How To Build Muscle In 5 Easy Steps

Building muscle the right way doesn’t have to be hard or clouded in myths.

A lot of supplement companies and “guru’s” will have you believing they have all the “secrets”.

Well I’m here to tell you, it’s pretty simple, and I’m about to lay out the basic foundation to building muscle.

If you do these four pillars, you will be miles ahead of the guys in the gym that lift and “hope” for results. If you’ve been around the gym for a while, most likely these won’t be any suprise. So why aren’t you doing them?

Easy Step #1: Get a Muscle Building Program

I promise you, this will shortcut you to your goals faster than anything I’ve seen. It’ll also save you tons of headaches, time, and money (on useless supplements). For the price you’d pay for an overpriced powder, you can get a COMPLETE guide to building muscle. You’ll see results a lot faster and be miles ahead of anyone in the gym. Click to see which muscle building program I follow and recommend to all my readers.

Easy Step #2: Proper Nutrition

Like I said, no suprise here. Notice, I didn’t say “proper supplementation”. First you need to find out how many calories you need per day to gain weight. Please don’t listen to anyone that spits out a blank number like “5000″ because your calorie needs depend on several factors such as age, gender, level of daily activity, current body fat percentage, current weight, overall metabolism, and most importantly, your Goals.

Next, you need to fill those calorie requirements with proper foods, not junk calories. Foods such as:

Protein: Poultry, Fish, Dairy, Eggs, some Beef, Nuts

Fats: Nuts, Nut Oils

Carbs: Wheats, Whole grain anything, Oatmeal

Lastly, you need to eat 5 to 6 times a day every 2-3 hours. Throw in a protein shake or two (no, that’s not supplementation) to meet this daily requirement. Those are the foundations to muscle building nutrition.

Easy Step #3: Proper Rest

With reading all the magazine workouts and listening to your friends, it’s easy to Overtrain. Simply put, your body needs atleast 48 hrs to recover before you workout again. Hopefully, you’re not on steroids so this applies. Go to the gym, every Other day at the most when you’re just starting out. Your central nervous system, and hormonal system need to recover also, not just your muscles.

Get plenty of sleep. Most Americans don’t get enough. You’ll see yourself plateau faster than a 747 if you don’t get 7-9 hrs of sleep each night. Your body releases much need muscle building hormones in your sleep. If you’re not sleep, you don’t get them.

Easy Step #4: Lift Weights

This is the “teeth” of the shark that everyone focuses on, while they tend to forget the “body” that I just laid out above.

There’s A LOT to be said about lifting since it’s the activity that breaks your muscles down. The others actually build your muscle. You have to break them down correctly in order for them to be built with maximum benefits.

The general rule is to lift with compound exercises if you’re a beginner.

Big muscle workouts such as:

Dead lift,
Bench press
Squats
Cleans
Back rows
Shoulder press

You really only need one “all out” set of each exercise to stimulate muscle growth, but I know that’s a bit hard to believe. So for your sanity, you can start with the standard 3-4 sets of 8-12 reps.

So you see, this step is a lot simpler than they make it out to be. A muscle building program will lay out all of the above better than I can in this short article.

Easy Step #5: Stay Motivated

I see so many guys come to the gym for a little while and then quit. And with the new year, I’ll be there’ll be TONS of new people that fall by the wayside in a matter of weeks.

Some ways to stay motivated are: