The Guide to Building Muscle

Many of us are wanting to be bigger. Bigger and stronger. Many men grow up believing being big and strong is something to admire and is a measure of our masculinity. While that may not necessarily be the case, it is in our biology to be protectors and hunters, so it is easy to see why we still carry these ideologies of the male physique and performance.  A growing number of women are realizing the benefits of being strong and many are wanting to look that way. Regardless of your gender, being strong is something that will serve us in our health and longevity for a lifetime and assure we are capable of many tasks as we age. Being strong typically means looking strong and we have a direct correlation to the look of a person’s body and their capabilities. There is nothing wrong with lifting weights just to look strong. As paraphrased from a Chinese proverb “It is better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener at war.” I believe this to mean it’s better to be strong and physically capable whether we are called to exercise this ability or not. Our bodies will thank us either way. 

So at this point you may be looking to bulk up. Just like cutting fat, the concepts are very easy. In fact, very little really needs to change between the two. We still need to have a challenging strength training program that will push our bodies to adapt to an ever increasingly hard stimulus. There is no need to change the exercises, rep schemes, number of sets or pace of your program from when we are cutting fat. Over time we may need more stimulus so adding sets to our program very slowly is a great idea, but we can also just focus on increasing strength. The same concepts that keep muscle on our frame when we have a deficit will help us grow muscle when we are in a surplus. So the first step is to create the appropriate plan and understand the concepts of intensity and progressive overload. See previous blogs to help guide you with creating workouts and getting the most out of them. Despite popular belief, bulking does not require eating everything in sight. Excess energy above a certain level is likely to just be stored as fat and require more time cutting down in our cutting phases. An excess of fat can make the muscle building process increasingly more difficult as well as our body becoming desensitized to food. The body can only add a small amount of muscle over time. In fact, as a beginner we are doing well to add a pound of pure muscle in one month. As a more advanced lifter this can slow down even more. The smartest approach is to calculate a realistic surplus and not go overboard.

The most important step and the main change between our fat cutting phase is the amount we are eating. If we want to gain body mass we need to eat more than our body needs. We need to have a reserve of energy. This is called being in a caloric surplus. The process to calculate the appropriate amount to eat and the right things to eat are similar to those in a cutting phase. First, we will use our BMR calculator. These can be found from a simple Google search. We will need to plug in some information about our body and the calculator will estimate the amount of energy our body needs at baseline. From there we can correct that number to our activity level. The final step to finding out bulking calories is to add a percentage as a surplus.

We can start by adding a small amount above our energy needs. We can try a 10% surplus and add as needed week to week until we reach a desired weight gain trend. Gaining too much weight too quickly will cut our bulk short. The body will gain too much body fat and muscle accrual will grind to a halt. For these reasons we need to be smart and start small. Let’s use an example.

120lb woman at 24 years old and 5 foot 4 with moderate activity level. Roughly 20% body fat.

Baseline BMR: 1,279

Adjusted activity BMR: 1,759

With 10% surplus: 1,935

I recommend aiming for about ½ a pound per week to 1 pound per week. We can adjust these numbers up until this range is acquired. Over time the weight gain may slow as the body gains muscle which burns more energy and along with adding more body weight. It is important to weigh at the same time of day, first thing in the morning. I recommend keeping the salt intake and water intake roughly the same throughout the week to avoid any boluses in weight. Try by weighing once per week or a few times and taking an average.

