More Muscle Mass Pt. 2 - How to make it
Part one of “More Muscle Mass” explained they “WHY”. Let’s discuss the “HOW”.
While there are a variety of ways to train strength, the foundation of gaining more muscle is not a complicated.
Building muscle takes consistency, heavy weight, and most of all GRACE. Here are our five quick takeaways.
Eat your protein: 0.75-1.25 g / pound of body weight is the standard recommendation to not hurt your chances of making and maintaining muscle. If you do not have the energy from food to support your workout, you will exercise more with less results. Studies in weight specifically have shown that exercise in isolation, over a year long experiment, was not enough to change body composition. We are not Registered Dietitians, so we recommend seeking one out if you are struggling with understanding how much you should be eating to see the results you want. (We both see the duo at Raynor Strength!)
Creatine is king: of supplements I mean. Creatine has shown amazing results muscle gains, especially in women. There are minimal side effects, and pretty easy way to mitigate those effects with the help of an RD. I love the work of Dr. Abbie Smith-Ryan, who does great research out of UNC and find it very digestible (pun intended). We use Thorne Creatine in our household, and mix it in daily with our salts or protein.
Take your time: Objective strength gain measures take about 8-12 weeks. This does not mean that you will not see some changes before then, but you need to stick to your plan for at least 8 weeks. If you are expecting to see obvious, dramatic changes and completion of a program within 6 weeks, we may need to calibrate expectations. This is a rule of thumb for our plans of care as well - it takes time to create greatness and growth!
“Toning” is Wrong - Lift Heavy Stuff: Stop Fearing THE BULK. LADIES. DID YOU HEAR THAT. As someone who has taught their share of Yoga Sculpt classes, 3-5 pounds for 30-90 seconds of work 2-3 times a week is NOT ENOUGH. Sciences say so. Your muscle gains will plateau because that is not enough of a challenge after a certain amount of time. As we outlined above, if weight loss is your goal, you should not be striving for blind pound loss. You need muscle, and heavier weights for more time will help build it. Protocols vary depending on sport and goal (i.e power vs. endurance vs. hypertrophy), so we are going to focus on hypertrophy, or muscle cell increase.
Ideally 10-20 sets per week per muscle group - does not count for indirect activation (i.e bicep curl is the primary target for bicep, even if you get some bicep work in a pull up). This is why group fitness programming can be challenging, since you usually see compound movements or “2-for-1” exercises like a squat to overhead press. This protocol is looking for a targeted glute exercise (such as a step up, or slider lunge) and then a targeted middle deltoid exercise (like sidelying arm raises).
You need to get close to failure in each set, in around 8-15 repetitions. Failure means you are not going to be able to complete another rep safely. Failure does not equal a “burning” feeling. You may not get the same “burn” feeling, because that takes more time with less weight usually - but that does not mean it is ineffective!
Consistency is King. Look at the timeline above - you need a minimum of 8 weeks. Be nice to yourself.
Remove Excess Stressors: Hidden stressors, or things that affect your central nervous system and fatigue level look different for everyone. Some examples are family duties, work, sleep, diet, even exercise (like over exercising!!!). If your hidden stressors are taken care of, you can go to failure more often and recover better because you aren’t slowing yourself down. Dr. Andy Galpin gave a great example that as people want to move to their goals faster and push the accelerator, “you have to make sure your left foot is not on the brakes”. Finding ways to handle those parts of life will help you gain strength, muscle, and piece of mind, faster!
