Top Twelve Keys To Building Muscle Fast
It had been two whole years and my biceps were still puny. My bench press had not budged. My legs were being mistaken for pasty pool noodles on a regular basis.
I was discouraged and my frustration was amplified by the potent power of hormonal teenage angst. The excuses rolled in.
“I just don’t have the genetics to build muscle.”
“I’m not doing the right exercises.”
“The supplements I’m taking are garbage.”
“This is all a waste of time.”
“Working out isn’t working out for me.”
I don’t know how to build muscle and never will! It’s over.
An explosion shocked me out of my self pity. The air around me swirled and turned a shade of green I’d never seen.
A portal opened up, and out jumped a man that eerily had my exact eyes (not green but also not blue), hair (not blonde but also not brown), and nose (average sized) but with biceps just big enough to tell me he had the secrets I was after.
“I’m you from the future. Here’s all you need to know about everything.”
He tossed me a packet of papers, snapped his fingers, and, obscured by a puff of smoke, transformed into a Pigeon and flew off into the sunset. Never to be seen again.
Once the dust settled, I read the title:
Top Twelve Keys To Building Muscle Fast
After flipping through, I was astounded. The packet contained exactly what I needed. It cut through all of the nonsense and distilled the process down to 12 steps.
12 seemingly simple tips…
4 tips on training
5 notes on nutrition
3 reminders on recovery
…That ended up being the only keys I needed to focus on to finally make progress.
The transcript from the mystery man changed my life. If you want to build muscle as quickly as possible - it will change yours too.
How To Train To Gain Muscle
To gain muscle fast, you must:
Resistance train (lift weights)
Prioritize compound movements (perform exercises that recruit a lot of muscles)
Practice progressive overload (increase reps, weight, etc., over time)
Not do too much cardio
Seems simple, right? Here’s exactly what you need to know for each point - nothing more, nothing less - to maximize your time in the gym and start seeing results fast.
1. Resistance Train
To build muscle you need to lift weights. This might go without saying, but I’ll make it extra clear. The most important habit you need to build muscle is consistent resistance training.
If you repeatedly send your body a signal to build strength, it will respond. The human body is an adaptive machine. We respond to the demands placed on us so that we can adjust to our environment and survive.
The way you send a muscle building signal is through lifting weights.
The bad news? It requires consistent hard work.
The good news? You can make eye-popping progress with less than 3 hours in the gym each week.
Yes, it’s true!
The sweet spot for most people is 3-5 workouts per week, about 45-60 minutes per workout. At most, a mere 5/168 of your precious hours each week.
To maximize your bang for your buck in the gym, you’ll be best off spending most of your time performing heavy, compound exercises.
2. Prioritize Compound Movements
One of the most effective ways to increase muscle mass is through the use of compound exercises, which train multiple muscle groups at the same time.
Examples of compound exercises include the squat, deadlift, bench press, pull ups, and rows. These exercises should form the foundation of your workout plan.
Here’s a comparison of an effective compound-focused routine vs. a fluff-filled, isolation-heavy routine.
Compound movement focused routine:
Barbell Deadlift 3 sets of 6-8 reps
Barbell Bench Press 3 sets of 8-10 reps
Chin Up 3 sets of 8-10 reps
Dumbbell Reverse Lunge 3 sets of 6-8 reps
Side Plank 3 sets of 30 seconds
VS.
Less effective, isolation focused routine:
1, Dumbbell Bicep Curls 3 sets of 20 reps
2. Cable Chest Flys 3 sets of 15 reps
3. Crunches 3 sets of 20 reps
4. Dumbbell Side Raise 3 sets of 10-12 reps
To build the most amount of muscle in the least amount of time, your workout routine will consist of about 80% compound movements in the 4-15 rep range, with about 20% of accessory movements - like those bicep curls - sprinkled in.
And don’t forget these 4 simple yet profound words - no pain, no gain!! You can have the best workout routine in the world, but if you’re not continuing to challenge your muscles, you will eventually hit a wall and plateau.
3. Practice Progressive Overload
To gain muscle and strength, you need to lift more weight, or more reps, over time. The key to progressing over time comes down a little something called the “overload principle.”
The overload principle states that muscles grow in response to the increased stress placed on them from resistance training.
