How do you build muscle fast?

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What is critical is:

1. which exercises you perform
2. how you perform them
3. how frequently you train
4. the foods you eat
5. your overall nutritional status
6. the quality and quantity of your rest and recovery.

The exercises you concentrate on should be the basic, compound exercises. They are (full) squats, deadlifts, presses, rows, dips, and chins. Do a whole-body routine (as opposed to using split routines). See the page link, further down this page, for guidance on which exercises I advise you to use.

Learn how to perform each exercise with perfect form, and use perfect form with as much weight as you can handle on every rep. If you do not use perfect form, you will hurt yourself. If you do not train intensely, you will not grow--so go for the "burn"!

"Listen" to your body to determine training frequency. Once you are training intensely, you'll experience DOMS (delayed onset muscular soreness) a day or two after training. In order to ensure systemic (and not just localized) recovery, wait 24 or 48 hours before training again. Exercise is like medicine: too little is not effective and too much is counterproductive.

You do not grow in the gym. Instead, what you do in the gym should stimulate growth outside the gym. This means plenty of rest and recovery. It means eating a meal with sufficient protein from natural sources every 3 or 4 waking hours. It means drinking plenty of water. It means getting plenty of sleep. It means avoiding other strenuous physical activity (although some regular brisk walking is fine).

Depending upon your age and genetics, if you follow these guidelines, you will be able to build muscle relatively quickly. I have added some of my free weight training routines, suitable for beginners or intermediates, further down this page, listed under "Related Links."

First answer by ID1093398530. Last edit by Sepp2. Contributor trust: 658 [recommend contributor]. Question popularity: 4 [recommend question]