Brain dump of everything I know about strength training and muscle building at the moment.
- Progressive overload: Fix the number of sets you do per exercise. Progress the lift between sessions by increasing the amount of weight you do or the reps you do.
- Nutrition: 0.7-1g of complete protein per lb of body weight. Eat in a calorie excess of your daily expenditure to add muscle and recover well.
- Rest: 8hrs of sleep, don't train two days in a row (for a total of 3 training days per week).
- My favorite body builder is Mike Mentzer as he took a highly scientific approach to body building and trained only 2 hours a week, a good example of working smart instead of hard and a metaphor for life.
- Good youtubers to watch:
- Sean Nalewanyj: Debunking exercise science myths.
- Jeff Nippard: Research-based in-depth videos on a variety of topics.
- Alan Thrall: Powerlifting form videos for deadlift, squat, bench press.
- Jack Hancock: NOBODY is bulking as hard as Jack.
- Tyler Path: Shorts for exercise form.
- Clarence0: If Harry Potter went to the gym instead of Hogwarts.
- The various strength disciplines
- Powerlifting: Developing your ability to bench press, back squat, and deadlift more weight.
- Body Building: Increasing your muscle mass for aesthetics.
- Olympic Weightlifting: Developing your ability to snatch and clean and jerk more weight.
- Power Building: A combination of increasing your strength and your muscle mass.
- The correlation between strength and muscle mass
- In general, the stronger you become, the more muscle you will have developed. For beginners, whichever discipline you choose for strength/hypertrophy training will ultimately lead to both an increase in strength and muscle growth, though eventually these will diverge as one becomes advanced.
- Workout programs: There are various programs available online that will dictate how often you train, what you train on each day, and how you progressively overload. I highly recommend following a program suited to your goals.
- A great beginner program for increasing strength is StrongLifts: https://stronglifts.com/. I myself modified this program to be more of a "powerbuilding" program to build both muscle and strength.
- Workout split: Various options are available for how to divide your workouts. For example:
- Full body workouts: Every session works your entire body.
- Upper/ Lower split: Alternate between upper body workout on one day, then a lower body workout the next.
- Push Pull Leg (PPL): First workout is for push exercises, second workout is for pull exercises, third workout is for leg exercises. Repeat the cycle the next week.
- Exercise selection:
- Various programs are available, I recommend at least 1 compound exercise per workout (squat, deadlift, bench press, chest dips, pull ups) and no more than two.
- The rest of your exercises should be assistant exercises, focused on developing specific muscles (bicep curl, tricep pushdown, lat pulldown, leg extension, leg curl).
- Exercise order:
- Order your exercises from largest (compound) to smallest. Ex. on a leg day, do squats, then leg extensions and leg curls, then calf raises.
- Try not to change the order of your exercises between sessions. So if you start with squats on your leg day, make sure to start with squats on every leg day.
- Number of exercises and junk volume:
- In general, more than 6 sets per workout targetting some muscle group will be wasted "junk volume" that will not contribute to more strength or muscle growth and may even increase your recovery neeeds.
- For example, doing bench press, machine press, push ups, and chest flys all in one day will most certainly be worse than having done only two of those exercises.
- I recommend 1-2 compound lifts per workout and 3-5 assistance exercises.
- Number of sets and rep range:
- For compound lifts, try to do 5 sets of 5 reps.
- For assistant, aim for 3 sets of 8-10 reps.
- Progressive overload:
- As described above, you want to progressively increase either the weight you are lifting or the number of reps you do.
- I recommend linear progression as described in the StrongLifts Program: If you do 5 sets of squats, every set should be at some fixed weight for a fixed number of reps ex. 100lbs for 5 reps per set. Once you can do all 5 sets at 100lbs, you progress the weight to 105lbs the next workout. See the StrongLifts program for recommended linear progression rates per exercise.
- If you fail some reps on say your 4th set, don't drop the weight on the 5th set. Take a rest and then continue to do the 5th set at the same weight as the previous 4 sets. Take note of the rep counts you achieved, then on your next workout start at the same weight that you were at last time. Do not progress the weight until you can hit all 5 sets at 5 reps.
- Rest and recovery:
- To reiterate, don't train two days in a row if you can avoid it. It takes your body 24-72 hours to recover and grow from a workout of moderately high intensity and training so close to a previous session will interfere with that recovery.
- Sleep 8 hours a night. High quality sleep produces testosterone which is important for muscle growth and recovery.
- Minimize stress in your life as this will interfere with your recovery. After a workout, your body continuously pulls nutrients and energy to rebuilding and growing new muscle fibers. Any stress will disrupt that process.