Muscle mass can lead to remarkable physical transformations, increased performance, and a sense of accomplishment. However, it's vital to approach this journey with the right knowledge and techniques to avoid potential risks and dangers.
Whether you're an athlete aiming for peak performance, an individual dedicated to pushing your physical limits, or someone who values the importance of quality and results, this guide will equip you with the best ways to build muscle mass while prioritizing your well-being.
Progressive Overload: The Key to Muscle Growth
Progressive overload training is the key if you’re wondering how to gain lean muscle mass. This involves starting small and increasing the strength and intensity of workouts as you build muscle. The concept is simple: to make progress and improve your physical fitness, you must continually challenge your body by increasing the intensity of your workouts.
It also has a proven track record of success.
Some ways of utilizing progressive overload strategies include:
- Increasing the amount of weight used in strength training
- Increasing the amount of sets you do
- Increasing the frequency of exercises
Tracking Your Progress
One of the best ways to build muscle mass continuously is to track your progress by measuring your body fat percentage against your weight to calculate how much of your weight is muscle. The more your body fat percentage goes down, the more muscle you’ve gained.
As you become more skilled and refined in your exercise technique, you can also lift more weight or perform more reps with the same weight, which represents a form of progression.
Being able to lift more indicates an increase in muscle, so tracking your workouts can help you keep an eye on your progress. Write down how much you’re lifting at the start and how many reps you can do, then gradually increase your reps while continuing to note your progress.
Fueling Your Muscles With Proper Nutrition
Proper nutrition is also important when it comes to learning how to gain lean muscle mass. Make sure you have the proper tools around you to make it easy. Meal prepping is a great idea, and having a solid blender bottle on hand to mix your protein powder is one of the best ways to help build muscle mass.
Protein is essential for muscle growth and repair. Good sources of protein include lean meats (chicken, turkey, beef), fish, eggs, dairy products tofu, legumes, and protein shakes or supplements. You can also use essential amino acids to promote protein synthesis.
Using Quality Supplements
When using supplements, you need to make sure they’re of the right quality. Many supplements haven’t been thoroughly tested and don’t do your body much good in the recovery and training process, and others are filled with artificial sweeteners and flavors that can leave you craving sugar.
All of our endurance and focus supplements come with our “Zero” Promise. That means that all our supplements are free of every known banned substance in professional and Olympic sports and contain zero added flavors, colors, or sweeteners. We’ve done all of the work to ensure that our products are suitable for pro athletes.
Rest and Recovery: Critical for Success
One of the best ways to build muscle mass is not by training hard every hour of the day, but to make sure you get rest and recovery too. Products like Revitapro speed up the recovery process and ensure that your rest period is maximized.
When you engage in strength training, you create micro-tears in your muscle fibers, and it's during the recovery phase that these fibers rebuild and become stronger and more resilient. If you decide that rest and recovery aren’t important, then you haven’t done enough research on how to build lean muscle mass. Without adequate rest, the body’s natural reparative processes can’t move efficiently, leading to diminished gains and, in some cases, injury and burnout.
Rest and recovery are also essential for preventing fatigue and maintaining the quality of your workouts. As you progressively overload your muscles to stimulate growth and strength gains, they become fatigued and may not perform optimally. When you train, you should be on your a-game.
Exercise Essentials
There are also a few tips you need to remember when exercising. One of the best ways to build muscle mass is by making sure you’re educated on the proper way to exercise, rather than throwing yourself into hard training every day without making sure the techniques are correct first.
Maintaining proper form during exercises to minimize is the most critical tip, as it will reduce the risk of injury and maximize muscle engagement.
Change your workout routine every couple of months or so to prevent plateaus and keep your muscles adapting. This can involve altering exercises, rep ranges, or workout splits.
Lastly, train different muscles on different days. Aim for at least 3-4 strength training sessions per week to provide sufficient stimulus for muscle growth, and allow muscle groups to rest between sessions (i.e., training different muscle groups on different days) to promote recovery.
If you’re struggling with your workout or proper form, there are benefits to hiring a personal trainer. They will be able to work with you and figure out how you can safely and realistically reach your goals with minimal setbacks.
Optimum EFX: Your Partner in Safe Muscle Building
One of the best ways to build muscle mass is also to make sure you’re making good choices in who you work with. An unqualified trainer or a poor supplement can go a long way in setting you back, or worst case scenario, do harm to your body.
Optimum EFX has products that were developed for pro athletes but if you’re looking for how to gain lean muscle mass, the good news is that we made these products accessible. Although they’re formulated for the pros, they work for people still starting out on their journey too.
If you have any questions about our products, contact us today and let us be your partner in building your muscles efficiently and safely, so you can become your best self.