Experts say that the fastest way to gain muscle is through gradual progressive overload. This simply means that the fastest way to gain muscle is for you to increase the demands that you impose on your body. It follows the idea that muscle growth is directly proportional to the amount of work a muscle is required to do. Following this concept, here then, are three variations of the fastest way to gain muscle:
Variation #1: Increasing Resistance
The first variation of progressive overload, which is the fastest way to gain muscle, is that of gradually increasing the weight that you lift while maintaining the same number of repetitions. While this could be the fastest way to gain muscle, take care to increase the amount of weight only in small increments for safety purposes. A safe rule to follow for the fastest way to gain muscle would be to add 5 pounds or 5% of weight at a time, whichever is smaller.
You would also do well to remember that the weight you use must be over a particular threshold; otherwise, the method will not work as the fastest way to gain muscle for you. For example, if you’re already bench pressing 200 pounds in 3 sets with 6 reps, and you lower it to 100 pounds while gradually adding 5 pounds every workout, that won’t count as the fastest way to gain muscle. That is because 200 pounds is a challenge that your body has adapted to, which means that the fastest way to gain muscle should be over this weight.
Variation #2: Increasing Repetitions
Another variation of the fastest way to gain muscle involves doing more repetitions while maintaining the same amount of weight. However, there are two problems with this variation of the fastest way to gain muscle. The first is that the gains can be a bit difficult to sustain, which can defeat the purpose of it being the fastest way to gain muscle. The second problem is the fact that the increase in reps may change the stimulus of adaptation of your body, again defeating the purpose of being the fastest way to gain muscle.
Variation #3: Increasing Volume
The third and final variation of the fastest way to gain muscle involves increasing your training volume. This means increasing the amount of work you do over a particular period. Although the first two variations of the fastest way to gain muscle may increase your training volume up to a point, the most common way of doing so is increasing the number of sets per workout for each of your muscle groups.
‘However, a never ending increase in Sets, may be the fastest way to gain muscle – but also the fastest route to overtraining.’
Even if this is the fastest way to gain muscle, however, it still isn’t a good idea to keep increasing the number of sets indefinitely. There is such a thing as optimal training volume, which is the maximum volume at which you can work without defeating the purpose of what is supposedly the fastest way to gain muscle. Anything above or below that threshold will compromise any gains you have gotten from the fastest way to gain muscle. Moreover, when you’re using particularly heavy weights, it is best to use any of the two other variations of the fastest way to gain muscle rather than increasing your training volume.
