Building Muscle: 5 Things I Wish I'd Known

5 things I wish I'd known about building muscle when I started training 👇 pic.twitter.com/pquD0ndLbE

— Rob - Nothing Barred Fitness (@Rob_NBF) June 6, 2023

1. Weight isn't everything.

The weight doesn't matter as much as you think for building muscle. What matters is that you make your muscles work to (or close to) failure.

— Rob - Nothing Barred Fitness (@Rob_NBF) June 6, 2023

This study shows strong evidence that sets up to 35 reps are equally useful for building muscle vs. sets of 8-12 reps.https://t.co/JJsuscw1S8

— Rob - Nothing Barred Fitness (@Rob_NBF) June 6, 2023

If I'd known this when starting out, I could have used lower loads and used much better form, avoiding many injuries and CNS burnout from constant heavy lifting and one rep max attempts.

— Rob - Nothing Barred Fitness (@Rob_NBF) June 6, 2023

2. Less is more.

20 sets of chest on "chest day" isn't necessarily better than 10, or 5 sets.

This study found that 4-6 sets to failure made no significant difference to hypertrophy when compared with 2-3 sets to failure.https://t.co/lOR3j5gvp8

— Rob - Nothing Barred Fitness (@Rob_NBF) June 6, 2023

If I'd known this when starting out, I could have saved myself a lot of wasted time doing endless sets for the same muscle groups.

I could have also avoided a lot of shoulder pain that came from doing A LOT of sets of heavy pushing exercises - extra sets that were adding nothing

— Rob - Nothing Barred Fitness (@Rob_NBF) June 6, 2023

I also could have probably made much better progress as all that extra work was likely lengthening my recovery.

This study found that on average, recovery was increased from 72 hours to 96 hours, when sets to failure were increased from 3 to 7.https://t.co/gCLPu591eh

— Rob - Nothing Barred Fitness (@Rob_NBF) June 6, 2023

3. More workouts does not = better results.

You need to recover from your workouts. The muscle is built during the recovery, not during the training session.

— Rob - Nothing Barred Fitness (@Rob_NBF) June 6, 2023

Reintroducing more stress (training) while you're still recovering is messing with the process of adaptation (building muscle) that is still going on.

— Rob - Nothing Barred Fitness (@Rob_NBF) June 6, 2023

Think about it. Other stuff works like this too.

The adaptation to the sun is a tan. Too much sun will burn you. Does reintroducing the sun while you're still burnt help your tan to develop?

No, you're just further damaging the skin that is still trying to recover.

— Rob - Nothing Barred Fitness (@Rob_NBF) June 6, 2023

Most studies show that when training near failure with 3 sets, it takes around 3 or 4 days to recover, which equates to training each muscle group 1.5 -2x per week.

— Rob - Nothing Barred Fitness (@Rob_NBF) June 6, 2023

Combining this with the previous information, it would make more sense to split the work you do in one session (e.g. a chest day) across two days, and train another muscle group at the same time - (e.g. 2 upper body days).

— Rob - Nothing Barred Fitness (@Rob_NBF) June 6, 2023

4. You don't want fast weight gain.

You shouldn't listen to the people that say "you've got to eat big to get big".

There is a limit to how fast you can gain muscle, and eating more and more calories doesn't speed it up at all.

— Rob - Nothing Barred Fitness (@Rob_NBF) June 6, 2023

The maximum amount of muscle you can gain in a month is probably about 2 lbs.

And that's if you do EVERYTHING perfectly and have very good genetics.

Gaining these 2 lbs would only require about a 250 calorie surplus per day.

"Eating big" is going to blow that out of the water.

— Rob - Nothing Barred Fitness (@Rob_NBF) June 6, 2023

5. Gaining significant muscle takes a long time.

You're not going to gain 2 lbs of muscle every month.

It's easier to gain it in the beginning, then it slows down the more experienced you get.

— Rob - Nothing Barred Fitness (@Rob_NBF) June 6, 2023

I used to read blog posts explaining how I could expect to gain 25 lbs of muscle in my first year of training.

Well, I gained about 30 lbs, but I lost a lot of definition.

When I cut the fat away and got lean again, I was maybe 10lbs heavier than I was when I started.

— Rob - Nothing Barred Fitness (@Rob_NBF) June 6, 2023

Here's the key points from this thread:

- There's no need to lift below 8 reps if muscle gain is your goal.
- More and more training won't get you better results.
- You only need a small calorie surplus.
- You'll gain muscle slower than you think.

— Rob - Nothing Barred Fitness (@Rob_NBF) June 6, 2023

You can build muscle if you've got a busy schedule.

Short, efficient workouts that don't overdo it are the best course of action.

My program is built on these principles and it's 66% off today.

Check out the contents here👇https://t.co/jAlDkEfE9B

— Rob - Nothing Barred Fitness (@Rob_NBF) June 6, 2023

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Follow me @Rob_NBF if you want to get lean and build muscle on a tight schedule.https://t.co/OtltgHpt1I

— Rob - Nothing Barred Fitness (@Rob_NBF) June 6, 2023