Building muscle & strength is a well-known fitness goal.

People buy all the protein supplements and gym wear, watch countless videos on how to do certain exercises, and of course,

The gym membership.

But out of all the people who want to achieve their workout goals, only a few do so.

Even then, half of the few who achieve their workout goals eventually fall out of their routine and lose their GAINS.

Have you felt like muscle building takes forever? Have you felt like strength-building takes forever?

Here, you will learn the truth about achieving your workout goals and how to do so.

How do strength & muscle-building work?

You get strength & muscle gains when you cause micro-tears in your muscles from working out, and then they repair a few days later.

It’s why you feel weaker after your workout for a couple of hours because you have become temporarily weaker.

Know that being temporarily weaker isn’t bad, but is rather necessary for the protein you intake to be turned into muscle tissue, and build your muscles bigger and stronger.

You build a greater proportion of strength gains than muscle gains when you train with heavier weights, and this is because building strength is more based on adaptation.

When you continuously use weights that require your body to adapt to and train close to failure, your muscles are forced to do so, resulting in them building stronger.

It’s also because when you work out with low reps and heavy sets, you tear your muscle fibres with the smallest cross-section.

However, you build a greater proportion of muscle gains than strength gains when you train with lighter weights.

Why? Because you’re tearing the muscle fibres with the largest cross-section.

Muscle building is more based on time-under-tension, and recruiting more muscle fibres, as your goal is to build larger muscles.

You generally train with higher reps (not too high) and light weights (not too light).

Overall:

• Muscle building is generally more diet-based than strength-building, but your workout is STILL CRUCIAL
• Building more strength is more based on getting the weight from A to B using heavier weights
• Building more muscle is more of having time under tension during your reps using lighter weights

Tips for building strength and muscle

There’s more to building muscle & strength, and I’ll be giving you all the tips you need to achieve your workout goals and MAINTAIN your gains:

1. Train close to failure

Why not to failure?

This is because research showed that training to failure leads to excessive damage to your muscles leading to significantly longer recovery periods to attain your maximum performance.

It also significantly decreases the reps you can do in prior sets, which may result in you having to use less weight.

A study even showed that subjects training to failure recovered fully in 72 hours, as opposed to those leaving reps in reserve being fully recovered in 48 hours.

So how CLOSE to failure? Leaving 1-3 reps in reserve is best for motor recruitment, strength and hypertrophy.

It will take time for you to get used to near-failure sensations if you have been used to going to failure or never worked out before.

*However, if you’re used to going to failure you can continue, or you can limit yourself to only going to failure on your last set!

2. Consuming enough protein

Protein. Most people if not everyone know the relationship between muscle growth and protein intake. Even NEWBIES do.

However, it’s easy to get your hands on the WRONG protein.

I’m talking about lab and ultra-processed protein (whey protein, protein products with too many ingredients and sugars). Even if you’re not trying to lose weight, your health should remain important.

Because when you keep on consuming those products with hidden sugar in them, and byproducts, you WILL pay the price with your gut health in the future.

And that can affect your skin, and other parts of your body.

Go for animal protein, like meat, beef, chicken, eggs etc.

3. Have enough rest 

Muscle building requires a lot of rest in between workout sessions with the same muscle groups/muscles and rest in between sets.

Rest in between sets is where some people slack; they don’t have enough rest in between their sets and it becomes a cardio/endurance workout.

Having more rest is better, but having 5 minutes of rest may not be convenient unless you’re a pro powerlifter.

Generally, you should have 1.5 to 2 minutes of rest in between your sets to maintain performance in your next set and slowing down your decrease in performance throughout the whole workout.

People also forget about rest for muscle groups.

Generally, you should have at least 48 hours between muscle groups.

This doesn’t mean you should have 6 hours of sleep daily and expect to perform your best in your next sessions.

When you’re sleeping, that’s when your muscles repair. SO have 8 hours of quality sleep daily!

4. Prioritise compound lifts

Your goal is to build the most muscle right? Yes, so that means you should perform exercises that target your main, largest muscle groups. 

Isolation exercises can be performed, but for people with less time, compound exercises should always be performed.

5. Train properly & safely

Excited to get those gains? Excited to find out your 1-rep-max? 

HOLD YOUR HORSES.

Before you even get into your workout, you should warm up. This can be as simple as doing multiple reps with a lighter weight.

Instead of stretching before your workout, stretch after your workout.

Stretching before your workout may reduce your performance instead of benefiting you.

If you don’t know how to perform an exercise, watch a video on how to perform it.

Because it’s better to spend time learning how to do an exercise than taking weeks off due to injuries.

Don’t use weights that are too heavy or too light if your goal is to build muscle & strength.

Very heavy weights are inconvenient because you’ll lack stimulus, and very light weights are inconvenient as they waste time using and are more endurance-based.

Your rep range should be between 6 – 15.

* When doing one-rep-maxes, ALWAYS HAVE A SPOTTER!

Conclusion

Overall, this is what you should keep in mind when trying to build muscle & strength: 

• Leave 1-3 reps in reserve (leave 1-3 reps until you get to failure) to maximise performance throughout your workout and maximise muscle growth
• Consume enough animal protein. Take your body weight in kg, and consume that number in grams of protein. Be gradually increasing it if you can
• Have enough rest in between sets (2 minutes) and enough recovery for your next workout (48 hours including 8 hours of quality sleep)
• Prioritise compound lifts and do more sets with them (like squats, bench presses etc.) than isolation ones
• Learn how to do exercises properly and safely
• Warmup before your workout
• Stretch after your workout
• Don’t use weights that are too heavy or too light

Guess what? There’s still MORE to muscle building, like progressive overloading and implementing the right combination of exercises for maximum muscle growth.

However, this is only if you want to build even MORE muscle.

Regardless, arranging a workout plan may be tricky.

If you want to build even more muscle and work with an effective workout plan, then quickly get my workout bundles that are currently on offer!