Muscle Building is a complex process; it takes time and effort. Most of the people tend to fail within the first months. If you follow these 5 golden rules, you'll be able to enjoy the process, maintain it, and accomplish muscle building.
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What’s Muscle Building?
Muscle building is the process by which you can increase the volume of your muscles. Also called muscle hypertrophy, is the way you can build muscle and improve your body composition and physique.
To achieve muscle building, you must train and compromise your body to some kind of intense physical exercise.
If the intensity and training volume is enough, then the 'catabolism' induced during the training session will be recieved by your body as a signal to build muscle.
Fitness for Dummies
You need to exercise to build muscle. That will put your body in survival mode. Your body is not comfortable when you train. If you build muscle, you'll adapt to the training session, and you won't be at risk anymore. Following what Darwin studied, that is simply natural selection.
How Can You Build Muscle?
Most of the progress to build muscle is achieved by focusing on sleep, nutrition and training. If you are able to change and optimize these, you are more than ready to build muscle.
Training
Training is the trigger of muscle building. In simple words, it compromises our body and gives you reasons to build muscle.
If you are constanly training (2-5x/week), your body will have to build muscle to adapt to the new "normal situation". This is the principle of natural selection. Your body adapts to the environment to favour its evolution and fitness (source)
Nutrition
Nutrition and training go hand by hand. To see this more clearly, let me put three different scenarios:
You should equally consider training and nutrition. Both aspects are as important as the other, and both should be carefully planned and well executed to get the best results.
Protein provides amino acid and upregulates your metabolism to favour muscle building (study). Carbohydrates improve your training performance (study). Fats keep the equilibrium of the hormones environment and maintains cellular homeostasis (study).
Sleep and Recovery
You need to sleep to Recover, Recharge, and Reset. In fact, you wouldn't last more than 11 days of no sleep.
When you sleep and recover from the training session is when you build muscle. The better and more effective the recovery process, the more muscle adaptations we'll be able to build.
Sleep is detrimental for your health as well. A correct sleep improves the brain function (study), body composition (study), training performance (study), focus and alertness (study), and boosts our inmune system (study)
The 5 Golden Rules of Muscle Building
There's a lot of factors you must consider if you want to optimize muscle building.
In the followig 5 min, we'll cover the 5 golden rules of muscle building. Five 'musts' if you want to build muscle.
Long Term Mentality
The very first and most important attitude; long term mentality. Muscle building takes time. It doesn't happen overnight.
Muscle building is one of the most expensive physiological processes in terms of energy costs. It takes a lot of metabolic work to do, and we cannot pretend to go from 0 to 1 overnight. It simply won't happen.
During your entire lifespan, you'll be able to put a max. of 40-50lbs naturally.
During the first weeks of training, the gains will mainly come from strength (study). You'll be more efficient and driving new neural connections. This will activate muscle fibres more efficiently. And you'll be able to lift more weight.
Changes in your muscle mass are not noticeable during the first 4-6 weeks. After that, you can start to feel some body transformation happening.
Execute a Plan
"No action without a plan succeeds" - TBS, 2022
If you want to build muscle, you need a plan. It will keep you on track, tell you what to do at all times.
With a plan on hand, you'll be able to enjoy more your trainings. You'll go to the gym knowing exactly what to do.
No less, no more. And next week, more and better. That is the principle of progressive overload
The plan will determine the action. If there's no plan, there's no defined action to get you where you want. Inversely, the action can take you back to the plan. Depending on the outcome and evaluation of the action, you may need another plan to get the results you wanted.
What Should You Include In the Plan?
To make a plan, you should consider the different points:
- Exercise selection: which exercises should I do?
- Muscle split: how many workouts per week? What am I doing on each workout?
- Progressive overload: How will I be able to progress?
- Medium/long term perspective: When do I want to achieve the results? When can I achieve the results?
Making a plan can be complex and confusing if you don't have the knowledge it requires. But that has an easy fix.
In TBS, we have released a new course with everything you need to know to build muscle and make the perfect plan. It also includes modules talking about sports nutrition, how to make a diet, and other aspects of muscle building to optimize the process.
