You might say, “but I don’t want to grow muscle, I want to lose body fat”. I get it but you still want (and need) to grow muscle. Muscle isn’t just something that physique competitors care about, muscle = function. Our muscle is what allows us to do stuff like sports, mow the lawn, walk up stairs. Muscle also helps us burn more fat by using more energy (calories) throughout the day. More muscle is also correlated with stronger bones and a higher quality of life.

At Brentwood Barbell, we regularly work with folks that want both, more muscle and less fat. The cool part is that these goals go hand in hand. Let’s take a look at some important factors in growing new muscle.

#1: Progressive Loading

Muscle growth starts with a challenge that increases over time. As an athlete develops basic proficiency, his/her ability to create stress (i.e., lift more weight) will increase. Consequently, his/her training work (sets, reps, sessions) must also increase.

Progressive loading is a term that is used to describe this phenomenon. In short, you may begin squatting 95lbs on your first day and find yourself squatting 315lbs 9 months later. Both the 95lbs and the 315lbs workouts represent(ed) a sufficient training stimulus at the time. In other words, both workouts disrupted your homeostasis at that particular time. Progressive loading aims to continue to disrupt your homeostasis in order to drive new adaptation. Here are some important components of progressive loading:

Add weight, reps, or total volume each week.
Track your lifts, don’t guess or try to remember. Keep a log.

Progress = Muscle Growth.

#2: Sufficient Volume & Frequency

Growth happens when you do enough quality work, often enough. This is different for every lifter and it’s also different for each lifter at different times. Similar to weight on the bar, you (likely) weren’t capable of completing a ton of work when you started. Over time, your ability to create and tolerate stress increases. At the beginning, 3 sets of squats 2x per week would have likely been enough to grow muscle and strength but this workload will not be sufficient for anyone that has been training longer than 90 days. Here are some key concepts around volume and frequency:

Frequency: hit each major muscle group or lift 2–3 times per week
Volume: aim for 8–20 total sets per muscle per week is the sweet spot

Doing more than these basic recommendations will likely not result in faster or more growth (unless you’ve been training for a very long time). Instead, you’ll likely over tap your ability to recover and go the next training session.

#3: Eating to Grow

You can’t build muscle eating like a bird. Losing weight gets all the attention when it comes to nutrition but gaining weight can also be tremendously challenging. I must clarify that statement, gaining quality weight (at an appropriate rate) can also be very difficult.

Here are some basic recommendations around eating to grow:

Protein: 0.7–1g per pound of bodyweight
Calories: start with 13 calories per 1lb and work up slowly as needed. If you’re gaining weight at 13 then hold until you plateau. It’s not uncommon to take this as high as 18 calories per 1lb of body weight. For context, a 200lb male wanting to grow would start with 2,600 calories (200*13) and might go as high as 3,600 (200*18). In fact, you might go higher if needed. If your goal is to gain weight and you’re eating 18 calories per 1lb consistently and you’re not gaining, then move in the direction of 20. Do what it takes.

Note on protein – it’s likely not very useful to higher than 1g of protein per 1lb of body weight. Yes, you can but it would likely be more beneficial to allocate those calories to carbohydrate intake vs more protein. At 1g of protein per 1lb of body weight, your protein needs are more than satisfied (particularly when eating in a surplus) so I’d make sure I get in a lot of good carbohydrates. A case could be made for slightly higher protein intake during periods of fat loss but that’s a different article.

Underfed lifters stay small, even with good training.

#4: Recovery

The real growth happens between sessions. This is the part no one wants to consider. Your days off (and nights) matter. Putting in 3-4 tough workouts per week in the gym only to go home and sleep for 5 hours is like stepping over dollars to pick up dimes. It doesn’t make sense.

Sleep: 7–9 hours
Manage stress through activity and supplementation
Move, eat, and rest on off days

You don’t grow from training — you grow from recovering well.

#5: Consistency

You’re not going to like this but growing muscle is a slow process. Like slower than you think. I know transformation and 6-week skinny jeans programs are popular, but the truth is they all suck. They’re not sustainable and they are not even really that impactful.

I’m fully on board with making a lot of mental progress around healthy habits in a short period of time but the realization of those habits takes longer. Much longer. When you see someone that’s in great shape, they’ve likely been at it for a long time. You’re seeing the results of showing up day after day, week after week, month after month, and possibly year after year.

You have 2 ways to look at this reality. First, you can say it sucks and just quit. OR you can say the challenge is why you’ll be so happy you didn’t quit… much of the value comes in doing the hard thing. Setting a goal and accomplishing it is one of the single most important / healthy things a person can do. The positive feedback loop that is created is tremendous and will spill over into other areas of your life.