How I Built Muscle FAST (5 Science-Based Tips)

is it possible to build muscle fast it took me years to gain some size and eventually my gains thought altogether instead of hopping on this I recently implemented a handful of new research back techniques and managed to gain a lean 20 pounds in 16 months and there's five things I did number one has to do with my training there's a really exciting new area of research called stretch mediated hypertrophy this is something I've covered in depth in the past video but basically some muscles seem to grow faster from exercises that challenge them the most when they're in a stretch position this has now been shown with the biceps triceps quads and hamstrings and to be honest it seems like it will be true for most or even all of our muscles to take advantage of this there's two things I did first exercise selection let's take the biceps for example a recent 2022 study compared two exercises preacher curls and incline curls preacher curls are most difficult right around here when the biceps are almost fully stretched whereas incline curls based on the incline angle used in the study are most difficult a little bit higher up when the biceps are almost fully contracted after nine weeks of testing the tube the preacher curl led to around 150 percent more growth other recent studies on the biceps have found similar results but there seems to be a similar effect with the triceps too one study had subjects do overhead extensions with one arm and your normal triceps pushed down with the other arm likely because of the greater stretch on the triceps the overhead exercise led to significantly more growth so to apply this and my weekly routine I made sure I was doing at least one exercise that really challenged each muscle in a stretch position and aside from the ones I just shared with you I also did behind the body curls for biceps behind the body cable lateral raises for shoulders seated leg curls for hamstrings and Bulgarian split squats for glutes but there's one more thing I did to focus on the stretch position even more and honestly I think this is what really made the difference so I've always been obsessed with Progressive Overload at just lifting more weight and doing more reps at every workout while important it's easy to get carried away you start lifting heavier but it comes at the expense of form you don't go quite as deep or you start using just a bit more momentum these little compensations decrease the challenge you put on your muscles in that stretch position so although I was lifting heavier over time I wasn't actually seeing very good results so I decided to First lighten the weight on almost all my movements by about 10 to 20 percent I then tried to go as deep as I could with good form and for some exercises like presses and squats I even added a half second pause at the bottom although I wasn't lifting as heavy my muscles were chalice so much more especially during that deep stretch and they responded extremely well to this your goal isn't to lift as much weight as possible is to use that weight to challenge your muscles as much as possible knowing that will completely change the way you train and save you from a lot of injury down the road now even if you do all the best exercises and use the right form if you're not applying this next step you're not going to grow it wasn't until I fixed this that I realized how much it was holding me back so in order to maximize growth you need to get close enough to failure during each of your sets research suggests that at least within three reps of failure is the threshold the more experience you get the more important this becomes now even though I was aware of this I'll be honest after I built up a decent amount of muscle I just got comfortable I wasn't training as hard as I could have been I was just going through the motions it wasn't until I started really pushing myself close enough to True failure that I started really seeing my growth take off and let me tell you it's very easy to think you're pushing hard enough when in reality you still have more to give a recent meta-analysis released just last year found that in weightlifting studies subjects would on average stop their sets almost 10 reps before they reach failure and even well-trained lifters have been shown to underestimate their Max effort by around one to two reps on average believe me the difference between stopping a set three plus reps short of failure compared to pushing through to just one to two reps short of failure is a whole other level of pain this won't be comfortable and it never gets easier but there are a few things that did that help first I changed my mindset towards the pain I simply view it as a sensation and I now link that feeling of pain with grow so now it's almost like my brain is looking forward to and seeking that pain because I know it's going to result in future growth and second I always take at least a few seconds to just close my eyes and mentally prepare myself in the next set it's so easy to let your mind get distracted when you're working out and start scrolling through social media but the push to the levels required to truly force your muscles to grow you need to get locked in and that happens before you've even started your set and lastly there's no way you're going to be able to do a crazy amount of volume every workout once you