October 23, 2024, 3:05 pm | Read time: 4 minutes
Although millions of people go to the gym, many fail to get a muscular body – despite regular training. That’s why FITBOOK presents five scientifically proven methods that can help you achieve just that.
Sometimes it’s maddening. You regularly go to the gym several times a week and diligently do exercises such as bench presses, squats, or bicep curls, but your muscles just don’t want to grow. At some point, you ask yourself desperately: “Why is that? What am I doing wrong?” This is precisely the question that successful fitness YouTuber Jeremy Ethier addresses. He explains to his 4.54 million followers the best way to stimulate muscle growth. And it’s scientifically proven!
Overview
1. Increase weights, increase load
Probably the simplest and best-known method of stimulating muscle growth is to increase the weights..1 This increases the load on the muscles. During the recovery phase, the muscles start to grow so that they are better prepared for the load the next time. You should therefore try to lift a little more weight each week, especially if you perform the same exercises. It is helpful to keep a training diary so that you can document your training success and remember the weights you lifted the week before.
But there’s a catch, as fitness YouTuber Jeremy Ethier explains: you can’t keep increasing the weight indefinitely. At some point, you will reach your physical limits. In addition, joints and tendons can be damaged if you go beyond your own performance limit. By this point, your weight will stagnate, and you will no longer be able to stimulate or promote muscle growth.
2. Higher repetition rate increases muscle growth
If you stagnate with the weight, there is another way to stimulate muscle growth: the repetition rate..2 For example, if you can do eight repetitions with the maximum weight, you should try to do nine repetitions next time.
A little tip: If you’re pushing yourself to the limit, it’s best to have a training partner or helper with you. They can intervene to protect you if you can’t do the last repetition on your own.
As Jeremy Ethier explains, just one more repetition per week will bring significant gains. This is because you lift significantly more weight over the course of the week than you did the week before. According to a 2017 study, you can increase your repetition rate to up to 30 and achieve steady muscle growth.
3. Incorporate more sets into your training
If you can’t or don’t want to increase the repetition rate, you have another tool at hand for muscle growth: the number of sets.2 For example, if you usually perform three sets of eight repetitions, you should try four sets the next week. And the following week with five sets. This increases the total weight lifted enormously over the course of a week!
However, this method has two drawbacks. Adding sets extends the duration of the workout. If you only have a limited time window per day for training, it becomes complicated. There is also a golden rule among bodybuilders: a muscle group should not be trained for more than 30 sets per week, as anything more than this will not result in further muscle growth.
4. Perform exercises more slowly
A simple but effective way to stimulate muscle growth is to slow down the progression of the exercise.3 This increases the time the muscles are tensed, and the load is therefore higher.
“This is particularly effective for exercises that use smaller, weaker muscle groups such as the shoulders, where adding just a little weight often increases the difficulty disproportionately,” explains Ethier. Slowing down also makes sense when doing exercises with your own body weight, as you can’t add any more weight.
For example, if you need two or three seconds for an entire movement, you can allow yourself an extra second each week. However, it should not be more than six seconds in the end.
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5. Stimulate muscle growth with better body control
An often underestimated factor in stimulating muscle growth is the correct execution of strength exercises. But this is exactly where further muscle growth can be stimulated – without additional weight or more repetitions.
If you simply add more and more weight and then perform an exercise incorrectly, you are actually harming your body and risking injury. Instead, you can stick to your usual weight, but pay close attention to your posture, tensing the muscles you are using and controlling your movements. For example, training with less momentum and trying to target the desired muscle in isolation will ensure better muscle growth. For best effectiveness, you should focus in particular on the contraction of the muscle, as studies have shown.5