150 muscle building tips

This article provides you with the 150 best muscle building tips including specific information about training, nutrition and supplementation in a highly condensed form. Here are 150 of the best muscle building tips I could think of in one evening. They're short, sweet and to the point. But don't let brevity and conciseness fool you. Follow them and you will be successful.

150 muscle building tips

1. Multi-joint exercises are your best tool for muscle growth. Use them.
2. Eat your biggest meal of the day about 30 to 60 minutes after your workout with weights.
3. Get strong! There are no weak bodybuilders. You don't have to become a powerlifter, but you do have to dramatically increase your strength compared to where you are now.
4. Squats are the king of muscle building exercises and they're not bad for your knees unless your form is terrible and/or you're only doing half squats.
5. Train deadlifts. If squats are king, then deadlifts come second in command. Deadlifts aren't bad for your knees either, as long as your form isn't terribly bad.
6. Learn proper exercise execution form. Read every article, and watch every video on proper exercise execution. There is no excuse for performing squats and deadlifts with less than perfect form.
7. Maintain balance in your upper body workout. This means equal effort for chest, back and shoulders. Stop doing 7 exercises for your chest and only lat pulldowns for your back. A good balance will keep you healthy and strong and protect you from shoulder problems.
8. Beginners, stop training like advanced exercisers using advanced splits and training techniques. You don't need them. What you need more than anything is to get strong at the basic multi-joint exercises.
9. Beginners, stop increasing the training volume. 3 bicep days per week will not help you. You need to get strong first and not exhaust yourself with endless sets.
10. Stop believing that building muscle is rocket science. Get stronger, eat enough and stay consistent.
11. Stop skipping training sessions.
12. Stop complaining about sore muscles. Sore muscles are just part of the game. Don't skip training sessions because of sore muscles. No excuses - go train.
13. Stop complaining about every ache and every little strain. Moving weights is hard and for REAL men (and women). You're not going to feel perfect at times. No excuses - go train.
14. There's a lot more to proper muscle building nutrition than broccoli, rice and chicken breast. Eat a variety of whole foods every week.
15. Eat more red meat.
16. Eat more eggs, including the yolks. Egg yolks have a high nutrient density.
17. Drink plenty of water. And then drink even more.
18. Sleep 8 hours every night and nap during the day if you can.
19. Learn to cook. Muscle building nutrition doesn't have to be boring.
20. Having trouble reaching your calorie goals? Add butter or olive oil to your vegetables.
21. Having trouble reaching your calorie goals? Switch to whole milk and drink at least 3 large glasses a day.
22. Having trouble reaching your calorie goals? Add sour cream and cheese to every possible meal.
23. Having trouble reaching your calorie goals? Snack on almonds and nuts between meals.
24. Beginners, stop being so obsessed with muscle confusion. You won't be stuck on a plateau for years. Instead, confuse your muscles with more weight.
25. Stop changing your workouts every 2 weeks. It's a huge waste of time. You spend more time adapting to specific conditioning demands of the workouts than building muscle.
26. If you are obsessed with maintaining visible abs and therefore under-eat, you will always be skinny with visible abs.
27. Learn to evolve your training based on your needs rather than making arbitrary changes to your workouts.
28. Commercial bodybuilding programs include a lot of nonsense. Have you ever noticed that 95% of these workouts never tell you to increase your training weights? Guess what - increasing weight is the cornerstone of progress and results.
29. Not all supplements are bad, but some supplement advertising promises can be. Learn the difference.
30. Very few muscle building topics are black or white. Match what you read with what advanced and successful strength athletes are doing.
31. Science can help, but training will still be hard. Everyone is different. Try new things based on science, but adapt them to fit your personal needs.
32. Anyone who insists that a topic or training concept is 100% black or white should be viewed with caution. Different things work and work differently for different exercisers.
33. A progression of weights represents the magic key to building muscle.
34. Why does every workout seem to work? Because an exerciser who is committed, eating right and getting stronger can make progress with even the most disorganized muscle building workout.
35. Fat is not bad. Don't avoid healthy fats. Your body needs fat to function properly.
36. Eat 90% healthy, whole foods. Allow a few of your calories to be "fun calories" so that you can remain a mentally healthy member of the human race.
37. Just because someone has a six-pack doesn't mean that person knows how to build muscle. Learn the difference between a diet expert and good muscle building advice.
