5-minute read
In July (2022), I weighed 179 with a 3% body fat.
(Early July 2022)
At the time of writing this (October 7, 2022), I weigh 210 lbs with a 8% body fat.
(Late September 2022)
I’ve gained 31 pounds in a little over 3 months, most of that being muscle.
I’ve also drastically increased my strength. For example, I went from 405lbs being my max on squat to doing that for reps on my rest week.
Below, you’ll read exactly what I’ve done to make these gains. I’ve structured this article to allow you to understand and duplicate my results in your own life.
INCREASE SLEEP
Sleep is a super drug. It’s better than steroids, and I’m not even kidding.
Science still doesn’t have a full explanation for why we need to sleep (other than that we need to rest after exertion), but science definitely has quantified the effects of good sleep on the gains.
One study done on Chinese university students in 2017 demonstrated that men who slept less than 6 hours a night had significantly lower levels of strength than those who slept 7-8 hours or over 8 hours.
Another study shows that even one night of sleep deprivation reduces muscle protein synthesis (MPS) by 18%. According to VeryWellFit, MPS is “ultimately a physiological process by which increases are linked to improved muscle growth."
Further, this same study shows that sleep deprivation decreases plasma testosterone by 24%. Testosterone decrease in men trying to make gains is a huge no-no.
More testosterone is a key factor for gains in men. One study shows that men who sleep less that 5 hours have significantly lower testosterone levels than those who sleep at least 8 hours.
How increasing sleep affected me
In July (2022), I was getting only about 5 hours of sleep a night, which I tracked on my Fossil Smart Watch.
As of October 6, 2022, I’m getting at least 8 hours of sleep per night, and this has been consistent for a month.
I noticed that as I increase my sleep; it got much easier to lift heavier. Of course, this is anecdotally based on me gauging my experience, but I have some theories why this was the case. My guess, based on my encounters and research, is that this is because of being more rested and having higher levels of testosterone because of sleeping more.
TL;DR for this section - Sleep more because your body performs and recovers less efficiently when you don’t rest well. Also, specifically for men, more sleep is associated with higher testosterone levels. Testosterone is always good for the gains, less of it is detrimental to the gains.
INCREASE PROTEIN (AND CALORIES)
Protein consumption is important for making gains. You break down your muscles when you workout, then they repair themselves once you’re resting. Protein is the chemical substance that your body needs in order to repair muscle that’s damaged during exercise.
The breakdown of muscles is a key factor in the building of muscle. When muscles breakdown during exercise, they build back bigger and stronger, but only if you eat enough calories and protein to both fix and grow the muscle tissue.
We talked about MPS in the first section and how it relates to muscle growth. MPS happens whenever you exercise and is high when you lift heavy weights. Research shows that eating protein within 24 hours of your workout boosts MPS, which leads to more muscle growth. This is important, because your MPS needs to outpace the rate at which your muscles are being broken down if you want to make muscle gains. Studies show that increased protein intake has a synergistic effect with exercise, leading to increased MPS.
How increasing protein intake affected me
I always knew that protein was important for making gains. I mean, that’s bro-science 101.
But since I was never tracking my protein intake, I never knew for sure if I was getting enough (spoiler: I wasn’t).
Jeff Nippard has a great video explaining how much protein you should take in based on your muscle building goals. From this video, I learned I should get 1 gram per pound of body weight per day.
Once I knew this, I started keeping track of my intake using the Etekcity Food Scale and its free companion app, VeSync. I highly recommend getting these, or at the very least, manually tracking your protein (and calories) manually using a notebook.
Ever since I started making sure I’m getting enough protein, my gains have gone through the roof. It’s shown in the drastic strength increases I’ve made. In only 10 weeks, I’ve turned all my old maxes into sets I do for reps - insane.
TL; DR for this section - Eat 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight per day. This will maximize your muscle protein synthesis, which needs to outpace the rate at which your muscles break down during exercise if you want to make gains.
These two things alone drastically increased my body’s ability to build muscle. It should go without saying that I’ve also been lifting like an animal at the gym, too. But I was always doing that, though I wasn’t always seeing gains like these.
The main take away from this post should be that adequate sleep and good protein intake will give your body the chance to build the suit of armor you envision.
If you want to know more about my workout routine, check out my Principles of Body Building Ebook.
TL; DR for this blog post - Eating 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight per day AND sleeping at least 8 hours a night will bring dramatic improvements to your gains.
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