The idea that you are able to gain muscle “quickly” normally can be misleading to individuals who think they can create 10 pounds of muscle in one month.
The harsh reality is that muscle development happens at a much slightly slower pace than you can gain fat, and you’ll need need to be certainly sure to track your diet and workout on a regular basis.
There is a limit to how quickly muscle can grow, and maintaining an appropriate mass requires both time and discipline (the opposite of fast). Nevertheless, there are several things you can do to make the most of your muscle-building efforts during bulking, such as consuming more kcals than you burn, boosting your protein and carbohydrate consumption, training with a greater volume, and keeping track of how quickly you gain weight.
In this post, we are going to talk about:
- How quickly you should attempt to acquire weight while bulking up
- What health hazards, if any, are associated with putting on weight too quickly?
- During the phase of bulking, there are a variety of things you may do to get the most out of your muscle development.
It is generally accepted that if you are attempting to gain muscle, you should not train the same muscle groups for more than two days in a row. This advice comes from conventional wisdom. In other words, if you work out your entire body on Monday, you should wait until Wednesday before repeating the same thing again. If you train your muscles on a daily basis, they won’t have the opportunity to heal and expand because it takes them at least 48 hrs to do so.
At the very least, we used to be of the opinion that this was the case. In point of fact, the most recent findings in the field of science demonstrate that your muscles are capable of recovering a lot faster than was previously assumed. What this information signifies for you and your training is as follows: At the beginning of this year, a group of Brazilian academics revealed the findings of a very intriguing experiment that they had conducted.
They assembled a group of males who had at least 3 years of weightlifting experience, could squat at least 150 % of their body mass and could bench press at least 100 % of their body mass each.
The guys were divided into two groups, and each group participated in the training program for a total of 8 weeks, Monday through Friday. The training plan that both groups followed was identical in every respect, including the exercises, the number of sets, and the number of repetitions.
Can You Gain Weight Too Fast During A Bulk?
Yes, you run the risk of developing more fat mass than is typical during a bulk if you gain weight at a faster rate than what is recommended during a bulk.
Muscle can only grow at a certain rate, so after a specific point, if you are consuming more food than the body needs to build muscle (at the maximum rate it can), your body retains any of the extra calories as fat.
By doing so, you run the risk of making the process of cutting substantially more difficult, and you also run the risk of reducing the amount of time you are able to spend in the bulking phase (maximizing muscle development takes more time).
Rely On Compound Movements
Compound exercises, such as squats, deadlifts, and pull-ups, all demand significant quantities of muscular mass be engaged in coordinated movement.
Additionally, compound actions enable us to add normally higher quantities of metabolic stress to the organism (loads), which has been demonstrated to stimulate muscular hypertrophy and development. This is a benefit of compound movements.
Ocus On Quality, Not Quantity
Even if the volume is a critical component in the process of developing muscle, it is essential to keep in mind that additional is not necessarily better.
Your primary objective should be to cause as much muscular exhaustion and discomfort as you can in the shortest amount of time by performing the fewest number of sets available (while adhering to repetition ranges). You can accomplish this by carefully regulating the loads, performing the exercises over their whole range of motion, and giving each set your absolute best effort.
A common mistake made by a lot of people is doing too much work, which results in every round and repetition being inefficient and lacking in attention and intensity. Instead of focusing on getting through a large number of reps without proper form, give attention to doing things correctly.
If you are not able to feel a muscle working and becoming fatigued after performing two to three sets of an exercise, there is a good chance that you are not properly controlling the weight, performing the exercise throughout its full range of motion, or training with a load that is difficult enough (assuming you are training within the 5-25 repetition range). To get the most out of your workout, aim to complete 8-15 reps.
How Fast Should You Gain Weight In A Bulk?
Beginners and those who are naturally thinner and more prone to having trouble gaining weight should aim to acquire anything from 0.5 to 1 pound every week.
It’s possible for heavier people to gain one to two pounds per week, especially if they have an easier time putting on weight than others do.
You can control your pace of weight increase to ensure that you are not acquiring an unhealthy amount of weight too quickly by documenting your weekly weight gain. This will allow you to ensure that you are eating enough kcals to stay within the appropriate ranges.
If you put on too much weight too quickly, it can prevent your muscles from growing as well as they could, and it might also increase the quantity of fat you put on during a bulk.
Progressively Eat More Calories
In order to grow muscle and mass during a bulk, you need to consume more extra calories off (your resting metabolic rate, the number of calories burned due to your lifestyle choices, and the number of calories burned due to your physical exercise).
It’s a simple math equation that’s been demonstrated in a number of different ways. In order to acquire weight, you need to consume more kcal than your body uses up. You need to have a deficit of calories if you want to see weight loss results.
