best workout for muscle gain/Gain Muscle Naturally

 Step #1: Understand What Builds Muscle

Believe it or not, there are only two major requirements that need to be in place in order for muscle mass to be built…

The Signal

The first thing you need is a weight training program that signals the muscle building process to begin. Research has shown that a well designed program will generate this “signal” via a combination of progressive tension overload (as in, getting stronger over time), metabolic stress (as in, fatiguing the muscle and getting “the pump”), and muscular damage (as in, actual damage to the muscle tissue itself).

The Supplies

Once that signal is present, you’ll then need a diet that provides your body with all of the supplies it needs to actually build new muscle tissue. These “supplies” will primarily come in the form of sufficient calories and protein.

Yeah, there’s a lot of other important stuff involved in the process (and we’re going to cover all of it here), but in the most simplistic sense, these are the only two things you truly need in order to build muscle.

Step #2: Realize That You Can’t Actually Build Muscle “Fast”

I don’t really enjoy telling people things that are going to make them unhappy… but um… here’s something that’s going to make you unhappy.

Muscle growth is an extremely slow process.

I know we all want to do it fast – myself included – but the reality is that it just doesn’t happen at a rate that any sane person would consider “fast.”

Sure, using a more effective workout routine or diet plan will work better/faster than a less effective one. However, even when you’re doing everything just right and you’ve optimized every single major and minor factor to work as quickly and effectively as possible (which I’m going to show you how to do), the simple fact is that you’re still not going to build muscle “fast.”

Here’s why…

How Fast Can Men And Women Actually Build Muscle?

Based on my own experience and that of a handful of well-respected people in this field, here’s what you can expect the realistic rates of muscle growth to be:

The True Rate Of Muscle Growth

Men: 0.5 – 2.5lbs of muscle gained per month.

Women: 0.25 – 1.25lbs of muscle gained per month.

More specifically, you can expect to end up in the upper half of these ranges ONLY if you are a beginner, younger, and/or have amazing genetics. You can expect to end up in the lower half of these ranges if you are an intermediate or advanced trainee, older, and/or have poor genetics. The average person can expect to end up somewhere in the middle. Additional details here: How Much Muscle Can You Gain?

So, tell me… do you consider this to be fast? Maybe 10-15lbs of muscle gained in a year for a man… maybe half that for a woman? I didn’t think so.

But this is the reality of it, and you may be surprised to hear that.

After all, you’ve probably seen the countless workouts, diets, supplements, programs, products and people claiming that super fast muscle growth is possible. You’ve probably also seen the click-bait headlines (“How To Build 20lbs Of Muscle In Just 6 Weeks!”) and the unbelievable transformations of supposedly “natural” people (bodybuilders, celebrities, athletes, fitness gurus on social media, etc.) that clearly prove it can happen faster than this.

But here’s the thing about all that. It’s largely (if not entirely) some combination of lies, deception, nonsense, false claims and blatant bullshit put out there to create an illusion of unrealistic muscle building results.

Why? To get your attention… and then your trust… and then your money. You know, the 3-step process the entire diet and fitness industry is built upon. This is no different.

Why Does This Matter?

Two main reasons…

So You Have Realistic Expectations

Do you know what happens when a person attempts to build muscle faster than they legitimately can? They fail, and then they wonder why it’s not working as quickly as they thought it would. From there, they’ll jump from workout to workout, diet to diet and useless supplement to useless supplement in the hopes of finally finding the missing link that will make it happen. But they’re never going to find it. They’ll just keep wasting their time, effort and money searching for something that doesn’t exist.

So You Avoid Getting Fat

I’m going to cover this in detail in a bit, but for right now, just know this: it’s VERY possible (and common) to gain weight fast in the hopes of gaining muscle fast. The problem, however, is that the majority of the “weight” a person in this scenario will end up gaining will be body fat rather than muscle mass. This is something that needs to be avoided at all costs, and I’ll show you how a little later.

With that out of the way, it’s time to start the part of this guide you came here to see.

Here now is everything you need to do to build muscle as fast as realistically possible. Let’s begin with your weight training program…

Step #3: Choose An Effective Weight Training Frequency

Weight training frequency can refer to a few different things.

For example, how many days you work out per week. Generally speaking, 3-5 workouts per week will be ideal for building muscle.

However, when talking about frequency in this context, we’re usually talking about how often you should train each muscle group per week.

The 3 most common choices are:

Once Per Week

• For example, training your back every Monday.
• Twice Per Week
• For example, training your back every Monday and Thursday.
• Three Times Per Week
• For example, training your back every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Despite what some may claim or what others may misunderstand, the truth is that ALL of these frequencies can work for muscle growth assuming everything is designed and executed properly. The real question is… which one works best?

My Recommendations

Time and time again, both research and real-world experience have shown that a higher frequency (2-3 times per week) is more effective than a lower frequency (once per week) when it comes to gaining muscle mass (or strength, for that matter). 

I know this goes against the recommendations you often see in stereotypical bodybuilding routines (i.e. the ones that involve having a single “chest day” or “arm day” or “shoulder day” once a week), but that’s just one of the many reasons why those types of routines suck for us natural, genetically-average people, and work best for steroid users with great genetics.

Which is why those of us in that first group who want to build muscle as fast as possible are going to want to hit every body part two or three times per week. Anything less will be suboptimal. Now let’s figure out how to do that.

Step #4: Choose An Intelligent Workout Split

Now that we know what training frequency is best, the next step is to choose a workout split that allows for that ideal frequency to be met.