38. Squats that are not performed at least to the point where the thighs are parallel to the floor are dangerous (and bad for the knees)
39. Squats with 20 repetitions are insane and fantastic. Try them out.
40. Have more sex. It's good for you.
41. Do cardio three times a week for overall health. Better health is never a bad thing.
42. Cardio training will not affect your gains. Only lack of effort in the gym and a poor diet will limit your gains.
43. A good back training combination includes deadlifts, a variation of rowing and a latissimus exercise such as pull-ups or lat pull-downs.
44. Dips are an underused but effective exercise. They were once considered the squat for the upper body. Don't underestimate their ability to build muscle mass in the chest and triceps.
45. Find ab exercises such as sit-ups with added weight or cable crunches that allow you to increase the resistance.
46. Do you have stubborn calves? Try a heavy workout with low reps and high volume as a change in training compared to sets of high reps over several months.
47. The reason that mass building phases result in excessive fat gain with little muscle gain is, in most cases, because 90% of the attention is placed on nutrition. A mass-building phase will only work if you train like a madman. Go all out on multi-joint exercises and build strength so that you can maximize your muscle growth without wasting those extra calories.
48. Eat as many fruits and vegetables as you want. Red, green and yellow equals plenty of nutrients.
49. The body needs sodium. Don't use too little salt.
50. A proper sodium/potassium balance is very important for overall health. Instead of worrying about too much salt, make sure you're getting enough potassium.
51. Your body needs cholesterol to function properly. If you're eating a healthy diet, you shouldn't worry too much about your cholesterol intake.
52. Pull-ups with overhand and underhand grip are the best mass building exercise for your biceps. Barbell curls are a good addition to these exercises.
53. Use a heavy multi-joint exercise and a supplementary exercise if you are targeting your triceps. An example of this would be close bench presses and seated two-handed dumbbell tricep presses.
54. Dips and close bench presses are effective bulking exercises for the triceps.
55. Want muscular arms? Remember that the triceps are responsible for 2/3 of your upper arm mass.
56. Is your trapezius lagging behind in its development? Try a combination of heavy deadlifts, power deadlifts, power shoulder raises (power shrugs), heavy neck presses and heavy rowing.
57. Don't underestimate full body workouts. Before the steroid era began, they built some amazing bodies. Even Arnold Schwarzenegger started with full body workouts.
58. Heavy rowing is the best building exercise for the rear shoulders.
59. Are you stagnating on isolation exercises and finding it hard to increase the weight without compromising form? Instead, use an isolation exercise performed on a machine - one that allows for greater progression.
60. Perform your multi-joint exercises first while you're fresh.
61. Training to muscle failure is not necessary and generally increases risk more than it improves results. Stop if you feel you are going to reach muscle failure on the next repetition.
62. Don't train with poor form. If your form begins to deteriorate during a set, stop the set.
63. Bench presses with your arms extended to 90 degrees is one of the worst things you can do for your shoulders. Instead, use a 30 to 60 degree angle.
64. Don't let the bar bounce off your chest when bench pressing. This is dangerous for several reasons.
65. Do not perform curls on the squat rack. The squat rack is sacred and reserved for squats.
66. When bench pressing, make sure your elbows are directly under your wrists. With your arms out to the side at 30 to 60 degrees, this will help you find a natural grip width.
67. Close grip bench presses are not performed with 15 centimeters between the hands. This is a good way to injure your wrists. Keep your elbows close to your sides and make sure your wrists are above your elbows. This will help you find the right grip width.
68. Eating 180 to 240 grams of protein per day will not harm your kidneys. Eat your protein.
69. Eat a variety of different protein foods...meat, chicken, fish, eggs, milk. Each protein source has a different amino acid profile, so variety is a good thing.
70. Training with weights will not stop your size growth.
71. Creatine is a good choice and has been studied extensively. Try it out for yourself.
72. Train large muscle groups before smaller ones.
73. If you use a training split, there should be as much time as possible between your chest and shoulder days. Both are "press days" and they use the same muscle groups to varying degrees.
74. Beginners, rest as often as you train. You should take a day off for each training day. Your body responds to the intense demands of training with weights and you need plenty of rest and nutrition.
