For those that are new to weight training, you may be surprised to learn that building muscle is much more difficult than losing weight, at least from a chronological perspective. Building muscle can take a lot of time, but in this section of the site you will discover how to build muscle in the shortest amount of time possible.
I recognize that some people on this page are looking to get into bodybuilding, others are into fitness, while yet still more are looking to build weight in order to maintain weight loss (as mentioned in our weight loss tips section). In order to offer an individualized experience, this section of the site will be split up into different subsections.
The first section, which can be found below, will detail exactly how to build muscle in terms of physiology and nutrition, whereas the other sections of this portion of the site will be dedicated towards people who fit into one of three groups: skinny guys (or gals) looking to gain weight, people are looking to gain muscle without gaining much (if any) fat, and for people looking to build muscle in order to aid or maintain their weight loss:
- Skinny Guys and Gals Looking to Build Muscle (coming soon)
- Building Muscle Without Fat Gain (coming soon)
- Weight Training For Weight Loss (coming soon)
The rest of this article will be dedicated to the more serious or curious person who is interested in learning how to build muscle and what factors go into triggering muscle growth. If you not too worried about the why, you can just select you group from the above list to read specifics and get workouts whenever I get around to putting those articles up (hopefully within the next month).
How to Build Muscle – The Physiology of Muscle Building
Building muscle, also known as hypertrophy, is a bit of a mystery to researchers. We know how to build muscle, and we know a lot of the factors which contribute to hypertrophy, but an exact trigger for muscle growth has yet to be identified.
Fortunately, we are getting closer and closer to identifying the optimal way to build muscle. As the days go by, it appears that three specific factors can all contribute to muscle building: muscular tension, structural tension, and local metabolites.
Muscular Tension and Damage is what most people think of when they think of weight training. This is simply the amount of tension placed on the muscle. The heavier the weight used, the higher the muscular tension. High muscular tension is associated with muscle growth. More specifically, the eccentric (the “down phase” of a lift) is associated with the most muscle growth. Most muscular damage occurs during the eccentric portion of the movement.
However, there is more to muscle building than just loading up the bar with very heavy loads. Just look at Olympic Lifters as an example of this: while muscular, they are much smaller than bodybuilders despite getting many concentric-only repetitions with very heavy loads.
Structural Tension and Damage, or non-contractile tension, refers to the stress put on non-contractile portions of the muscle. In other words, the muscle cell is not build entirely out of contractile elements but also has proteins which are built to support the cell structurally. Anything which places tension on the structure seems to induce growth muscular growth as well.
An example of this would be hitting a muscle in the stretch (such as reaching down to the very bottom range of motion on a dumbbell bench press) or even getting a very big “pump” in the muscle to the point where it feels tight. You could then take this a step further by performing an exercise which stretches the muscle once it is pumped or even stretching it out once it was pumped.
Note that this is not the same concept as “sarcoplasmic hypertrophy”, a theory which suggests that the muscle cell’s non-contractile elements can grow in response to high-rep training. This is unproven and unfounded and has been parroted around as gospel despite no proof of its existence.
Instead, what I am referring to here is that by stressing the structural elements of the cell through stretching under load, you may induce muscle growth beyond what you may experience from just normal muscular tension. If a muscle is very full of blood and gets contracted in a stretching position for example, the actual cell membrane will be stressed in addition to the sarcomeres (contractile elements). This is a completely different stress from typical muscular tension and is thought to help a muscle grow.
A real-life example of this is that overhead triceps extensions will help develop the long-head of the triceps (the head of the muscle which forms the bulk of the upper, inner portion of the triceps) since it stretches this muscle, whereas rope push-downs (which do not stretch the upper-head) will result in little development to this part of the triceps.
However, structural tension alone is not to induce muscular growth. This is why we do not see any significant hypertrophy from stretching alone. Just cast your gaze upon the stretching area at your local gym and you are sure to find many unmuscular individuals.
Local Metabolites refers to building up waste products which are associated with resistance training. Things like lactic acid and hypoxia (lack of oxygen) are thought to stimulate growth hormone and local growth factors. When you work out with higher reps, waste products build up in your muscle. This is because when your muscle contracts, the pressure in the blood vessels and veins is too high for blood to flow into them, which causes these metabolites to build up.
The practical implication here is that building up metabolic waste is a key aspect of how to build muscle. This is why bodybuilders often train in higher rep ranges, as these rep ranges give more time for waste to build up. This phenomenon has also given rise to a lot of goofy training implements, such as tight “occlusion bands” which block off blood flow to the muscle. Fortunately, such masochistic equipment is not necessary: blood flow to the muscle can be manipulated by certain training techniques, such as constant tension movements (i.e. leg press without locking out).
Just like the other two factors, this does not seem to work alone. As an example of this, isometrics (muscular contraction without moving, such as holding a weight in a certain position) do not result in significant muscular growth if they are done without any other weight training.
How to Build Muscle – Practical Application
Now that you know how to build muscle, building a training plan is much easier. The key thing to note here is that none of these factors work alone. If you focus entirely on moving the heaviest weights possible, you will get sub-par results, and likewise if you focus solely on getting a “pump” or “burn”, you will also have sub-par results. You need to focus on every asset of muscle building if you want to build muscle quickly and efficiently.
Combining all the factors above, the ideal plan for how to build muscle would include:
- Using heavy weights to maximize muscular tension and damage
- Using higher reps to build up local metabolites and waste products
- Once a muscle is pumped, perform an exercise which stretches it
Now, you can do the first two bullet points in either order, and can mix them up for variety. There are advantages to both approaches. If you perform your heaviest exercises first, you truly get to maximize muscular tension and damage. On the other hand, if you use higher reps first, you might be able to focus in on a particular muscle group during your heavy weight exercises and you get to hit a pumped muscle with a heavy weight, which is a different stress than hitting a “cold” muscle with a heavy weight.
I think in general it is better for newer lifters to focus on heavier weights first, and shift into using higher reps more as they get more advanced. Given the sheer length of this article on how to build muscle, if you are still with me, now is a good time to split off into the three categories of people who might take up weight training:
- Skinny Guys and Gals Looking to Build Muscle (coming soon)
- Building Muscle Without Fat Gain (coming soon)
- Weight Training For Weight Loss (coming soon)
There you will find out how to build muscle in such a way that is consistent with your goals. There are a lot of different ways to build muscle, and you will get a more targeted plan by having clearly defined objectives.
How to Build Muscle – Diet
While weight training is important, it is only half of the how to build muscle equation. If you are serious about building muscle, you will need a good muscle building diet. Given that is another topic altogether, I will be adding that up as a second article soon, so be sure to check back often for the update.
How to Build Muscle – Summary
Now that you know how to build muscle, you know that you can significantly increase the rate at which you build muscle by going beyond the mentality of just “lifting weights”. While some people would suggest that I am over-complicating the issue, the truth is that most people just do not know how to build muscle. If you go to the same gym for a period of years, you will notice that even the regular patrons tend to look the same year after year. Rarely do you find natural lifters who put on an appreciable amount of muscle mass over the years.
Just remember that an ideal muscle-building program will at some point maximize muscular tension, focus on stretching a pumped muscle, and contain enough reps or constant tension periods to build up a sizable amount of metabolic waste. When all three of these factors work on concert, muscle growth is maximized.