Top tips for building muscle fast

Looking to build some lean muscle but not exactly sure where to start, then we have just the thing with a quick and simple guide to building muscle fast.

These five quick tips from DW Fitness to get back on track and understand what you really need to do to build muscle.

Create damage 

You build muscle by damaging the muscle fibres, allowing them to repair and grow thicker. This means that you'll need to cause some damage to your muscles, and this is predominately done by an exercise that they're not used to, like weightlifting.

To ensure that you continuously challenge your body and muscles, you'll want to either increase the weight you use or up the number of repetitions of a particular exercise you do. That way your body won't get used to a specific exercise or movement.

To know when you're lifting enough you need to ensure that it's not comfortable for you to finish the final couple of reps, but you don't want to compromise on form. The amount of weight you lift is different for every person, you just want to struggle through the last couple of reps to ensure you're causing some damage to the muscle fibres.

Make sure there’s time to recover

Not only do you need to take the time to damage the muscles, it's imperative that you give them time to repair. In fact, this is when they're going to grow.

You can ensure that you're giving your body plenty of time to repair itself by working different muscle sets on different days. If you plan properly, you'll give your body plenty of time to rebuild.

There's no point in training your muscles that are already aching, make sure you're eating plenty of the right foods, and sleep well too. All of this recovery aids muscle building.

Eat more calories 

The one point you're definitely going to enjoy. There's no point in trying to build muscle if you're not eating enough food. If you burn more calories than you eat you're not going to gain muscle.

They say you need to take in an extra 3,500 calories a week to build around one pound of extra muscle.

And while you need to eat more food, you need to ensure it's the right stuff. You'll want a healthy balance of protein, fat and carbs. Don't just think about chocolate, sweets and crisps.

Protein, Protein, Protein 

Protein can help with muscle repair and growth because it contains high levels of the amino acid leucine. In fact, you'll find it in Whey, a natural protein supplement derived from milk during the production of cheese.

Supplementing your diet with a whey protein shake is an easier option that ensuring your eating beans, eggs or lean meat all day. Plus, it's a fat and efficient way of getting a decent amount of protein into the body in a quick way.

Reduce the amount of cardio you do

While cardio is great for stripping body fat, if you're looking to build muscle too much cardio can put your body into a catabolic state.

If you're doing a lot of cardio your cortisol can raise which results in your immune system weakening. If you feel physically tired all of the time, or get colds easily you might find that you need to cut down on the cardio you do.