Alpha Progression
Accelerate muscle growth - 8 tips you can apply immediately

Accelerate muscle growth - 8 tips you can apply immediately

Few things concern strength athletes as much as optimal muscle growth. There are many myths surrounding this topic. Bro-science often meets real science here. Despite the supposed complexity and different approaches, many factors can accelerate muscle growth.

The eight tips listed here will help you optimize your training, design your diet for maximum muscle growth, and turn all the necessary screws so that you have more success in the gym. The focus is on simple implementation. Uncomplicated and easy to apply!

  • Personalized training plan
  • Improved technique and performance optimization for faster muscle building
  • Nutritional basics for accelerated muscle growth
  • Optimizing recovery to better build muscle
  • Strategies for optimal muscle building

Customize your training plan

Training plans exist in numbers like there is sand at the beach. It is important to find out which plan suits you. This concerns not only the training system but also the selection of exercises. Whether it's a full-body workout or the well-known Push/Pull/Legs split, everyone swears by their own method to accelerate muscle growth.

It is essential to clarify what works best for you. Of course, the consensus is that all muscle groups need to be sufficiently trained. Accordingly, a well-thought-out training plan is essential. The question of the right training system depends on various points.

First of all, the time factor. How often and for how long do you want to go to the gym during the week? Do you prefer long or short training sessions? It should be possible to integrate the training into your daily routine.

After all, a routine is inevitable to accelerate muscle growth. Keep this point in mind and follow the regularities you set.

This also applies to the selection of exercises. There is a wide repertoire of excellent exercises. However, you must consider the exercises that will help you progress.

Every strength athlete feels an exercise differently and also has different strengths. This depends on both the anatomy and training experience.

As an athlete with short arms, you will quickly become very strong in the Bench Press because you simply have an anatomical advantage due to shorter lever travel.

In return, the deadlift will be more difficult for you, as you will have to bend further forward to reach the bar. Your own biomechanics is a factor that should not be underestimated and should always be taken into account when choosing exercises.

So when choosing exercises, orient yourself to those with the greatest added value. Where do you get the best muscle feeling? Which exercise do you enjoy? How well do you perform them?

Also, use the principle of the mind-muscle connection so you learn to control your muscles even better.

Training according to an individualized plan is not only tailored exactly to you. It allows you to train in such a way that you can efficiently and effectively accelerate your muscle growth.

You can download the Alpha Progression app. It generates a training plan for you that is 100% customized to you and geared toward optimal muscle building.

Refine your technique

Paying attention to a perfect technique when performing an exercise is essential. This applies to basic exercises like the Squat and isolation exercises like the Leg Extensions on the machine. Concentrate on the sequence of movements.

For example, when doing Squats, make sure your knees don't rotate outward or inward. Place the bar stably on your upper back, not your neck. Also, pay attention to your breathing and stabilize your core muscles.

Squats (starting and ending position)
Example Squats
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Before each set, take a moment to go through the sequence in your head. This will help you to concentrate fully on your technique.

Don't train too heavy at the expense of technique. Of course, you should move heavy weights to provide a good stimulus and accelerate muscle growth. However, not at the expense of poor execution. Always be aware that you control the weight and not vice versa.

You can safely leave the last two reps in the tank during a set. Going to maximum muscle failure every workout is usually not worth it. Especially with the basic exercises, you should not stress the central nervous system to the max in every workout.

Also, keep in mind that, at the end of the day, good technique minimizes the risk of injury. If you bench press permanently at your maximum weight, don't be surprised if a shoulder injury occurs.

It pays to hone your technique during each training session. It doesn't take much time and gives you the advantage of getting a little better each time. With a clean execution, you will also become stronger and stronger in the long run. So this process will help you accelerate muscle growth.

The Alpha Progression app can help you with this. It provides you with exercise videos and written instructions on how to perform 450+ exercises safely and effectively.

Break through plateaus to accelerate muscle growth

Even the most sophisticated system won't do you any good if you don't regularly try to improve your performance. That doesn't mean you have to push yourself to the limit in every workout.

Quite the opposite. Progression is gradual. It is important to work on two different variables: volume and weight.

You can gradually increase the volume to avoid always training at the same level. If you do two more repetitions of the same exercise from week to week, you automatically set a new stimulus. However, the whole thing cannot be extended arbitrarily far.

When in doubt, the reps per set should not be outside the range of 6-20 reps. Volume is also dependent on the exercise. Isolation exercises can be completed in a higher repetition range than basic exercises, but not excessively.

