In learning how to build muscle, people are often lead astray by unsubstantiated claims, fad workouts and diets.
You will note that the title of this article is ‘How To Build Muscle Mass Fast‘ - this is not to say you can ‘build crazy muscles in a week’ or other such nonsense. What you can do though, is maximize your potential for muscle growth naturally. This commonsense guide therefore represents the fastest way to build muscle.
In this article, I’ll summarize all the fundamental points of muscle building. It’s a good refresher for those already on the journey, and a great place to start for beginner bodybuilders (at the bottom of the article there is a definition of terms for any beginners among you).
How To Build Muscle 101
(1) Lift Weights - no doubt about it. Weight-training beats everything else for building muscle. Body-weight exercises (calisthenics), gymnastics, cardiovascular work, all may build some muscle for total beginners but only a little - then it stops. Why? Because you can’t add ever-increasing resistance with these other forms of exercise.
(2) Force Your Body To Adapt! Continuing from point one, your muscles will have no reason to grow if you don’t place them under ever-increasing demand. What this means is that the weight you can lift on any given
exercise should increase over time. No increase = no growth. This is the concept of Progressive Overload.
(3) Train For Hypertrophy & Avoid Strength Training. Hypertrophy means muscle growth. You want to specifically target this, as opposed to strength-training which has its focus primarily on strength gains with building muscle as a happy side-effect. Training for strength usually means a low rep range and compound-only workouts. While compound exercises are vital to a good workout, no-one is building bulging biceps with military presses and squats. Read on…
(4) Focus on Compound Exercise based Workouts - Compound exercises are crucial, they involve many muscle groups simultaneously and induce the release of growth hormone in the body. I have a different definition than most others of what a compound movement actually is. A great example is barbell curls, they isolate the biceps, right? Not really, using what is called ‘Biomechanically Optimized Form‘ (for maximum performance in every set) we involve the shoulders, forearms and even the back to a lesser extent. Therefore, the training program I devised (called THT training) is made up predominantly of compound movements, with some isolation exercises where necessary e.g. abdominal exercises.
(5) Train with A Full Range of Motion. Building muscle mass is all about feeling the muscle throughout the whole rep i.e. the concentric and eccentric part of the rep. To really mess this up, use weights that are too heavy for you, use too much momentum throughout the rep and do super-quick reps. This is another flaw of using ‘Olympic Weight-Lifting’ type exercises as your means of building muscle. Those type of exercises use a lot of momentum & fast, snap movements such as in the ‘Jerk’. This movement is not a muscle builder.
(6) Eat - Get enough calories. No matter what bodybuilding diet you are on, you need to eat enough to supply your body with what it needs to grow. Go here to see how many calories you need to build muscle.
(7) Get Enough Protein
Lean Mass Weight (Kg) x 2.75 = Daily Protein Requirement
(8) Train In The 8 - 12 rep range. I call this the hypertrophic rep range. Basically, you should reach failure on each set on the 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th or 12th rep. When you can hit 12 or more, increase the weight used for that set.
(9) Keep Your Workouts Short. Steroid users can train for hours, natural bodybuilders can’t. Catabolic hormones are released in the body which actually break muscle down. To minimize this, try to keep all weight-training sessions to a maximum of 45 minutes.
(10) Take a Rest Between Workouts. If your priority is building muscle, what good could cardio do? I understand that you want to stay lean while you build muscle but this is best accomplished with a carb-cycling bodybuilding diet. Leave cardio until you want to prioritize fat-loss.
(11) Allow Adequate Rest Between Sets. Building muscle is all about performing at your best each and every set. Research shows that rest periods between sets of less than 1 minute reduce the amount of power muscle can produce in successive sets. Resting more than 3 minutes provides no further benefit than resting for 2 minutes. Therefore to strike the optimal balance between time-saving and maximum results, rest for around 2 minutes between sets.
(12) Drink Water. To build muscle at the maximum rate you need to drink enough water. Use this general rule:
Body weight (lbs) X 0.6 = Water Intake in ounces.
Remember strength can decrease by up to 15% with a drop in hydration levels of only 3%!
Definition of Bodybuilding Terms
- Reps - A single cycle of lifting and lowering a weight
- Sets - A number of consecutive reps without rest
- Hypertrophy - Muscle Growth
- Compound - An exercise that moves the body through more than one joint movement
- Isolation - An exercise that moves the body through a single-joint movement
- Concentric - The part of the rep where the muscle contracts and shortens
- Eccentric - The part of the rep where the muscle lengthens
- Failure - The point at which you cannot possibly perform another rep
So, with all this said, can YOU do it? Can you build the body you want? Of course you can. I was a weed with a fat belly once too. If I can do it, anyone can!
