How Do You Put on 5 Pounds of Muscle in 40 Days?

The golden question... the ever-elusive, ever sought-after tissue of muscle is not only pleasing to the eye, but is arguably the best way to prevent the development of diabetes (increases insulin sensitivity, a great marker of health), while also being a means of keeping independence as you age. Increasingly more experts are referring to muscle as the “tissue of longevity”.?

Now, cardio is vital as well. I’ve become even more of a fan of it this past year. It’s easily accessible, has phenomenal health benefits, and improves state of mind pretty much instantaneously.?

If the thought of running a mile in 8 minutes terrifies you, I’d suggest hopping on the stationary bike and pedaling away for 30 minutes a few times a week. And going for walks every day. You need a baseline of cardiovascular fitness to even be in a position to put muscle on... so yes, definitely build that in... 2 hours a week of semi-difficult cardio, minimum.?

Which brings us back to today’s topic: MUSCLE.?

For those of you reading this, your motivation for desiring more muscle mass may vary... Regardless of your reason (health, appearance, or both) the principles to achieve this goal is the same for everyone.

Now, there is a lot of physiology and individual variance genetically in regard to muscle-building capacity, but I am here to tell you that there is no reason you can’t pack on 5 or more pounds of muscle in the next 40 days... Okay, here we go.

First and foremost: Change your mindset from instant gratification to one of long-term success. Long-term success in this case is only 40 days, so it’s still a pretty short time frame, but this dwarfs today’s attention span by a long shot, so let’s call this long-term. Muscle building is not going to happen in the first week (it might if you’re heavily de-trained). This is going to gradually occur over weeks of adaptation from your training. 40 days is adequate time to see the results you seek. Here we go.?

1.????You need to progressively overload your training

Think about this logically: your body will not carry out an adaptation (i.e. building muscle) unless it is?requiredto do so by a stimulus it is exposed to. The stimulus in this case is resistance training, usually performed with weights (can also be bodyweight - pushups never hurt)?

All our body cares about is survival, and building muscle isn’t the most favorable adaptation for that purpose. Something like holding onto body fat (fuel in times of famine) or maintaining our body temperature are much more pressing demands that will take up the majority of our calorie intake UNLESS a sufficient stimulus is provided to build muscle.?

What is that stimulus??Progressive overload.

This can take many forms in resistance training, but the most common means of doing this is gradually increasing (or progressively overloading) your training volume

Training Volume = Sets x Reps x Weight

Say you come into the gym and hit 3 sets of 8 with 50 pounds on a dumbbell row (3x8x50 = 1200 pounds of volume per arm), then 3 sets of 8 with 250 on a leg press (6000 pounds of volume on your legs). Given that this was a sufficiently difficult effort you gave to perform these sets (see tip 2), this will provide a stimulus for your body to begin the process of breaking down muscle. When paired with adequate food and sleep (see tip 4 and 5), muscle myofibrils will repair, growing back slightly larger and stronger in preparation for the next stimulus they will be exposed to.?

After 48 hours or so, when you’re performing those exercises again, it is only natural that you should increase one of the factors in the volume equation (sets, reps, or weight) in order to stimulate further adaptation out of your body. This is progressive overload.?

This could be something as simple as performing 9 reps of each exercise with the same weight or upping the weight by 10 pounds and performing the same number of reps. Either way, by increasing a variable in the volume equation, the total volume increases, which provides a stimulus for further adaptation.

Now, in the real world, and in the case of these 40 days, a slightly larger increase in volume per exercise will probably have a greater effect on muscle growth. For example, adding 2 reps to each set of 8 (making it 3 sets of 10), or even performing another set the next week (making it 4 sets of 8) will send an even larger stimulus to your body to adapt.

Sample 2-week progressions for increasing volume:

You can do this a million different ways, but if you’re not tracking this, then you’re not going to do it... this is where having a set plan to follow is everything. It keeps you honest and on track. You need to progressively overload your training. If you need help with this specifically, shoot me a message.

