Building lean muscle is not what it says on the tin. There are a number of things to consider when doing this.
In this article:
Check out our tips and hints on how to build lean muscle efficiently.
Gaining Vs Cutting:
There are a couple of ways you can see lean muscle gain.
You can split your training and diet into muscle gain and weight cutting windows. Have a period of time concentrating on gaining muscle with a slight calorie surplus, 2-300 calories before taking a small cut in calories to reduce the body fat percentage.
You could stick with maintenance calories and meet in the middle however, there is no guarantee this would work for your body and likely produce slower results.
Calories:
Protein = Muscle.
You need a sufficient amount of protein in order to see muscle growth. Ensure protein is in each meal throughout the day. As mentioned earlier, a slight surplus will help with the muscle gain, around 2-300 calories and a similar number as a deficit to reduce body fat.
Hydration:
When it comes to promoting muscle gain, water also plays a key role because it transports the nutrients needed for producing protein and glycogen. Dehydration will also prevent muscles from properly contracting and increase the chances of cramp.
Rest:
Don’t bother training if you are not going to rest. Your body needs time to rest and recover and also allow time for the muscle to rebuild and grow. Don’t neglect rest!!
Training:
We are looking at several areas in your training capacity to do this. Firstly, and most importantly, progressive overload. You need to ensure you are continuously making your sessions harder. Whether that be by increasing weight, reps, sets or introducing supersets, you’ll more likely avoid a plateau and continue to build muscle.
Secondly, compound lifting. Hit the big lifts, squats, bench press, military press, to really hit the gainz. Supporting with lesser isolation lifts will help but the big lifts will hit the results you need.
Aim for 3-5 sessions a weekend trust the process. Stick to your plan and results will happen.
Eat breakfast to help build muscle mass:
This gives you an immediate burst of energy and helps you to stay full until your next meal or snack. It also sets the trend: you’ll tend to eat healthier if your day starts with a strong and healthy breakfast. Your best bets if you’re trying to build muscle mass are omelettes, smoothies and cottage cheese.
Workout plan
Below is an example workout plan based on attending the gym 3 days a week. You need to ensure sufficient rest between sessions and at the most, ensure a rest day after two straight training days; however, Monday, Wednesday and Friday is a good example.
The program contains 3 full-body workouts. It’s a high frequency workout, so you’ll be hitting all of your major body parts 3 times a week, and it has enough volume and intensity for optimal muscle growth.
The workout is suitable for beginners, but here are some of our key points to keep you on track with your training:
- You should be in a calorie surplus to get the most out of this to build muscle, or a deficit to lose fat
- Make sure you are able to perform every lift correctly or regress it
- Once you have hit the higher end of the rep scheme for all the sets, you should then progress your weight
- Don’t go to failure with any of the reps
- Progressive overload is done through reps and weight
- Warm up properly before every workout
- Perform a de-load week once you have completed the 8 weeks
- Align your calories to your goal
Day 1
Check out our table below, or skip ahead to the individual exercises and techniques.
Want to go straight to day 2? Click here.