75. Stop labeling yourself as a hardgainer. Focus on increasing your bench performance to 150 kilos, your squat performance to 400 kilos and your deadlift performance to 250 kilos. Once you've done that, look in the mirror and see if you're still a hardgainer.
76. Building muscle takes years - not weeks or months. Don't forget that.
77. If you really want to learn something interesting, ignore how a bodybuilder trains now and find out how he trained during the first 2 years when he was building mass.
78. Train most multi-joint exercises with a repetition range of 5 to 12 reps. Heavy weights work best with moderate reps.
79. Train most isolation exercises with a repetition range of 8 to 15 repetitions. Isolation exercises with lighter weights work best with a few extra repetitions.
80. Muscle soreness is not a clear indicator of the effectiveness of a training session.
81. Beginners, stop focusing on the pump. A pump will not help you if you use baby weights.
82. Eat some protein 60 to 90 minutes before training but don't train on a full stomach. Use whey protein if you have to.
83. Enjoy the journey.
84. It's okay to do your favorite exercise as long as 80% of your training session consists of effective exercises.
85. Taking advice from an exerciser with no personal experience is a risky business. Do your homework.
86. Be wary of internet advice from someone you haven't even seen a picture, video or other form of valid reference.
87. You will never 100% master perfect form on the big exercises. Remember this. The heavier the weight gets, the more challenging it becomes to maintain proper form when performing the exercise.
88. Overhead presses are not inherently bad for your shoulders, but performing 5 variations of the bench press while ignoring shoulder presses is.
89. It's generally better to perform multi-joint exercises before machine exercises.
90. Don't look for ways to make your workouts easier - look for ways to make them harder. Use and appreciate the most challenging exercises!
91. Never do cardio before training with weights. Save your energy for building muscle and do your cardio afterwards.
92. Do you do your cardio training after training with weights? Consider giving your body some protein in the form of a small wheyshake before you hit the treadmill.
93. Ignore the nonsense that all supplement companies should be ignored. There is certainly far too much hype around some worthless supplements, but that doesn't mean that all supplements are worthless.
94. Increase volume after you've already built up a good amount of strength.
95. Add advanced training techniques like descending sets and slow negative reps to your workouts after you've built up a good amount of strength.
96. Don't trust everything you read on the internet. Even this article. Do your own research and try things out for yourself.
97. Don't underestimate upper body / lower body splits.
98. When looking at volume for a muscle group, look at the number of sets per week. You could do something like 9 to 15 sets one day a week, 5 to 8 sets twice a week or 3 to 5 sets three times a week.
99. There are no magic numbers when it comes to sets and reps.
100. How many sets should you do? Use the "one hour guideline." As long as you train hard and keep your workouts in the one hour range, you will perform a reasonable number of sets.
101. As you get stronger, using higher repetition sets of multi-joint exercises will become a solid way of training for muscle building.
102. Don't be afraid to give yourself a complete week off from training every 8 to 12 weeks. You won't shrivel up and lose all your muscle. Rather, you'll heal some nagging injuries and overuse and probably train better when you return to the gym.
103. Slightly more advanced exercisers can use lighter weights every 3 to 4 weeks. Call it unloading. This will allow you to train hard and heavy for several weeks and then take a lighter week for recovery.
104. How wide should your stance be for squats? Get into a position similar to when you cover a player in basketball and check your foot spacing. This should be approximately the width of your foot spacing for squats.
105. Do not perform squats with your knees pointing forward. The angle of your knees should match the angle of your toes and for most of us the angle of the toes is 30 degrees. During squats, neither your knees nor your toes should be pointing straight ahead.
106. Believe in your training plan. If you don't trust it to get results, why are you using it?
107. Eat when you are hungry. This is good old-fashioned common sense.
108. Snacks between meals don't have to be complicated. Fruit, protein shakes, whole milk, almonds, nuts, cheese, protein bars and beef jerky are simple but solid choices.
109. Start with the basic supplements...a quality multivitamin, fish oil and whey protein. Once you're training consistently and making gains, you can try things like pre-workout formulas, BCAA drinks and creatine.
110. If you're an ectomorph, then there's a good chance you could benefit from more frequent training. Try a full body workout program.
111. If you are very overweight, then focus on training hard and getting stronger while losing fat. This should be your top priority.
112. Overweight exercisers trying to lose fat should not train with lighter weights and higher repetitions. A transition to lighter weights signals to the body that you no longer need as much muscle tissue as before.