In order to create an effective workout plan, it's important to focus on gradual progression. This means slowly increasing the weight, reps, or sets your lift over weeks, months, and years.
No idea what that means?
Here’s an example.
A good starting point is to aim for 3-5 sets of 8-12 reps for each exercise, using a weight that allows you to approach muscle failure (1-3 reps shy of failure) within that rep range.
As you adapt to the workout and gain strength (i.e., as the weight you’re using starts to feel easy), you can increase the weight, reps, or sets to continue challenging your muscles.
Here’s a simple scheme to apply progressive overload through a 4 week routine:
Week 1 - 3 sets of 8 reps
Week 2 - 3 sets of 10 reps
Week 3 - 3 sets of 12 reps
Week 4 - 4 sets of 12 reps
Let’s say you bench pressed 100 pounds and applied this strategy. Week one, you would lift 2,400 pounds total. By week four, you’d have doubled your total volume up to 4,800 pounds. More muscle and strength, here you come!
This example shows why you will never make progress by going into the gym and using the same weights for the same reps, week after week until the end of eternity. If you don’t challenge your muscles, they won’t grow.
Small steps forward each workout result in a ton of muscle gain over time. Or, I should say, small steps forward can result in muscle gain - unless you’re making this critical cardio mistake.
4. Perform Cardio 3-4x/Week. Don’t Overdo it.
Cardiovascular training is important for overall health and longevity. It offers a host of benefits including:
improved heart health
reduced risk of disease
better mood
higher quality sleep
improved recovery between workouts
That said, if you want to gain muscle by any means necessary, cardio should not be the main course in your fitness meal. If strength training is your meat (or tofu/beyond meat/whatever floats your boat) and potatoes, think of cardio as your side salad or dessert.
30-45 minutes of moderate intensity cardio, 2-4x/week, is the perfect complement to strength training. It will help you stay in great cardiovascular shape without interfering with your recovery from workouts.
If your goal is muscle gain, keep cardio moderate. If your goal is to lose fat while building muscle, keep cardio moderate. The last thing you want to do is overdo it, essentially wasting your time and hard work in the gym.
You would be doing yourself a massive disservice if you decided to run 10 miles 5 times a week while trying to gain muscle. Your strength performance would suffer and your risk of injury would skyrocket.
Plus, you’d have a very tough time eating enough calories to support muscle gain. That last point took me way too long to figure out and resulted in years of frustration.
How To Eat To Gain Muscle
With diet, my stagnation could be chalked up to one unintuitive yet fatal flaw:
I didn’t eat enough.
Gaining muscle comes down to energy balance. To lose fat you need to eat fewer calories than you burn. To gain muscle you need to eat more calories than you burn.
An optimal muscle gain diet is high in protein, carbohydrates, and healthy fats to provide the energy and raw materials needed to build lean tissue.
It also contains plenty of fruits, vegetables, and other minimally processed foods to provide adequate amounts of micronutrients such as vitamins and minerals.
Then, choosing the best supplements can give a mini-boost to your performance and results.
If you want to change your diet to gain muscle fast, here are my top tips for you (in order of importance):
5. Eat Enough Calories
You can’t bake a cake without flour and eggs. You can’t build a 56,000 piece, 26 foot Lego replica of The Titanic without Legos. To build anything - including muscle - you must start with the raw materials.
Calories are the raw materials you need to build muscle. To gain muscle, you need to eat slightly more calories than you burn (in other words, maintain a “calorie surplus”).
The most reliable way to ensure you’re eating enough is by tracking everything you put in your mouth. You can use a notebook, your brain, or a nutrition tracking app (my favorite right now is “Cronometer”)
Keep track of your daily calorie intake and aim to consume slightly more than what you burn to support muscle growth. If you’re able to gain between 1-4 pounds/month (depending on your body size) while improving strength in the gym, you can be confident you’re gaining muscle.
6. Eat More Protein
Protein provides the building blocks of muscle and is essential for growth and repair.
“I’ll take your work for it, John! How much should I eat?”
Aim to eat at least 0.8 grams of protein per pound of body weight per day. If, like me, math isn’t your strong suit, 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight (i.e. if you’re 200 pounds, eating 200 grams of protein) is a great target to shoot for.
