Stoked for this sunday coffee because today we’re covering one of my favoriteeeeee topics: The Art of Building Muscle.

Learning how to build muscle absolutely changed my life.

It helped me go from insecure and fragile to strong and confident. I eat better, sleep better, and work harder now because of everything that the process of building muscle has taught me over the past 12 years.

I’m so passionate about what it can do for you that I now coach people on how to do this AND write a weekly newsletter about it.

Here’s a bit about how I got into it. From there, we’ll cover why you should want to build muscle, and the foundations you need to lay to do it.

Onward.

I grew up a really skinny kid.

As a competitive swimmer from age 7-13, it was hard for me to keep any weight on my body.

During high school, I would bring giant gallon sized bags of homemade trail mix with me to school and eat them during almost every period in an effort to gain weight.

Nuts are high in fat and contain a lot of calories, plus it was easy for me to eat during class, so I saw it as an easy win.

And I wasn’t wrong, it did work - I gained about 10 lbs, but I still only got up to about 180. Damn you skinny frame!

Then, when I got into college and stopped playing football, I decided to try my luck at the ultimate muscle building sport: bodybuilding.

4 years of hard work later - I had gone from 180 pounds to a 225 pound machine.

What changed?

I learned the science behind how we build muscle - and I started to experiment with putting it into action.

My approach was no longer random, it was intentional and focused. Every workout I did and every meal I ate served a greater purpose.

No more giant bags of trail mix to gain weight at all costs - I graduated to more meat, fruit, and potatoes.

Now trust me, I know not everyone wants to look like Arnold, to which he would famously reply…

But EVERYONE should want to build a solid foundation of muscle.

Adding muscle to your frame…

And does a ton of other awesome things for you.

This entire post could be about the benefits of building muscle, but I imagine you’re reading this because you’re already aware of them and want to know more about how to build muscle yourself.

So let’s get into it.

To build muscle, you need 3 things:

Let’s break these down so you can be sure you’re putting this into practice.

1) Progressive Overload

Progressive overload involves gradually increasing the demands placed on your muscles over time.

Think about yourself like a video game character starting at level 1. You have to challenge yourself to improve in the game and level up. As you improve, the things you do have to get more difficult, much like building muscle.

You can do this in a couple of ways:

One of you reached out to me a few weeks back asking if it’s possible to gain muscle without lifting weights, and the answer is yes, but it’s much harder.

Resistance training makes progressive overload easy to do and easy to keep track of - which is why I’m such a big advocate for weight lifting at least 2-3x per week.

2) Proper Exercise Selection

Choosing the right exercises, with the right amount of volume and intensity, is crucial for building muscle.

Different rep ranges also have different effects on the body.

Generally speaking:

For the purpose of building muscle, most experts generally recommend that you stick in this middle range, with between 3-4 sets of 8-12 reps per exercise.

As far as the exercises themselves go, compound movements such as squats, deadlifts, and bench presses, are great because they engage multiple muscle groups simultaneously, making them very effective for muscle building.

Larger movements like these also spike natural Testosterone and HGH levels, crucial hormones for muscular growth.

That said, incorporating isolation exercises that target individual muscles allows for balanced development and improved definition, especially in weaker muscle groups. A good example of this is a bicep curl.

3) Proper Fuel (food, hydration, and recovery)

This is arguably the most important piece of your foundation.

Recovery is where muscle growth actually happens, and without proper fuel, your body won’t be able to build muscle no matter how hard you train. You need to make sure your body has the nutrients it needs for growth and repair.

Eating enough protein is particularly important, as it supplies you with the building blocks (amino acids) necessary for muscle synthesis.

Studies have found that around 0.8 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight is usually enough for this.

I won’t harp on hydration too much because it’s pretty well known that if you’re not hydrating well, your body starts to fall apart.

You need both electrolytes and water to be adequately hydrated though, so make sure you’re eating enough salt! How much is enough? Honestly I would just salt most of your meals, measuring salt feels excessive to me. If you do want to read more on it though, I’ll put an article in the resources section.

Ensuring sufficient rest and recovery are essential for optimizing muscle growth. Adequate sleep, proper hydration, and sufficient rest (both during and after your workouts) will allow your muscles to recover and adapt to the stress of training, helping you gain both strength and size.

If you can do all 3 of these things, you’ll be looking and feeling stronger in no time.

This week we covered the reasons you should want to build muscle, and what foundations you need to have in place to make sure that your body can. It was a high-level breakdown of what you should be focusing on.

Next week we’ll talk all about some of the more advanced concepts around this.

Things like:

and a whole lot more. Like I said, I could go on about this for days.

Thanks for reading, and have a great rest of your Sunday 🙂

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.