Last week we talked about the 3 things you need to have in place to build muscle:

But that’s all more background foundational stuff.

Telling someone they need to get a good level of progressive overload in their workouts is true, but not very helpful.

That’s why part 2 is the top 7 tips I’ve learned from 12 years of training both myself and others to gain muscle.

These are meant to be the kind of things you can think about and work on during pretty much any workout.

1) Intensity > everything

Finding the right intensity for your lifts is hard when you’re starting out, but it doesn’t have to be.

You build muscle by first tearing your existing muscles down. To do this, you have to get to a point where the concentric part of the movement is a struggle.

Think of a Barbell Back Squat.

The concentric part of the movement can be thought of as the hardest part of the movement - where we generate enough force to lift the weight.

So in this case, it’s when you’re standing up out of the squat.

You want to get to a point where that last rep is challenging - you should feel your muscles firing and burning when you’re doing that last rep, maybe even the last couple reps. Because that feeling is your muscles tearing apart - the very thing that causes our muscles grow.

If you’re not experiencing this - you probably need to up your weight until you do.

Note: don’t let your form fall apart. These 2 things can coexist.

2) Factor in experience level

I hear a lot of people cite Arnold’s famous 4 hour gym sessions when they’re first starting out in the gym. The logic is something like - more volume = more gains.

But this a terrible way to think about it for a few reasons:

When you're building a training plan, 1 of the key factors you want to consider is experience.

Reason being that the more experienced you are, the more stimulus it takes for you to grow.

Tons of studies have proven this, showing that a beginner improves with much more ease than an advanced athlete. Kind of like ‘beginner’s luck’.

So a beginner should do less to see similar results - not more. Keep this in mind when you’re training!

3) Focus on the Big Lifts

Every workout I do is built around 1-2 compound movements.

Compound movements are the undefeated champ when it comes to gaining muscle for a few reasons:

The more time you can spend on these, the better. Shorter workouts with more sets hitting the big lifts can be extremely effective.

4) Increase Rest Times Between Sets

When you’re trying to build muscle, take longer rest periods in your workouts - it’ll give you better results.

Here’s an excerpt from a study on it that I’ve linked below citing why.

TLDR: more rest lets you train at a higher intensity with more strength - this tears the muscle down further and stimulates growth from a more effective workout.

5) Switch up your Tempo

Truly though, this is something everyone can do and it makes a massive difference.

Slowing down the the lift and emphasizing control can make lighter weights seem heavier by increasing your time under tension and stimulating different muscle fibers.

It’s a unique training style that’s awesome for helping make you stronger and more durable. This type of training helps build your smaller stabilizer muscles.

A common way to do this is to aim for 7 total seconds if you want to give it a try:

This is especially helpful when you’re travelling 🙂

6) Partial Reps are your friend

Partial reps are when you focus on one part of the movement instead of the whole thing.

For example, a bicep curl can be done only up to a 90 degree angle to maximize time spent training the concentric movement.

Some studies have found this to be extremely powerful for hypertrophy by increasing time under tension for the part of the movement where your muscles are at their weakest.

Drop sets and sets till failure are a great way to get in some partial reps towards the end of a workout.

I need to add an important caveat here though; partial reps are best performed on machines and isolation exercises. Something like a seated chest press machine is perfect for this.

Reason being - if you try to do partial reps once you’re already exhausted on a compound movement like a squat or a deadlift, you could very easily lose control and hurt yourself. Not worth the risk unless you have a good spotter IMO.

7) There is no 1 right way - trust your body

Everyone is biologically unique. Not all movements and definitely not all machines will align perfectly with your body type.

And that is totally normal.

A lift that hits my pecs perfectly might hurt your shoulder and not do much for you.

This just comes with practice, trust yourself and how you feel! If you try a movement and it just never seems to hit your muscles right, stick with movements that do feel like they’re stimulating for you.

There’s no 1 path to climb the mountain, there are tons.

Trust yourself and listen to your body.

I’m writing this the night before - just saw Dune 2 and am SO stoked to crash so I’m gonna go do that. Rest and recover well friends, point 4 above.

Have a great week 🙂

Dane

ps: knowing where to start with all of this can feel overwhelming, it’s one of the biggest reasons I got into coaching. If you’re interested in working together to build a stronger, more confident you, let’s chat.