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Friday, December 3, 2021

6 Tips to Gain Muscle Mass Fast

 Do you wonder how much muscle mass you can gain in 1 year and what plays a role in this? Read it here!

The transformation from lean to a muscular body


Have you just started training and do you want to build up as much muscle mass as possible and thus gain muscle mass? Or have you been busy for a while and do you see less progress than you would like to see? Read here how much muscle mass you can actually build and view our 6 handy tips to gain muscle mass.

What is Muscle Growth?

This sounds like an open door to many, but building muscle mass is most effective through strength training. Muscle growth mainly takes place through an increase in the size of muscle fibers. This is also known as hypertrophy.



The latest scientific insights suggest that muscle growth is largely the effect of hypertrophy, but the increase in the number of muscle fibers (hyperplasia) should not be ruled out. This has been clearly observed in animals. In addition, in both animals and humans, when building muscle mass, an increase in the amount and strength of the connective tissue also occurs.

What is Realistic?

“Many magazines and marketing campaigns advertise with attractive, unrealistic slogans, such as 6 kg of muscle mass in 6 weeks.”

Many of these slogans are hot air. The build-up of muscle mass does not start immediately from moment 1 that you touch the weights. The actual build-up of muscle mass takes place approximately from 12 to 18 workouts.

In the first weeks that you train, you learn more efficient movements, improve your coordination and build up muscle damage. If you give the body enough time to recover, it will recover from this muscle damage.

With the aforementioned rule, you therefore only build muscle mass after 4 to 8 weeks (depending on how often you train). It is also interesting to mention that muscle growth is faster in the upper body compared to the lower body. And for the jokers among us: this is not because men prefer to train their upper body.

Enough theory, but how much can I build up?

 

Specific numbers are difficult to name. This remains speculative and varies a lot from person to person. For some, it is possible to build a few kilograms of muscle mass in a year, and for others, it is only a few hundred grams per year. In addition, this is very dependent on your physique, training stimulus, previous training experience, and nutrition. It remains guesswork. Just get on with it and try not to compare yourself too much with others. Numbers don't help you in this case, it can only frustrate you.

But if you still want some numbers. A leading scientist in this field called "Alan Aragon" has estimated that:

  • A novice lifter can gain about 0.5-1 kilograms per month in muscle mass
  • Strength athletes with more experience can gain about 0.25-0.5 kilograms per month in muscle mass.
  • And for (advanced) advanced users that is about 0.2 kilograms per month.

So you see that as you have more muscle mass, the building of muscle mass slows down.

A Simple Step-by-Step Plan

Many books, magazines, and marketing campaigns advertise with attractive slogans: 'five kilos of muscle mass in four weeks!' If you have read the above, you realize that it is not that easy to gain muscle mass quickly. Therefore, set a realistic goal and be happy with every small progress you make. If you want to gain muscle mass, think of it as a multi-year plan where you take small steps every month. With this in mind, I've got six helpful tips to help you out.

Step 1: Training

Choose a training schedule that stimulates and stimulates the muscles sufficiently to grow. Make sure that you increase the load slowly and that you use the correct implementation. 

Train your muscles
Progressive overload is the only and best way to ensure maximum muscle growth. You train a little harder every workout.


This continuously stimulates your muscles and forces them to adapt to the resistance level. If you train harder every workout, your muscles will grow a little bit each time.

You simply will not grow without applying progressive overload. 

Perhaps as a novice athlete, but certainly not anymore after a while. Read my article on progressive overload if you want to know more about this.

Step 2: Determine Your Energy Intake

Before you want to build extra muscle mass, take a critical look at your fat percentage. If this number is relatively low (less than 12% for the man, less than 22% for the woman), start with clean bulking (slowly gaining weight) or eating maintenance. Eating on maintenance means that you eat as many calories as you need. In other words: this keeps you on weight.

Is your fat percentage higher? And do you want a flat stomach? Then try to eat 0-250 kilocalories below your maintenance (energy requirement), so that you lose weight slowly.

Step 3: Nutrition

Nutrition is definitely one of the most crucial factors when it comes to building muscle mass. You have to eat in a calorie surplus.

If you don't do this, you simply cannot build muscle mass. As a beginner, this is still possible, because you go from not training to suddenly training.

This allows you to eat little and still build some muscle, but it is far from the ideal of course.

So make sure you eat about 200-300 kcal above your daily requirement and that you also maintain the right ratio in macronutrients and micronutrients.

Macro is more important for how you look, but micro is important for your health.

Step 4: Evaluate Your Sleep

A rested mind and body are extremely important for your focus and training. Ask yourself: do you wake up rested every day? Do you feel that your body and mind have recovered for a new day? 

Good rest ensures that your muscles can recover to the maximum, which in turn ensures that they also grow to the maximum.

Step 5: Relaxation

Stress hinders your training and recovery. If you start your training insufficiently rested and focused, you will make much less progress. Maintain a good work-rest balance. 

Take some time off every once in a while and enjoy going to work! It may sound a bit vague and you may not immediately see the link with sports performance, but experienced athletes will confirm that too much stress is a killer for your sports performance.

Step 6: Perseverance

You can have such a good plan, but as long as you can't stick to it, it's no use at all. That is just frustrating.

Start with a realistic plan that you also like. Do you have a 6-day schedule, but find that you can only yield 4 times a week? Then switch back and set up a 4-day schedule. Be honest with yourself and adjust it in time to avoid frustrations.

I'm curious: what is your experience with muscle building? How much muscle mass did you build in your first year of training? Let us know in a comment below!


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