How to Build Muscle Naturally: An Unexpected Plan

1 Exercise Selection

Ideally, select exercises that you are already used to so that you can train hard from the start. But they should be exercises that really work for you: that you can train hard but safely and that really work your target muscles.

If you select exercises that you’re not currently ready for, give yourself a few weeks to do them a little at a time before you start training them intensely. Then begins the 10 weeks of hard training.

2 Technique

You must use good exercise form, which means lowering under control and lifting under control, without dropping, bouncing, pulling, lifting or jerking. You must train your muscles, not just move weights. Lousy form wastes your time and greatly increases your risk of injury. You must avoid injuries!

Good form also means pausing to stop at the bottom and top of each repetition of each exercise and using a full range of motion that is safe for you. Just a one-second pause (count “one thousand and one” at a time) improves your form and stimulates your muscles if you train hard enough. Pausing may require you to drop your weights depending on the exercise, but those numbers will pick up as you adapt and build muscle.

3 Nutrition

Eat a slight caloric surplus of healthy foods. Consume about one gram of protein per pound of body weight and split the rest of your caloric intake approximately 50-50 between carbohydrates and fats. (A low-fat diet will hinder muscle growth.)

4 Recovery

Sleep eight or more hours each night. Take it easy between workouts and find ways to manage the stress in your life so it doesn’t burn you out.

Combined with excellent training, excellent recovery will give you good bodybuilding results. Without recovery, even great workouts won’t produce much, if any, progress. Make a full recovery and you’ll be able to build strength slowly but steadily (unless you’re already very advanced).

5 Selection of load and force

Make a written note of each of your work sets (pounds and reps) on a training log. Please refer to it before each working set. Don’t try to trust your memory. Before each set of work, remember what you did last time so you know what you need to do to record some progress in good shape.

Advanced lifters should still strive to build additional strength, even if it doesn’t actually happen. But all beginning and intermediate bodybuilders are a long way from peak strength. So, continually aim to add a little weight to each exercise when you can… without compromising your form.

The ideal is to use small weight plates: not only the 1.25 kilos or 2.5 pounds, but also microplates or large washers so you can only increase your weights a pound at a time, especially on lower weight exercises.

When do you gain weight in an exercise?

Let’s say you’re an intermediate bodybuilder doing the Romanian deadlift. You’ve done your warmup sets, and then you do two hard work sets: 8 reps with 255 pounds and 13 reps with 205. Here’s how you might progress in the next few weeks:

• 260×7 and 210×11
• 260×8 and 210×12
• 265×7 and 215×10
• 265×8 and 215×12
• 270×6 and 220×10
• 270×7 and 220×11
• 270×8 and 220×12
• 275×6 and 225×10
• 275×7 and 225×11

Later, when your progress is slower, use microplates to increase your weights. Your rate of progress depends on the exercise, your current training and development experience, your genetic potential, how well you train and recover, and other factors.

Fully commit to each stage and its programming, inside and outside the gym. Then compare the results and do another round of the stage that worked best for you. Get it right and you’ll benefit again.