How to build muscle

Building muscle will make you physically stronger and fitter, as well as making you look and feel better.

Building muscle isn’t easy, but the process is relatively straight forward.

In this guide I’m going to provide a complete breakdown of how to build muscle that anybody can follow.

No matter your age, sex, weight or prior experience, I will lay out every step you need to take in order to build a more muscular physique, as quickly as possible.

Before I dive in, here’s a quick breakdown of what I’ll cover…

 

Guide contents

1) How muscles grow – You need to have a basic understanding of this if you want to build muscle

2) Overview – A brief summary of the muscle building process

3) Exercise – What exercises you need to do, and how often in order to build muscle

4) Diet – What food you need to eat to fuel muscle growth

 

 

How do muscles grow?

If you want to build muscle, then it’s important that you have some understanding of how and why muscle’s grow.

You don’t need to be a scientific expert on the topic (I’m not) but it really helps you to focus your efforts when you understand the reasoning behind the exercises you’re doing, and the food that you’re eating.

So, I’ll try to keep this section brief, but will link out to some detailed sources if you want to read any further on the subject.

This video from Ted-Ed provides the best short explanation I could find online, but I’ll break it down further below.

 

1. When muscles exert large amounts of force, they tear: This means that when you work your muscles hard (by lifting a heavy object for example) lots of microscopic tears appear within them.
2. The body’s immune system repairs the damaged muscle cells: The body repairs the muscles by adding new cells to the tears – this is called Hypertrophy.
3. Muscles grow: Each time this happens, the body adds a little more tissue than what was there previously, in order to prepare the muscles to handle that amount of force in the future.

 

So, that’s it – when muscles are put under pressure – they tear – the body repairs the muscles, and they grow bigger.

As you can see, the process of building muscle is fairly easy to comprehend.

 

Overview of how to build muscle

In order to build muscle, you simply need to repeat the above process, over and over again.

Tear the muscles by putting them under lots of pressure (normally by lifting heavy objects)

And then repair and grow by resting and fuelling the body.

Tear, repair.

Tear, repair

Tear repair.

You get the picture.

 

So, how do you do this in the real world?

With 3 things..

Exercise, diet and rest.

 

The exercise required to put your muscles under great enough pressure to tear, is strength training, most effectively done through lift heavy weights (AKA weightlifting).

In order to fuel the growth of your muscles, you need to provide your body with a healthy and generous diet.

You will also need to rest your muscles adequately between workouts, to give them time to repair and grow.

 

How long does it take to build muscle?

To build a noticeably bigger physique will normally take at least 3 months, but results will vary hugely depending on multiple factors including genetics, training ability, diet and more.

Some people may start to see results as early as 4 weeks into starting a programme, but generally speaking, building muscle is a long-term game, often taking many months or even years to see impressive muscular gains.

So, another few things that you’ll need are dedication, consistency and self-motivation, because building muscle requires consistent hard work over long periods of time… It’s not easy.

 

 

Exercises for building muscle

So, we now know that we need to do regular heavy lifting exercises in order to damage our muscles enough to stimulate growth.

But what’s the best way to do this?

In this section I’m going to break down how best to train your muscles for maximum growth results.

And by the way, I’m not a pro bodybuilder – I’m just somebody who has done a lot of training over the years and managed to pack on a stone or two of muscle over the years. I’m also not an advocate of steroids, so all my training advice is based on non-drug-assisted training that is realistic for the average man or woman looking to bulk up.

This is what I’m going to cover;

• What type of exercise to do
• What muscle groups to target
• What equipment to use
• Typical muscle building exercises
• Structuring your workouts and routine
• How often to exercise
• Some typical bodybuilding weekly routines

 

What type of exercise builds muscle?

In order to provide enough stimulus to your muscles and make them grow, you need hit them with regular short intense bouts of tension. The most efficient way to do this is by lifting weights, and this is the training method used by pretty much every modern bodybuilder or muscular person you see.