start training with this level of effort that's why it's essential that you implement Point number three recovery so your workouts or will provide the stimulus for your muscles to grow but the actual growth happens when they're resting they recovering thing is most people think that recovery only has to do with your rest days but the most important part of managing your recovery actually has to do with your workout program you see for years I would always train at least six and sometimes even seven days a week when I was younger I could do this no problem but over time especially after applying the last tip it just became too much I stopped looking forward to my workouts I had low energy and my muscles just didn't recover very well so I cut down my workouts to just five per week I recently cut it down even more to just four slightly longer workouts per week with the occasional accessory date almost instantly after making the switch I felt much better day to day and a lot more energized going into my workouts and I definitely noticed my muscles recovered and grew a lot better as a result don't get me wrong you still need to train hard and you still need to do enough weekly volume to grow research suggests at least eight to ten sets per muscle per week but more isn't always better and what someone else can recover from might end up being too much for you keep in mind that your workouts aren't the only stress your body has to recover from your work your life and your relationships can all be added stressors and your body and mind just may not have the recovery capacity to commit to five plus days a week in the gym so don't force it and listen to the signs your body has given you alright so far we've talked a lot about training but all that training wouldn't have done much if I didn't modify my diet PC to maximize growth research suggests you probably need to be eating in a calorie Surplus also commonly referred to as a bulk but just like with workout volume more calories isn't always better one study compared the effects of a fast bulk versus a slow bulk both grooves were in a calorie Surplus but the fast group ate on average about 600 calories more than the slow Group after 10 weeks the fast group gained more than twice as much weight about five times as much fat and only a tiny bit more muscle than the slow Group which actually didn't reach statistical significance so what I did was a lean bulk this is when you purposefully over feed your body with just a bit more calories than it needs typically around 10 to 15 percent above your maintenance calories for me this started at about 2 900 calories and ended up at a little bit over 3000 calories by the end of the bowl and if you need some help figuring out the right amount of lean bulk calories for you you can check out my calculator over at buildtoothsize.com calculator however even with a lean bulk you probably will gain some fat the 20 pounds I gained definitely was not all muscle and this can be tough to accept it's hard seeing your abs and muscle definition slowly fade away especially during summertime and in my case it was really hard mentally especially with all the pressure to constantly be shredded for YouTube and social media in the past I'd always go back to dieting whenever I saw just a bit of fat game and so I never really progressed this time I decided to stick through it and I'm telling you it paid off tremendously so shift your mindset and think of it as a long-term investment you have plenty of Summers to get shredded in the future and your body is only going to look even better with more muscle on your friend so tip number five was probably the hardest thing to implement you see fat loss is a relatively fast process you can easily lose one to two pounds of pure fat per week but in comparison once you're past the beginner stage of training it can take several months to gain even just one pound of muscle I mean I gained 20 pounds but not all of that was muscle and it took me almost a year and a half to do but don't let this discourage you the small gains you make week to week will over time amount to Big noticeable changes are built with size members here are a perfect example of this and show what's possible if you trust the process I mean you can see the incredible difference that adding even just 10 to 15 pounds of muscle to your body can make so be patient don't try to rush it and if you want a step-by-step training and nutrition plan that takes care of all the guesswork for you just head to build science.com and take our quiz to find the best size back plan for you and your body give this video a watch thanks to learn more about the muscle stretch research I covered earlier and how to use it to speed up your gains even more thanks for watching and I'll see you next time

Channel: Jeremy Ethier

Views: 918,391

Keywords: how to gain muscle fast, build muscle, muscle, muscle growth, build muscle fast, building muscle, how to build muscle, how to build muscle fast, how to gain muscle, how to grow muscle fast, muscle building, muscle gain workout, how to grow muscle, builtwithscience, jeremyethier, bulking diet, bulking, how to bulk, lean bulk, how to lean bulk, bulking plan, bulking transformation, lean bulk diet, lean bulk meal plan, bulking meal plan, how to bulk up for skinny guys

Id: X27F4kgBJKk

Length: 9min 12sec (552 seconds)

Published: Sun May 21 2023