During the seven modules of this course, we take you through all you need to know to start changing your physique. After you finish the course, you'll be able to make your training program, make your own diet adjusted to your goals, and more importantly... create and maintain a healthier and sustainable lifestyle.
Online Course: How to Start Changing your Physique
Be Prepared for the Unexpected
Not everything depends on ourselves. Even when you try to carefully control everything to get the best outcome, the tower can fall.
We cannot control everything. Starting there, the best we can do is to prepare ourselves for what's coming.
If you do that, only the tip of the tower will fall. You'll have the base so consolidated, that even against the highest adversitites, your tower will be able to stay standing.
During the journey of muscle building and body composition, you'll go through high and low seasons.
High-seasons
On our 'high seasons', motivation will be at its peak. We'll go to the gym, hit our trainings to our fullest, and follow the diet from start to end.
Everything will feel smooth and easy. Your phyique will be better than ever, and the muscle gains will be fast and efficient.
HIGH SEASON ------ MOTIVATION + DISCIPLINE
You'll be driven mostly by motivation. It will take you out of bed, put you in the car, and drive to you the gym. And that will help you building discipline and habits.
Low-seasons
But motivation is volatile. It comes and goes. And when it goes, it's discipline what we survive from.
When motivation is not there, is the discipline and habits we've built what puts you out in the gym. No matter what happens.
LOW SEASON ------ DISCIPLINE
 You may not me motivated, but motivation will come back. And everything you do now, will help you tomorrow. When motivation is back again.
Make it a Habit
Probably one of the most (if not the most) important rule; make it a habit
If you succeed at making training and diet a habit, you won't completely rely on motivation. It will make the extraordinary ordinary, and it'll feel weird if you don't do your workout or follow your diet.
Making habits is about implementing new actions in your lifestyle. Going to the gym, following the diet, sleeping properly... It will decrease the probability of failure, to the point of being almost null.
How to Make it a Habit
Following what James Clear says in his book Atomic Habits, to succeed building a habit, it should be:
- Easy
- Obvious
- Attractive
- Satisfying
If you make a habit that follows and fulfillis these four requirement, you'll be able to implement that habit into your lifestyle, and maintain it on the long term.
How to go to the gym first time in the morning:
- Make it easy: Don't book anything else in that timeslot. Make sure you have nothing else than going to the gym.
- Make it obvious:Â Leave everything ready the night before. Prepare your gym bag, leave it in your door (where you can see it), and place your gym shoes right next to your bed.
- Make it satisfying:Â Share it on social media. Commit yourself to the rest of your followers. Make them aware of your discipline and willpower.
- Make it attractive:Â Find the beauty on going to the gym in the morning. For some will be finishing the workout while it's still dark, for others will be the feeling of doing the 'homework' early...
Conquer your Discipline and Willpower
Discipline and willpower are key apptitudes to succeed on the journey of muscle building. Look at all bodybuilders. If there's something in common among them, it's the huge discipline they have. Follow crazy diets for months, training hard and keeping up to get their besy physique.
Discipline
If motivation is the 'contact key' of your vehicle, discipline is the fuel. It determines how far you'll be able to go.
Discipline keeps you on track. It keeps your vehicle up and running. And, as every other apptitude, can be trained. If you are able to control and own discipline, you'll be less succeptible to easy distractions.
Nothing will stop you from going to the gym and keeping up with the diet. And that, on the long term, is the key of success. One of the golden rules of muscle building.
Willpower
Willpower and discipline go hand by hand. When you train your discipline, you are automatically working in your willpower, and vice versa.
Acquiring and conquering willpower will keep you on track when the scariest storm is over you. If you conquer willpower, you'll be able to fo to the gym when you least feel like going. You'll be able to follow the diet when you most crave a cheatmeal. And again, that is the key of the long term sucess. One of the golden rules of muscle building.
Conclusion
Muscle building and body composition is affected and determined by a wide variety of factors. But if you accomplish the basis (sleep, nutrition, training), you have 90% of the process.
In this post, we've talked about the 5 Golden Rules of Muscle Building. Five key aspects and apptitudes that will take you to your goals. If you own and conquer each of these five aspects, you'll be more than ready to start the journey.
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