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Top 10 Muscle-Building Tips for Beginners

Work smarter to get results faster.

If you are all about working smarter rather than harder, check out these top 10 muscle-building tips for beginners.

These tips were shared by Max Posternak. Max Posternak is the founder of Gravity Transformation, a website focused on giving tips and training guidance for people looking to improve their fitness and lose weight. His YouTube channel has over 5 million subscribers.

He claims these secrets are not like your usual suspects, like eating more protein, but rather unique things you probably didn’t know about that can help your fitness goals naturally.

Check out his top 10 muscle-building tips for beginners below.

Top 10 Muscle-Building Tips for Beginners

1. Incorporate Periodisation

First in Posternak’s top 10 muscle-building tips for beginners is to incorporate periodisation. “In a nutshell, periodisation is the systematic breakdown of your training plan over the course of time.”

These include micro, meso and macro cycles which will essentially break down your training plan into weeks, months and years. How to do this easily? Find the maximum weight you can lift for 9-10 reps of your compound exercises.

Stick to this weight for 2-3 weeks and try to increase the weight over this period and stick to the 9-10 reps. After the weeks are done with, change to a rep range of 5-7 reps and find the maximum weight you can lift within this new rep range (it should be higher than before because you’re lifting less frequently).

Again, stick to this new rep range for 2-3 weeks and try to increase the weight over time. Finally, after these 2-3 weeks are over, you begin a new rep range of 3 reps for 2-3 weeks and find the new maximum weight you can lift.

Slow Reps vs Fast Reps for Muscle GrowthSource: Victor Freitas / Pexels

After the 2-3 weeks are over for the 3 rep range cycle, go back to the 9-10 rep range again with the same compound exercises. You will notice you are significantly stronger and can lift more weight compared to the first time with the same rep range.

2. Increase Meal Frequency

Building muscle requires a lot of calories so you should increase the frequency of your meals.

When you begin bulking up for that muscle-building phase, consider having 4-5 meals a day and increase as necessary – you can go up to 9 meals a day, even if it is just a protein shake in the middle of the night.

3. Increase Carb Consumption

Protein is important for hypertrophy, but you should not disregard carbs when it comes to building muscle. But be smart about your carbs – think of whole-grain bread, oatmeal, fruits, green vegetables – low glycemic and fibre food.

Carbs are what give you the energy to push for more reps when you are working out and that is why it is in this list of top 10 muscle-building tips for beginners.

4. Increase Intensity Over Time

The easiest way to increase intensity over time is by progressively lifting heavier weights. Progressive overload is the name of the game here.

5. Increase Training Frequency

top 10 muscle-building tips for beginnersSource: ŞULE MAKAROĞLU on Unsplash

Increase the number of times you go to the gym and how often you hit your muscle groups, but respect the 48 hours rest between each training session for the same muscle group.

6. Split Training Style

This goes hand-in-hand with the previous argument from Posternak’s top 10 muscle-building tips for beginners. To be able to hit muscle groups more often, you will want to split your training style instead of doing full-body workouts every time you go to the gym.

There are a number of ways to split your body training. Click here to see a comparison between full-body, bro split, upper and lower body, and push/pull/leg training styles.

7. Close to Failure With Every Set

You want to get as close to failure every set unless you train very often. However, on key compound lifts, the ones you are trying to increase your strength up, you want to have a few couple of sets hitting failure.

Best Science Based Dumbbell Biceps Workout for Size and ShapeSource: Andrea Piacquadio / Pexels

True failure is when you cannot lift the weight any longer and you cannot conclude another rep. Just make sure you do it safely.

8. Incorporate Training Style

What is perhaps the best of these top 10 muscle-building tips for beginners from Posternak? To apply progressive overload, be it with training frequency or increasing the weight of your lifts.

Incorporating different training styles into your routine is another clever way of applying progressive overload. These include supersets and drop sets.

9. Stick to Mainly Compound Exercises

If you are a beginner and want to pack on muscle, you want the majority of your exercises to be compound. A simple strategy is to stay away as often as possible from machines in the gym and stick to free-range equipment such as kettlebells, barbells and dumbbells.

If you do use a machine, do it at the end of the workout as a finisher after you’ve done your compound movements.

10. Supplementation

Most supplements you see advertised are not needed if you are a beginner. Stick to a protein shake after the workout, a pre-workout made of natural ingredients and creatine. That’s it.

 And that is Posternak’s list of top 10 muscle-building tips for beginners. To see a more detailed explanation from the man himself, click on the video below.

VIDEO – Top 10 Muscle-Building Tips for Beginners

Did you find useful these top 10 muscle-building tips for beginners? Then check out more content from BOXROX to keep getting fitter.

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