build muscle fast Archives - Buffalo Nickel CrossFit

So, you want results and you want them now? You want to know which fitness and nutrition hacks will work in your favor to get you shredded as soon as humanly possible.

Well, luckily, there are steps you can take to optimize your muscle growth. We all know patience is a key part of building muscle. Still, it’s natural to itch to see results from your hard work in the gym.

In this post, we’ve rounded up some tried and tested fitness and nutrition hacks to speed up your journey on the road to ripped.

1. Eat enough protein

This macronutrient is crucial for building muscle. Cut out your sugars, slash your starches and processed carbs: protein is your best friend when it comes to making gains.

You don’t need to consume hundreds of grams of protein every day. If you do this, your body will just store it as fat. Scientific research shows that 0.8 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight is best for someone who is trying to build muscle. So, if you’re sitting at 200 pounds, you’re looking at 160 grams of protein each day.

Opt for low fat sources of protein. Chicken, turkey, pork, beef, fish, milk, yogurt and eggs are all great options. If you’re struggling to get enough into your diet, a great nutrition hack is to stir a bit of protein powder into a yogurt for a quick and high-protein snack.

2. Do compound lifts

To build muscle, you should regularly do lifts that work several muscle groups at once. These are called compound lifts and include deadlifts, bench presses, squats, military presses, kettlebell swings and pullups.

There are many benefits to compound lifts. These exercises are an effective form of cardio, improve flexibility, and help you to build muscle fast.

When performing compound lifts, lift as heavy as you possibly can. Do more sets, and less reps. 5 sets of 5 reps is a good rule of thumb. At the end of your 5 reps, if you physically couldn’t do another then you know you’re lifting heavy enough. If you think you could do more, you need to up your weights.

3. Pre-exhaust your muscles

This popular fitness hack involves performing an isolated exercise, and following it with a compound exercise that works the same muscle group. For example, you could do leg extensions before doing squats.

When you do your compound lift, your muscle fibers will be damaged from the isolated exercise you just did. This means they’ll be primed for optimum muscle growth.

You’ll also feel each rep more on the compound lift. This helps you to perform high-quality sets.

4. Get enough rest

Sleeping well and taking enough time out of the gym is highly important. This is one of the easiest fitness and nutrition hacks for building muscle fast.

On your rest days, do some light cardio to stretch out, such as a half-hour walk or even some yoga. There are many great ways to help your muscles recover.

Many people also recommend cold showers as part of a rest routine. The cold water increases blood circulation which allows you to recover faster and get back to working out. Cold showers also strengthen your immune system and promote endurance.

Whether or not you’ll be jumping into a cold shower, make sure you get enough sleep. Building muscle involves tearing apart your muscle fibers in the gym, and rebuilding them better and stronger from the protein you fuel yourself with. This rebuilding process happens when you sleep, so it’s absolutely vital to spend enough time in bed.

5. Take progress pics

Of course, taking photos isn’t going to directly affect your muscle growth. However, this is a great fitness hack to help keep your motivation up. Taking pictures of your body at the start of your fitness journey to look back on is a concrete reminder that you ARE building muscle.

When change happens slowly, it can feel like your hard work isn’t making a difference at all. If you take some pictures of yourself from different angles, after a few weeks you’ll start to see how far you’ve come.

Documenting your progress is a great way to motivate yourself to hit the gym when you’re having a lazy day.

If you asked most people what the secret to getting stronger is, most would say lift more weight, or do more repetitions. This strains the muscles, therefore theoretically cause them to grow. Sure, that’s good and all. But, there’s a simple hack to get stronger. This is…tempos, pauses and holds.

What are tempos, pauses and holds?

Let’s use the squat as our example. A typical squat goes something like this:

Push hips back and down as if reaching for a chair to sit on. Keep the chest up as the hips go down. Once the hips are lower than the knees, push the floor away. Leading with the chest stand up to return to starting position.

Now let’s add in a tempo and a pause:

Push hips back and down as if reaching for a chair to sit on. Keep the chest up count to 5 as your hips go down.You should reach 5 once the hips are lower than the knees. Come to a complete stop in this position and count to 3. Push the floor away. Lead with the chest as you stand up and return to the starting position.

Yes, it’s the same movement. But, focusing on tempo, pauses and holds causes the muscles to be under tension for a longer time per rep. This is known as time under tension.

How does time under tension work?

When muscles are placed under tension the fibers tear. When these tears heal, the muscles grow back stronger. This is how muscles are built.

Time under tension comes into play because your muscles must spend time pushing, pulling and flexing to break down. Theoretically, the more time our muscles spend pushing, pulling, and flexing the more tension they are under and the stronger they become.

By adding tempos, pauses and holds to a movement your muscles spend more time under tension. And the really awesome thing is that you don’t have to use heavy weights or do more reps.

But I like heavy weights…

Yes, of course, who doesn’t like lifting something heavy and having that instant gratification? But guess what? We should be varying our weights. It’s good to lift heavy sometimes…but not all the time.

Heavy weights and high rep ranges can cause issues, such as:

Stress on joints, tendons, ligaments, muscles, and bones
Injury. Poor form with heavy weight or lots of reps is a good way to get hurt

Also, due to Covid-19, gym equipment has recently been hard to come by. A great benefit to tempos is that you need very little weight for them to work effectively.

Are there times you need to add more weight? Yes, of course. But for the average person, a focus on tempos, holds and pauses and getting into proper form will pay off. This is way more valuable than just picking up heavy weights with bad form.

What benefits come from tempo work?

Less overall stress on the body and central nervous system. If you’re used to lifting heavy, this will be a welcome break for your body
Ability to focus on what muscles are recruited for each movement. This is a good test for if we are using the proper ones
Our focus shifts to proper movement and form, instead of how much weight is being moved
Less equipment is needed, especially weight
You get a deeper understanding of your movement

How do I incorporate more tempos, pauses and holds?

Adding tempo work is easy, and one of the nice things is how many options you have. The possibilities are endless. A good rule to remember is only do your tempos, pauses and holds as long as you can maintain good form. Adding a 10 second pause to a front squat will only help if you keep good front squat form.

When you do add these to your training, make sure to keep the ego in check.You will have to be using lighter weights than you usually do. Some people have a difficult time with this and give up on the tempo work. But I can promise you that, if done properly, this strategy will only increase your numbers and help you break plateaus.

Have a tempo combo you love? Let us know what your favorites are!

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