How To Gain 15 Pounds Of Muscle Without Getting Fat
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I Did These 9 Things To Go From 165 Pounds To 180 Pounds
On today’s episode of Live Lean TV, I’m sharing how to gain 15 pounds of muscle without getting fat.
These are the 9 key methods I used to go from 165 pounds to 180 pounds.
Over the years, I’ve talked a lot about fat loss.
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How I Went From 165 Pounds To 180 Pounds
I’ve been noticing a few comments on my latest posts from people who haven’t watched our Live Lean TV YouTube channel in a while.
They were surprised to see how much muscle I’ve added over the last few years.
It’s true, when I first started my fitness journey, I was 165 pounds.
I’m now consistently weighing in at a lean 175-180 pounds.
In this post, I’m sharing the muscle building strategies that I’ve used to pack on 15 pounds of muscle, while keeping off the typical bulking fat.
How To Gain 15 Pounds of Muscle Without Getting Fat
Before I share how to gain 15 pounds of muscle without getting fat, I have to be real with you.
In my opinion, muscle building is more difficult than fat loss.
Your muscle building journey will not be easy.
However, you can pack on 15 pounds of muscle just like I did, if you’re serious and committed to following these 9 muscle building strategies.
#1. Resistance Training is Your Priority Not Cardio
If the main goal of your training phase is adding muscle mass, no cardio is required during this phase of your training.
I want you focusing the 45-60 minutes in the gym on lifting weights.
You’ll be burning a lot of calories, your metabolism will stay elevated, and any potential fat gain should be kept in check, if you’re:
- Lifting weights with enough intensity
- Following the proper lifting tempos
- Keeping rest periods in check
However, if you are really concerned about adding fat, from not doing any cardio during this muscle building phase, add in no more than 2 x 20 minute high intensity interval training cardio sessions, on any of your active rest and recovery days.
#2. Focus on Lifting Tempo
I can’t stress enough about the importance of lifting tempo.
When it comes to building muscle, don’t just move the weight up and down as fast as possible.
Keep it controlled.
Time under tension is one of the biggest factors in growing muscle.
Depending on the length of the range of motion of the exercise, I prefer tempos of:
- 3-4 seconds on the eccentric lengthening of the muscle
- 1-2 seconds on the concentric shortening of the muscle
#3. Lift With Full Range of Motion
To build muscle, it’s important to lift with intelligence, not your ego.
Take each exercise through the full range of motion so you hit all the muscle fibers.
If you can’t lift the weight with a full range of motion, lower the weight, and do it right.
This will help build more muscle and decrease the risk of injury.
#4. Keep Your Rest Periods Honest
It’s important for you to use a stopwatch or timer to keep your rest periods honest and consistent.
Rest periods in your muscle building program should be strategically set to allow proper muscle and nervous system recovery between sets, to maximize muscle growth.
#5. Record Your Workouts
It’s important to track how much weight you are lifting during your muscle building workouts.
As you move through the weeks of your muscle building program, the weight should get progressively heavier.
Every workout you should aim to continually challenge yourself to do more work than the previous workout, for that muscle group.
Progressive overload is just one of the main methodologies of muscle building.
#6. Training Style
Within my training experience, I’ve tried many different muscle building training styles including:
- Supersets
- Tri-sets
- Rest pause training
- Eccentric training
They all work, but the style of training that I personally had the best and fastest muscle building results with was volume training.
If you want to build serious muscle in 6 weeks, try my Live Lean Mass 1.0: 10 x 10 volume training program in our workout app.
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#7. Exercise Selection
The majority of your exercises should be focused on heavy compound movements, that target and induce extensive stress to specific motor units and muscle fibers.
This ensures your body has no other option but to adapt and grow faster.
These exercises will also naturally elicit the key muscle building hormones including:
One muscle building approach is to hit each muscle group with approximately 4 different exercises.
However, another muscle building approach that I like is to hit each muscle with 1-2 major exercises, that recruits a lot of muscle engagement, at a higher volume of sets.
Think squats, not leg extensions.
#8. Rest And Recovery
You tear down the muscle in the gym, but you grow the muscle outside the gym with:
I typically like to do a 5 day training cycle, that includes 2 recovery days.
I also aim for 8 hours of sleep, earlier in the night.
This means I’m usually in bed by 9-10pm, and up between 5-7am.
#9. Eat Big to Get Big
I couldn’t do a whole post on how to gain 15 pounds of muscle without getting fat, without talking about nutrition.
In fact, I could focus an entire post on just the nutrition side of muscle building.
However, to keep it short, once I finally committed to eating more natural foods high in protein, the muscle building process quickly sped up, without adding any bulky fat.
Muscle growth needs high quality calories.
There you have it Live Lean Nation.
Those were the 9 strategies I followed to gain 15 pounds of muscle without getting fat.
Join Our Workout App To Start My Live Lean MASS 1.0 Program
If you’re looking for a 6 week muscle building program, that includes all of these strategies, you need to check out my Live Lean Mass 1.0 program, found inside our workout app.
I must warn you that this is not an easy program.
Over the 6 weeks, the workouts will put your body to the test.
However, when you follow the workout program and nutrition guide, you will gain muscle.
Go here to download our workout app and get the Live Lean MASS 1.0 program.
It’s time put in the work.
I can’t wait to see your before and after transformation photos.
Thank you for checking out today’s post on how to gain 15 pounds of muscle without getting fat.
BROWSE MORE EXERCISES TO LIVE LEAN!
Brad Gouthro is the founder of Live Lean TV, a media company focused on helping men and women “Live Lean” 365 days a year. Brad’s programs and content have helped millions of people all over the world learn how to get in shape, and more importantly, sustain it for life.
I know I need to gain ALLOT more muscle, but I still have a little chub on my mid section. Not exactly sure but I’m about 15-20% body fat with not allot of muscle. Should I lose the rest of my fat and get down to 10-12% before I up my calories and focus more one gaining muscle? Thanks for all your videos and positive attitude!