Gain more Muscle
- Pauline Nordin
- Jun 1
- 7 min read
100 simple tips for Muscle Gains
To gain lean muscle or not to gain lean muscle.... Here is a list for 100 simple tips to keep you motivated!
Start accepting your body and let it have time become more and more the way you want it.
Evaluate your primary intention with your training year. What’s most important for you to work towards?
Train your hardest workouts when you’re naturally most motivated to train, skip putting it where it’s convenient.
Invest in more sleep every night to repair and build.
Avoid looking at your fattest body parts while wanting to gain size on your less fat areas.
Skip looking at your “trouble spot” 24/7.
Take a look at your symmetry to see what body parts are of interest to focus on
Focus on each rep and each set, be present and work mind muscle connection, feel your body and be in the body.
Wear enough clothes to stay warm between heavy sets, being cold invites tendon tears.
Spread your workouts apart enough to feel refueled for a new one.
Expect to gain weight slowly over consecutive months, not tons right away, you only balloon up if you dramatically increase your calories.
Eat enough to train hard.
Being a bit fatter than too lean is better for muscle building
Keep up your cardio 3-5 short sessions per week, they don’t need to be intense just enough to get your heart rate up in the 120-150s.
Supplement with beta alanine
REFEED before your hardest workouts or have your weekly or twice weekly REFEED post workout.
Rotate your calories to have more on double workout days.
Train am and pm for better intensity when splitting muscle groups, ie triceps and biceps.
Separate your back training from biceps training to give both more attention
Separate your triceps training from your chest training to give both more attention.
Train chest am, triceps pm
Train back am, biceps pm
Train chest & back one day
Train arms on their own
Alternate sets and rep sets with time under tension/timed sets
Find your weak spots train them harder and smarter
Take note of your sets and reps, weight used, energy levels, body feedback journal
If you try to stay too lean you end up under training since you’re not fueled up.
It’s better to wait a day for a stronger workout if you feel under the weather
Never skip proper stretching to keep yourself mobile
Warm up after your general warmup with the first exercise in your routine, 2-3 lighter sets to acclimate to the training
Supplement with a pre workout drink 30-60 min pre training
Supplement with GPC choline unless you have gout or other conditions that don’t do well with this nutrient.
Assure you consume around 50 g of fat per day and supplement with vitamin d3 to reach optimum levels. I take 15K IU to keep my level at 80, my doctor likes it up there, consult your caregiver.
Eat the skin on your grilled chicken breast, it’s good fat similar to olive oil.
Eat more whole eggs for choline that helps build all cells including muscle cells.
Lay down 5 minutes before you start your warmup for workout, visualize yourself training feeling strong and invincible.
Don’t get discouraged when strength decreases or your stamina suddenly drops, it’s natural and normal to undulate.
Study the human anatomy, you’ll be more interested in training to build the muscles you see in the books
Train your bodybuilding poses, flex all muscles, this is daily practice to master your body
Start every day with your own pep talk about everything is perfect because it’s training day and you get to eat big! What else to ask for?
Be grateful for being strong enough to train to get stronger.
Give your body time to change, impatience plays against your commitment
Be prepared that your body will most likely complain about some pain somewhere any day and that’s the way it is, focus on all that’s free of nagging!
Resist to complain about yourself to yourself
Be humble in your exercise technique training, you’re not competing.
Never marry one training style and cut loose some darling exercises every so often to reintroduce them later
Supplement with melatonin for good night sleep and antioxidant effects amongst other amazing benefits
Add cinnamon to your coffee for glucose balance benefits
Drink sparkling water if it’s tastier for you than plain
Drink 16-32oz of water upon awakening to produce a great poop the daily FD super cleanse
If you keep track of your body weight allow the same 2 lbs up and down fluctuation from day to day, don’t change the course
When stuck at a strength plateau, move the exercise you want to get stronger in first in your workout.
When stuck at a strength plateau and you’ve been trying to get one more rep for weeks, change the workout and return to this one later.
If you don’t foam roll, start doing 5 minutes every workout day as part of your warmup.
