What is the HN answer to build muscle quickly without being enhanced? 6 days a week PPL?
If you can afford it, I’d recommend hiring a trainer for at least 3 lessons spaced out over your first few weeks so you can tune your form on the exercises, learn to build core control, and build good habits to avoid injury.
That said, this is definitely one of the best/simplest ways to build physical strength, get comfortable with the bar, and get ready for more advanced training. After 8 weeks, I was squatting 3x what I was when I started.
Eventually, I switched to a plan put together by a trainer in my neighborhood, where we do a little more rotation just to keep things interesting. Keeping things interesting is NOT important when you're first learning though. If you're like me, just being able to throw another 10 lb on the bar when coming back after the weekend off was interesting!
Plainly put, there is isn't a super fast way. My understanding and experience is that muscle is developed over time with progressively more difficult weight. Critically, the recovery period for your muscles is required as that's when new muscle is being formed. I believe that rushing that process is what is most likely to lead to an injury, which funny enough will slow you down in the quest for strength. In other words, a heavy 6 day/week workout won't make you strong, but simply constantly exhausted.
I would advocate for the long slow road. There's no rush, and I believe you'll be stronger in the long run if you take your time. It's easier to handle mentally too in my opinion. You don't have to stress about going fast to be strong quickly. Enjoy it!
If you think weight lifting sounds cool, take up a program like Starting Strength or Strong Lifts 5x5. 3 days a week, often doing squats and throwing in bench press, dead lifts, and barbell rows. Take your time here! Look up videos on techniques and realize that people will be absolutists about form. Try and match the form, and be aware of different body types and how that will change the forms. Do this for a few cycles which would last 2-4 months. Assess your progress. It will be easy to tell because you'll be writing down your progress and adding weight each time you successfully complete a day. As it gets too difficult to maintain, look into new programs and go from there.
If you're not into weight training, I think a site like this is great. You'll want to scale back on how many reps/sets a bit, and study some techniques. You'll feel some changes over time, and in the beginning mostly a bit of confusing soreness.
Anyway, that's my recommendation! I genuinely hope you find what works for you and stick with it!
I'd say do a 5x5 program consistently for 3 months, and track your progress over that time. If you follow the program, you'll progressively add weights each time you do that range until you complete a cycle or cannot complete the 5x5 set successfully.
Ex: You start off at 100lbs x 5 reps on the bench press, twice per week. If you do a 3 week cycle, it might look like this:
* 100 x 5 * 105 x 5 * 110 x 5 * 115 x 5 * 120 x 5 * 125 x 5
It's important to understand what you achieved here. Increasing weight this quickly is extremely good progress. Eventually you'll hit points where adding even 5lbs more feels difficult. So remember that 25lbs is a big amount. Keep that in mind as you go.
Usually these programs will have you take a slight break/do light weights on the 4th week. Then you'll repeat the 4 week cycle, but you increase your starting point from 100lbs to 110lbs (or something along those lines).
At some point, you'll get either bored of this or maybe start hitting the limits of them. Some of these programs have you squatting 5x5's three times a week, which after a while is exhausting. After that you can begin exploring other styles such as body building which emphasizes physique more than powerlifting or strongman.
The gateway drug to the HIT tradition, which began with genius Arthur Jones and Nautilus in the early 1970s, is this video presentation by Doug McGuff[1], author of Body by Science[2]. Whether you follow a HIT protocol or not, you should be familiar with the theory covered in Body by Science. Doug covers the definition of fitness and health (which is unusual right there for a fitness book!), the confounding effects of genetics, fat metabolism, and much, much more. The High Intensity Business podcast has all the leading figures in exercise research as guests, with a rich back catalog and very detailed links in the show notes.[3] And if you plan to do this for the rest of your life, give your future joints a break by not destroying them in your youth.[4][5]
[0] https://www.julian.com/guide/muscle/intro
[1] https://youtu.be/2PdJFbjWHEU
[2] https://www.amazon.com/Body-Science-Research-Strength-Traini...
[3] https://highintensitybusiness.com/podcasts/
[4] https://www.amazon.com/Joint-Friendly-Fitness-Optimal-Exerci...
[5] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/billdesimone/the-joint-...
I personally have been doing 5/3/1 for a while and it’s been really effective. I ended up making an app [1] and a web calculator [2] for it.
When starting out, 3 times a week full-body workouts are recommended. You'll get the most bang from your buck, take advantage of newbie gains, and push yourself no more than need be to grow. Adaptations due to triggering muscle growth can take up to 36 hours, so full days rest in between workouts.
3 sets per exercise unless otherwise stated. Reps stick to 8 - 10. Once you have been training for a while, you can do reps in the 5 - 8 range, but off-the bat, doing that heavy, form can suffer, ego can kick in, and you'll look the same months down-the-line, and you'll have bad habits that will cause problems down-the-line, if not sooner.
Routine:
Monday
Squats B Press Lat Pulldown Abs Calfs Shoulder side lateral raise Bicep curls 2 sets Tricep pulldown 2 sets
Wednesday
Incline Press Deadlifts Rows (bent over or regular) Shoulder Press Facepulls Abs Calfs
Friday
Squats B Press Lat Pulldown Abs Calfs Shoulder side lateral raise Bicep curls 2 sets Tricep pulldown 2 sets
Rest in between sets: 2 minutes. If you need more, certainly with squats, then 3 minutes is fine. Do the exercises, if all 3 sets are within the rep range, you put on more weight next time. You grow when you rest, ie not when you train. Training is just to damage and trigger the growth. Progressive overload can be any number of things: increase reps, shorter rest time, increase weight. So, increase weight, increase reps with new weight, all 3 sets within rep range, increase weight, etc.
Make sure you sleep properly, 7 hours minimum. Eat properly, protein rich stuff. If problematic, protein shakes are fine. Nattys need to rest properly, and eat properly, and not do way too much volume, which you won't do with the above program.
After 8 weeks, deload week, can be where you don't train at all, or train with light weights. You can grow from any number of reps, provided percentage of muscle used is high enough. Takes longer with low weights, but once in a while a high rep program should be implemented, gives your joints a rest from the wear and tear.
Cheers, Ace.
What the post above talks about is about taking enough calories and protein for you to be able to build muscle, normal diets very rarely include enough to build muscle optimally and it can be harder to actually eat enough than to lift enough.