in order for a muscle to grow you need
to continuously challenge them with more
than they're used to as simple as this
sounds most people's workouts don't
accomplish this sure they'll get a good
pump and sweat out of their workouts but
they aren't actually doing much to
signal their muscles to grow over time
to better explain this let's take a
quick look at the science behind what
actually makes the muscle grow so let's
say we just finished a workout
immediately after our muscles don't
actually get stronger in fact they
become temporarily weakened from the
damage that we put them through it's not
until after a few days of proper
recovery that they adapt to the damage
we put them through and will come back
bigger and stronger than they were
before in order to be better prepared
for the next workout we put them through
however no matter how good of a pump you
get or how much you sweat if that next
session isn't providing your muscles
more of a challenge than the previous
session did then the muscle will have no
reason to grow and will simply maintain
its current size and strength or in some
cases even start to become smaller and
weaker for consistent gains over time
your workouts need to be designed such
that they literally force your muscles
to grow every single session today we're
going to cover the five ways to do just
that
increasing the amount of weight lifted
is a method that most people rely on to
apply it it's quite straightforward
let's say you can currently bench press
a hundred pounds for eight reps next
week you might try to increase the load
and do 110 pounds for eight reps which
would create a new stimulus for your
muscles to have to adapt to and grow
from now if you're a beginner then this
method of progressive overload will be
your bread and butter to help you make
gains quickly you'll likely be able to
add 5 to 10 pounds to the bar every
single week especially on your main
lifts like the bench press the squat and
the deadlift however if you take a
previous example of bench pressing a
hundred pounds in week one and adding 10
pounds of weight every week at the end
of the year theoretically you should be
benching 620 pounds as cool as that
would be neither myself nor alex one of
our record-breaking built with science
coaches who can bench over twice his
body weight is anywhere close to that
this is where people get stuck they rely
on only adding more weight as their
method of challenging their muscles to
grow and eventually get stuck in a
plateau to break through this we have to
get more creative with how we continue
challenging our muscles this is where
our next point comes in handy when
applied properly adding more reps is
another great way to force your muscles
to grow the way this works can be
illustrated with a very simple math
equation if i can bench press a hundred
pounds for ten reps one week i can
multiply those numbers together and
calculate that i've lifted a thousand
pounds total across that set if next
week i go to the gym and lift that same
weight but for 11 reps i will have
lifted 1100 pounds across that same set
this means that by just adding one rep
to my set i've technically lifted a
hundred pounds more than last week which
just like adding more weight does would
create a new stimulus for your muscles
to grow but how high in reps can you go
while using the same weight
well based on 2017 meta-analysis as long
as you're continuing to push hard you
can keep the same weight and increase
all the way up to 30 reps and still get
the same growth compared to adding more
weight this is extremely helpful if you
only have limited equipment or a nagging
injury and can't increase the weight on
your lifts even if you wanted to
however for those who do have access to
more weights what we found to be most
effective and teaching our built with
science programs is something called
double progression this is a system that
utilizes both reps and weight to ensure
that week by week you're forcing your
muscles to grow the way it works is
quite simple let's say you're doing
three sets of squats for eight to twelve
reps with a hundred pounds in week one
you could do eight reps for each set
next week you'd aim to do nine reps each
set if that went well you continue doing
that until you were able to do 12 reps
for all three sets at that point rather
than continuing to increase the reps you
could add 10 pounds and restart the
process by going back down to 8 reps
however again this often only works for
so long what happens when you get stuck
unable to add more weight or do more
reps well here's where another often
overlooked form of progression can come
into play the next method has to do with
how many sets you perform let's say
you're trying to build up your biceps
adding sets can be as simple as going
from 3 sets of 12 one week to 4 sets of
12 the next week using the simple math
equation we used earlier if we were
curling 40 pounds in each hand then each
of our biceps would be lifting 480
pounds more volume in the second week by
just adding that one set it's a really
simple way to add a massive amount of
training volume to your program and it's
something we use in our more advanced
built with science programs to help
bring up lag and muscle groups however
when using this method you need to use
it sparingly based on the literature we
know doing at least 10 sets per muscle
group per week nearly doubles the amount
of gains that you would get compared to
doing just five sets per muscle group
per week but there comes a point of
diminishing returns when you get into
the 20 to 30 set zone so a good rule of
thumb is to increase volume no more than
10 to 20 per week so if you're currently
doing 10 sets of chest per week for
example but you're stuck unable to lift
more weight or do more reps the next
week you could instead still use the
same weight and do the same amount of
reps but just add one extra set to each
exercise and continue doing so every
week then once you get to the 20 to 30
set zone or you just begin to feel quite
fatigued you can cycle back down to the
original program that you started with
now although this method does have its
benefits it is quite taxing on the body
and can make your workouts considerably
longer the next two methods are ways you
can continue forcing your muscles to
grow while lifting the same weight and
doing the same number of reps and sets
every single week tempo refers to how
fast or slow we lift weights if we slow
down our reps we can increase the amount
of time the tension is placed on the
muscle to stimulate more growth this is
especially effective for exercises
involving smaller weaker muscle groups
like lateral raises where adding just a
little bit of weight often
disproportionately increases difficulty
or body weight exercises like push-ups
and pull-ups where adding weight may not
even be an option however you want to
avoid going too slow as that can provide
the opposite effect and start to hinder
muscle growth rather than boost it based
on the recommendations of dr brad
schoenfeld who ran a 2015 meta-analysis
analyzing the effects of tempo on muscle
growth it seems that we can slow down
our reps up to about six seconds total
so for example let's say you're doing 20
pound lateral raises and for each rep
you usually take about a second on the
way up and a second on the way down
rather than doing more weight reps or
sets to stimulate growth you can instead
just slow down your wraps by one second
every week and you can apply this until
you reach three seconds on the way up
and three seconds all the way down at
which point the rest would just get too
slow and is when you'd want to apply
another form of overload which could be
as simple as increasing the weight up to
25 pounds or utilizing the next method
oftentimes when people think they are
challenging their muscles more by adding
more weight to their lifts they really
just end up compromising their form in
the process as a result despite using
the heavier weight than they were
previously their target muscles aren't
actually working any harder you need to
realize that if you do the same work
that you did the week before but you
perform your exercises with better
control less momentum and more
activation of your target muscles then
that is progression
better form involves relying more on the
target muscles and will result in growth
even if all other variables remain the
same although this method may not catch
your eye as much as some of the others
on this list many of you watching could
easily stimulate a significant amount of
growth for all your muscles by simply
cleaning up your form with your
exercises even advanced lifters we still
spend time analyzing and tweaking our
form because we know that any other
method of growth will be meaningless
unless your form remains intact now as
for which of these five memphis is best
and is going to provide you with the
most growth the truth is it depends it
depends on your level of experience your
equipment availability and if there's a
certain type of plateau that you're
stuck in the best way to find out is to
just experiment with them and see what
works best for you but if you're looking
for a step-by-step program that takes
care of all the guesswork for you and
ensures that week by week you're
challenging your body in the right way
to consistently build muscle and lose
fat just head on over to
buildwithscience.com and take our
analysis quiz to find out which of our
programs is best for you and your body
anyways that is it for today guys thank
you so much for watching don't forget to
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any comment down below as to what you'd
like to see me cover next thank you so
much and i'll see you next time
