1. Eat slightly more calories than you burn.
In order to maximize muscle hypertrophy, you need to maintain a mild calorie surplus.That is, you need to eat about 110% of your total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) every day. The reason for this is a calorie surplus optimizes your body’s “muscle-building machinery,” so to speak, greatly enhancing your body’s ability to recover from and positively adapt to your training.
If you want to know more about how many calories you need to eat to support your hypertrophy training, check out this article:
Bulking Guide: How to Gain Weight & Muscle without Gaining Fat
2. Eat a lot of protein and carbs.
In addition to eating the right number of calories, it’s also important that you eat enough protein and carbs to boost hypertrophy and fuel your workouts.Here’s how.
Protein: Eat 0.8-to-1 gram of protein per pound of body weight per day. This is enough to maximize muscle growth—eating more than this won’t help you bulk up faster. This usually works out to around 20-to-40% of calories for most people.
Carbs: Eat at least 2-to-3 grams of carbs per pound of body weight per day. The reason you want to follow a high-carb diet while lean bulking is that this keeps your glycogen levels topped off, which improves your performance in the gym and positively impacts genes related to muscle growth. This usually works out to around 40-to-60% of calories for most people.
Generally, the best way to set up a lean bulking diet is eat about 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight per day, set your fat intake at about 20% of calories, and fill in the rest with carbs.
3. Get enough sleep.
If you want to get the most out of your hypertrophy workout plan, you need to get enough sleep.Research shows that insufficient sleep increases muscle loss, decreases performance, and reduces testosterone levels.
Most people need between 7 and 8 hours of sleep every night, but if you want to maximize hypertrophy, you’ll probably do better if you aim for between 8 and 9 hours per night. At the very least, you should try to get enough sleep that you can wake up without an alarm.
4. Do some cardio.
Multiple studies show that combining strength training with cardio can accelerate muscle growth, as long as you follow a few simple rules:- Choose cycling and other low-impact cardio instead of running.
- Keep most of your cardio workouts fairly short.
- Do most of your cardio workouts on separate days from your lower-body strength training workouts.
If you want to know more about how to combine strength training with cardio, check out this article:
Concurrent Training: The Right Way to Combine Cardio and Strength Training
5. Take the right supplements.
I saved this for last because it’s the least important.Unfortunately, no amount of pills and powders are going to automagically add 20 pounds of muscle to your body. In fact, most muscle-building supplements are completely worthless.
But here’s the good news:
If you know how to eat and train to build muscle—following the steps we just covered—certain supplements can speed up the process. (And if you’d like to know exactly what supplements to take to reach your fitness goals, take the Legion Supplement Finder Quiz.)
Here are the best supplements for building muscle:
- 0.8-to-1 gram of protein per pound of body weight per day. This provides your body with the “building blocks” it needs to build and repair muscle tissue and help you recover from your workouts. If you want a clean, convenient, and delicious source of protein, try Whey+ or Casein+.
- 3-to-5 grams of creatine per day. This will boost muscle and strength gain, improve anaerobic endurance, and reduce muscle damage and soreness from your hypertrophy training. If you want a 100% natural source of creatine that also includes two other ingredients that will help boost muscle growth and improve recovery, try Recharge.
- One serving of Pulse per day. Pulse is a 100% natural pre-workout drink that enhances energy, mood, and focus; increases strength and endurance; and reduces fatigue. You can also get Pulse with caffeine or without.
