How to build muscle – what actually works (and what doesn't)
There are few things that get talked about as much as muscle building. New programs every week. Supplements that are supposed to "activate" your growth hormone. Headlines about the exercise everyone has missed. The truth is more boring than that. And much more useful.
Because muscles are built according to a principle that has been the same for a hundred thousand years, and that no app, no jar and no influencer can write about. I thought I would go through that principle here – and then what actually changes when you pass fifty, because it does.
What happens in the body
Your body is constantly building and breaking down muscle protein. All the time, 24/7. It's like a construction site where you're tearing down and building walls at the same time.
If the body builds more than it breaks down, the muscles grow. If it breaks down more than it builds, they shrink. If it builds evenly, nothing happens. That's the whole secret. The technical term is muscle hypertrophy , meaning that the muscle fibers become thicker.
So your task is simple to describe, if harder to do: make sure that the build-up is faster than the breakdown. And there are exactly two tools that work for that. Strength training, and enough protein and energy. That's it. The rest is details.
The training: load is the whole point
All exercise is good for your health. But only one thing builds muscle, and that's putting a real strain on it. Walking, cycling, and gardening are great for a thousand other reasons but they won't make you grow.
And muscles, they only grow where you put stress on them. If you want stronger legs, you have to train legs. There is no shortcut via abs.
How heavy should you lift? Here we usually talk about a span:*
Weights you can only lift 1–5 times primarily build strength
Weights you can lift 8–12 times build the most muscle mass
Weights you can lift 15 times or more build endurance
But see it as a guideline, not a rulebook. The boundaries are fluid. Heavy triple sets certainly build some muscle, and light sets of twenty repetitions do too provided you really push yourself. Research also suggests that we respond a little differently. Some people grow best with heavy and few reps, others with lighter and more.
Which brings us to what actually matters.
You have to get going! The weight should be so heavy that you are close to exhaustion by the end of the set. If you do ten reps, the tenth one should be really tough you should have zero to a maximum of two reps left in your tank. If you sit and talk your way through the set, nothing will happen.
This is the most common reason why people train for years without showing any signs of it. Not the wrong program. Not the wrong supplements. They simply don't pay attention.
What exercises, and how many?
Mix two varieties.
Basic exercises (squats, deadlifts, rows, presses) work multiple major muscle groups at once. They're time-efficient and they make you strong in a way you notice in real life when you lift a suitcase or get out of a chair without support.
Isolation exercises (bicep curls, thigh curls) target one muscle at a time. They are easier to learn, often gentler, and can be done even when you are tired at the end of the workout.
A good basic structure for a workout: three sets of three to five basic exercises, then three sets of one or two isolation exercises. A total of five to seven exercises. Period. More than that is not necessary. In fact, more than that is usually worse, because then you compromise on quality and recovery.
This changes after fifty
Now for what most muscle building articles skip, because they're written for twenty-five year olds.
You need more protein, not less. As you age, your body becomes less responsive to protein – scientists call it anabolic resistance , which simply means that it takes a larger portion to kick-start muscle building. The usual recommendations of 1.4–2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day still apply, but you should aim for the upper end of that range. So if you weigh 80 kilograms, we’re talking about 130–160 grams a day. And spread it out. A hefty serving of protein with each meal does more good than all that in the evening. Recovery is no longer free. This is the bit I learned the hard way. Muscle isn’t built in the gym it’s built when you rest. At fifty, sixty and up, it takes longer, and sleep becomes a training variable, not a nice bonus. Two to three hard workouts a week with proper rest in between beats four half-assed ones.
You can build muscle even without a calorie surplus at first. Classic advice says that you need to eat 300–500 calories above your needs to grow. That's true for those who are already fit. But if you are unfit, or are coming back from a break, you can very well build muscle and lose fat at the same time in the first few months. So that applies to many of those reading this.
If you want to gain weight to grow: stick to those 300–500 extra calories. Any more than that will just turn into fat. The body has a limit to how quickly it can build muscle, and the excess will be stored.
How fast does it go, really?
Slowly. And anyone who says otherwise is taking extra "supplements" or trying to sell you something. For an adult man in good training and with a good diet, the ceiling is about half a kilo to one kilo of muscle per month. That's the maximum potential, not the average. With age, it's reasonable to expect the lower end of that range.
It sounds trivial. But do the math: a few years of consistent training and you could have built ten, fifteen kilos of muscle. It's a complete transformation of your body and of what you can handle in your daily life. It's exactly that math that makes muscle building so thankless in the short term and so powerful in the long term. Six weeks gives almost nothing. Six years gives a completely different body.
So what are you actually going to do?
Lift heavy. Take it easy. Eat a lot of protein , in the upper range. Sleep . And do it over and over and over again, year after year.
That's the whole truth. No amount of powder will shorten that list. But the good news —and it's really good news is that the body responds to resistance training for basically a lifetime. Study after study shows that even people in their eighties and nineties build muscle when they train against resistance. You haven't missed the train. You just haven't gotten on it yet.
Do you want help getting started in a way that lasts over time? In the Bodyweight Diet guide, I go over how to set up your training and diet after fifty without the hype, and without having to go to the gym five days a week.
All the best, Kennet Båth
