A majority of the bros who lift have one single goal that is to be as swole as possible and have a bicep bigger than the other bros in the gym. Okay, that may be a bit exaggerated (or not) but the goal for most dudes is to build muscle and look buff.  It is hardly ever that some dudes end up achieving this as they focus on all the wrong stuff and burn themselves to the ground.

The mistakes these guys often do is to try to 'confuse' the muscle or buy some 'magical' supplements etc.

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None of this will work and for your muscle building agenda to work, you need to have a few things in place:

1. Eat

The most overlooked aspect of muscle-building phase. For building muscle, you need to eat in a calorie surplus. Doing this will ensure your body performs its daily functions and still has some calories left to build muscle. If you are not eating in a calorie surplus consistently, you are simply wasting your time. And again, by calorie surplus, it does not mean you eat as many calories as possible. Even that works, but you would be bulky in a way you do not like.

Start with a 10% surplus and slowly add calories to it as and when needed.

2. Work Out Using A Full Range Of Motion

Jerk bicep curls or half squats will not really do much. To gain muscle, you need to load and then overload your muscle progressively.  To ensure that you are properly recruiting muscle when lifting and want to grow maximally, a full range of motion is paramount. It may initially even mean lowering weights and if that is needed, do so.

3. Get Strong

A wrong notion that bodybuilders need to only workout in the hypertrophy range and keep the pump on exists. There is nothing wrong with working out in that range but just that range, it is a mistake.

Think of it logically, if you get stronger, you can lift more weights and you can later lift heavier in the hypertrophy range as well.

4. Vary Your Rep Ranges For Different Exercises

Your body has different types of muscle fibers that respond to different stimuli. Do some strength work in the 4 to 8 rep range, some hypertrophy work in the 12 to 15 rep range and even some high rep training in the 20+ rep ranges for isolation exercises.  And when you do this, ensure that you are training heavy. If you set out for an exercise with 12 reps, you should not end the set with enough strength to push 6 more reps.

If that happens, you are not lifting heavy enough.

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5. Train With A Higher Frequency

Do not waste your time doing one body part once a week. Studies have shown that your muscle protein synthesis rates drop to baseline after 48 hours of training them. If your goal is maximal muscle growth, waiting whole 7 days before lifting again or training it again means lost opportunity for gains.

Start with a 2x frequency for hitting every muscle per week and then slowly push it upwards as needed.

Author bio:

Pratik Thakkar is the co-founder and director of GetSetGo Fitness, an online fitness company. He is regarded as someone who will make it easy for you to understand the process by putting things in the right context and providing science-based recommendations for natural bodybuilding. You can reach out to him at pratik@getsetgo.fitness and follow him on Instagram and Facebook.