2.????You need to train kind of hard?

This is overlooked. Unless you’re a complete novice to resistance training, you won’t experience adaptation if you walk into the gym and perform the same 3 sets of 10 reps light machine circuit you always do. Is the former circuit a great regimen for maintaining your health? Sure. But this article is for the purposes of building the maximum amount of muscle in 40 days. You need to train hard to build muscle.?

There’s a term the nerds call?stimulating reps. Essentially, these are reps where it gets difficult to perform more repetitions at the end of sets. The ones where you are straining to complete them. This does not mean throwing form out the window and injuring yourself. It means embracing the discomfort of a longer set and continuing to perform work when your brain initially tells you to stop. An example of this would be the last 3 reps on a set of 12 that are more difficult to perform. First, you build up muscular fatigue with the initial 9 reps. The final three are then “stimulating” to your muscles due to the fatigue built up and the strain required to complete them.?

All the current literature says to perform a minimum of?10 sets per body part per week?in order to experience hypertrophy. What is meant by this is 10 sets containing stimulating reps per body part. Over time, progressively overload that number of sets each week (i.e. 10 week one, 11 week two, 12 week three, etc.)

Don’t train to failure every session, that is not needed to provide stimulating reps.?Think something like one to three reps “in the tank” when training. This means you could perform one to three more repetitions with some difficulty, but still maintain form.?

The value of training to failure, however, is not to be overlooked.?We are soft by nature. We’ve evolved for thousands of years taking the path of least resistance. Our brains naturally seek comfort, and a difficult set in the gym is the most counterintuitive thing to our survival-seeking brain. For many, the first sign of discomfort leads to a knee-jerk response of stopping a set. Taking a set to failure actually teaches your brain the process of reaching stimulating reps.?

Again, don’t do this all the time, but I do this with athletes and clients I work with initially in order to teach the concept of stimulating reps. Too often, we stop short of what we’re able to do because of discomfort. Going to failure teaches us the skill of reaching stimulating reps (it is a skill).??

To build muscle, you need to achieve stimulating reps multiple times in a session, with sets ranging anywhere from 6 to 30 reps. If you currently favor the higher end of this range, go to the lower end, and vice versa. Give your body a new stimulus to adapt to. If you’ve never lifted before, 8 to 12 reps per set is a great start.?

So, there’s no magic pill... you actually need to train kind of hard and reach stimulating reps to grow the muscle groups you wish to grow – 10 times per week or more per muscle group (along with warm up sets). This can be broken into 3 or 4 sessions, which makes it a lot less daunting. For example, if you’re training three times a week, you can break your ten sets into 3 or 4 sets per muscle group per day... very doable.??Good rules of thumb for knowing you’ve hit stimulating reps are:

o???Actually feeling, as well as having a “pump” in, that muscle during your training

o???Being slightly sore the next day – 3 or 4 out of 10 is a great target

3.????4 out of 5 exercises you perform should involve multiple joints through the fullest range of motion you’re capable of?

If you want to get the most out of your time in the gym, you should perform multi-joint, or compound, exercises. A vertical and horizontal push, a vertical and horizontal pull, a hip hinge, and a squat are where your training should live, arguably for the rest of your life. Look up sample push, pull, legs, hinge programs on google. Actually, here’s one: Incline bench press, cable row, goblet squat, and Romanian deadlift, – 4 sets of 8 on each exercise with stimulating reps 3 times a week.?

Joints are where bones come to meet each other – performing exercises that incorporate multiple joints (ankle, knee, hip, elbow, shoulder) ensure that we’re getting bang for our buck in the exercises we do.?

Instead of performing a bicep curl (single joint moving – elbow), perform a pullup or row variation (shoulder and elbow). Instead of a quadricep extension machine (strictly knee), perform a squat or leg press variation (ankle, knee and hip). Instead of a Pec Fly (mainly shoulder), perform a pushup or bench press variation (shoulder and elbow).?