You can achieve some degree of muscle gain with bodyweight exercises (like press ups) but to really challenge your muscles and have total control over the amount of weight you are lifting, you need to lift weights.

 

What muscle groups to target

Before we start looking at exercises, it’s important to have a basic understanding of the body’s muscle structure, and what muscles you will be training and building.

 

This video below is a bit cheesy, but it gives a good explanation of the major muscles and muscle groups, and what body movements they perform.

Some of these are made up of more than one muscle, or components, but you don’t need to worry about them until you become a more advanced weight lifter.

 

Here is a breakdown of those muscles;

Starting with the upper body:

• Chest -The chest muscles’ main function is to pull the arms across the front of the body and assist with things like pushing a door open or pushing a heavy object over.
• Triceps – The triceps run from the shoulder to the elbow and their function is to take the arm from bent to straightened, so they also assist with pushing – but they can also push down as well as forward.
• Shoulders – The shoulder muscle is responsible for rotating the arm at socket level, and raising the arm above head height – it comes into action when lifting an object over your head, or swinging a straight arm from the side of your body to shoulder height.
• Biceps – The bicep sits on the opposite side of the arm to the tricep, and therefore provides the opposite function – it bends the elbow, bring the hand to the shoulder and assists in pulling objects e.g. pulling a door open.
• Upper back – The upper back consists of many muscles with varying functions, but their main purpose is to pull the shoulder blades back – they are the driving force for pulling motions such as pulling your body up when climbing over a wall, or pulling a rope in a tug-of-war.
• Lower back – Lower back muscles keep our torsos upright and support our posture, they are also responsible for twisting the body and flexing the back. They play an important role in overall body support and are crucial for picking up objects from the floor.
• Abdominals – The abdominal muscles (or abs as they are known) are another muscle group which support the trunk of the body, and are responsible for tilting the pelvis and flexing the spine. Collectively the abdominals and lower back muscles are known as the “core”.

And then the lower body, or legs..

• Hamstrings – The hamstring sits at the back of our legs between our bottom and knee joint – it’s main functions are to bend the knee, bring the heel to the bottom, and to lever the hip upwards e.g. when standing up from sitting or leaning over.
• Quadriceps – The quads are the muscles on the front of our upper legs, and perform the reverse functions of the hamstrings – straightening the leg and moving the heel away from the bottom. The quads are mainly responsible for pushing leg motions such as jumping up into the air or standing up from a squatted position.
• Calves – Calf muscles sit behind the shin and their main function is to rotate the ankle and move the foot up and down, so they are used to push yourself on to tip-toes for example.

 

What equipment to use for building muscle

Before I start talking you through some key bodybuilding exercises, I need to quickly run through some of the main equipment used.

Mainly because I’m going to be mentioning them a lot in the exercise section, so you’ll need to know what equipment I’m referring to.

 

Dumbbells

Dumbbells are probably the most widely used piece of equipment in the pursuit of muscle growth.

A pair of dumbbells consist of 2 small metal poles, with 2 equal weights on either end of each.

 

Adjustable weight dumbbells

If you’re buying a pair of home dumbbells, it’s best to opt for adjustable dumbbells, which come with numerous weight plates which you can add and remove to the poles. This allows you to easily create a wide range of weights to work with.

 

Fixed weight dumbbells

In most commercial gyms you will find racks containing many pairs of fixed weight dumbbells, each incrementally different to the next. For example a rack will contain a pair of 8kg, 10kg, 12kg, 14kg, 16kg dumbbells and so on.

Dumbbells are gripped in the middle and can be used to train every muscle in the body – due to their massive versatility in terms of the exercises you can do with them, and the weight you can load them with, they are in essential piece of bodybuilding equipment.

 

Barbell

A barbell is a single long bar (usually around 6ft to 7ft long) that allows for weight plates to be attached to each end, and secured on with clips.

