It takes time, constant effort in the gym, and a diet that supports muscle growth to build muscle. Although the rate of muscle growth might vary, we will explore 7 strategies to increase muscle quickly.
If you want to gain muscle quickly, you should exercise frequently, perform a variety of rep ranges, and consume enough calories to support recovery and muscle growth. To maximise your nutrition and recovery, you can also give protein and other supplements top priority in your diet.
Check out the FitBod app if you’re seeking for a training regimen that will help you gain muscle quickly and advance you week by week to make your growth happen more quickly (click for 3 free workouts).
Factors That Determine How Quickly You Can Build Muscle
The following are some important factors that can affect how quickly you can gain muscle, the majority of which are outside of your control.
Genetics
Your capacity to grow muscle quickly and where you tend to carry your muscle mass are strongly influenced by your genetics. You have no control over this, but you can be conscious of the areas where you have a hereditary disadvantage and put more effort into developing them.
For instance, if you struggle to bulk up your upper body, you can devote 6–8 weeks to training your back and chest more frequently than other muscular groups (you would train them twice per week).
Chronological Age
Males exhibit the strongest rates of muscle growth in their late teens and early 20s, when sex hormones are at their peak concentrations. Age does affect muscle growth rates.
Women tend to acquire muscle at similar ages, but as their hormone levels start to shift in their 30s and 40s, some may find it more challenging to do so (decreases in growth hormone and testosterone).
While your actual age cannot be changed, it’s crucial to realise that muscle may be added to the body at any age. Research demonstrates that muscular growth is possible even in elderly people.
Training Age
The length of time you have been consistently training is referred to as training age.
Because they have less total muscle mass to start with, rookies frequently gain muscle faster than more seasoned lifters.
Although you can influence your training age, there isn’t much you can do about it because your goal is to continue training for a very long time.
Body Composition
You only have control over your body’s composition. This is controllable through calorie consumption, calorie expenditure, exercise, and lifestyle choices.
You must begin with relatively low body fat levels if you want to maximise how quickly you can gain muscle.
Your body will be more ready to use the extra calories you consume to support intense training if your initial body fat levels are lower (as long as they are not too low to negatively impact hormone function).
How To Build Muscle Quickly: 7 Tips
1. Eat Enough Calories
You must consume enough calories to support intense training, recuperation, and muscle growth if you want to gain muscle.
Although each person has different nutritional demands, you should aim to eat 5–10% more than you use up each day. You’ll be able to work out hard, maintain your existing way of life away from the gym, and still have enough calories to regenerate muscle tissue.
This TDEE calculator can help you figure out how many calories you’ll need to eat each day to maintain your weight.
Increase your caloric intake by 5–10% and look over this bulking guide if you are lean and seeking to quickly gain muscle.
2. Train with Heavy Weights
Make sure you are training with weights that are difficult enough to achieve your goal of muscular growth.
Strengthening exercises using high weights (5–10 reps) are a wonderful approach to simultaneously stress a large amount of muscular tissue. By building both strength and muscle, you give yourself the ability to gradually overload exercises (i.e., add more weight or volume) and maintain muscle growth for months.
3. Lift Light Weights, Too
Lifting smaller weights is a terrific approach to complete a well-written muscle-building programme because it can boost blood flow to a tissue and muscular growth.
When training with lesser weights, it’s crucial to work as close to or extremely close to muscular failure as possible.
When using machines, free weights, and isolation exercises for muscle growth, training with light to moderate loads is ideal because it allows you to concentrate on a single muscle without wearing out other areas.
4. Train a Muscle to Near Failure (Most of the Time)
Building muscle requires intense training, but many people wonder how intensely they should actually workout.
Studies have demonstrated that short bursts of training to or near failure (a few weeks of progressively increasing intensity) can aid in promoting muscle growth, boosting motor unit activation, and possibly enhancing growth hormone release.
When working out to build muscle, you need make sure your workouts are intense enough to test your muscles while also allowing you to build up enough volume to show signs of muscle growth.
Although this is frequently a moving target and varies from person to person, the effort given into each set should be constant.
5. Don’t Always Train to Failure With Very Heavy Weight
The above-discussed train to failure or very near failure criterion has an exception, and that exception pertains to large loads.
Training to failure can be detrimental if you are utilising a weight that prevents you from performing more than 5 repetitions with (greater strength-building rep ranges).
This is due to the fact that it will be very challenging to amass enough training volume to promote muscle growth.
Additionally, the connective tissues and bones are subjected to greater stress as a result of heavier loads, which can cause injury or overuse injury when performed repeatedly or in high volumes.
6. Train a Muscle 2, Even 3 Times Per Week
According to research, working a muscle directly three times a week can aid in increasing muscle mass more than working it just once or twice a week.
You can increase muscle protein synthesis, maintain high levels of natural anabolic hormones throughout the week, and stay in a more easily maintained state of muscle growth by working a muscle more frequently.
Train every muscle at least twice per week if you want to maximise muscle growth. Train a specific area of concern three times per week if you want to take an extra training day to focus on it.
7. Drink Carbs During Your Workouts
Consuming carbohydrates before, during, or after exercise is a great way to promote muscle growth, kick-start recovery, and replenish the glucose-depleted muscle stores.
Consuming carbohydrates during or right after resistance training has been found to boost muscle protein synthesis, kick-start muscle recovery, and possibly even improve training performance, according to research.
Searching for a workout routine? Use the Fitbod App, which will create your programme based on the training data and goals you’ve logged. The exercises will automatically adjust based on your pace of recuperation and improvement. You can be certain to perform the movements correctly for the best results with the help of the more than 600 movements and exercise videos. Eliminate any uncertainty from your workouts. Try three of Fitbod’s free workouts.
