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You visit the gym every week, but you don't notice your muscles becoming bigger. Perhaps you're doing something wrong? Learn how to stimulate muscle growth with these 3 evidence-based strategies.
After exercising, a good pump and a sweaty t-shirt don't necessarily indicate that you've given your best effort to increase muscle mass.
Ride the wave of knowledge from Jeremy Ethier if you want to learn how to stimulate muscle growth.
Kinesiologist and fitness expert Jeremy Ethier is also the co-founder of Built With Science. He boasts over 4 million subscribers on YouTube and provides information that is both clear and well-researched.
In his most recent video, Ethier discussed three scientifically supported techniques for accelerating muscle growth.
Applying progressive overload is the primary technique to promote muscle growth. According to Jeremy Ethier, there are multiple forms of overload, and it's crucial to be aware of them so you can apply them as needed. Depending on the workout, sometimes one method of overload is more effective than another.
The simplest way to stimulate muscle growth for beginners is by increasing the weight they lift.
You can't just add more weight to your bench press every week indefinitely. Eventually, you'll hit a plateau. There's a limit to the weight your muscles can lift.
After reaching your weight limit, another effective technique to stimulate muscle growth is to increase the number of reps. By the end of the week, even if you add just one more rep to your regular set, you will have lifted a greater total weight.
How many extra reps should you add? A 2017 meta-analysis found that keeping the weight consistent and increasing the repetitions up to 30 can produce the same growth as increasing the weight.
Another straightforward way to boost muscle growth is to increase the number of sets. For example, if you do three sets of eight barbell curls with 30 kilograms in one week, try doing four sets of eight reps with the same weight the following week.
However, remember that there's a point where adding more sets becomes counterproductive. This is often referred to in the bodybuilding community as "junk volume." As a rule of thumb, avoid working any muscle group with more than 30 sets consecutively.