How to Build Muscle?

Training hard but not gaining muscle? Here’s your fix: Learn how to build muscle and bulk up with our effective muscle building tips.

If you’re thrashing away in the gym trying to build muscle yet seeing the same you in the mirror day after day, chances are you’re doing something wrong or not quite right.

Want to know how to build muscle? Easy. By following our effective tips that make sure you are making the most of your muscle building program.

One: Eat after your workout

Yes, that’s right, eat and eat healthy. Don’t sit and natter about that last impossible rep you pushed out to break your record, go get something high in protein to feed the muscles now crying out for sustenance.

Two: Move and shake it

If you currently have a post-workout protein shake to get all the goodies your muscles need to grow, change things up a bit. Drink a little pre-workout and keep topping up during exercise as well as after. Why? Because it helps to keep your blood sugar levels from bottoming out and, if you’re lucky, it might even help you recover faster.

A 2001 study by the University of Texas found that lifters who drank a shake containing amino acids and carbohydrates before working out increased their protein synthesis more than lifters who drank the same shake post-workout.

Oh, and that doesn’t mean skimping on the water. Don’t change anything there.

Three: A balanced muscle building diet

Good food feeds muscle growth, so hone your diet down to all the right proteins and carbs and then dig in. There is such a thing as a muscle building diet. Eating too little will only undermine your muscle development. As long as you’re eating the right things, especially combining your diet with the right muscle building foods, more is better than less.

Four: Be specific with individual workout goals

The goal isn’t to complete your workout; that’s just the task. Your goal is to take each workout to a slightly better place than the last workout. Do you try to push out one more rep? Do you go for an extra set? Or do you cut down your rest breaks, even by 5 seconds?

Go into each exercise session with a plan of attack and make that attack your inspiration for a better overall routine. Write each goal down and record how well you did.

Find out how to plan your gym workout in our previous blog post!

Five: Train for flexibility

The more flexible you are, the harder you can work in a wider range of motion and the less likely you are to get injured. Add some dynamic stretching exercises to your weekly program and see the improvement in your strength training.

Six: Train when you feel like training

No, that doesn’t mean skipping days when you’re feeling a bit off; it means choosing the time of day when you’re most on. It might suit your timetable to train after work, but that might also be when you’re at your most lethargic; not a good thing.

If you’re at your liveliest at 6 am, that’s when you want to train.

Seven: No pain, no gain

If you breeze through your workout, who are you kidding? You know the old adage: no pain, no gain, and it’s 100% true for muscle growth. If your muscles aren’t screaming at you to stop being a sadist, you’re not going to get the gains you want.

So make it as heavy as safely possible; make it as hard as possible and enjoy the results.

Eight: Proper weight training program

If you’re doing a combined cardio/weights routine, do the cardio first when you’re not fatigued. Fatigue is what you want for muscle gain.

Nine: Train your small muscles

As in the muscles that work behind the scenes to add flexibility to the big muscles; shoulder rotators and the like. The stronger and more flexible they are, the harder you can work.

Ten: Plan your muscle building workout

Yes, if you’re muscle building beginner and new to bodybuilding, don’t go hell for leather from the start or you’ll be slipping more discs than the ones you put on bars. Work your way into it and build your technique and basic fitness before you tackle some of the more extreme muscle training options.

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