Adjusting the weight is also an effective way to significantly accelerate muscle growth. Here, similar to the repetitions, a new stimulus is set. In doing so, you can improve bit by bit.

If you take Bench Press as an example, you can achieve progression very quickly with small steps. If you have consistently pressed 80 kg for 8 repetitions in every workout, increase the weight by 2.5 kg.

Then try to increase it from week to week. Even if 2.5 kg is not the world at first glance, you can still increase your performance and training stimulus very efficiently.

If you adopt this concept permanently for certain exercises, you will become much stronger within a few months. Moreover, this not only accelerates muscle growth. The training progress also positively influences the motivation and the fun in training.

Download the Alpha Progression app and follow the progression recommendations to optimally increase your performance step by step.

Optimize your diet

In addition to the actual training, nutrition is probably the biggest adjustment screw to turn if you want to accelerate muscle growth to the maximum. Here, a sound knowledge of the individual foods and the distribution of macro and micronutrients is of great importance.

First of all, you should feed your body mainly healthy, preferably with unprocessed food. For example, pay attention to the origin of the meat. Instead of buying ready-seasoned chicken from the freezer, go to the fresh counter. In general, you should make sure you get enough protein.

Consume 1.5 g - 2 g of protein per kilogram body weight. For an 83 kg strength athlete, this would be 124.5 g to 166 g of protein per day.

It is worthwhile to consume different sources of protein. First of all, there is the classic: chicken. Lean meat is one of the best foods for building muscle. In addition, the consumption of salmon is recommended as a counterpart to lean chicken because of the many healthy fatty acids (omega 3).

Low-fat curd and Greek yogurt are also great protein sources. Like almost all dairy products, they contain casein. Casein is a complex of long-chain proteins digested more slowly in the body. It is, therefore, ideal for evening consumption to supply the muscles with sufficient protein at night.

With regard to fats, it is important to avoid too many saturated fatty acids and trans fats. They are simply unhealthy. You should rather rely on fatty fish or unprocessed nuts as your fat sources.

Conscious consumption of fat is also essential to be able to regulate the hormone balance well. However, you should definitely consider the choice of products.

The same applies to your carbohydrates. As far as possible, avoid refined sugar and simple carbohydrates such as white flour products. Replace these with complex carbohydrates.

Oatmeal is a well-tried means here to accelerate muscle growth. They contain both complex carbohydrates and an above-average amount of proteins and fats. Of course, rice and legumes are also very good options.

Micronutrients, i.e., vitamins and minerals, are also relevant for various metabolic processes. Make sure that you take in enough vitamins or minerals, such as magnesium and calcium.

Speaking of vitamins and fiber, fruits and vegetables should also be on your menu. Fiber is also responsible for ensuring that your blood sugar level does not fluctuate greatly. So you minimize the appetite for short-chain carbohydrates.

Track your calories

Muscle building works only through a targeted calorie surplus. This is the golden rule to accelerate muscle growth. However, according to your diet, you should first start with a small surplus.

It is recommended to first increase the calories by 100 to 300 kcal. Less is more here. A small surplus leaves more room for upward movement. You can thus increase your calories over a longer period of time or reduce them again if your body fat is growing too fast.

You should track your meals to have a perfect overview of the process. Make sure you have all the important information about your macros. After all, you don't always have all the nutritional values of the products meticulously stored in your memory.

This way, you will rarely get into the predicament of having to feed yourself oodles of food just before bed for fear of missing macros.

You can use our calorie calculator to determine your maintenance calories and thus plan your surplus.

Optimize the timing of your meals & protein for accelerated muscle growth

A well-thought-out distribution of meals is of elementary importance to accelerate muscle growth. You will have little success if you eat all proteins once a day in only one meal. Rather, you should make sure that all macronutrients are ideally distributed per meal.

Breakfast is the first factor. Make sure you have a sufficient supply of protein here. After getting up, the amino acid level in our blood is very low.

This condition must be stopped so that protein biosynthesis can continue to take place effectively. Amino acids are, in principle, nothing more than the building blocks of proteins and are essential for muscle growth.

The combination of high-quality protein, complex carbohydrates, and healthy fats is particularly well suited to start the day with sufficient energy.

Over the course of the day, protein intake, in particular, plays a prominent role. Unlike carbohydrates and fats, proteins do not primarily serve to provide energy. Rather, they are responsible for the renewal of cells and, thus, also for muscle building.

In addition, there is no storage for protein in our body, but there is for carbohydrates and fats. As a result, we must always make sure that we eat enough protein. If the timing is not right here, the body quickly draws the protein it needs from our muscles. Therefore, we should always be careful to cover our protein needs throughout the day.