One technique to accomplish this is to consume whatever foods you choose; however, this can change the composition of the weight that you are acquiring (and how quickly you are gaining weight).
During the bulking phase of your workout, you want to be absolutely sure that you are consuming at a rate that allows for the greatest quantity of muscle development while preventing the concentration of an excessive number of calories. This was mentioned earlier, and it is important that you pay attention to this detail.
Getting an excessive amount of body fat will not help you build more muscle, and in fact, it may actually increase your body’s more likely to favor fat gain over muscle gain as your bulk continues. Although you will gain some body fat, gaining an excessive amount will not assist you in acquiring more muscle.
The key to success here is to gradually consume more kcal, as opposed to simply consuming whatever comes into view right out of the gate. This gives you the ability to ensure that you are monitoring the rate at which you are gaining weight and optimizing the ratio of muscle development to fat increase that you are experiencing.
Control The Weight
It is vital to maintain tension in the muscles and increase muscle mass, which can only be accomplished by maintaining control of the action throughout the whole range of motion.
Movements that include controlled eccentric periods, such as lowering the barbell to your chest on a two-second count when performing a bench press, can do wonders for increasing muscle growth and limiting the chance of injury.
Think about the muscles you are using, how they are becoming stretched out under the strain of the weight, and how you can feel the tension building up in the muscles as you do a movement.
The first set of weightlifters works for different muscle groups on separate days. For example, on Monday they focus on their chest and triceps, on Tuesday they focus on their legs, on Wednesday they focus on their back and biceps, and so on. Once each week, direct training was performed on each muscle. In contrast, members of Group 2 worked all parts of their bodies throughout each and every activity.
Both groups participated in an equal amount of training over the course of the study; this was ensured by the design of the experiment. To put it another way, the overall amount of weekly sets remained the same; they were simply distributed in a new manner. The group who exercised once a week performed two exercises during each workout and performed five to ten sets of each exercise, whereas the group that worked their entire bodies did eleven exercises and performed one to two sets of each activity. In your opinion, which group improved their muscle mass the most?
Ten to fifteen sets spread out over the period of five days improved muscle mass and strength equal to the same amount of sets performed once per week. The researchers discovered no significant distinctions between the 2 groups in terms of strength or size growth.
Obviously, these findings are only from a single piece of research. The proverb states that it takes more than one swallow to make summer. The findings of a single study are insufficient evidence to support any kind of definitive judgment being drawn on any topic. However, there is a wealth of studies indicating that your muscles can heal and grow very happily even with just 24 hrs of relaxation in between workouts. This is the case even if you only rest for one day.
Researchers at the University of South Florida conducted a study in which they examined two different workout regimens, each of which included squatting and bench pressing either three or six times per week. The group who worked out for three days completed two sets of each exercise during each workout. The group that worked out for six days did four sets of each activity. In the group that trained for six days, deadlifts were performed twice per week, while the group that trained for three days only did so once per week.
Eat Enough Protein
If you consume enough amount of calories, you will almost certainly obtain an adequate level of protein in the process. Having said that, it is essential to ensure that you consume enough amount of protein to facilitate the repair and growth of your muscles. During the bulking phase of your training, you should aim to ingest 0.8–1.0 g of protein for every pound of weight.
It’s possible that eating less protein will slow down the rate at which your muscles build and heal. Because your body has a limited capacity for protein use, you should consider whether or not it is required to consume more protein than that.
If you find that you are consuming a lot of protein, I suggest that you reduce the quantity of protein that you are eating overall and increase the number of carbs that you consume instead because carbohydrates are the primary source of fuel for your muscles.
Prioritize More Carbs To Fuel Hard Training
Both the brain and the muscle tissue in your body prefer to burn carbs as their primary source of fuel. Even though the brain, muscles, and the rest of the body can get the energy they need from fats and protein, carbs are the preferred source of power for high-intensity weight training because they allow for more glycogen storage (the type of workout that you will have to be doing to develop muscle growth).
I would suggest that you begin by consuming 2-3 g of carbohydrates for every pound of body weight. If you decide to raise your overall calorie intake, you will need to increase this macronutrient as well (so, when you consume much more food to put on more mass, opt for more carbohydrate sources like bread, grains, pasta, potatoes, rice, etc).
What is the result? After the first month of training, there was no discernible difference in the groups’ increases in terms of either size or strength. Increases from bench pressing and squatting six times per week were comparable to gains obtained from performing the same movements three times per week. It’s interesting to note that the group who worked out for six days saw greater increases in muscle mass than the group that worked out for three days: 5.7 lbs vs 3.7 lbs. There is more to this.