The bar is gripped with 2 hands in between the weights and lifted – the amount of weight being lifted is adjustable by adding different combinations of weight plates to the bar.

This is another staple piece of weight lifting equipment and can be used to train every muscle in the body.

 

Weights bench

A weights bench is simple padded bench that you can lie, sit or lean on when performing exercises.

They have an adjustable element which allows you to vary the angle at which you lie or sit on them.

The main benefit of a bench is that it allows you to get a huge range of angles to position yourself in, and lift weights from– meaning that you can work lot of different muscle groups from the same piece of equipment.

For example…

You can lie on your back on a flat bench and push weights up to work the chest.

You sit up on the bench with the bench upright and lift weights up to achieve a totally different angle and work the shoulders

And a bench allows you to get a full range of motion in many exercises. For example if you were to lie on the floor and pull your elbows back across your chest, the furthest they will reach is level to you body as your elbows will be blocked from going any further by the floor. However, on a bench, your body is elevated from the floor, so you can pull your elbows back beyond your body and get wider range of motion. This is important because when your training your muscles, it’s important to work them through a full range of motion.

Pro tip: If you want an effective home workout setup for weight training, a pair of adjustable dumbbells and a basic bench is really all you need, especially if you’re just starting out. It will allow you to perform all of the core bodybuilding exercises and work every muscle in the body.

 

Cable tower

Cable towers are tall vertical frames with a cable that attaches to adjustable weights at the bottom, runs up to the top, over a pulley, and then down towards the floor, with varying form of handle at the other end.

Essentially what this does, is reverse the effects of gravity on the weights.

So instead of needing force to move a weight from the floor upwards, you require force to hold the handle and push it down towards the floor (because this in turn, lifts the weights at the other end of the cable)

Cables allow to work muscles from a whole new range of angles – especially from a standing position.

 

Pull up bar

A pull up bar is a bar that you hang from vertically and pull yourself up – can be freestanding or screwed on to a wall or door.

 

Squat rack

A rack designed specifically to hold a heavily loaded barbell at shoulder level for squatting exercises – which I will cover in more detail shortly.

 

Those are what I would call your core pieces of equipment for weight lifting, but there are scores more out there for more advanced bodybuilders, and of course in gyms there are lots of different weights machines which target one specific muscle, like shoulder press machines, or chest press machines.

But as I mentioned, if you want to keep things simple; dumbbells and a bench will be enough to pack on plenty of muscle – especially if you’re just starting out.

 

 

Typical muscle building exercises

Now that you understand what muscle groups to target and the best equipment to use, let’s start looking at some essential bodybuilding exercise that you’ll need to perform if you want to build muscle.

Bodybuilding exercises all involve moving a weight back and forth through a range of motion repeatedly. This relaxes and contracts the muscles being worked and creates that damage needed to spark repair and growth.

All exercises are broadly categorised into 2 types; Compound and isolation

 

• Compound lifts engage multiple muscles and joints in one movement
• Isolation lifts target and engage only one muscle group and use single joint in a movement

 

There are hundreds of different bodybuilding exercises out there – I’m just going to cover some core ones for each muscle group here,

 

Barbell bench press

Probably the most well-known and popular muscle building exercise of all time, the bench press involves lying flat on your back on a bench, facing upwards – gripping the barbell with two hands in front of your chest, extending your arms out to push the bar away from you, and lowering it to your chest.

• Exercise type: Compound
• Muscles targeted: Primary = Chest. Secondary = Triceps
• Equipment used: Bench + barbell

 

Barbell shoulder press

In a standing position; hold a barbell across the top of your chest whit two hands – extend your arms upwards above your head until almost locked out – then lower the bar back down to your chest.