Aim for 3-5 meals per day to be optimally supplied with nutrients. Pay attention to a sufficient supply of protein due to the metabolic processes and eat the necessary carbohydrates and fats.

Improve your rest and sleep hygiene

Together with training and nutrition, regeneration can be considered the third pillar of muscle building. Without sufficient regeneration, we cannot accelerate muscle growth.

Even if the motivation is great at first, overtraining harms the body. You quickly feel exhausted, and your muscles cannot recover sufficiently.

This puts a lot of strain on you. Therefore, it is important that you allow yourself a little rest between training sessions.

Use your training schedule as a guide here. You should rest a muscle group for at least 24-48 hours. During this period, the muscles recover, and the previously set stimulus accelerates muscle growth. So the timing of your sessions must be right.

Also, add enough protein and carbohydrates after training. You set the protein biosynthesis in motion with sufficient protein, and with the supplied carbohydrates, you replenish your energy storage. This is the ideal way to accelerate muscle growth.

A deload can also be a good option. With a deload, the training volume and intensity are reduced. This means that in one week, for example, instead of doing four sets of squats with 140 kg on 8 repetitions, you only do 2 sets of 8 repetitions with 120 kg.

Thus, you are not going to have maximum muscle exhaustion. This also improves recovery during the deload, and you can start your training with full energy.

Good sleep hygiene is also crucial if you want to accelerate muscle growth. You can easily establish routines here to help you sleep better through the night.

Try to create a soothing sleeping environment. Here it is worth minimizing sources of disturbance. Blue light is to be avoided. Cell phones, tablets, and TV keep our brains on the go and thus hinder falling asleep and high-quality sleep.

The same applies to acoustic stimuli. A loudly ticking clock or an open window on a noisy street also has a negative impact on the sleeping environment. You should also ensure sufficient darkening to switch off disturbing light sources.

Create your own rituals to help you switch off. For example, you could read a book and drink tea before bed.

In addition, it is immensely worthwhile to still eat a good amount of protein in the evening.

In the best case, casein. The long-chain protein compound supplies your body with protein slowly but steadily throughout the night. This stimulates protein biosynthesis during sleep and creates a good basis for accelerating muscle growth.

So adequate rest and quality sleep of 7-9 hours should be a big priority if you want to optimally accelerate your muscle growth.

Use beneficial supplements for better muscle growth

Dietary supplements should play only a minor role in muscle building. Primarily, it is recommended that you focus on the three pillars of training, nutrition, and regeneration. However, there are also a number of supplements that can accelerate your muscle growth. Creatine, protein powder, and mineral complexes with magnesium and zinc are used here, for example.

Probably one of the most useful supplements for weight training is protein powder. There is a wide variety of different protein supplements.

First of all, the classic Whey Protein. This is a whey protein with good bioavailability. It is quickly absorbed by the body and is therefore suitable for covering the protein requirement.

Whey protein isolate is particularly suitable for lactose-intolerant athletes. Here, the lactose content is very low, so there are fewer digestive problems. In addition, it is absorbed even faster than conventional Whey and has a higher protein content with fewer calories. Therefore, it is ideal to consume high amounts of protein as quickly as possible.

Casein is also available in powder form and provides the body with protein slowly but steadily. Ideally, casein should be consumed in the evening to sufficiently support the muscles overnight.

All in all, the various protein powders are suitable for quickly and easily absorbing the necessary amounts of protein. However, they should only be used when, for example, due to a stressful everyday life, you simply do not have the time to cook and still want to ensure you cover your protein needs.

Conclusion

With the help of the eight tips listed here, the most important factors for muscle building can be optimized and easily integrated into everyday life.

A training plan designed for progression, with explicit attention to perfect technique, is essential here. The same applies to a healthy, protein-rich diet with a small calorie surplus always tracked. Lastly, regeneration, i.e., sufficient rest and sleep hygiene, is of elementary importance.

  • Training
  • Nutrition
  • Regeneration

Training, nutrition, and regeneration are the core areas to work on. A well-thought-out training plan will only reach its full potential in combination with a balanced weight training diet and sufficient regeneration to ultimately accelerate muscle growth.

The Alpha Progression app helps you create a personalized training plan based on your needs. This way, you can keep track of your progress and continue to improve with our progression recommendations.

With our graphical evaluation, you have all data at a glance. The exercise evaluation explains which exercises are ideal for muscle building. In addition, we give you the option to periodize your plans, for example, to plan deloads.