Training early am? Consider dinner the day before as “the fueling breakfast”, you can choose a protein shake in the morning to avoid interfere with your training.
Training late at night and end up too tired to fit your big FD pobo dinner OMAD? Simply take note and use smaller sized pobo bowls to maintain your calorie intake to support mid is gains.
Your muscles and your central nervous system need time to rebuild, over time of training hard you’ll need to give your body extra time to compensate and get back stronger, plan a deload week every 8-12 weeks where you do very little and rest up.
If you aren’t excited to train check your training journal, might be too long doing the same thing!
No pump usually means lack of mind muscle connection or too short sets with too little resistance.
No pump from what used to give you pump usually means you should change workout.
Lack of training intensity leads to “never sore”, try train harder to elicit some “proof” you trained past your current capacity and now you’ll be on your way to see more gains
Going for a run isn’t active recovery for leg builders, it’s training that affects your recovery rate.
A high protein diet supports your muscles and post training is a good time to eat to refuel.
Skip stressing the need for pre and post nutrient, focus on getting consistency in your daily fitness life routine.
Invest in elbow sleeves to keep elbows warm and protected from supporting yourself on elbows.
Supplement with tart cherry extract to help fight excess inflammation.
Training triggers inflammation, without you’ll not recover. The acute increase isn’t chronic and chronic inflammation is not what you need to worry about, it’s waste of time.
Avoid the habit of taking ibuprofen to heal pains and aches and reduce inflammation, it’s needed to let the body repair naturally.
Curcumin is known as a natural anti inflammatory supplement derived from turmeric. Usually it comes with black pepper extract (bioperine) to maximize absorption.
Try blood flow restriction training when you hit arms!
Every week go over the training you did, analyze what you need to improve upon to excel
If you can’t fit in your stretching after your workout, stretch in between sets, one move at a time systemically go from top to toe.
Omega 6 is important to support muscle growth: get your sesame oil and walnuts into regular consumption of the healthy fats you need.
An energy bar before your workout will keep your energy for a bit, but it’s waste of calories on a tiny thing and it goes to your calorie budget.
Your muscles have fat in the bellies, this fat gives you more visual size, embrace that!
If you feel you’re losing definition know that is always good for gaining muscle!
Eating more means more anabolic milieu for your body to expand!
When you get injured, train the non injured body parts, avoid sabotaging your diet!
When you need to take time off to heal from a hindering injury, use the time to read and study body and mind!
Training too long time tends to reduce the intensity which negatively affects your muscle growth.
Use the eccentric phase on the reps, don’t just drop the weight to make it easier!
The harder you make it for you to lift by focus on form, the more stimulation for gaining.
Train for symmetrical strength between opposite muscle groups. Usually it means more in the rear body muscles and less for the front body muscles.
Train your finger extensions regularly to reduce elbow pain.
Build your forearms strong to get rid of medial and lateral elbow pain.
Know the danger zones in your lifts so you can avoid inviting injuries.
Massage your rear shoulders and traps every week for 5-10 minutes with a tool or a tennis ball in a sock.
Invest in a massage gun to give your body the care it needs to be happy!
Vary your tempo in your training, speed and slow and all the things in between
You can make your workout more productive by adding more sets to the workout.
Build up workout volume over the weeks in training, then change stimulus, reduce the volume again, repeat.
Never sore in your glutes despite squatting for life? Check your form and retrain your brain away from the flexed hips position which I call the shitty man pose.
Listen to motivational speakers to get psyched up to hit it!
Thank your body for being ready to build and being strong for you!
Skip buying into CLA unless you have too much money to waste. The theory makes sense, personally and in my clients’ experiences it’s never made any difference!
Too cold in your home gym? Buy a mini heater to have in your spot!
Prevent back and butt pimples from sweat and dirt from working out by applying salicylic acid cream or lotion after your shower, let it dry before you dress.
Avoid heat rash and cleavage eczema by putting some toilet paper between your boobs and change right away after your workout, don’t sit in sweat that produces groin rash!
For long and hot summer workouts, you might want to change clothes mid workout to avoid getting a flare up in eczema!
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