Stay Motivated!
Mark McManus
If you're new here, please download my free workout and diet book and start transforming your body today!. Thanks for visiting!
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This post currently has 28 Comments
Blake
June 12, 2008
Great summary. Always good to read thru the basics again. It’s just too easy to get caught up in the nasty details when all you really need is the basics. Thanks!
Patrick
Great Article! Very informative.
Keep up the good work!
-Patrick
Mark McManus
Thanks Patrick & Blake. Building Muscle can be made needlessly complicated by some people, it’s always good for a refresher on what actually works.
Mark
John Fit
Definitely touching on some stuff here that’s important.. Good article bud..
John Fit..
muscle building supplements
Great article Mark. I think a lot of us are very good at forgetting the basics, and its always good to have a reminder so I don’t get impatient!
arn
cheers Mark! love your work, you are such an inspiration!
Alex
Wow, this article is great! I really appreciate people who share their knowledge… Mark, you are my new idol!
I have just recently started bodybuilding. I started last monday. The trainer in the gym created a training plan for me which consisted of a full body workout (threadmill first (20 min) then legs/chest/biceps/triceps/abs/shoulders) for one month on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. It took me 3 hours to finish everything.
Is this OK? I’m 27 years old, 5′9″ at around 150 lbs, i’m kinda thin… so my main goal is to really build some muscles..
please advise.. thanks in advance
Mark McManus
Hi Alex,
3 hours per workout session!? Waaayyyyy to long.
Also, if your goal is to build muscle, the cardio is counter-productive, especially done BEFORE your weight-training, just mind-boggling as to why that was recommended.
Alex, I’d love to help you my friend, so first thing’s first, ditch this workout plan. Get my free book if you haven’t already.
Cheers,
Mark
Ernst
Hi Mark, great site. Thanks for all the info. I’ve downloaded your ebook, read many of your articles and am now trying to plan my home gym. I have a question about the best/mopst useful equipment to acquire. In your ebook you mention both a spartan slant board for decline situps and an incline/decline bench. Is there any item that has both these functions? I want to be able to properly work all my body parts but don’t want to get two benches if I can avoid it. Thanks.
Mark McManus
@ Ernst. Unfortunately, I don’t know of a piece of equipment that would accommodate that. Sit-up bench’s are fairly inexpensive though.
Mark
Ernst
Thank you so much for the response, Mark. It’s not so much an issue of cost as it is of space. Are the exercises performed on the sit up bench truly much more effective than just regular sit-ups or crunches performed on the ground?
Ivan
Wow this article is actually making alot of sense. I guess i need to modify my regime if i want to increase my muscle bulk. Making reps in 15 is really not helping. …
Joe
What a great list! One thing that i would add is to avoid overworking a muscle, let the muscle rest for AT LEAST one day in between workouts otherwise you’re wasting your time. Mark let me know if you disagree.
Mark McManus
@ Ivan. Thanks man.
@ Joe. I agree with that although I leave a full week between working the same muscle group
Mark
nick
your right i tried your tips and the hypertrophy how many reps should i do artical and i made a workout useing your info and i gained 4 pounds in 1 mounth of muscle and im naturally a hard gainer so thankyou verry much
Mark McManus
Glad I could help Nick!
Great to hear you’re finally making the gains you deserve.
Mark
hassan
hey mark … lsn man i realy need ur help .. am soo small dude i dont know what to do i play alot in the gym its not working man help me .. tell me what to do !!!
Mark McManus
Hassan, download ‘Total Anabolism 2.0′ tomorrow October 6th, it’s all gonna be in there.
Cheers,
Mark
njabulo
hy guy help i only gain mascels but dont have any adie how to diet
Tedo
Awesome site man! im 19 and ive been working out for a few months now, got a routine going, but i dont want to lose my fitness / stamina, so i run for 15-30 mins almost 3/4 times a week is this too much to build muscle? i workout 4 times a week, Ive been doing this for about 3 months now, and been taking these products for about 2 months; Metrx Xtreme Size up before each session and MetRx Pure Creatine Caps(700mg) 3 before 3 after.. tbh, ive seen some improvement in muscle size and my weight has gone up slightly but the results arent hugely impressive :’(
i eat a fair amount of mainly meat, rice ad vegetables during the week. How can i improve?
Thanks Ted,
kenneth
Hi, i do stronglifts 5×5 strength training program. i think it can build a good body too. the nutirtion stuff here is great though!
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