Good sources of protein include:
Lean meats
Fish
Eggs
Dairy
Plant-based sources such as soy, legumes, and quinoa
Protein powder (both animal and vegan varieties work great)
If you’re used to eating a typical American diet, you may find it impossible to ward of the nausea that comes with the thought of stuffing 10 chicken breasts down your gullet.
Don’t fret. After some experimentation, I think you’ll find it’s easier than you expect to eat a high protein diet.
If you struggle to eat enough protein, check out this article I wrote here about my favorite foods and personal protein strategy. Worst case, if you’re super busy and picky, 2 double scoop protein shakes (one in the morning and one at night?) will set you up with 100 grams of protein for only 400-500 calories.
Doesn’t get easier than that!
Protein doesn’t deserve all the credit. Eating enough carbs and fats is also essential for building muscle.
While protein is king, don’t sleep on the other two macronutrients.
7. Eat A Balance Of Carbs And Healthy Fats
Carbohydrates provide the energy needed for intense workouts, while healthy fats aid in hormone production and muscle recovery. Good sources of carbohydrates include fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, while healthy fats can be found in foods such as nuts, seeds, avocados, and olive oil.
Eating a wide variety of minimally processed carbohydrates and fats will also help you consume enough micronutrients. Fitness coach Andy Morgan puts it this way:
“Think of macros [protein, carbs, and fat] as being the gas in your car…[and] micros as the oil and lubricants.”
Vitamins and minerals are necessary for muscle repair and growth. The best way to make sure you’re covering your basis is by eating a wide variety of minimally processed foods, including “eating the rainbow” with a different colored fruits and vegetables.
We’ve covered how much and what to eat - the most important aspects of your muscle building diet. Now, let’s discuss a diet topic that gets way more attention than it deserves - meal timing.
8. Pay Attention To Timing. But Not Too Much Attention.
It's important to consume protein and carbohydrates within a few hours of your workout, as this is when your muscles are most receptive to nutrient uptake. A good pre and/or post-workout meal should contain both protein and carbohydrates.
HUGE caveat - The concept of the “anabolic window” - i.e., you must slam a protein shake within 30 minutes of finishing your workout or all of you may as well flush your gains down the drain - is not true.
When you eat food, the nutrients float around in your blood for a minimum of 2-3 hours (1). This means that you’ll maximize the muscle building effects of protein if you eat a sufficient amount (20-50 grams) within 2 hours on either end of your workout.
To go the extra mile, research indicates the most effective meal timing for building muscle is eating protein 3-5 times/day, with each “feeding” spaced out a couple of hours throughout the day. If you make that a habit, you will reap the benefits of improved recovery, better performance, and increased strength.
Here are a few graphics from one of my favorite Instagram accounts, “Physiqonomics”, if you’re interested in a deep dive:
9. Choose The Right Supplements
I’ve written extensively about the pros and cons of nearly every supplement you can imagine. For a deep dive, check out my articles below:
For the purposes of gaining muscle as quickly as possible, there are only two supplements that are worth your time and money:
Protein powder - As much as you need to hit your daily protein target (though I personally wouldn’t go over 4 scoops/day, for digestive health. Whey, casein, and vegan varieties all work.
Creatine monohydrate - 5g per day.
You could spend the rest of your life reading about the supposed benefits of other supplements. Don’t bother. 95% of other supplements on the market don’t work. The 5% that might offer a benefit aren’t even close to the same level as protein powder and creatine.
You can take the best supplements, eat well, and have the perfect workout routine, but if you’re stressed out of your mind and sleeping 4 hours a night you will never gain muscle.
When you’re not in the gym or the kitchen, here are the top three recovery habits to consider that will make or break your progress.
How To Recover To Gain Muscle
One of the key tenets of muscle gain that had to be beaten into my head over, and over, and over is you gain muscle outside of the gym, not while you’re working out.
Recovering properly is essential for muscle growth and overall fitness. When you exercise, you cause small tears in your muscle fibers, and it's during the recovery process that these fibers repair and grow stronger.
The last thing you want is to waste your training and diet efforts. Here are the best ways to recover to maximize your results.
10. Prioritize Sleep
Quality sleep is essential for speedy muscle recovery. If you skimp on sleep, you skimp on gains.
This study showed that in a caloric deficit, the participants that sleep 8.5 hours/night lost more fat and retained significantly more muscle compared to those that slept 5.5 hours/night (2).
