Thread by @Rob_NBF

5 things I wish I'd known about building muscle when I started 7 years ago...

thread 👇

#1

The weight doesn't matter as much as you think for building muscle. What matters is that you make your muscles work to (or close to) failure.

This study by the very reputable @BradSchoenfeld found strong evidence that sets up to 35 reps were equally useful for building muscle vs. sets of 8-12 reps.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25853914/

If I'd known this when starting out, I could have used lower loads and used much better form, avoiding many injuries and CNS burnout from constant heavy lifting and one rep max attempts.

#2

Less is more.

20 sets of chest on "chest day" isn't necessarily better than 10, or 5 sets.

This study found that 4-6 sets to failure made no significant difference to hypertrophy when compared with 2-3 sets to failure.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20300012/

If I'd known this when starting out, I could have saved myself a lot of wasted time doing endless sets for the same muscle groups.

I could have also avoided a lot of shoulder pain that came from doing A LOT of sets of heavy pushing exercises - extra sets that were adding nothing

I also could have probably made much better progress as all that extra work was likely lengthening my recovery.

This study found that on average, recovery was increased from 72 hours to 96 hours, when sets to failure were increased from 3 to 7.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12741861/

#3

More workouts are not better. Fewer may actually be better.

You need to recover from your workouts. The muscle is built during the recovery, not during the training session.

Reintroducing more stress (training) while you're still recovering is messing with the process of adaptation (building muscle) that is still going on.

Think about it. Other stuff works like this too.

The adaptation to the sun is a tan. Too much sun will burn you. Does reintroducing the sun while you're still burnt help your tan to develop?

No, you're just further damaging the skin that is still trying to recover.

Most studies show that when training near failure with 3 sets, it takes around 3 or 4 days to recover, which equates to training each muscle group 1.5 -2x per week.

Combining this with the previous information, it would make more sense to split the work you do in one session (e.g. a chest day) across two days, and train another muscle group at the same time - (e.g. 2 upper body days).

#4

Gaining weight fast isn't a good thing when you're trying to gain muscle.

You shouldn't listen to the people that say "you've got to eat big to get big".

There is a limit to how fast you can gain muscle, and eating more and more calories doesn't speed it up at all.

Those extra calories (beyond what you actually need) will just be stored as fat.

You can gain maybe 2lbs of muscle in a month IF you're doing everything right. Almost everyone won't manage this and should be happy with 1 lb.

But IF you're one of those people who manage to train optimally, recover optimally, eat optimally AND have perfect genetics, then you can gain 2lbs of PURE muscle in a month (not 2 lbs of weight).

To do this you'd only need about a 250 calorie surplus per day.

And that brings me on to number 5.

#5 - It's going to take a really long time to gain a significant amount of muscle.

We've already covered how you'll be really lucky to gain 2 lbs of muscle per month and most people will do well to gain 1 lb per month.

"Oh but I gained 30 lbs my first year of training!"

Yeah, that's not all muscle bro.

If you want 30 lbs of muscle gain and you're not one of the genetic lottery winners who also do everything perfectly, you've probably got to gain a pound a month for 30 months.

BUT you won't ONLY gain muscle. You might become too fat in the process (especially if you enjoy bulking a bit too much) and have to spend some of that time losing fat and therefore gaining little to no muscle while you do this.

Add to this the fact that you will gain less and less muscle the more experienced you get.

With every year of proper resistance training experience that you rack up, the amount of muscle you're able to gain reduces by about half.

It's going to take a long time to get near your genetic potential for muscle, and most people will never get there.

Having said all that, you can still build a lot of muscle and achieve a fantastic physique that looks far better than the average person.

You just need to steer clear of lots of common mistakes, and apply several key principles.

I'm updating my successful ebook "Simply Build Muscle" with the latest information, revisions to the principles, new programs and how to apply the minimum highly effective dose - so you can optimise the amount of time you spend doing this.

It re-launches on September 30th, but you can pre-order here and save 30% off the launch price:

learn.nothingbarredfitness.com/073dbcb9-0c54-…

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