113. It takes years to reach real plateaus. The gains will slow down over time. If you can do a few more reps of an exercise each month, you won't stagnate.
114. Leg presses are a good exercise, but they are not better than squats. If you want a great team that really makes your legs grow, use both.
115. Log your workouts. You need to find a way to monitor your progress.
116. Avoid unmotivated training partners who are always late or don't show up at all. Surround yourself with motivated people or train alone.
117. If you can't do barbell bench presses because you don't have a training partner, do dumbbell bench presses instead.
118. If you train to muscle failure, do this on the last set of an exercise.
119. Never waste a set. If you're not pushing yourself to do as many reps as possible, then there's no point in doing the set at all.
120. Always try to improve. If you did 7 repetitions of an exercise last week, try to do 8 to 9 repetitions this week.
121. When you lose fat, rapid fat loss usually leads to rapid muscle loss. Try not to lose more than 1.5 to 2 pounds of fat per week.
122. Be wary of advice that revolves around extremes. Most exercisers are somewhere in the middle and do not use extreme diet or exercise practices.
123. Understand that natural exercisers will never become as muscular as steroid users. It's a fairy tale if anyone tells you otherwise.
124. If you are unsure about your squat exercise form, use goblet squats for a week to get a feel for the exercise.
125. Ignore claims like "Build 5 inches on your arms in 2 months with the Biceps Blaster" or "Build 10 pounds of muscle in four weeks." This is simply nonsense designed to get your attention.
126. Use pulling aids for rows and pull-ups if necessary. Never let a weak grip interfere with your back training.
127. Want a stronger grip? Try 30 to 60 seconds of static barbell holds in a squat rack.
128. Never perform a multi-joint exercise until you've done a few non-demanding warm-up sets.
129. Train your abs last. The abs are a small muscle group. Fatigue larger muscle groups first.
130. You don't have to train your abs every day. One to three times a week is completely sufficient.
131. And what if you are tired? Exercise! Chances are you will feel better after training and the quality of your performance will most likely surprise you.
132. Don't be afraid to train opposite muscle groups together - chest with back, biceps and triceps. Variety can be a good thing.
133. End the workout for one muscle group with a pump set for fun. Destroy it with a kill set of 20 to 40 reps before moving on to the next muscle group.
134. Is a muscle group lagging behind in its development? Try the 7 - 14 day blitz. Train it with 10 sets a day, every day, with moderate weights. Then give this muscle group a whole week off.
135. Short on time? Try a rest-pause workout.
136. Hammer your shoulders. It's okay to use more than one pressing exercise per shoulder training session. Stop coddling your shoulders.
137. Eat something first thing in the morning. Your body has been without food all night. Give your day a turbo start with some quality food.
138. Eat protein regularly and often. This has been the foundation of bodybuilding for decades and to my knowledge has never let a trainee down. Eat at least 4 protein meals a day, with 5 to 7 being optimal.
139. Use the "shake and bake" rule after training. Drink a shake immediately after your workout and eat a meal of whole foods 30 to 90 minutes later.
140. Eat protein before going to bed. If you don't want to eat late at night, drink a casein protein shake.
141. Don't miss meals. Don't miss workouts, don't miss meals...do you see the connection?
142. Are you constantly tired? Use a pre-workout formula to give you an extra training boost.
143. Exercise during the time of day when you have the most energy or when you are least likely to miss a training session.
144. Hate vegetables? Chop up 2 handfuls of spinach and cook them in a pan until they curl. Spinach shrinks down to almost nothing, is tasteless and can be added to almost any meal in this form. Quick and easy vegetables!
145. Ignore haters and troublemakers. Stay away from people who try to stop you from achieving your goals.
146. Are you stuck in a rut? Try something completely different like a 10 x 10 training session.
147. There is no need to regularly test your maximum weight. Get out of the habit and focus on building muscle.
148. Stop thinking that training-free days are wasted time. Find a life outside the gym.
149. Go to local bodybuilding competitions. It's great motivation and it's cheap.
150. Train as if you expect to still be training at 70. Pushing yourself to the limit and beyond occasionally is fine. But don't overdo it. Go to the gym, train hard and then leave.

Source: https://www.muscleandstrength.com/articles/150-muscle-building-tips