Calories were equated between the two groups in the study, so the findings suggest that sleep has a direct impact on body composition.
Plus, good sleep is important for optimal hormone production. Hormones, namely testosterone, play an important role in the muscle building process.
Testosterone production is significantly altered by sleep quantity and quality. In just one week of sleep deprivation (5 hours sleep/night), testosterone levels plummet by 10-15% in healthy young men (3).
During sleep, your body also releases growth hormone, which aids in muscle repair and growth.
Bottom line - aim for 7-9 hours of sleep per night to optimize recovery and muscle gain.
11. Warm Up And Perform Mobility Work
You might be able to skip your warm up for a weeks or months and get away with it. But if you want to work out for the rest of your life and minimize your risk of joint pain, consistent mobility work is a must.
As a physical therapist, I’m especially keen on this point. Every day, I see the nasty ramifications of neglecting your joint health. These include chronic pain and even immobility.
If you’re not already in pain, fantastic! Taking a proactive approach is always the best case scenario. If you’re currently dealing with aches and pains, improving your mobility will help you feel better.
Here are the keys to an effective mobility routine:
Warm up - Do some mobility work for at least 5 minutes before your workouts.
Target the “trouble” spots - The most common tight spots in the upper body are pecs, shoulders, and thoracic spine. For lower body, it’s the hip flexors, quads, hamstrings, and glutes. Pick one or two stretches for each of these areas
Do it three ways - For optimal results, you’ll perform three techniques: soft tissue work (with a foam roller or lacrosse ball), static stretching, and dynamic stretching. Soft tissue work is great any time, static stretching is best after workouts, and dynamic is best before workouts.
Be efficient - Just like effective resistance training, you need to spend all day stretching or on the yoga mat. If you spend 30+ minutes warming up, you’ll have trouble sticking to it over the long run. Find the movements that work best for you and do them consistently.
If you have no idea what to do, here’s a quick mobility routine to get you started:
12. Manage stress
To gain muscle, you must stress your body with intense resistance training. Working out is a stressor to the body. Acute, short term stress is positive and helps you adapt.
That said, high levels of chronic stress are a destructive force to your health. If you’re burning the candle at both ends - working 12 hour days, sleeping 4, and screaming for the other waking hours, your capacity to recovery and muscle gain hopes will vanish.
If you’re starting a new workout routine, it’s important to keep in mind that you can handle so much stress before something has to give.
Here’s a fantastic photo from James Clear that sums up this point nicely (4):
Answering the question, “How do I manage stress?” is tricky to answer, to say the least.
It depends on your personal situation and lifestyle factors. In general, you can’t go wrong with:
Prioritizing sleep
Taking time to relax and unwind before bed
Deep breathing (try 4 second inhales, 8 second exhales for 3 minutes)
Meditation
Taking candle-lit bubble baths and listening to soothing music (my personal favorite)
Here’s a comprehensive resource for more on chronic stress and how it impacts health (5).
Wrap Up - Start Building Muscle Today
Back then, I was this close to giving away my dumbbells and giving up for good. I already understood that building muscle was a process that required a combination of consistent training, proper nutrition, and adequate rest.
I knew it all, and thought I was doing everything I needed to make progress. But I looked and felt the same. Here’s the truth - I had been doing mostly all the right things, but had missed a few key concepts.
Those seemingly insignificant mistakes were certainly not. They had me spinning my wheels and on the brink of giving up. I don’t want to know what my life would like now if I did.
I’ve made the mistakes and wasted the time. Now, you can learn from my blunders.
And if you’re thinking…
But John, I’m already doing all of these things and STILL not getting the results I need. What the heck do I do now?
…My 1 on 1 coaching may be just the system you need to break through plateaus and achieve your goals.
Often, many of my clients are doing most things, mostly correct but struggle to:
1. Find the missing piece they need to move in the right direction
2. Put all of the pieces together consistently to keep making progress over the long term (in other words, how to make fitness sustainable. AKA, the opposite of fad diets and juice cleanses.)
That’s where I come in. I take out all of the guesswork so that you just need to execute the plan and enjoy the fruits of your labor.
Would you like to make more progress in the next 6 months than you have in the past 6 years? Schedule your free consult to learn more about my 1 on 1 coaching today!