Put simply, multi-joint exercises recruit a greater number of muscle fibers, activate larger muscle groups, and promote a greater hormonal response to exercise than single joint exercises.?

Deadlifts over hamstring curls. Rows and pullups over bicep curls. Chest presses over tricep extensions. Squats, lunges, and leg press over knee extensions.?

4.????You need to eat more calories than you expend

If you’re not hitting a gram of protein per pound of bodyweight when trying to build muscle, you are not doing yourself any favors. A 160-pound man should shoot for 160 grams of protein. 20 to 30 grams of protein is about a fist-sized portion of meat, a cup of cottage cheese or yogurt, 4 eggs, 2 cups of milk, a protein shake, or a bunch of chickpeas. Get it in, however you have to.

Paired with adequate protein intake, carbs and fats need to add up to a calorie number that is higher than you are burning through every day through your body’s metabolism.?For body composition goals, it doesn’t matter what mix of carbs and fat you eat. All that matters is that adequate calories are being eaten.?

What I will say is if you are training hard in the gym, higher carb will probably serve you.?

What I will also say is if you are fat as of now, higher carb probably won’t serve you- your body is likely not insulin-sensitive enough (yet) to handle excess amounts of carbohydrate. This is where getting in shape is initially difficult. When you’re really out of shape, it is difficult to get that momentum back, and it does take more discipline off the bat to get the snowball of progress rolling. In these beginning stages, for a multitude of physiological and psychological reasons, it is better to prioritize protein and fat and limit carbs to fruit and maybe some potatoes on days you train.?

Long story short: Prioritize protein every day for 40 days and eat whole-food fats and carbs in a combination that adds up to more than you expend in a given day.

To determine if you’re eating enough: weigh yourself every morning after a pee/poop for consistency purposes. You should be seeing a trend of 0.5 to 1 percent bodyweight gain per week. Don’t concern yourself with day-to-day trends. The week is all that matters. If you’re very fat and start to prioritize protein while lifting weights, it is actually possible that you’ll lose fat and build muscle simultaneously. If your weight stays the same but you’re looking better, carry on!

5.????You need to sleep

If you’re not getting 8 hours of sleep minimum per night, you will not be as successful in life, let alone in building muscle. Everything related to muscle gain happens when we sleep. Your biceps don’t grow when you’re awake.?

8 hours of sleep does not mean 8 hours in bed. It means 8 hours of sleeping. This means 9 hours in bed. This means turning your phone and screens off and being in dim light for the hour leading up to bed, reading a book. This means falling asleep naturally. This means not falling asleep with alcohol or weed. This means ridding yourself of work stress in the hours leading up to bed and chilling out.?

6.????Viciously rid your body of inflammation

Inflammation is the silent killer of humans and the progress we’re able to make in this life. If your body is in a non-inflamed state, it will put on muscle easier. Simple as that.

Good ideas:

-???????Sleep

-???????4 out of every 5 meals you eat should be whole foods - avoid vegetable oil/added sugar?

-???????Walk 10,000 steps a day

-???????Don’t eat for 12 hours a day (sleep can be included in these 12 hours)

-???????Don’t have more than 3 drinks per week (or have zero)

-???????Perform 150+ minutes of steady state cardio per week, ideally in the morning

-???????Get cold a few times a week. Maybe a minute or so in the shower. Best case hop in an ice tub for 2 or 3 minutes.?

There we have it! Progressive overload, train hard, full range of motion compound movements, eat enough (prioritize protein), sleep, and limit inflammation. I know this sounds trite and so simple, but this is what actually works. If you follow these 6 steps for 40 days and aren’t 5 pounds of muscle richer, as well as feeling better, shoot me a message and I’ll train you online for free.

Make the decision to change your life and broaden your time horizons. If you’re 50 pounds overweight, that didn’t happen in 40 days. Don’t expect to lose everything in 40 days! I assure you, though, if you engage in these practices for 40 days you will?want to continue?on the path.?