How to build muscle lean muscle mass.

Being fit and looking fit aren’t the same thing

I have been active all my life, I just never looked the part. That was always frustrating. As kids, my sister and I were ice skaters and horse riders. As I got older, I was into water skiing, rock climbing. Later in my university years I got pretty good at boxing, JKD, tactical knife fighting even. I was into all sorts of sports, and while I was pretty speedy, one thing was obvious, I never particularly looked athletic.

Oh the life of a hard gainer

I have been small all my life, and when I wasn’t small, I was just chubby. I never had obvious muscle tone, or had any lean muscle, and I was pretty much resigned to looking like that forever, just thinking it was the genes that was handed down to me. 

And then I became a mother. Twice.

Oh hello motherhood!

 From small, I became increasingly fluffy and more annoyed with myself. I was getting older, still able to move relatively fast for my age, but why was I unable to lift heavy like some of the girls in the gym. My lack of strength and muscle tone became my sole focus. If I was fast for my age, why wasn’t I strong? I wanted to know what it would take to build muscle, shift more weight on the barbell, and I wanted to know if it was even remotely possible to improve my physique as a mother of two, approaching 40. 

Below a list strategies to help you build a lean physique.

#1. Plan your mesocycles out meticulously - One goal at a time.

It is possible to change your physique no matter what age you are. Take me as an example, what I was missing was clear and specific goals for a specific time frame. You see, you can’t have it all. You can’t build strength, speed, lose fat, build muscle and look lean all in one mesocycle. You have to pick one goal at a time and focus on that one thing.

Plan out each phase lasting somewhere between 8-12 weeks, stick to that plan, don’t waver and stick it out until the end.

If your primary goal is increasing PR and strength I suggest you focus on maintaining or entering a surplus.

#2, Pick a sacrificial lamb.

Sadly, what this means is that some of the other aspects you might also find important become the sacrificial lamb, but in order to change, these are the things that have to be put on the back burner.

I’ll give you an example. I have recently been on a bulk. My primary focus was to build muscle mass. In order for this to occur I had to change my training habits, nutrition plan, lose almost all my muscle definition, any gains I was making in my gymnastic ability, but what I gained was strength and some muscle, even if it was only a small amount.

#3 Plan ahead for your next phase.

Now we can talk about fat loss.

If you have goals to lose fat, you must give up any expectations to hit new personal records, potentially some muscle during your cut, your ability to complete high intensity WODS with near impossible speeds, and maybe even give up some nights of beer drinking to hit those goals. 

#4 Include a maintenance phase. 

 It doesn’t all have to be about cutting and building.

If you just wanted to improve some eating habits and improve performance without much of a care on fat to muscle partitioning ratio then you’re likely to only need a simple maintenance plan.

After a long phase of cutting or bulking its always a good idea to reverse back into maintenance to get the body back to homeostasis.

Plan this in at the end of every ‘cutting’ or ‘bulking’ phase and learn to sit in a maintenance for a few weeks. Don’t be tempted to hop on and off deficits.

Is it possible build muscle whilst in a deficit?

Maybe, but you shouldn’t expect it. Each person is different, we all carry different amounts of excess fat which affects how much or how little muscle we can build or maintain during each phase. Science can be complicated and frustrating sometimes.

 A rule of thumb

Whether you want to lose fat or build muscle, you should focus on that one goal, give it 8 – 12 weeks, maintain for a bit then decide on your next goal. There is no point willy nilly hopping from one goal to another within weeks of each other because you feel you’re getting “too fat” in a bulk and “losing muscle” in a cut.

You have to accept these things will happen and commit to one individual goal, take it all the way through and then decide on your next phase. 

 The bottom line

Choosing when to cut and when to bulk is a personal choice but the more body fat you have, the harder it will be lean out, so if you feel like you are currently carrying a lot of fat, then perhaps a cut might be a better option. Conversely if you are slim in build, then it might be a good idea to build muscle before embarking on a cut, as it will be even harder to maintain muscle as a ‘hard gainer’. Ultimately it is how you train, how you eat, and how you recover that is going to determine how quickly or slowly you reach your goals. If you can dial in the right training and nutrition for your body, then you’re on your way to success. 

As always, I am here for a chat if anyone needs help determining which goals to build on first.