38 Muscle Gaining Tips

Before we get into the 38 muscle building tips, I have to say first that muscle is awesome!

Seriously, it’s the cornerstone to you getting the body that you really want. Fat is like an ugly sheet that just covers everything up. It’s not that hard to get rid of, especially if you have the right program in place and you follow it to the letter…

But muscle on the other hand is a pain in the you know what. It takes a long time to add lean muscle mass to your frame because it’s happening on a microscopic level. Think about it for a second…

When you lift weights, you’re breaking down tissue at the microscopic level. So to be able to synthesize a pound of muscle takes a lot of hard work, sweat, extra calories, and resources. If you want a good comparison, just go to the supermarket and look at  16 ounces of steak….Your body has to make that.

Now there are some things you can do to help speed up the process somewhat. Every little bit helps so without further ado, here’s 38 muscle building tips that you can start using right away.

1. The best sets and reps scheme to put on slabs of beef to your frame AND build strength at the same time is around 5-8 repetitions. If size and strength are your main goals, then stick to this rep range for most of your movements.
2. If size is purely what you’re after and can’t give a rat’s @$$ about strength  or power, then stick to around 10-15 reps per exercise. Worry more about time under tension as opposed to lifting the weight.
3. Always try and keep progressing. By this, I mean always try to improve each week by at least 1 rep on every exercise. Or add weight to the bar by 2.5% when it gets too easy. You could also change the exercises up every once in awhile, decrease your rest periods and do more work in less time.
4. For sheer size, you need to have sufficient total volume. If you wanna get big, then you need to increase your total volume per exercise. By that, I mean multiply your sets x reps. The minimum amount of total reps you should be aiming for is 24 per exercise per muscle group during each training session. In total for the week, shoot for between 50-100 total reps.
5. When warming up…never EVER go to failure. The CNS is what controls a lot of your strength gains. By going to failure during warm-ups, you’re just burning yourself out. This will hurt your workouts.
6. Lift explosive during warm-ups. You want to wake up your central nervous system during your warm up sets. The more excited your CNS, the more weight you’ll be able to lift
7. Always push as hard as you can per each rep. Even if the weight is really heavy, I still want you to push that weight as hard as you possibly can. This will excite your CNS, turn on more alpha motor neurons, which will turn on more muscle fibers. The more muscle fibers that get hit, the more muscle you will build.
8. Avoid failure for most sets. If you’re goal is to do 5×5 of bench with 100 pounds, and you hit failure on the first set, your subsequent sets are going to suffer. By lightening the load slightly, and leaving 1-2 reps in the tank, you’re total volume lifted will be much higher. This equates into bigger and faster strength gains.
9. You can go to failure more often for smaller body parts and exercises. These include calves, biceps, neck, abdominals, and forearms. The loads are relatively lighter as compared to a squat or dead lift.
10. Always try and reduce your rest periods per week. And by decreasing your rest periods, just aim for around a 5 second decrease week per week. But this should never come at the expense of weight lifted. If it does, you cut down your rest periods too much too fast.
11. In the beginning, always use a total body training split. PERIOD
12. After a sold year of training under your belt, feel free to switch to an upper body, lower body split. This is very popular with strength athletes and coaches for size and strength.
13. Try and hit each muscle group at least 2x per week. The more times you can hit a muscle group without going to failure or over train, the more chances it has to grow.
14. With regards to #13 above, this must be built up over time. You can’t just jump in and start hitting each muscle group more than 2-3x per week without sufficient adaptations. Also, your program must be spot on.
15. Don’t change your exercises frequently. In fact, out of all the things you can change within your workouts, exercises should be the last thing you change. This of course barring any injury. Your body needs something to adapt to structurally. That’s the point of getting stronger and bigger. That’s why it’s best to keep exercises constant BUT use progressive overload to create a new stimulus.
16. Don’t listen to the “big” guy at the gym. Most often times they have done some sort of performance enhancers and or genetically gifted. It came easy to them. Their legs would grow just from squatting off the toilet.
