People generally have a lot of misinformation when they come to the gym.

There are many correct ways to build muscle, but also many wrong ways.

I’m going to give you the basic principles to build muscle efficiently and correctly.

1. Progressive Overload

Your body is an amazing piece of work and so are your muscles. They will adapt to just about whatever condition you put them in.

So you must overload your muscles to build them. They will adapt by getting stronger and bigger.

Making gains week after week means you must continue to increase the load on your muscles in various ways.

You can do this by adding more reps, decreasing rest, increasing weights, etc.

2. Progressive Variation

No, this isn’t “muscle confusion”. This just means that your body builds the neural pathways to your muscles for a specific motion. The more you do it, the easier it becomes for you do to that same motion aka “muscle memory”.

Doing the same exercise every week on the same muscle will increase the weight but not increase growth.

What happened was that your body figured out a very efficient way of firing neural signals to your muscles to complete that motion. So efficient in fact, that it doesn’t require you to grow anymore.

3. Rest

Yes, go to sleep. The mistake I see most people making when building muscle or doing any type of training is Overtraining. When it comes to jumping higher, running faster, or building muscle, less work is better.

Muscle isn’t built in the gym. It’s built when you sleep and the next day when your body repairs itself through the release of hormones.

To build muscle properly, you must get 8 to 9 hours of sleep each night. This is for your muscles, nervous system, and hormonal system to recover.

4. Nutrition

No, this doesn’t mean go and grab the closest “nutritional supplement”. It simply means, eat right by getting the right amount of carbs, fats (yes you need the good kind), and proteins.

Your individual calorie requirements depend on your weight, body fat, level of activity, and age.

Find out how many calories you need a day to build muscle and consume that amount each day by eating the right foods.

These four principles will allow you build muscle properly consistently.

Want to find out more about how to build muscle, then visit Mitch Graves ’s site on how to choose the best muscle building program for your needs.