• Exercise type: Compound
• Muscles targeted: Primary = Shoulders. Secondary = triceps
• Equipment used: Barbell

 

Standing dumbbell curls

Standing with your arms straight down your sides, holding a dumbbell in each hand at around thigh level – bend your elbows and bring the dumbbell to your shoulder – then lower back to the thigh, without engaging your shoulders or lower back

• Exercise type: Isolation
• Muscles targeted: Biceps
• Equipment used: Dumbbells

 

Overhead dumbbell triceps extension

Standing with a single dumbbell gripped with both hands behind your head, elbows bent – extend the arms to bring the dumbbell above your head, and lower back.

• Exercise type: Isolation
• Muscles targeted: Triceps
• Equipment used: 1 Dumbbell

 

Triceps push down

Standing in front of a cable tower, grip the cable extension (could be a bar or rope most commonly) with two hands, your elbows tucked into your body and elbows bent so that your hands are close to your face. Push the bar down by extending your arm fully and being sure to keep your elbows tucked in, then bring the grip back to face level.

• Exercise type: Isolation
• Muscles targeted: Triceps
• Equipment used: Cable tower

 

Bent over barbell row

Standing with your feet shoulder width apart and knees slightly bent, tilt your upper body forward from the hip so that your body is close to being parallel with the floor. Holding a barbell with two hands, with you arms hanging down fully extended towards the floor, pull the bar up into your chest and then lower back down.

• Exercise type: Compound
• Muscles targeted: Primary= Upper back. Secondary = Biceps
• Equipment used: Barbell

 

Deadlift

Known as the king of lifts, the deadlift is the exercise is essentially the art of picking a barbell up from the floor. You stand close to the bar, bend down and grip with both hands then hoist the bar up from the floor, being sure to keep your back straight throughout the lift – then lower to the floor

• Exercise type: Compound
• Muscles targeted: Primary = Lower back + Hamstrings. Secondary = Upper back + biceps + calves
• Equipment used: Barbell

 

Squat

Resting a barbell across the top of your back/shoulders and standing up straight – bend your knees until your thighs are around parallel to the floor, being sure to keep your back straight – then extend your legs back up to a standing position, pushing the weight back up

• Exercise type: Compound
• Muscles targeted: Primary = Quadriceps. Secondary = Hamstrings + Lower back
• Equipment used: Barbell + Squat rack

 

Pull ups

Grip a pull up bar with both hands, hanging from it with your full weight and feet raised off the floor. Pull your body up by retracting your shoulder blades and bending your elbows until your chest almost reaches the bar – then lower yourself back down

• Exercise type: Compound
• Muscles targeted: Primary = Upper back. Secondary = Biceps
• Equipment used: Pull up bar

 

That’s a quick summary of some the main bodybuilding exercises, but each of those can be varied by doing things like; changing the width of your grip on a bar, sitting or standing, and varying equipment – so there are probably well over 100 different exercises you could do. This big database of exercises on Bodybuilding.com provides a full database of all of them.

With all of these exercises, proper form and full control of the weight are crucial if you want to stay injury-free and work the muscles effectively.

 

How heavy should you lift?

This is a hotly debated topic amongst weight lifters, but most people agree that you need to lift heavy if you want to stimulate muscle growth.

The weight you lift in an exercise should be heavy enough that you struggle to repeat the lift 6-10 times.

The amount of time you can perform a lift is called a repetition (or rep for short)

If you can do over 12 reps of an exercise with a certain weight, then the muscles will not be put under enough stress to create the kind of tears that start the growth process.

If you can’t perform 6 reps with a weight, then it will probably be too heavy to keep your form correct consistently.

 

 

Structuring your workouts and weekly routine (splits)

Building muscle requires consistent effort over months and years, but it also requires a structured plan to ensure that you;

• Train each muscle group regularly for continual growth stimulation
• Provide enough rest time between workouts to give the muscles time to grow
• Structure each workout in a way that provides optimal growth stimulation to the muscles being trained

 

Planning your workout programme

The first thing you need to determine is how many times per week you will train, and which days you will train each muscle group.

The way you arrange your workouts throughout the week like this, is known as a split.

