Every man, soon or later in their lifetime, fell the need of putting up some muscle for the most different reasons: becoming more attractive for the opposite sex, having more strength to use in sports, and so on. The goal is inspiring, but the way is hard and impervious: gaining muscle has no shortcuts, unfortunately. You get out of it what you put in, hard work and sweat.

This is of course true, if you are searching for the magic pill you better spend the money and time for the gym in something more useful. But you can actually know how to become more efficient in your muscle building process, getting extremely good results in a relatively short timespan (6 months to one year). You just need to stick to a few principles.

Eat a lot

It does not matter what other people tell you. You can not build muscle and at the same time lose weight. To build muscle you need to eat a LOT. To lose weight you need to get in the strictly necessary calories. So, it is either black or white. If you feel like you need to lose some weight first, go on a diet first.

This is because first, muscle is a tissue that consumes energy. If you do not eat enough during your muscle building process, muscle will simply tear down. And second, you need to put in a great quantity of proteins in your body (around 2 grams per pound of weight every day) to get your muscles. Do not worry about getting fat, you will not if you keep lifting hard and do not skip the gym.

Focus on low repetition – heavy weights combination

I hear many people that stick to a high repetition cycle with little weights believing that it will build muscles. Then they complain that they get no result. No surprise. An aerobic work like this is the exact opposite of what you need to do to build muscles. Heavy weights stimulate the fibres in the muscle tissue a lot, sending more blood to the area and stimulating the production of testosterone, the hormone that helps you build muscles.

Squat

If you train in a gym and do not squat because you want to focus on the upper body then you do not understand very well how to body works. The legs have the biggest muscles in the body, and working on them helps the production of testosterone that makes muscle grow on the whole body. Also, squat is the most complete exercise you can do in a gym, stimulating all the muscles in the body – and it does not require a $2000 machine, just a barbell and the right weights.

Increase weight every time

Strangely enough, the most useful thing you can do to build muscle faster is to make your body uncomfortable. Sticking with the same weights for too long in the end will decrease the muscle growth to zero because the body starts to get used to them. Add every time you train a little amount of weight, being careful not to overdo it. Also, try doing something to surprise your body, like changing your training schedule once in a while. It will give you extremely good results.