7 Tips to Build Muscle for Beginners – How to Gain Muscle Mass

Gaining muscle is a nightmare if you don’t know what you’re doing. It is also the best feeling ever once you get it down. Many factors to gaining muscle can be complex, but there are simple steps to get started. Here are 7 Ways to Gain Muscle:

Protein

You’ve heard it before and you’ll hear it again. Protein is the most essential factor of building muscle. Protein is made up of smaller amino acids. Our muscles are made up of amino acids, so it only makes sense that you need protein.

Protein is the building block for all muscles. Not having protein to repair muscles is like not having a construction team to repair a house. Start consuming more protein.

Eat Often

If you are trying to build muscle, that muscle needs to be supplemented with nutrients. The more you can feed the muscle with nutrients, the bigger your muscles can get.

You need to go on a caloric surplus. A caloric surplus is exceeding the amount of calories that your body is used to for maintaining weight.

By eating more than usual maintenance, you are forcing your body to deliver more nutrients to your muscles.

Change It Up

After continuing to workout for a while, your body will understand the weight you’re going to use. It will understand how many sets and reps you will do as well as the movements. Our body works like that with everything.

You need to change your workouts and increase the weight you are lifting. Not only does this confuse the muscles to make them grow, but you won’t get as bored in the gym.

Eccentric Workout

Eccentric – the motion of an active muscle while it is lengthening under load. In other words, the opposite movement of a contraction.

For example, in a bicep curl, the eccentric motion is when you lengthen the arm back down. This part of the movement is the most efficient for creating micro tears in the muscle which are rebuilt into bigger muscles.

So instead of just releasing your muscle from the tension, try to slowly release your muscle and control it all the way through the movement.

Sleep

Getting a good night’s sleep is crucial to building muscle. In fact, without good sleep, you can minimize your growth potential by almost 50%!

There are two main factors to muscle repair: nutrition and sleep. Without the other half, you’re missing out on a lot of muscle growth.

In men, most of our growth hormones are secreted during sleep. Don’t risk losing that extra growth just because you got lost on Instagram for 2 hours.

Check out How to Fix Your Sleep Schedule!

Consistency

If you’ve heard that saying, “if you don’t use it, you lose it” that applies to fitness too. It’s like hitting a reset button on your progress if you take a long break. Continue at it because it’s so much more worth it to push through and get those results.

Your muscles will stop getting used to the growth and “deflate” in a way. Any of you who have taken a break from fitness know what I mean. Don’t waste that effort you put into it from the start.

Balance Heavy and Light

Lifting weights is, without question, the best way to grow fast.

There is also no question that you need to start lifting more weight as you go to build more muscle.

However, lifting too heavy all the time can be dangerous. Your form is important when you lift weights in order to avoid injuries. Slowly increase weight on all your workout as you go, but have some days where you are lifting lighter and focusing more on the movement. This balance is important to confusing your muscles and growing them over time.

Making those gains in the gym is the best feeling ever when you see the results. I love talking about fitness and experimenting different things with my body. Challenging yourself is important in life to grow.

Leave your comments, questions, and suggestions below! Thanks for reading!