For most beginner-to-intermediate weight lifters, the split you choose won’t matter too much, as long as you’re hitting each muscle group at least once a week.

You also need to give each muscle group time to repair between workouts, otherwise the muscles will not grow.

For example, if you trained chest really hard 7 days a week without any rest days in between, your chest would not grow, because you are constantly tearing the muscle, but giving it no time to repair.

And ideally you should give yourself a day or two in the week where you do not work out all, to give your body some overall rest.

It’s important to understand that the volume of your training (the amount of training you do on each muscle group) does not differ with these splits – they simply all divide the same volume of training differently throughout the week.

So, it’s all the same amount of work, just combined differently.

Here are some common and effective splits.

 

Push/Pull/Legs split

This split involves dividing your training sessions to train your pushing muscles on one day, your pulling muscles on another, and then your legs on the third.

A typical push/pull/legs split would look like this..

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Chest Triceps Shoulders	REST	Back Biceps	REST	Legs	REST	REST

 

One muscle group per day (Bro split)

Working one muscle group per day with one or two days rest thrown in, like the example below.

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Chest	Biceps	Triceps	Back	Legs	REST	REST

 

Full body split

The full body split involves working every muscle group in a single workout session, multiple times throughout the week

As mentioned above, the amount of training you do, does not increase – you will simply work each muscle less in each workout, but more frequently throughout the work – meaning the total workout volume remains the same.

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Chest Triceps Biceps Back Legs	REST	Chest Triceps Biceps Back Legs	REST	Chest Triceps Biceps Back Legs	REST	Chest Triceps Biceps Back Legs

 

You’ll notice that I have not included in abdominals in these splits, that’s because you’re not really trying to grow the ab muscles, but just make them stronger – so you’ll want to include some abs exercises within every workout.

There are more splits out there, and you can even design your own as you become more experienced – but this gives you a general idea of how to structure your weekly workout.

You could try a certain split for at least 6 weeks, check your progress by measuring your muscles and weight. Then you could choose to continue it, make some tweaks to it, or completely change it.

 

Structuring your workouts

Once you have decided on a weekly split, you need to plan which exercises you are going to do within them, and how many sets and reps of each one.

But first, let me explain what reps and sets are…

Reps are simply an abbreviation of repetition. Which is one complete movement of a lift/exercise. So, if you were doing a bench press, one full rep would be lowering the bar to your chest, and then pushing it back up to the top.

Sets are comprised of multiple reps, without any breaks in between. So, if you did 10 reps of bench press, put the bar back in the rack and then stopped and sat up – you did 1 set consisting of 10 reps.

Here is break down of 3 sets of 8 reps, for bicep curls;

Exercise	Set 1	Set 2	Set 3
Bicep curls	Repetitions/Reps 8	Repetitions/Reps 8	Repetitions/Reps 8

You should rest for 30 seconds to 2 minutes between each set to allow the muscles to recover enough to start the next set.

 

How long should you workout for?

Each workout you do should be around 45min – 1hr – 30min because you want to keep them short and intense to promote muscle growth. You will not be able to lift heavy weights for much longer time-periods, and the workout will become more of a fitness and endurance workout, as opposed to a muscle building one.

 

Example workout structures

To show you how this works in practice, let’s take a look at some typical workout structures.

 

Example 1 – Push workout

If you remember from the above split examples, a push day workout needs to train all of your push muscles (chest, triceps, shoulders) and it needs to train them really hard, because you won’t be hitting them again until next week.

So, a typical push workout could like this.

• Bench press (4 sets of 8 reps)
• Overhead triceps extension (3 sets of 8 reps)
• Shoulder press (4 sets of 8 reps)
• Chest flyes (3 sets of 8 reps)
• Triceps pull down (4 sets of 8 reps)

 

Example 2 – Full body workout

When doing a full body workout, you will be hitting each muscle group multiple times throughout the week, so you won’t be able to hit each muscle with as much volume per session.

