What's the best way to build muscle and strength? (Training + Nutrition)
We all have different goals when it comes to what we are trying to accomplish with our workouts. Some of us desire to run long distances. Some of us want to get as strong as possible. Some of us want to be well-rounded and generally fit for life, and some of us want to grow bigger stronger muscles. You might have to goal to get bigger muscles and not even know it. Many of our clients want to look more “toned”. Toned is code for having larger (not massive) muscles, that you can actually see because they’re visible under low body fat percentages.
If you want to make your muscles grow, your training needs to be biased in that direction and it needs to have a few key components and considerations which we will dive into today.
The first principle that we need to establish is that:
You can’t make your muscles grow unless you’re giving them the fuel to do so.
I’m talking about food. Calories. More calories than you are burning. Unless you are a rank novice to lifting weights, you need to be in a caloric surplus to build muscle. More specifically, you need to be eating a total number of calories that exceeds your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE).
How much more you ask? Well, as with many things, it depends.
It depends on the timeframe that you have to work with.
It depends on how much fat you’re willing to gain as you grow those muscles.
It depends on your genetics.
It depends on your previous experience both with training and your nutrition.
BUT… I don’t want to leave you hanging without some guidance that you can put into practice today. If you want to play it conservative and build muscle at a pace that won’t make you fluff up like the stay-puff marshmallow man, I’d start yourself at a 10% caloric surplus and go from there. If you aren’t growing after a couple weeks, titrate your carbohydrates until the needle moves. Or you could hire a coach to help you more specifically 🙂
Now that we know you’re eating enough to grow, let’s talk about what you need to be doing in the gym to make those muscles grow.
Muscles are pretty dumb. They only do 2 things. Shorten and lengthen. They’re attached to our bones by tendons and when they shorten they move a joint and then when they lengthen they go back to where they started from. Muscles are made up of protein filaments that slide against each other to produce these contractions that make our skeletons move.
Our muscles are made up of two different kinds of fibers.
Type 1 (slow twitch) and Type 2 (fast twitch).
Slow twitch muscle fibers are primarily fueled by oxygen and can contract for long periods of time, but with little force.
Type 2 fibers contract quickly and forcefully but fatigue quickly. They’re glycolytic meaning they are powered by stored glycogen and carbohydrates.
When we lift weights, our muscle fibers are called into recruitment in sequence. If the weight is light and we don’t lift it many times, we don’t need to recruit many fibers to get the work done. As the weight and as the number of times we lift the weight increases, the more motor units (fibers) we call into action. If we take a set of overhead press (or other exercise) to total failure, we have recruited all of the available fibers and completely fatigued them.
This brings us to our second principle that you need to consider if you are training for muscle size.
You need to recruit near maximal amounts of muscle fiber.
There is a ton of research on this subject, but the bottom line is that we aren't exactly certain how close you need to get to failure to cause the greatest muscle growth. But we can use the knowledge that we do have to say fairly certainly that you need to be taking your sets for each exercise to within a couple sets of failure to be calling those muscle fibers into action.
Side note about taking sets to failure: Failure = technical failure.
When the exercise can no longer be executed with the correct muscles in a safe manner. If you’re doing curls with a barbell and get to the point where you have to use your hips to get the bar started, and then move your elbows forward to complete the curl, you’re done.
Some exercises should NOT be taken to failure. Squats, deadlifts, un-spotted bench press come to mind!
At this point you might be thinking to yourself…”Ok, so what weight should I use and how many reps should I do?”. The truth is that we don’t exactly know. While it is a traditionally held belief that to get stronger you lift heavier weights fewer times, and if you want to get bigger you lift lighter weights more times, the research just doesn’t back that up. The research shows that we get better at what we do. So if a competitive powerlifter is going to be judged on how much weight she can squat for 1 maximum effort, it would be wise for them to bias their training toward those lower rep, higher weight ranges. If you were to only do sets of 20 on everything, you would get better at doing sets of 20. When we are just talking about hypertrophy (muscle size), there is no difference between control groups that trained in lower rep ranges with heavier weights vs those who trained with lighter weights at higher rep ranges, as long as the total volume-load is equated.
Remember, the goal is to fatigue the muscle by recruiting near maximal muscle fibers. If you choose a weight that is so heavy that you can barely do one rep, you’re not going to recruit all of those fibers. Instead, we recommend choosing a weight that you can do sets more in the 6-20 rep range. The range varies, because as you get bigger and stronger, you’ll need to do more work to continue stimulating growth.
Let’s move on to our last principle that you need to consider if you’re trying to make gains in the muscle size department.
You need to do enough work.
What we are talking about here is total volume. Doing a few sets per week of each muscle group isn’t going to give you the results that you want. Luckily there has been a ton of great research lately relating to both volume and frequency.
Volume refers to the total amount of work done across a period of time (usually broken into 1 week increments).
Frequency refers to the number of times that a muscle group is worked during that time period.
The research is pretty conclusive that more volume = more growth with the caveat that you’re not doing more work than you can recover from. Remember how you need to be eating enough calories? Sleep is also a huge factor when it comes to recovery. If you aren’t making gains and you aren’t sleeping 7-8 hours per night, we would start there!
So how much volume should you do? The sweet spot for most people is between 10 and 20 “hard” sets per muscle group per week. A “hard” set is one of the ones we referenced earlier where you get to within a couple reps of failure and have recruited most of you motor units/muscle fibers. If you’re a beginner, you’ll be able to make great progress toward the lower end of that set range. If you’re more advanced, expect to make your best progress toward the higher end.
Lastly, we need to consider optimal frequency for muscle growth. Maybe you were thinking, “shoot, I’ll just go in and do my 10 hard sets on chest all on Monday and get it over with”. Not so fast muscle man. Quality matters. How good are those reps going to be by the 10th hard set? I’m guessing they’d look like a wet noodle trying to press a dumbbell. There’s a better way. The research supports that training a muscle 2 - 3 times per week vs just once per week provides superior growth. It makes total sense if you think about it. You’re giving the muscle a chance to be stimulated for growth (and recover) more times per week.
Remember, it’s during those rest times that we actually get bigger and stronger, NOT the times when we’re in the gym.
There is research supporting even higher frequency (4+ times per week per muscle group) but that isn’t a practical schedule for most of our readers.
We covered a lot of ground, so let’s recap.
If you want to grow your muscles, you need to eat. Eat in a caloric surplus that gives your body adequate calories for recovery and growth. We suggest starting around a 10% surplus.
Do hard work in the gym. Do exercises with good form, in sets that get within a couple reps of failure (with great technique). Use heavy enough weights that challenge you, but not so heavy that you can do only a few reps.
Do enough work on an appropriate schedule. Aim to get 10-20 “hard” sets per muscle group per week based on your training history and experience level. Newbies can do less, veterans need to do more. Spread your “hard” sets out across the week so that you train each muscle group 2-3 times at a minimum.
Remember, doing something is better than doing nothing, and there is no such thing as the perfect program. Realistically, the perfect program is the one that fits your lifestyle and enjoyment expectations well enough that you can do it consistently for a long time. Chances are that person who’s physique you aspire to achieve built it over many, many years of consistency. There are no shortcuts, but the good news is that work is work, and work works. Hopefully this article has given you more knowledge that you can use to build more muscle if that’s your goal.
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