17. Don’t program hop. I used to be guilty of this myself when I was younger and just finding my way in the muscle building world. I used to go from one program to the next. The only reason I did this was because I thought that program A wasn’t working so program B must be the right answer. The truth is I never gave program A, a chance to work…Get what I’m saying? Pick something and stick to it all the way through. You might be surprised. Here’s a good rule of thumb…If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!
18. You gotta get that food in. If you’re killing yourself in the gym and eating like a bird, there’s no way in hell you’re gonna get big and strong.
19. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you eating 6x a day is enough. You have to look at total calories.
20. Focus the majority of your attention on big multi joint compound movements. Those are the variations of squats, dead lifts, pull-ups, rows, bench presses, military presses.
21. Focus 10-20% of your time on assistance exercises. These are all the single joint exercises such as bicep curls etc…
22. Always go for the most bang for your buck. AKA the 80/20 rule. Big exercises first and foremost. Once those are finished with, feel free to throw in a few assistance exercises to round out your physique if you’d like. I personally rather just do another big lift instead. But that’s just me.
23. Bump up the volume for all back exercise. The back can take a huge amount of volume. So don’t be afraid to increase the number of sets and reps you do for each exercise. Plus it’s great since most people have bad posture and interiorly rotated shoulders from benching too much. Keep this up and you’ll encounter numerous shoulder problems down the road. Trust me on this one.
24. Always do some type of spine loaded exercise first in your workout. Examples are squats, dead lifts, overhead presses, etc…
25. STRETCH. I know it’s annoying. I hate stretching too, but you gotta do it. The more you can stretch the better your chances of staying injury free.
26. If you can’t gain weight, start drinking olive oil. This is especially important if you got one of those super fast metabolisms that allows you to eat whatever and whenever you want, but never gain a single pound. If this is the case, start adding a few tablespoons of olive oil to your protein shakes every day. Just avoid crowded areas
27. The easiest way to gain weight is to eat more fat. This goes hand in hand with #26 above. Fat is 9 kcals per gram, while protein and carbs are around 4 kcals per gram. Perfect examples are whole eggs, olive oil, peanut butter, assorted nuts, coconut milk etc…
28. Get your fish oil in. Fish oil is seriously a miracle food. It has anti cancer fighting properties, anti inflammatory properties and it’s just great for your overall health. I recommend this to anyone.
29. Never miss a meal. NUFF SAID.
30. Get at least 8 hours of sleep a night. Your body is built up when you’re sleeping, not in the gym. The breaking down of muscle tissue happens when you lift. The rebuilding process happens when you sleep. So get that sleep in. If you don’t do this, you’re recovery abilities will suffer and so will your muscle gains.
31. Supplement with creatine. Creatine monohydrate has been around for a very long time now. In a nutshell, creatine gives you more fuel to enable you to lift more weight for a longer period of time. This is one of the 3 main energy systems inside of your body. The second main  one is the ATP-PC system aka creatine phosphate.
32. Get at least 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight. If you’re not getting in enough protein, you’re cutting down your chances of building muscle.
33. Have a high carbohydrate meal before and after your workout. I prefer you to have some type of shake right before you workout around 30 minutes prior. This jacks up your insulin levels which equates to anabolism. After your workout, you need to keep this going to have either a shake or a solid meal of protein and carbs right after.
34. Don’t worry about the pump. The pump really has nothing to do with building strength or muscle, so forget about it.
35. Don’t be afraid to lift heavy. Lifting heavy is one of the best things you can do for long term strength and muscle gains. If you can increase your 1RM in all of your big lifts, you’ll be able to increase your 8-12RM as well. This equals more weight lifted and more total volume.
36. Don’t be afraid of fats. Eating fat helps to increase testosterone levels. I know you know what that means right?
37. Don’t be afraid of cholesterol. Study after study shows that food cholesterol has little effect on your total cholesterol numbers. It’s mostly genetic anyway. But cholesterol is needed by the body to synthesize hormones, especially testosterone. The easiest source is from whole eggs. I eat 4 a day.
38. Get a little crazy. I like switching things up and preventing boredom from just going against the norm. If I feel like lifting for 2 hours and doing crazy amounts of high repetition work, I’m going to do that. So feel free to get creative and go nuts. Doing this once in a while will definitely spark some new found growth!