A typical full body workout would look like this.

• Squats (3 sets of 8 reps)
• Bench press (3 sets of 8 reps)
• Shoulder press (3 sets of 8 reps)
• Bicep curls (3 sets of 8 reps)
• Bent over barbell row (3 sets of 8 reps)
• Overhead triceps extension (3 sets of 8 reps)

 

 

Full workout programme example

Once you decide on a split and which exercises you are doing within each workout, you can start to build a fully mapped out workout programme like this one.

 

Monday Chest Triceps Shoulders	Tuesday REST	Wednesday Back Biceps	Thursday REST	Friday Legs	Saturday REST	Sunday REST
Bench press   Overhead triceps extension   Shoulder press   Chest flyes   Triceps pull down		Bent over barbell rows   Bicep curls   Pull ups   Deadlifts   Bent over dumbbell rows		Squats   Lunges   Romanian deadlift   Calf raises

 

Progressing your workouts

To ensure that the muscles grow, you need to continually make them work harder every time you work them – this is known as progressive overload.

You do this by increasing the amount of weight you lift with an exercise every week, or increasing the number of reps per set – whilst keeping in the 6-12 rep range.

Without being put under increasingly difficult pressure over weeks and months, the muscle are not challenged and will not grow.

 

Summary of muscle building exercise

That brings me to the end of the exercise portion of this guide – here’s a quick summary to recap

• Work all muscle groups frequently throughout the week, consistently over many months
• Lift heavy weights and keep your rep range between 6-12
• Pick a split, plan each workout and give yourself rest before working the same muscle group again
• Progressively overload the muscles by increasing the weight you lift, or the amount of reps you do in each set

 

Diet – What food do you need to eat to build muscle

Even if you find the most optimal workout programme for your body and work out consistently for months, you will not build much muscle if you don’t have the right diet.

Essentially you need to fuel the body with enough of the right nutrition to fuel it’s growth.

For most people this will mean;

• Increasing the amount of food you eat
• Eating more frequently throughout the day
• Controlling what you eat

 

Increasing your calories

Calories are essentially a means of measuring the amount of energy in food. The more calories in a food, the more energy it contains.

Building muscle require LOTS of energy.

Firstly, the body uses energy in the muscle building process.

Secondly, you need plenty of energy to get you through those tough workouts.

So, if you have a fairly normal diet (eating 3 meals per day) and are an average weight for your height, then you will need to up your calorie consumption by about 10-20% to provide your body with the energy it needs for muscle growth.

For example, if you normally consume 2,000 calories per day, you’ll need to increase that to 2,200 – 2,400 if you want to build muscle.

 

Managing protein, carbohydrates and fats

Now increasing your calories isn’t as simple as eating massive takeaways and loads of cakes and chocolate.

You need a healthy diet with the right balance of protein, carbohydrates and fats.

 

Protein

Proteins are like the building blocks of body tissue (including muscle) so you need to supply your body with regular protein to repair those muscle tears and grow them.

Protein is found in:

• Lean meats like chicken, turkey, beef
• Fish
• Eggs
• Nuts

Ideally protein should account for around 30-35% of your daily food consumption.

 

Carbohydrates

Carbs are the body’s primary fuel source. So, if you think of the protein as the building blocks of muscles, the carbohydrates provide the energy to transport them to the muscles and bind them.

They are also the main source of energy that the body will use to power you through those grueling workouts.

Carbs are found in:

• Bread and rice
• Potatoes and sweet potatoes
• Bananas, apples oranges

Ideally carbs should account for around 55-60% of your daily food consumption.

 

Fats

Although fats are often frowned upon in the media, they are actually an essential part of balanced diet.

Fats are another dense energy source and help with a number of bodily functions, such as transmission of vitamins.

Fat consumption should be kept relatively low, but is still required to bulk up.

