There's no one muscle-building timeline, because several factors affect your ability to build muscle mass, including:. Your protein intake: While all macronutrients have their roles, protein is king when it comes to building muscle.

Your muscles need adequate protein to repair themselves after the stress of weight training. Without enough protein, muscle growth stagnates. Your calorie intake: If you don't eat enough calories on a daily basis, you won't build muscle even if you eat a lot of protein.

To build muscle, your body must create new tissue, and it can't create something from nothing. Extra fuel from extra calories expedites muscle recovery and growth. This is one reason many people never reach their muscle growth goals -- they aren't willing to deal with the extra body fat that comes along with a muscle-building phase.

Your sleep schedule: Lifting weights while sleep-deprived isn't a smart strategy. You might see some gains, but you definitely can't optimize muscle growth when you don't give your body a fighting chance to recover.

Your lifting routine: If you're trying to build muscle, you should know about two key strength training concepts: frequency and volume.

Frequency refers to how often you train a muscle or muscle group, while volume refers to the total load you stress a muscle with. For example, if you perform three sets of 10 reps on squats using pounds, your total volume is 3, pounds.

More volume and higher frequency typically equate to more muscle, unless you reach the point of overtraining. You already know your Apple Watch can do a lot. But with the right apps, your wrist-borne personal health assistant can do so much more than you ever imagined. Try these 17 wellness apps for Apple Watch to up your health and fitness game.

One of the most comprehensive meditation apps for Apple Watch, Calm offers guided meditations, breathing exercises, mindful movement sessions, guided stretching and more all just a tap away on your wrist.

You can start the day with the minute Daily Calm session, complete an Emergency Calm when you feel anxious, take a quick Mindful Walk after lunch, and play a Sleep Story before bed. The walks and stretching sessions count toward your daily activity rings on your watch too.

If you ever feel like you could use a random positive reminder couldn't we all? Your training age: The more advanced you are, the less muscle growth you'll see yeah, that sounds backward. And maybe you hate cardio. Devoting gym time to cardiovascular exercise feels as if you're burning away hard-earned muscle.

But you're not — you're revealing it. If gaining mass is all you focus on, soon no one will be able to distinguish your traps from your deltoids. For a lean and chiseled physique, you need cardio work. Relax — no distance running involved.

Besides, you know you need aerobic exercise for a healthy heart. And a healthy heart is more efficient at transporting blood and oxygen to working muscles. The stronger your heart, the stronger each of its contractions. That means more oxygenated blood is pumped out with each beat. What follows is a set of rules to help lifters build healthy hearts.

You don't need much cardio work, and most of what you do need should be at high intensity, as befits a man with a lifter's mindset. It'll help you see more muscle definition without wasting time in the gym spinning your wheels.

You don't lift the same way all year, so why should the frequency, intensity, and duration of your cardiovascular workouts stay the same? They shouldn't. When you're trying to add muscle, keep your aerobic work to a minimum — say, once or twice a week for about 15 to 20 minutes.

This will limit your energy expenditure and allow your body to concentrate on building muscle. When you're trying to get lean, increase your cardio training to two to four times a week, to help strip away excess body fat.

At all times, alternate your cardio methods so your workout's not so boring—treadmill running 1 day, rowing or elliptical training the next, cycling the day after that.

Serious lifters worry that cardiovascular training will impede their ability to recover from intense strength training. That all depends on when and how you do your cardio.

Keep your cardio days and strength days as removed from each other as possible. That way your cardio won't hinder gains in strength and size. For instance, doing a tough cycling workout after you hammer your legs with squats and lunges isn't a good idea if your goal is to build bigger legs.

Save your cardio for the next day, or even 2 days later, to rest your legs. If you must do cardio and weights on the same day, choose a form of aerobic work that emphasizes body parts your weight lifting didn't focus on that day. So, if your cardio choice is rowing, which works your upper body as much as it does your legs, row on a day when your weight session doesn't concentrate on your upper body.

Whichever route you choose, just be sure to hit the weights first. You don't want to wipe yourself out before your weight routine—you won't get the most out of your session, and lifting when you're tired can be dangerous.

Your body has enough to contend with in repairing the damage that lifting inflicts on it. The last thing you need to do is break it down further with high-impact cardio training. Concentrate on cardio workouts that minimize microtrauma — the small tears to muscle fibers that are part of the process of building new muscle.

Running on hard surfaces like asphalt or concrete can be traumatic to muscles and joints. Jumping rope can cause similar problems. Your best bets for low-impact exercise are swimming, cycling, and using an elliptical machine. Eat or drink a protein-rich snack before and after your workout.

Protein helps rebuild muscle and will help ensure a faster recovery. Try a protein shake, an apple with peanut butter, chicken, nuts, Greek yogurt or cottage cheese. Whole food typically works better for your pre-workout snack.

A protein shake may work better post-workout, especially if you find it difficult to eat after an intense workout. Whey protein is one of the best sources of complete protein, because it includes all the essential amino acids you need to rebuild your muscles.

You can buy whey protein in powder form and blend it into shakes yourself, or you can buy pre-made protein shakes at grocery or health food stores. Eat ancient grains. Quinoa, spelt, oat bran, amaranth, and other ancient grains are high in protein and minerals, which may help to promote muscle growth by supplying your body with the necessary nutrition.

You also can find bread made from these grains at organic or natural grocery stores. Drink more water before, during and after a workout. Dehydration decreases your performance and can put you at risk for injury, as well as make recovery more difficult. While strength training, you shouldn't lose more than 2 percent of your body weight in fluid.

The difference between the 2 weights is the amount of fluid you've lost. For each pound of fluid you lose, you must drink between 20 to 24 fluid ounces to mL of water to replace it. Replacement of lost water is sufficient to keep you hydrated provided you were hydrated to begin with.

To determine this for certain, check your urine. If it's clear, you're well hydrated. Pete Cerqua. Incorporate more protein into your day.

We're glad this was helpful. Thank you for your feedback. Use it to try out great new products and services nationwide without paying full price—wine, food delivery, clothing and more. Claim Your Gift If wikiHow has helped you, please consider a small contribution to support us in helping more readers like you.

Support wikiHow Yes No. Not Helpful 1 Helpful 1. Include your email address to get a message when this question is answered. Judge how your muscles begin to contract while resting. When your muscles feel harder, you will begin to get definition. As you burn fat, the muscles will start to look sculpted.

Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0. Stretching muscles prevents skeletal misalignments that can wreck your posture, so be sure to include at least the big muscle stretches a couple of times a week, after exercise.

Submit a Tip All tip submissions are carefully reviewed before being published. You Might Also Like. What Does Sleeper Build Mean on Social Media? How to. How to Build Bigger Biceps at Home According to the Experts.

How to Gain Muscle When You're Skinny. Expert Interview. More References About This Article. Co-authored by:. Co-authors: 9. Updated: January 8, In other languages Español: definir músculos. Français: obtenir des muscles bien dessinés. Русский: придать мышцам рельеф. Italiano: Definire i Muscoli.

Nederlands: Spieren definiëren. Thanks to all authors for creating a page that has been read 82, times. Reader Success Stories. David Khan Jan 6, More reader stories Hide reader stories. Did this article help you? Cookies make wikiHow better. By continuing to use our site, you agree to our cookie policy.

Andrew Bareh Mar 3, Share yours! More success stories Hide success stories. You Might Also Like What Does Sleeper Build Mean on Social Media? Featured Articles How to. Trending Articles. Watch Articles How to. By signing up you are agreeing to receive emails according to our privacy policy.