14 steps to build muscle mass faster

Are you working hard to achieve your muscle building goals this year?

I’m really sorry for your effort …

There is often a point where the results of taking a “pretty good” approach to diet and exercise begin to fail. Once you get to that point, it’s time to get serious if you want to continue building muscle mass and breaking your fitness goals!

Here are 14 essential steps you can take to sharpen your efforts and continue to progress.

14 steps to develop muscle mass more quickly

The steps in this article cover both diet and workouts but also a couple of things you can do outside of the gym to build muscle at a faster rate:

1. Keep track of everything

Keeping a detailed log of your food intake and your workouts is probably the best way to track your progress. How much protein are you getting, the number of reps you can do for a specific exercise … these are all the things you need to track.

If you are not progressing and building muscle mass, then your log will probably show you why.

2. Focus on compound exercises.

Compound movements basically incorporate multiple joints in your body and therefore target multiple muscles. Because of this they are MUST-HAVE and making them the staple of your training routines is guaranteed to help you build muscle faster.

Examples of these exercises include:

• Bench press.
• Pull-ups.
• Squats.
• Deadlift.
• Lizards.
• Parallel Funds.
• Shoulder press.

3. Make sure you’re getting enough protein.

This was probably the first step you took to make sure you started building muscle. But sometimes it is very easy for people to lose their diet and also forget to account for their weight gain.

You should consume 1.6 grams of protein for every kilo of your body weight every day. If you weigh 70 kilos, your goal would be to consume 112 grams of protein per day.

However, how many of you started building muscle, gained a lot of weight, and then forgot to increase your protein intake?

Always remember to get enough protein.

4. Lose some body fat before concentrating on building muscle.

Studies have shown that it is more difficult to build muscle when your body fat percentage is high. For example, someone with a body fat percentage of 20% would probably struggle to build muscle tissue as fast as someone with a body fat percentage of 15%.

These same studies explain that when obese people consume large amounts of calories to gain muscle, they end up gaining more body fat compared to lean people.

That is, eating a higher number of calories than normal is likely to result in lean people gaining more muscle than body fat compared to obese people who are more likely to gain more body fat than muscle.

The point is, you should try to focus on reducing your body fat percentage before building muscle.

5. Maintain the rep range and rest times established for hypertrophy.

The way you train your muscles is very important and how you do it will depend on your overall goals.

There are 3 main ways to train:

• For strength.
• For the volume.
• For the resistance.

The number of repetitions you do in each set and the amount of time you rest between sets will depend on which of the 3 goals you are focusing on.

As a general rule:

• For strength: 4-6 reps, 3-5 minutes rest between sets.
• For volume: 8-12 reps, 60-90 seconds rest between sets.
• For endurance: more than 12 reps, 30-45 seconds rest between sets.

6. Work on improving your testosterone levels.

It is well known that testosterone levels play a role in the health of your body and an increase in testosterone levels is likely to enhance muscle growth.

There are many things you can do naturally to improve your testosterone levels. However, how much these things actually affect the amount of muscle you are building will likely depend on your testosterone levels that you had beforehand.

For example, once men reach their 30s, their testosterone levels begin to decline. If they hit a relatively low point, increasing your testosterone levels naturally could make a big difference.

There are many ways to do this, but the best example is to start eating foods that increase testosterone.

7. Eat more on your days off

Even though you are burning more calories on the days you exercise, your body will recover and grow on the days you don’t. Which means that on your rest days, you’ll need more calories for your body to recover.

So, use your days off to eat BIG!

8. Make sure you get 7-8 hours of sleep

When you are asleep, you are in a higher anabolic state. Your body takes advantage of this opportunity to repair your muscle tissue at an optimal rate.

In other words, your muscles are recovering at a much faster rate while you are asleep compared to when you are awake.

That is, remember to sleep for 7 to 8 hours so that your muscles recover properly. If you don’t get enough sleep, your body will never fully recover and you are unlikely to grow or progress with your goals.

9. Make weekly strength improvements

Sometimes people don’t make progress simply because they forget to set goals. Before hitting the gym, set your goal of doing a little more.

Then aim for that goal for next week. That is why it is very likely that you will test your limits, because you told yourself that this is what you were going to do.

10. Never skip the days you do legs

The day you do legs is feared by most. Not only because most people like to focus on the most notable features of the body, but also because leg exercises seem to be the most painful of the muscle groups to work with.

And that’s probably because your legs are the largest muscle group in your body.

Exercising your leg muscles also causes a huge increase in testosterone production in your body. As I mentioned before, testosterone is crucial for building muscle not to mention a lot of other things.

Therefore, skipping this muscle group from time to time is probably the worst thing you can do for your muscle growth.

11. Eat 4-6 meals a day.

If you are someone who generally needs to eat a lot to gain weight but has a hard time consuming a lot of food in one sitting, then eating 4-6 meals a day is your best bet.

You can reduce the amount you eat in your main meals and move it over to your additional meals. By eating regularly you are not only solving your problem of eating enough, but you are also giving your body a constant source of protein throughout the day.

Just take the times when you would normally eat something and turn them into small, healthy meals.

12. Look for some beneficial supplements.

When used correctly, supplements can be a great addition to an already healthy diet and solid training plan.

Whey protein is probably the most widely used supplement for post-workout recovery.

13. Stop doing too much cardio.

If you are struggling to gain weight, see how much cardio you do each week. Too much cardio and you’ll end up burning your muscles for fuel.

It’s probably also a good point to mention that if your metabolism is naturally high and you struggle to gain weight of any kind, you won’t want to do a lot of cardio.

If you have an incredibly high metabolism, then your body will naturally burn more calories, so cardio is the least of your problems!

14. Learn to rest for a week from time to time

Resting is not so bad, you know? And I’m not talking about the rest days you take during the week. I’m talking about taking a complete break from exercise for a week or so.

Have you ever had a car where the battery has slowly drained, and a few days you turn on the stereo before starting the car and … It won’t start.

It’s good to recharge, especially when you’ve been running low every week for the last few months.

Summary

Just to recap, these are the 14 steps to building muscle faster in a nutshell:

1. Keep track of everything.
2. Focus on compound exercises.
3. Make sure you’re getting enough protein.
4. Lose some body fat before concentrating on building muscle.
5. Maintain the established rep range and rest times for hypertrophy.
6. Work on improving your testosterone levels.
7. Eat more on your days off.
8. Make sure you get 7-8 hours of sleep.
9. Make weekly strength improvements.
10. Never skip the days that you do legs.
11. Eat 4-6 meals a day.
12. Look for some beneficial supplements.
13. Stop doing too much cardio.
14. Learn to rest for a week every now and then.

Has this article helped you in your quest to build muscle mass faster? Leave a comment below.