Ben Greenfield outlines a plan to gain 30 pounds of muscle in 8 to 12 months naturally. Eat at 3x your resting metabolic rate across 6 to 10 meals daily, lift full-body movements 3 to 4 times weekly, and use cold exposure and high-intensity cardio on off-days. Supplement with protein, amino acids, and colostrum while cutting hormone-disrupting chemicals.
Three to four times per week (full body each session).
About 5 to 10 grams before lifting and then every hour while lifting.
Expect approximately 8 to 12 months to accomplish this goal.
Chapters
Hey. Hey, what's up my FitLife TV peeps? It's Ben Greenfield and today I'm going to tell you how to put on 30 pounds of muscle naturally. Drew asked me about this and I wanted to shoot a quick video for you that shows you exactly how. I used to be a 210 pound bodybuilder at 3% body fat. Now I'm 175 pound skinny iron man triathlete. But I want to show you some of the tips that I use to put on muscle quickly with when I was bodybuilding and do it completely naturally. Alright, first question I get is how many calories should you eat when you're trying to put on muscle as quickly as possible? There are tons of calorie equations out there. I'm going to give you a quick one. It might shock you, but go to a website that has a calorie calculator it like getfitguy.com if you click on the tools section there, there's a bunch of calculators. Find out what your resting metabolic rate is, the number of calories your body needs to sustain life, like for your kidneys to fight function and your lungs to function and all that automatic stuff to happen. And then what you want to do is multiply that number by three. Okay? It's going to be a lot of calories. So let's say you find out that you need 2,000 calories a day to sustain life. Then you may find that you actually need to eat 6,000 calories a day. Okay, we're talking about putting on a lot of muscle here. And you do have to eat a lot. We're talking usually in the range of 6 to 10 small meals a day. It's a lot of calories, but you got to put a lot of fuel into your body weight when you're wanting to put on muscle naturally. If you don't want to take like three years to do it. Okay, the next question that I get is about lifting. How much do I lift? Well, let me tell you, one of the best ways to lift for most people. For most people, there's one exception to this rule is multi joint, three to four times a week. Okay? So squats, deadlifts, cleans, overhead push press, a little bit of bench pressing, some pull ups or some rowing and some basic moves. No single joint curls, single joint triceps, extensions, calf raises, stuff like that. The only people for whom that stuff works are people like bodybuilders, folks who naturally have a lot of muscle, like a mesomorph body type, football player body type. Some of those people can get away with single joint lifting. In the majority of cases, people who want to put on muscle as quickly as possible should be lifting three to four times a week. Full body every time. Works like a charm. Okay, next question is about recovery. You probably know that your muscles grow as they repair and as they recover. So if you're lifting three to four days a week, does that mean you lie around on the couch on the off days, you know, 48 hours or 24 hours in between each workout? Absolutely not. During the rest and recovery phase, there are a lot of cool little things you can do to enhance muscle growth and repair. I like to do very, very short, high intensity interval cardio sessions. Okay, so we're talking about short sprints on the treadmill, short sprints on the bike, 10, 15, 20 minute sessions. Just enough to get some blood and lymph flow going. Another thing that works out really well is cold thermogenesis to shut down inflammation and enhance muscle growth. Okay, so cold soaks, cold showers, helps out with testosterone and growth hormone a little bit as well. The other thing you want to focus on is just light movement, stretching, yoga, some mobility. Kelly Starrett's Becoming a Supple Leopard book is really, really good for stuff like this nipping injury in the bud. So you can keep coming back for more every single day when it comes to putting on muscle. All right, another question that I get is what muscle building supplements do you recommend? Well, this is another one where there are tons out there and I'm sure you've seen tons of advertisements for muscle building supplements. There are just a few that I found to be super reliable. Okay. One is just your basic protein powder. Don't get the crap filled mannequin stuff with the picture of the ripped model on the COVID Okay? That stuff usually has artificial sweeteners. It's from a cheap cattle source. It's got a lot of unnecessary hormones, antibiotics, stuff like that in it. You want to pay for the good stuff, okay? Cold processed organic goat or cow whey protein. Alright? The other thing that works really well if you don't like to eat tasty animals is doing like a good high quality mix of pea, hemp and rice protein. Or if you can't afford that because hemp can be expensive, just pea and rice protein. Okay? But with protein powder you do get what you pay for, so don't get the cheap bulk stuff. The next thing that works really well are amino acids. And these are broken down proteins that get absorbed really quickly and keep your body from breaking itself down while you're exercising. For this, basically you take about 5 to 10 grams of an essential amino acid source before you lift and then every hour that you're lifting. Okay, so essential amino acids are number two, then number three is colostrum. This one kind of flies under the radar. Again, it's only really going to be something that you go after if you're into eating tasty animals. But it is a milk precursor that you're going to get from like a goat or a cow source. It's called colostrum. It enhances growth hormone release and recovery, really helps with muscle building. Okay, last thing I'm going to mention here, the last thing that you want to focus on is basically your hormones. Okay? This one flies under the radar a little bit. But the thing is you can shut down testosterone and growth hormone by little hormone disruptors that creep their way into your life. We're talking everything from shampoo and conditioners to lotions and body creams to plastics and PCBs and household cleaners, plastic bottles, stuff like that. Be really, really, really anal about that stuff, okay? Try to choose healthy as much as you possibly can. The there are websites like the Silent Springs Institute, for example, that keeps a list of the dirty stuff, the stuff that really tends to be a hormone disruptor. Get serious about that stuff. Clean up your cupboards, clean up your house, clean up your bathroom. And it really, really helps you put on muscle because in truth, you got the hormones on board. All right, so those are the five things that you need to do. Eat a lot of calories, lift, multi joint, rest and recover the right way. Make sure you get some good supplements into your body and then make sure that you take care of your hormones. Alright? I'm Ben Greenfield from BenGreenfieldFitness.com that's the way that you put on 30 pounds of muscle naturally, using the methods that I just outlined to you, is going to take anywhere from 8 to 12 months to accomplish that. Okay? So it's a realistic goal to get this done inside a year. All right, hope that was helpful. I'll catch you next time.