Focus on consuming a small amount of unsaturated fats that can be found in:

• Oily fish
• Avocado
• Seeds
• Olive oil

But avoid or severely limit saturated fatty foods like:

• Butter
• Fatty cuts of meat
• Sausages
• Cheese

15-20% of your diet should be made up of fats.

 

Vitamins and minerals

You also need to consume plenty of vitamins and minerals, which means that lots of your carbs should be coming from fruit and vegetable sources.

Eat lots of them, and a wide variety of colours to ensure you are getting a good mix of vitamins.

 

Water

A large portion of our body is made from water and it’s required to keep your body in good working order – try to drink 2 litres a day.

 

How often should you eat?

Ideally you should break your eating down into 6 meals per day, eaten every 3-4 hours

There are 2 reasons for doing this

1. Breaking the meals down to 6 small meals (as opposed to 2 or 3 large meals) will be much easier to maintain when you are upping your calories. If you were to eat a third of those calories in one meal for example, the meal would be huge, making it very unpleasant to finish, and leaving you very sluggish afterwards. Eating little and often makes it easier to maintain the diet.
2. To bulk up, your body needs to remain in an “anabolic” state – which essentially means a state where the body is building muscle. It can only do this with a constant supply of protein and energy. If you don’t eat regularly enough, you leave the body without the resources it needs to run efficiently – and when this happens, the body turns to it’s own muscle tissue as it’s secondary fuel source, depleting your hard earned muscle gains. So it’s vital to keep topping up the body’s fuel to remain in a muscle building state.

 

Do you need protein powders?

If you’ve been researching bodybuilding at all, you will have no doubt become aware of protein powder or protein shakes.

Essentially, they are powders which are made from processed milk, in order to create an extremely high concentration of protein in a small volume.

For example, you could get roughly the same amount of protein from one small scoop of protein powder as you could from a chicken breast.

You mix them with water, juice or milk to make them easily digestible – and nobody wants to eat dry powder of course 🙂

And another added benefit of the whey protein that most of these powders contain, is that they are absorbed into the bloodstream very quickly.

But do you need them?

Technically no, you can get enough protein from eating whole foods, and you’ll get a better range of nutrients from doing so too.

However, protein shakes are extremely convenient, when you’re trying to work six meals a day into your busy life. It’s much quicker and easier to make and consume a protein shake with a piece of fruit, than it is to whip up some chicken, pasta and vegetables.

So, whilst you could technically build muscle without drinking protein shakes – most of us just don’t have the time to prepare and eat 6 whole food meals every day. So having a good whey protein powder on hand will make it much easier to squeeze in those extra meals whilst on the move or busy.

There are other supplements that can assist with speeding muscle growth, such as creatine, pre-workout and protein bars, but they aren’t really necessary for beginners.

 

A typical meal plan

To hit all of these dietary targets, here’s an example day plan you could follow.

7:00am Breakfast	·       2 slices of wholemeal toast ·       3 pre-cooked chicken slices ·       3 poached eggs ·       Avocado
10:00am Morning snack	·       Protein shake ·       Banana
1:00pm Lunch	·       Chicken breast ·       Brown rice ·       Broccoli
4.00pm Afternoon snack	·       Small bowl of mixed nuts & seeds ·       Piece of fruit
7.00pm Dinner	·       Salmon fillet ·       Sweet potato ·       Kale
10.00pm Before bed snack	·       Cottage cheese ·       Blueberries

 

There are thousands of combinations you could experiment with of course, so find an eating plan that works for you in terms of convenience and taste.

 

How to build muscle – summary

If you’ve got this far into the guide well done!

Building muscle is mammoth subject but hopefully you’ll understand the basic principles now.

• Train the muscles hard and frequently
• Eat a lot of healthy balanced food
• Stick at it for a long time and be patient

Gaining noticeable size requires months, if not years, of hard work, dedication and constant learning.

My advice would be to be patient, read and watch as much advice as you can… and enjoy it!

Feel free to drop any questions below