Four Effective Ways to Speed Up Muscle Growth

You have about 650 muscles in your body, and I’m mainly referring to skeletal muscles, not other types. The purpose of muscle is to create movement, help with posture, and even aid your metabolism. If you don’t have enough muscle mass, especially as you get older, you lose your metabolism too.

Your muscles contain a lot of mitochondria that help you burn fat, and they also help pump the lymphatic system. If you don’t move much, you won’t pump lymph through your body effectively.

There are two well-known ways to increase muscle growth: high-intensity exercise and the consumption of protein. You won’t grow muscles on a vegan or plant-based burger. You need the best source of protein, which is animal protein. Steak and eggs are at the top of the list.

How much protein do you need? Anywhere between 0.8 to 1 gram of protein per kilogram of lean body mass. If you’re a large person with a lot of fat, calculate this based on your lean body mass. I’ll put a link below to help you figure out that calculation. If you prefer pounds, there’s a different formula for that, which I’ll also include below.

When talking about grams of protein, we’re not referring to the actual weight of a steak but the protein content within it.

For example, if you weigh about 185 pounds and that’s your lean body mass, it would be approximately 84 kg. If we calculate 0.8 grams per kilogram, it comes out to 67 grams of protein. At the high range of 1.5 grams, it would be between 67 to 126 grams of protein.

Factors like age, activity level, exercise intensity, and digestive health determine whether you need more or less protein. Older individuals may need less protein compared to younger athletes, who might even require up to 2 grams of protein per kilogram of lean body mass.

1. Creatine

Creatine is found in foods, especially meat, but to speed up muscle growth, you should take it as a supplement. Creatine acts as a buffer or substitute for energy during high-intensity, short-duration exercises. It helps recycle ATP, allowing you to perform more work and thus grow muscle.

If you’re serious about building muscles, use 20 grams of creatine for about 5 days, then reduce to a maintenance dosage of 3 grams for the rest of the month. Cycle back to the higher amount periodically.

2. Cold Therapy

Cold therapy, such as cold showers, cold immersion, or cryotherapy, forces your body to generate a tremendous amount of energy to maintain core temperature. This process stimulates brown fat, which then activates white fat, burning more calories.

Cold therapy increases the expression of muscle genes and RNA, which helps muscle growth and decreases inflammation. While initial cold exposure may shrink muscles, the recovery phase will increase muscle size.

3. Intermittent Fasting

Intermittent fasting can stimulate growth hormone, which indirectly increases muscle growth. By fixing insulin resistance through intermittent fasting, you can get more insulin to the muscle. However, you need to be somewhat healthy to start fasting. It’s best for those who are not sickly and can combine fasting with exercise.

4. Arginine

Arginine can significantly help increase growth hormone by inhibiting somatostatin. It removes the brakes on growth hormone, enhancing muscle growth. Studies have shown that children given 2.2 grams of arginine grew taller.

For muscle growth, take 3 to 6 grams of arginine per day on an empty stomach, ideally 30 minutes before working out.

If you haven’t seen my other powerful video on muscle growth, check it out here.

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