Building muscle is one of the main goals for people in the gym. For most people looking to achieve the toned and athletic look they need to be focusing on building muscle as well as dropping body fat. So here are some important factors to help you understand how muscle is built and some processes that can be used to help you progress towards your goals.
1. Accumulating more volume sets x reps x weight
One factor that often gets over looked by the general gym attendee is accumulating more volume to increase lean muscle mass. You need to understand that your body will only increase muscle lean mass if it feels it is needed. You need to create a stimulus that will force your body to grow, muscle is something that your body will only accumulate if needed. Your lean muscle mass is in correlation to your overall volume that you create during your workouts. By going in the gym and lifting the same weights for the same amount of reps will only give you the same amount of muscle mass. Even by adding an extra set or some extra reps you will be increasing your overall volume which will allow you to accumulate more muscle mass in the long run. But remember once you reach this point you need to be able to push on from here to obtain more muscle mass. Correct programming and exercise selection can benefit you and your results!
2. Recovering via food and rest
Rest and food intake are vital for increasing lean muscle mass. If you don’t allow your body to rest and recover, then when is your body supposed to repair damaged muscle fibers and increase mass? A big factor in rest is of course sleep, this is when your body does most of its recovery and repairing. If you want to increase lean muscle mass, prioritize your sleep and rest. Also ensuring that you’re fueling the body for not only performance reasons but for recovery and growth. Certain nutrients play a huge role in recovery and growth within the muscle, it’s important to have a well-balanced plan. I highly recommend having a moderate protein intake at roughly 1g protein per 1lbs of body weight. Also ensuring that the correct amount of carbohydrates and fats are present in the diet for recovery and performance. This is why having a food plan or sticking to whole food sources can play a big role in increasing lean muscle mass due to also containing vital micronutrients that play a role in health and wellbeing as well as recovery.
3. Lifting heavier weights.
I understand that this goes hand in hand with accumulating more volume but there is a point at which you cannot just keep adding extra sets and reps so I feel it’s important to highlight the fact that moving up in weight is a great way to increase muscle mass. For this I felt showing an example of how you could use increasing your weights to accumulate more volume could work!
Example exercise – Chest press
Week 1
3 sets of 10 reps using 60kg
3 x 10 x 60kg = 1,800kg pressed
Week 2
4 sets of 8 reps using 65kg
4 x 8 x 62.5kg = 2,000kg pressed
This is a very simple example of how you can increase weight and accumulate more volume. By doing this on a regular basis you will also accumulate other adaptations that will benefit your body composition.
It’s important to remember that you need to be moving weights correctly with good form. If you practice good form and correct periodization there is no reason why you wouldn’t continue to accumulate more muscle mass over a long period of time.
Consistency is key.
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