Your workout “split” is basically the weekly layout and schedule of your weight training program. As in… you’ll train this body part on this day, that body part on that day, have a rest day on this day, and so on.

When it comes to choosing a workout split/schedule, there are five major factors that need to be taken into account:

Your Ideal Training Frequency

We just covered that a minute ago, so there’s no need to repeat it again.

Your Schedule

Most of us have lives, or jobs, or school, or family, or whatever else that puts some kind of limit on when and how often we can work out. For example, are there certain days that you are able to work out on, and certain days you aren’t? Are you able to train 5 days per week, or would 3-4 be more ideal? Choosing a split that suits your personal schedule and is as convenient for you as possible will be crucial for adherence, and without adherence, nothing is going to work.

Your Recovery

Even if you have a schedule that allows for a 5-day workout split, many people (I’d even call it the majority) simply don’t have the recovery capacity needed to make that work. This could be due to genetics, age, injury history, various lifestyle factors (sleep, stress, etc.) and more. In these cases, better results would be seen with 3-4 workouts per week instead.

Your Experience Level

Certain splits tend to be more ideal for beginners than intermediate or advanced trainees, and vice-versa. For this reason, you’re going to want to keep your experience level in mind when making this choice.

Your Preferences

And last but not least, your own personal preferences also play a role in this decision. For example, some people just happen to like or dislike certain styles of training more than others. And actually enjoying what you’re doing is another factor that’s going to play a key role in adherence.

So, as you can see, there are many factors worth taking into consideration, many of which involve your own personal needs and preferences. Having said that, let’s take a look at what tends to be best for most people…

My Recommendations

There are actually quite a few intelligent splits that I like and recommend to people looking to build muscle, and I’ve included nearly all of them in my Superior Muscle Growth program. However, if I had to pick my 3 favorites, it would definitely be these…

1. The Full Body Split

The 3-day full body split is what I most often recommend to beginners. It’s also the split I use in my own popular Beginner Weight Training Workout Routine.

It goes like this:

• Monday: Full Body Workout
• Tuesday: off
• Wednesday: Full Body Workout
• Thursday: off
• Friday: Full Body Workout
• Saturday: off
• Sunday: off

While this split can also work quite well for people who are past the beginner stage, it’s not my preferred choice for reasons I explain here: The Full Body Workout Routine. Instead, these are the splits that I recommend for intermediate and advanced trainees…

2. The Upper/Lower Split (3-Day And 4-Day Versions)

The upper/lower split is the one I use in my popular Muscle Building Workout Routine, as well as in various other workouts I’ve designed for this purpose.

The 4-day version goes like this:

• Monday: Upper Body Workout
• Tuesday: Lower Body Workout
• Wednesday: off
• Thursday: Upper Body Workout
• Friday: Lower Body Workout
• Saturday: off

Sunday: off

And the 3-day version goes like this:

Week 1

• Monday: Upper Body Workout
• Tuesday: off
• Wednesday: Lower Body Workout
• Thursday: off
• Friday: Upper Body Workout
• Saturday: off
• Sunday: off

Week 2

• Monday: Lower Body Workout
• Tuesday: off
• Wednesday: Upper Body Workout
• Thursday: off
• Friday: Lower Body Workout
• Saturday: off

Sunday: off

3. The Push/Pull/Legs Split

The push/pull/legs split is another favorite of mine, and one that I use in my popular Bodybuilding 2.0 routine. It goes like this:

Week 1

• Monday: Push (Chest, Shoulders, Triceps)
• Tuesday: Pull (Back, Biceps)
• Wednesday: off
• Thursday: Legs (Quads, Hamstrings, Calves, Abs)
• Friday: off
• Saturday: Push (Chest, Shoulders, Triceps)
• Sunday: Pull (Back, Biceps)

Week 2

• Monday: off
• Tuesday: Legs (Quads, Hamstrings, Calves, Abs)
• Wednesday: off
• Thursday: Push (Chest, Shoulders, Triceps)
• Friday: Pull (Back, Biceps)

Saturday: off

Sunday: Legs (Quads, Hamstrings, Calves, Abs)

So, depending on your experience level, these are the splits I recommend. For some additional details on choosing your ideal split, check out the following…

• The Best 3-Day Workout Splits
• 3 Day Split vs 4 Day Split vs 5 Day Split
• Full Body vs Upper/Lower vs Body Part Split
• The Best Workout Schedules
• Step #5: Choose An Optimal Amount Of Volume
• Now that your split is good to go, it’s time to design each of the workouts in that split… starting with volume.

Volume is essentially the amount of work being done. As in, how many sets, reps and/or exercises are being performed for each muscle group per workout or per week total.

When planning training volume, we want to do the largest amount of beneficial volume we can without exceeding our capacity to recover.

Basically, we want to find the sweet spot between doing too little to maximize gains, and doing too much that it hinders/prevents our progress or warrants making a suboptimal reduction to some other aspect of our program to compensate (e.g. cutting frequency back to just once per week, which we know is suboptimal for muscle growth).

My Recommendations

So, what is this optimal volume “sweet spot” for building muscle?

Based on research and real-world experience, here’s what I recommend…

For each bigger muscle group: about 60-140 total reps PER WEEK.

For each smaller muscle group: about 30-70 total reps PER WEEK.

Dividing It Up Among Your Workouts

Note that this recommendation is for total weekly volume, which means it would need to be divided up based on how many times you’re training each muscle group per week. So, for example, someone training everything twice per week would do 30-70 reps for each bigger muscle group in each of those workouts, and 15-35 reps for each smaller muscle group in each of those workouts.