Research has revealed that working out for three days in a row produces the same amount of muscle growth as training for two days in a row with one day off in between. In order to conduct the study, the researchers selected 30 healthy males and randomly assigned them to one of two groups. Both groups completed three sets of ten repetitions on the leg curl, leg press, shoulder press, lat pulldown, and leg extension exercises during each workout session.
The first group did weightlifting three times a week, however, each of the three workouts was performed in quick succession (e.g. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday). Group two likewise worked out three times each week, but their sessions were spread out across the week rather than back-to-back (e.g. Monday, Wednesday, Friday). There was no discernible difference in terms of muscle gain or strength improvement between the 2 groups of weightlifters. Both sets achieved their goals.
In other words, training every other day provided outcomes that were extremely similar to those achieved by training three days in a row, followed by a break of four days. The findings, according to the researchers, can be summed up as follows: “For individuals who perform two to three days in a row of resistance training each week, such as weekend warriors because of time constraints, they shouldn’t ever hold back for fear of inferior or harmful adaptations if the weekly intensity and volume are appropriate.” “If weekly amount and intensity are appropriate, they shouldn’t really hold back.”
Consequently, what does this information imply for you in general? However, this does not always imply that working out each muscle group five to six times per week is the “optimal strategy” for everyone to exercise going forward. The “ideal” length of time to wait between sessions for the same muscle area is extremely individual and will differ from person to person. This is because the “ideal” amount of time depends on the sort of training you are performing as well as the amount of experience you have lifting weights.
Lifting Heavy Isn’t The Priority, But You Still Need To Lift Heavy-Ish!
You have heard me preach up until this point that you should make sure you regulate the repetitions, that you should not use momentum, that you should do them throughout the whole range of motion, and that you should not be concerned with how much weight you lift.
Having said that, you absolutely must continue to work out with difficult loads. You will get a “workout” if you lift loads that are too light for you, but some muscle areas won’t get the stimulation they need to grow to their full potential.
Because of this, I recommend that on some days you execute repetition ranges of 8-10 reps, and then on other days, you perform repetition ranges of 12-15 or even 15-20. When performing the sets with a higher number of repetitions, you should strive to reach failure or come extremely near to it while working with weights that are HEAVY for that range.
If you utilize weight and “could” get even more than 25 or 30 repetitions out of it, then it is most certainly too light for the task at hand.
Train More Frequently
An excellent method to increase exercise intensity without overdoing it in a single session is to train a muscle more regularly. This is one of the most effective ways to achieve this goal (which can lead to excessive soreness, low stimulus workout, and harm).
In order to develop gigantic legs, for instance, you might need to execute 16–20 total sets of exercises targeting your quadriceps each week, in addition to performing another 16–20 total sets each week targeting your hamstrings.
If you trained your legs only every week, you need to make exercises 35–40 total rounds in a single session. This is not only excessive, but it also frequently results in doing a lot of repetitions that are low motivating factors, low load, and simply produce a lot of stress and exhaustion to the body. If you only trained your legs once per week, you would have to train 35–40 total sets in a single session.
If you train more regularly, you will be able to accomplish the total work sets throughout the course of 2-3 leg-focused training sessions. During each of these sessions, you will be able to execute 5-6 total sets of quadriceps exercises as well as 5-6 total sets of hamstrings exercises.
You can possibly move more mass, with more control, and concentrate on the muscle contraction and stretch if you train for fewer total sets per session (as opposed to doing it all in one session). Additionally, you reduce the severity of muscle soreness and the danger of injury especially in contrast to training muscles once every week.
You might find that you get more out of four or five shorter training as opposed to two or three longer ones. These findings again show that spreading the workout over a series of shorter, more frequent periods will be just as effective in completing the task. If you have several years of training under your belt, and you’ve noticed that your gains have slowed significantly or even totally stopped, it’s worth experimenting with exercising your muscles more regularly to see how your body reacts to the increased demand placed on it.
According to research, novices appear to gain muscle at the same rapid rate regardless of whether a muscle is trained once, twice, or three times per week. On the other hand, research conducted on well-trained participants shows that a muscle will develop more rapidly when it is trained 5 days a week as opposed to training once per week. This is the case regardless of the frequency of the training.
The takeaway here is that you don’t need to stress out too much if you can only give your muscles a break of 24 hours in between sessions at the gym. It now appears that your muscles can be prepared for action much sooner than was thought previously, provided that the workouts in question are carried out in the appropriate manner.
Final Thoughts
The process of gaining muscle does not have to take a large amount of time each day; nonetheless, it is essential to be aware that a specific level of dedication is required if you want to get the best possible outcomes.
Although your work in the gym is absolutely necessary for your progress, the preparation of your meals and the recovery that you get between workouts are equally as significant. You will be able to optimize strength and muscle and progress as required on a monthly basis if you follow the workout schedule that has been provided as well as maintain correct nutrition, sleep, and recuperation.