4 Principles To Build Muscle Properly
Posted on 22 February 2010
People in the gym and people I’ve trained come to me with questions about how to get bigger and they have their heads chock full of stuff that’s just misinformation.
Building muscle isn’t hard if you do it right, but there are many wrong ways as well.
I’m going to give you the basic principles to build muscle efficiently and correctly.
1. Progressive Overload
Your muscles will adapt to whatever conditions you put it under.
So you must overload your muscles to build them. They will adapt by getting stronger and bigger.
So in your weight training regimen, if you plan to build muscle and get stronger, week after week, you should be increasing the load you put on your muscles. And no, this doesn’t just mean adding more and more weight. There are plenty of ways to increase the load on your muscles.
You can decrease the amount of rest in between sets, add more reps, add more sets, etc.
2. Progressive Variation
No, this isn’t “muscle confusion”. This just means that your body builds the neural pathways to your muscles for a specific motion. The more you do it, the easier it becomes for you do to that same motion aka “muscle memory”.
Doing the same exercise every week on the same muscle will increase the weight but not increase growth.
Your body has found an efficient way of doing the exercise without adding more size.
3. Rest
Most people don’t sleep enough, or get enough rest and thus they overtrain. When it comes to building muscle, less work is better.
You don’t build muscle in the gym. You tear it down there. You build muscle in your sleep and on your days off. While sleeping, your body repairs itself by releasing a lot of hormones it needs to repair muscles.
So if you want to build muscle properly, it’s absolutely imperative that you get 8 or 9 hours of sleep each night. Train hard, and then get the heck out of there. Give your whole body, central nervous system, hormonal system, and muscles, time to recover before you hit it again.
4. Nutrition
You need the right amount of carbs, proteins, and right kinds of fats.
Your individual calorie requirements depend on your weight, body fat, level of activity, and age.
First, find out the calorie surplus you need to build muscle, then make sure you get that amount each day in the right proportions of foods.
Implement these strategies for consistent muscle growth in your routine.
Want to find out more about how to build muscle, then visit Mitch Graves ’s site on how to choose the best muscle building program for your needs.
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