the food itself. Finally, many high-protein foods (meat, fish, eggs) are very nutrient-dense, making it easier to meet your daily vitamin and mineral needs.

If you struggle with cravings and hunger pangs, switching to some higher-fiber meal options is also a good idea for weight loss. Fiber can also make you feel more full because it slows down digestion times and makes you feel less hungry for longer. Furthermore, fiber can keep your gut health intact and protect you from constipation and other intestinal problems, which can happen on a very high-protein diet. 

It gets even better once you realize that many high-fiber options, like beans, legumes, and vegetables, are relatively low in calories. For the best results, you can start your meal with high-fiber foods, then move on to protein and fats, and finish with carb-rich foods so you feel less hungry by the end. 

Minimize Sugar-Rich And/or Ultra-Processed Foods

However, you can not afford to be eating junk food if you want to have a successful cut for several reasons:

1. Ultra-processed foods are highly addictive due to the artificial flavors, additives, and high sugar content, which can lead to binging and excessive snacking. It's too easy to overdo it.

2. Ultra-processed foods high in sugar require a lot of micronutrients (zinc, magnesium, potassium) to be processed, which can exacerbate nutrient deficiencies when you are already getting less than usual.

3. Junk foods are packed with significantly more calories than organic and minimally processed foods. For every gram of ultra-processed food you eat, you get a very high amount of calories and very few vitamins and minerals. 

4. Junk food can exacerbate chronic inflammation, metabolic issues, hormone imbalances, and thyroid problems, which can prevent weight loss while also reducing your lean tissues and muscle mass much more than necessary during the cut. 

Cutting junk food sounds easier said than done. So, here are a few strategies to help you get started:

1. Do cheat meals 1-2 times a week if you have very serious cravings. 

2. Make other people aware of your cut and ask them to check up on you. 

3. Brush your teeth early so you stop yourself from snacking into the night.

4. Try intermittent fasting or 24-hour fasting once every two weeks so you can get used to feeling hungry and accept the impulse without reacting to it.

5. Reframe hunger pangs as a sign you are moving in the right direction instead of thinking of cravings as impulses that need to be immediately followed.

6. What you eat is what you find in your fridge. It's much easier to avoid buying snacks and junk food than trying to resist them 24/7 if you have some in your fridge. 

7. Find ways to suppress your appetite, such as chewing gum, drinking green tea, matcha, and black coffee, or eating low-calorie alternatives to junk food, such as low-fat yogurt, dark chocolate, diet soda, no-sugar jello, and protein-rich ice cream.  

Conclusion:

What you’ve just read gives you all the knowledge you need to build a serious amount of muscle, but it’s only a single step in your journey. The next step is going for a workout and then doing it again and again.

After all, there are no hidden techniques and shortcuts, forgotten bodybuilding strategies from the Silver or Golden era, or gatekept secrets that will make up for the effort you need to put into this hobby. Building muscle is all about following the basics and doing the work daily. It’s hard but totally worth it once you look back on all the progress you’ve made.