What It Takes To Build Muscle

For a long time, building muscle was mostly about one thing—looking good.

But lately, science has made it clear that muscle isn’t just for aesthetics. It has a ton of long-term health benefits, including:

• Improved blood sugar control

• Keeping your metabolism active

• Supporting healthy aging

I wrote a deep dive on these benefits a while back. In case you missed it, check it out here.

I’ve toyed with the idea of building muscle for some time now, but after learning more about all the benefits, I’ve decided to finally be serious about it this year.

Problem is, I had absolutely no idea where to start.

So, in typical health nerd fashion, I dove into research mode and gathered everything I could about how muscle growth actually works.

In today’s issue, I want to share with you what I’ve learned so far and what I’ve been implementing as I work towards achieving this goal.

If you’ve also been thinking about building some muscle but don’t know where to begin, I hope you’ll find some value in this.

The 3 Pillars of Muscle Growth

From everything I’ve learned so far, building muscle really boils down to three core pillars:

1. Resistance training

2. Nutrition

3. Recovery

There’s a ton of nuance behind each one—way more than I can cover in a single newsletter without turning it into a mini e-book.

So in this issue, we’re sticking to the essentials: the things you absolutely must know about how to build more muscle.

If you’d like to dive deeper into the topic, these are some useful resources I’ve found that break everything down beautifully: video 1, video 2 and video 3.

1. Resistance training: The Stimulus

This is the main thing that actually signals your body to build muscle.

Resistance training (also called strength training or weight training) is any form of exercise that causes your muscles to contract against some kind of resistance.

That “resistance” can be anything that challenges your muscles, including:

• Your body weight (push-ups, squats, lunges)

• Resistance bands

• Free weights (dumbbells, barbells, kettlebells) or household items (jerricans, heavy bags)

• Stationary weight machines

When you consistently challenge your muscles, they adapt by growing bigger and stronger.

How to train effectively:

• Pick exercises that target the specific muscle you want to grow. 
  For example, bicep curls for biceps, lateral raises for shoulders, glute bridges for glutes, and so on.

• Train each major muscle group at least twice a week. 
  This is a good place to start, and you can always increase frequency over time. Major muscle groups include chest, back, shoulders, biceps, triceps, abdominals, glutes, quads, hamstrings and calves.

• Perform each exercise close to failure. 
  This means when you’re doing a set, by the time you perform the last rep, it should feel almost impossible to perform another one. Research shows that the closer you (safely) train to failure, the more you stimulate muscle growth.

• Gradually increase the difficulty. 
  Your body adapts to exercises quickly so if you keep doing the exact same workout, you’ll hit a plateau. To keep growing, you need to ensure that your exercises progressively become more challenging over time. This could mean lifting heavier weights, doing more reps or sets, or switching to more difficult variations.

2. Nutrition: The Fuel

While resistance training stimulates muscle growth, your diet provides the raw materials your body needs to actually build that muscle tissue.

No matter how hard you train, if your body doesn’t have the right fuel, your muscles aren’t going to grow.

When it comes to muscle-building nutrition, there are two main things you need to focus on:

• Eating enough food

Since you’ll be training hard, you need to be eating enough food to properly fuel your workouts.

Research shows that eating a little more than you burn (being in a slight calorie surplus) provides the best condition for significant muscle growth.

If you’re in a calorie deficit (eating less than your body burns), your body will prioritize burning fat for energy and muscle gain will be slow.

• Getting enough protein

Protein is the building block of muscle. If you want to build muscle, you need to feed your body the right amount of protein to fuel muscle repair and growth.

The science on protein intake varies slightly, but the general consensus is to aim for anywhere between 1.6-2.2g of protein per kilogram of body weight.

For example, if you weigh 60Kg, aim for 96-132g of protein/day distributed among your meals.

While the source of protein isn’t a huge deal, animal-based proteins (like chicken, beef, and fish) often contain more protein per serving, making it easier to hit your daily goals.

Plant-based sources like beans and lentils can also provide all the protein you need, you’ll just need to eat a bit more and potentially combine different sources to ensure you're getting all the essential amino acids.

3. Recovery: The Growth Phase

You may have heard it said that muscles don’t grow at the gym; they grow when you’re resting.

When you’re training, you’re breaking down your muscle fibers. It’s during the recovery phase that your muscles rebuild and grow stronger.

The recommendation is to allow 48-72 hours of rest before training the same muscle group again to give it enough time to repair.

When you’re just starting out, you might find that you need more time than this to recover from feeling sore after your workouts.

It’s okay to take more time and only go back to training after you feel well-recovered.

Over time, as your muscles adapt to the training, your recovery period will shorten, and you’ll be able to train more frequently.

Sleep is also an important part of recovery as this is when your whole body gets to slow down and repair itself.

So it’s important to prioritize getting at least 7-9 hours of quality sleep each day for maximum results.

The Final Puzzle Piece: Consistency & Patience

How fast you build muscle depends on several factors, some of which are beyond your control.

For instance, men typically build muscle faster than women due to higher testosterone levels, and some people are genetically predisposed to gain muscle more easily than others.

However, despite these factors, one thing remains universally true: building muscle takes time.

It’s likely that you’ll need a few months of consistent effort before you start seeing noticeable progress.

It’s important to bear this in mind in order to have realistic expectations of the process.

So what’s the muscle-building formula?

It’s simple:

Train hard + Eat well + Rest plenty + Keep showing up

You don’t need “the perfect” plan, some fancy supplements, or even a gym membership to start building muscle.

You just need a good enough workout routine, enough food to fuel your body, adequate rest to recover and the patience to stick with it for the long haul.

It’s simple, not easy.

But if you start where you are, use what you have, and keep showing up, the results will surely come.

Thanks for reading! I hope you found something valuable :)

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