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VERIFIED CONTENTAuthor: Maciej Szukała

A large number of people who regularly visit the gym dream of building a strongly muscular bodybuilder. It turns out, however, that achieving this goal is not easy at all, and building muscle without fat is a big challenge even for experienced people. What can you improve in your diet, training and lifestyle to achieve your dream goal faster?

The implementation of these few principles will make building lean muscle mass easier. See for yourself that simple changes in your training plan and daily habits will make your body more refreshed and ready for harder workouts. You won't even notice when your figure starts to improve.

Mass is unequal to mass

When bodybuilders "build mass," their goal is not simply to gain weight. They want to improve the amount of lean mass (also known as dry muscle mass). This is the weight of the muscles without including the fat around them.

It turns out that muscle growth is slow. Even with an optimally balanced diet and personalized training, you can expect a mass progression of 0.5 to 1 kg per month.

These values ​​apply to beginners, whose organisms are not used to training stimuli and react strongly to even the simplest exercises and light weights. For bodybuilders with several years of experience, the monthly gain will be rather 0.2-0.3 kg and requires a well-tailored training plan.

People who decide to dope start from a slightly different level. The use of anabolic steroids that accelerate the synthesis of muscle proteins can significantly increase strength and mass gains. Still, rarely will these results reach more than 1.5-1.6 kg per month.

Ideally, only muscle mass should increase as a result of nutrition and exercise. Unfortunately, in practice, we often gain fat as they increase. What to do to make muscle growth faster and with the least side effects?

Caloric surplus is the basis

The starting point should always be the determination of the caloric requirement. If you do not know how much energy you should take in during the day, you are not able to plan your diet and schedulemeals. First, determine how many calories you need and how much energy you spend in connection with training. When you calculate this, you need to add the caloric surplus to the result. The basic rule is simple - muscles only grow when you take in more energy from food than you spend.

Remember that the more caloric surplus you take into account, the faster the mass will grow. This does not mean, however, that you can overeat without moderation. The optimal surplus is considered to be between 300 and 500 kcal.

This energy supply guarantees a slow but stable weight gain and at the same time prevents the intense accumulation of adipose tissue. This is because the receptors responsible for the absorption of certain macronutrients have a specific "capacity". Therefore, it is better to provide them with nutritional material on a regular basis, in smaller portions.

It will certainly not be a good solution to add 2 or 3,000 additional calories to your meals. It is almost a guaranteed mass gain, but … fat gain. If you have trouble absorbing several hundred additional calories during the day, consider using gainer or bulk supplements. It is an easy and quick way to prepare an easily digestible meal, e.g. after training.

Weight gain is also favored by diets high in carbohydrates. They can be eaten more than, for example, fats and have a much greater effect on the level of insulin, the increased level of which contributes to weight gain.

Train with heavy weights

It is assumed that in order to effectively build muscle mass, you should use a load in the range of 60-80% of the maximum CM weight (one with which you are able to perform one technically correct repetition).

High loads stimulate fast twitch muscle fibers better and allow you to reach those fibers that do not activate at all when exercising with light weight, but remember that heavy weight is not the same as maximum weight. Using a mismatched weight (90-100% CM) is not conducive to mass building.

This is because the load distorts the technique of many exercises, makes us more likely to throw the load, use the leverage effect or use the help of a partner. As a result, the muscles only seemingly do a lot of work.

Each training should also be based on progression, i.e. a gradual increase in volume, intensity or weight during training. Always increase only one parameter (e.g. number of series) and give your body time to adjust to new stimuli.

The progression of the training volume can also be considered:

  • within the session(e.g. 10 sets of bench press instead of 8),
  • within a microcycle, e.g. a week (doing two chest workouts instead of one).

Lack of progression means that you are not providing your muscles with new stimuli to which they could adapt.

How to exercise correctly so that your muscles want to grow?

For effective resistance training, it should be done appropriately. First of all, for plans geared towards gaining muscle mass, a priority will be to keep the rep range low. For large muscle groups (e.g. chest, legs) 5-12 movements are usually enough. For small parts (e.g. calves, forearms), up to 20. In this way, both fast and slow twitch muscle fibers can be activated.

In order to be able to perform workouts with a heavy load, you should also provide adequate breaks between series and exercises. Of course, you don't have to take 5-6 minutes breaks like powerlifters do, but a 30-40 second rest is definitely too short.

You have to determine the optimal values ​​yourself, it is important that in the next series you can perform the assumed number of repetitions with a specific weight (in practice, 2-3 minutes between sets are usually enough).

Proper selection of exercises is also very important for mass progress. As a result of reliance on isolated movements and machines, the body releases less growth hormone and IGF-1, and anabolic processes are slower. Most bodybuilders believe that weight gain training plans should include weight gain. multi-joint exercises.

These include :

  • deadlift,
  • squats,
  • rowing with a barbell in the fall of the torso,
  • chin-ups,
  • push-ups on the bars,
  • military bench press or dumbbell press over the head,
  • lunges with kettlebells.

Exercises involving several muscle groups at the same time are an element characteristic of general development training plans (e.g. FBW, ACT, HST), but also other sets of exercises for weight gain, e.g. Push-Pull, GVT or Shotgun.

Workouts with thick resistance bands can also work well. Their additional advantage is maintaining constant muscle tone and forcing more work.

Take care of regeneration

Even the best bodybuilding plan will not work if you do not let your body rest. The training itself serves as a stimulus for the nervous and endocrine systems, and also causes microdamages in the muscle fibers. Thishowever, the time between consecutive gym sessions makes your muscles grow.

In the course of the regeneration of the body, the so-called supercompensation, i.e. repair of damage and superstructure of structures (including muscle growth, bone strengthening). In this way, the body prepares for the next challenge.

It is assumed that recovery after intense training can take from 24 hours (in the case of small muscle groups, such as the biceps) to even 72 hours (in the case of large muscle groups, such as the chest or back).

How do you know if you are well rested?

  • evaluate muscle soreness and stiffness in the target training group (DOMS, Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness),
  • answer the question whether you feel rested,
  • if possible, measure your resting heart rate and HRV just before getting out of bed). Many sports watches have an Orthostatic Test feature to help you with this.

Diet is a very important part of regeneration. Make sure you eat balanced meals that contain complex (and post-workout simple) carbohydrates as well as protein with high bioavailability. This way you will accelerate the renewal of glycogen in muscle cells.

Do not avoid unsaturated fats, vitamins and minerals, which are responsible for the body's resistance and contribute to the acid-base and electrolyte balance.

Remember to stay hydrated. This is important especially on hot days. When training in the gym, try to drink at least 1-1.5 liters of water. You should consume even more water if you are supplementing with creatine.

Accumulating fatigue can gradually turn into a decline in form and overtraining. If you find yourself reluctant to exercise, you tire more clearly during exercise, and the weights that were until recently working are now challenging, remember to do lighter workouts for a while.

Muscle gain can also be disrupted by chronically elevated cortisol levels. It has been shown to cause insulin resistance in cells (which in turn have to burn themselves to maintain work intensity). In addition, it reduces the secretion of testosterone, one of the most anabolic hormones in our body.

It should be emphasized, however, that the destructive effects of elevated cortisol levels can only be discussed in the case of chronic stress lasting many months (and not e.g. emotions that accompany one-off work at work).

The key to good recovery is sleep. Try to rest for 7-9 hours a day. When you sleep,your body regenerates itself and releases hormones responsible for rebuilding damaged tissues, such as growth hormone and testosterone. The level of cortisol and catecholamines decreases.

What supplements for muscle growth should be used?

A proven way to facilitate the building of lean muscle mass is the use of properly selected supplementation. This is especially important for people who need to consume large amounts of calories and providing them with natural food would be difficult.

Nutrients also allow you to supplement anabolic compounds that are present in food in small amounts. What supplements are especially recommended for bodybuilders?

Protein supplements

Protein supplements allow you to supplement the supply of wholesome proteins. Depending on the fractions present in the products (e.g. casein, whey, albumin), protein supplements can supplement a post-workout meal or protect the body against night catabolism.

Gainer nutrients

Gainers are a combination of a protein supplement with carbohydrates with different absorption kinetics (e.g. dextrose, m altodextrin). They can replace a meal and increase your daily caloric intake.

Typical gainers consist of protein and carbohydrates in a proportion of approximately 20:80 or 30:70. A variety of gainers is the so-called bulk, which is designed to replace a wholesome meal (the carbohydrate to protein ratio is usually 50:50).

Creatine

Creatine (most often used in the form of monohydrate or malate) accelerates the growth of muscle mass by more efficient reconstruction of ATP in muscle cells. It also helps to accumulate water, creating favorable conditions for post-workout regeneration.

Amino acids

The effectiveness of amino acids is controversial. However, many sources indicate that branched chain amino acids BCAA (leucine, isoleucine, valine) and EAA (mainly phenylalanine, tryptophan, methionine, lysine, threonine) help build muscle mass.

They work by stopping muscle catabolism, reducing cortisol secretion and protein degradation. They can also serve as an auxiliary source of energy.

HMB

Beta hydroxymethylbutyrate is associated primarily with fat burning and regeneration of the body. It turns out, however, that its regular use also increases the growth of muscle mass.

HMB allows you to shorten the break between workouts and protects muscle proteins against breakdown as a result of intense exercise. It also has a positive effect on the increase of the aerobic capacity of the muscles.

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Bodybuilding