Second, we need to figure out our macro nutrients. Macronutrients are the energy producing nutrients fat, protein, and carbohydrates. Protein will grow and maintain muscle mass primarily so this is very important. Fats and carbohydrates are mostly energy producing. Carbohydrates are needed for energy, especially in the case of weight lifting. Maintaining appropriate carbohydrates will help ensure better gym performance that will support muscle mass. I would consider them the second most important. While we can do a very low or 0 carb approach, in most cases I wouldn’t consider this ideal. Fats are needed to support hormonal activity and serve many functions in the body, but aren’t the most readily used fuel and aren’t as impactful for muscle retention as the others. For these reasons, in most cases, I limit fat before other macronutrients. The priority remains on protein with the second priority being carbohydrates. Here are some ranges to set your macro nutrients. Fat and carbs can be a sliding scale. If you prefer more fat and less carbs that’s perfectly fine as long as you are at a level of carbohydrates to support improvements in gym performance. Tracking your numbers in the gym will help you determine this. Here are some ranges to help us set our macro nutrients.

Protein: .8-1.0 grams per pound of bodyweight

Carbohydrates: 1 gram or more per pound of body fat

Fat: .2 grams or more per pound of bodyweight

The simplest way to do this is to set your protein and adjust the others as, again, a sliding scale. 1.0 grams per pound of fat is ideal, but with higher levels of body fat, the lower end of the range is acceptable. From there we can set carbs at at least 1 gram per pound or as close as we can to that bottom limit. We should prioritize carbohydrate intake for performance, to keep the muscle full, and to promote growth. In the case of higher body fat, it may be ideal to go into a cut first. You can also fit your fat and fill in the carbohydrates as needed. I find in many cases higher body fat individuals respond best to higher fat and lower carbs, yet more muscle mass must maintain a higher carbohydrate need. Let’s take 2 examples. One will be from the female above.

Calories: 1,939

Protein: 1g per pound of body weight

Fat: .35 g per pound of body weight

Carbohydrates: Remaining

Let’s break down the numbers and match the macros with the calories. Each gram of both protein and carbs are roughly 4 calories. Fat will be at 9 calories per gram. We can use the calorie target to set the deficit in energy and the macros accordingly. We can set two metrics and do reverse math to decide the remaining calorie allotment and assign the third macronutrient target. 

Body weight: 120 lbs

Protein: 120g and 480 calories

Fat: 42g and 378 calories

Carbs: Remaining

1,929 - 480 - 378 = 1,071

1,071 calories / 4 calories per gram of carbs

268g of carb

The full breakdown will be

120p/42f/268c

Let’s take a male at 175 pounds with a 2,500 calorie adjusted baseline. Starting at a 10% surplus out goal, calories will be 2,750.

Protein: 1.1g/lb

Fat: .4g/lb

Carbs: Remaining

Protein: 192g and 770 calories

Fat: 70g and 630 calories

Remaining calories: 1,350

1,350/4 calories per gram in a carb

Carbs: 338g

The full breakdown will be

192p/70f/338c

Now that we have our targets we can do one of two things. We can plan a diet or number of diets to prepare and keep us on target or we can track throughout the day. We can use a number of apps to formulate a diet or track. Many use MyFitnessPal. I prefer Avatar Nutrition or Chronometer. These apps have the nutrition of foods programmed into a database. We can put in portions of each item for a diet we plan to align the targets, or we can track and work to hit those targets daily. Having a good idea on what foods are heavier in each of these three macronutrients is a good idea. I suggest natural foods as opposed to processed items for health, hunger control and the best results. Using this method over time you can accomplish a large amount of muscle accrual over time. If the target weight is not moving or if the body isn’t visually improving it’s back to the drawing board. Overshoot the original calorie goals and rework the macro targets. Once the body is rising at a desirable rate, continue the plan until the goal is achieved. If too much fat is accrued over time I recommend moving into a cut for a period of time to rid excess fat and resensitize the body to growth.

While this may seem complex on the surface, it is really just simple math and understanding these concepts. Diet planning and/or tracking is a skill that may take some practice. Whichever method you choose, make sure it is sustainable and helps maintain a healthy mindset around dieting. With some homework and a little practice you will be an expert at controlling your own body and working to achieve your ideal body. If you want to cut out the trial and error, or just hate math, consider hiring a coach. This often takes out the thought, keeps you accountable to your goals, and can often make a building phase an enjoyable and stress free learning experience.