How do you rev up your results? Here are nine tips that will teach you how to build muscle.
Training volume — your number of reps multiplied by your number of sets — is a primary determiner of hypertrophy (muscle volume growth). And to increase volume, you may actually need to go lower in weight than you might guess.
When lifting any weight, you will have a concentric (agonist muscle contracting) and eccentric (agonist muscle lengthening) phase.
If you touch your phone between exercise sets, it better be to set its timer to 30 to 90 seconds. When lifting for hypertrophy, rest periods of 30 to 90 seconds encourage a quick release in muscle-building hormones (including testosterone and human growth hormone).
Strength training breaks down your muscles, and protein builds them back up. The more difficult your lifting workouts are, the more important muscle-building foods become when weighing protein intake to solidify recovery, Fitzgerald explains.
This can be a hard one to get used to, especially for those who are used to counting calories in the hopes of shredding fat. But when it comes to how to gain muscle mass fast (that means weight gained, not lost), you need to consume more calories than you burn each day.
Long popular among bodybuilders, casein protein absorbs slowly into the bloodstream, meaning it keeps your muscles fed with amino acids for longer compared to other types of protein, such as whey and plant proteins.
Muscle recovery requires more than the right nutrition. It takes time — roughly eight hours per night — dedicated to recovery, Fitzgerald says. After all, when you sleep, your body releases human growth hormone, which helps grow muscle and keeps levels of the stress hormone.
Creatine doesn’t directly grow muscle. But by boosting your performances at high-intensity lifting workouts, the natural compound helps promote muscle growth, according to the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition.