Five Great Tips to Build Muscle Up Quickly

If your goal is to get 100% better at something, how would you approach it? I can think of two ends of the continuum. The approach you select will be somewhere along this continuum: doing one thing twice as good (or 100 percent better), or doing 100 things 1 percent better. I think that most people gravitate towards the first approach, but the latter is much more realistic.

Taken a step further, to make each of these 1 percent building blocks more effective, you could also focus on things that occur outside of your workouts. So you focus on modifying your habits and making tiny improvements in many areas that will stack on top of one another to give you massive benefits.

So here are 5 easy lifestyle changes you can make to help you build muscle up.

1) Replace Aerobics with High Intensity Interval Trainign

Traditional aerobic activities have a negative impact on muscle gaining because it burns glycogen and branched chain amino acids (BCAA). Rather, focus on interval training for fat burning, e.g. a 400-meter sprint followed by a 400-meter recovery jog, repeated for a total of four times.

2) Increase Total Time Under Load

Rather than concentrating on the quantity of reps, concentrate on the total time your muscles are under load. Try spending 2 seconds on the negative contraction, 1 second at neutral (bottom of the exercise), and 1 second on the positive contraction. Lengthening the negative is a simple way to overload muscles and promote muscle weight gain.

3) Eat More Fish

Not only is fish high in protein, it is also a natural source of essential fatty acids, which are vital for both your muscular health and your overall health. Essential fatty acids make your muscles more sensitive to insulin, so they aid glycogen storage and increase the absorption of amino acids into your muscles, while also preserving glutamine storage.

4) Mix up your Total Time Under Load

One really easy way to add variety to a workout, confuse your muscles, and build muscle up is to switch up your repetition tempo by adding an explosive day once per week, or an explosive set once per workout. It looks like this: 2-second negative contraction, 1-second neutral, explode as fast as you can on the positive contraction and repeat.

5) Try Something New

If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got. Commit to yourself to read a new (as in current and scientifically backed) exercise book every six months. You’ll pick up new approaches and new tips to add to your workouts.