Increase muscle mass

Have you wondered more than once what is the real key to increasing muscle mass? How does muscle growth work? You may have tried different types of exercises and noticed an improvement in strength, but not an increase in muscle mass. Then you get discouraged and maybe even throw in the towel, so it’s important to understand how muscle mass gain works.

Facts you should know
- When you start training for the first time (especially if you are a beginner) the strength increase is due to better coordination and nervous system adaptation.
- After the first 6-8 weeks your body can do more repetitions, although physically you might not look stronger. However, if you train consistently, your muscles will start to adapt.
- Muscles are made up of fibers that can become thicker and stronger. After each workout, the body tries to repair the muscle tissue. 

- If you push yourself enough, your body adapts to the new training stimuli and muscles start to grow.
- There are two main things that stimulate muscle growth: a structured (and progressive!) training plan and a protein-rich diet.

Workouts to increase muscle mass
Muscle growth is closely related to genetics: some people develop muscle mass much more easily than others. Regardless of your genetics, you can have a more muscular body if you organize your training as follows:

- 2-3 strength training sessions per week if you are a beginner (if you have experience, you can train more often).
- For beginners: normally 24 hours is enough to recover from a short workout (<30 min) if you work the whole body. But if you focus on a muscle group like the legs, for example, it is recommended to wait 48 hours before training the same body part again. If you still want to do some physical exercise during the wait, it’s good to do some short, low-intensity workouts working the whole body. For advanced practitioners: rest at least one or two days a week, ideally after the longest or most intense training session you plan to do.
- For beginners, 2 to 3 sets per exercise are enough, while more advanced people will need to do 3-5 (or more!) sets. The biggest mistake you can make is trying to gain muscle mass without a training plan! Keep in mind that muscle growth requires consistency and a gradual increase in training intensity. A good training plan can calculate the sets and reps so you see results even if you train at home!
- The recommended number of repetitions depends on the type of exercise and the effort it takes you to do it. Start by doing as many repetitions as you can while maintaining good form. For example, if you see you can only do one push-up, do one per set and finish the set doing push-ups on your knees.
- To stimulate muscle development, it is important to progressively increase the load, regardless of your level. When you notice your strength increasing, choose harder exercise variations or do more repetitions. A golden rule is to do harder exercises or vary them more when you can do more than 12 reps without any difficulty.
- To feel how hard your muscles are working, focus on controlled and slow descents. The eccentric part of the movement (when you lower your body to do a push-up, for example) places more load on the muscles. Try counting to 3 seconds as you slowly descend: there you go, how to make a simple exercise harder!