How To Build Muscle Almost 2x Faster At ANY Age (PROVEN METHOD)

Building muscle can feel like watching grass grow, but there's some science-backed ways to make it happen faster. And the more you focus on the 3 major strategies I'm going to share in this video, the better your results. First up, you gotta feed your muscles. I think about protein and carbs. Protein's key because protein helps drive muscle protein synthesis. And we know from the work of Dr. Donald Layman that you need somewhere between 2.5 to 4 grams of leucine to trigger mTOR to trigger muscle protein synthesis. So you want to eat optimal amounts of protein for you, and I created a protein calculator and a free 7-day protein challenge that you can get at jjvirgin.com/7day, the number 7. There was a 2016 randomized clinical trial in the journal Sports that found that having carbs before a workout helped athletes perform better. They performed better in short intense activities, and also they felt less tired. I did a couple months where I was really testing out fasted versus non-fasted workouts because there was so much buzz about fasted workouts. And I kept thinking, I don't know that this makes so much sense because really when you're doing intense workouts, and if we're doing workouts to build muscle, we're doing intense workouts, right? If you're doing intense workouts, you're really going to use more glucose and glycogen than you are fat anyway. So the whole point of fasted workouts was you'd burn more fat, but I'm like, but I'm doing intense workouts and not really looking at burning fat. And if you really want to burn fat, it really comes down to overall energy flux throughout the day. And you really want to think about eating around your workouts, like an hour or two before and then after so that you're supplying your body what it needs in terms of carbs and protein to refuel your glycogen stores, the energy stores of carbs in your muscles, so you can use those to work out harder, and that you've got the protein that you need to fuel muscle protein synthesis and refuel those amino acid stores. What about supplements? Because supplements can make a big, big difference. And the first one I have to shout out, of course, is creatine. So creatine is going to boost muscle energy production during high-intensity exercise. Creatine basically is part of phosphocreatine, which is what we use when those short intense bursts of exercise. There was a 2017 literature review that was published in Current Protein and Peptide Science that showed that taking creatine supplements can help you build more muscle and get stronger because creatine increases the creatine and phosphocreatine in your muscles, which then helps regenerate energy during those intense workouts, which means that you can perform better during strength training, which leads to more muscle growth and strength over time. Another one you might not have thought about in terms of of building muscle is vitamin D. But vitamin D is important because it helps with muscle protein synthesis, which is essential, of course, for building or repairing muscle tissue. It supports muscle function and strength by aiding in calcium absorption, which of course is critical for muscle contraction. And then I always take vitamin D3 with K2, and K2 plays a role in bone health, indirectly impacting muscle function and strength. Now together, these contribute to overall muscle health by helping maintain muscle mass and function and supporting recovery after exercise. Now, fish oil. Fish oil is interesting because it also can be anabolic. First of all, we know that fish oil as an omega-3 can reduce inflammation, so it can reduce muscle soreness and inflammation potentially after workouts. But also omega-3 fatty acids, those are what are in fish oil, may enhance muscle protein synthesis, so could be anabolic. Fish oil supplements may improve muscle strength and function, especially in older adults, and enhance exercise performance by improving blood flow and oxygen delivery to muscles. Fish oil can also also help prevent muscle loss during periods of inactivity or aging. So there was a study in 2013, it was a non-randomized controlled trial published in the Journal of Nutrition that found that fish oil helps build muscle by improving the balance between muscle protein and DNA and increasing muscle protein mass. Another supplement that I love is Mitopure. Mitopure from Timeline Nutrition is urolithin A and it can increase mitochondrial biogenesis, which means you're building new mitochondria in the cell and improved mitochondrial function This means better energy production within the muscle cells, which could lead to increased endurance and performance during workouts. Next up, let's make sure your hormones are helping you, not hurting you. Now, you probably think hormones, you think testosterone, but you got to make sure that your thyroid is working optimally because thyroid hormones, like we're talking T3, T4, are important for controlling how your body uses energy, including building and breaking down muscle proteins. Having your thyroid just right is key to keeping your muscles strong and healthy. These hormones have a big say in how your body burns energy and uses nutrients, which directly affects how your muscles grow and mend. Bottom line is, when your thyroid isn't doing its job properly, like if you've got hypothyroidism, you might feel weak, tired, and have trouble making new muscle. So keeping your thyroid hormones in check is critical for making the most of your muscle building efforts. There was a study in 2018, it was an epidemiological analysis, it was published in the Journal of Endocrinology, and it showed that thyroid hormones are important for growing, staying warm, and keeping your metabolism working right. The balance of thyroid hormones inside our cells affects how our muscles repair themselves and grow new muscle cells. So having good thyroid function is a must for building muscle. Now, estrogen is another key player in keeping muscles strong and healthy. And by the way, I'm talking to women here on this one. Imagine your muscles as a house with estrogen as the builder laying down the bricks. Without enough estrogen, your muscles might not be as sturdy or resilient. Estrogen matters even more for women when building muscle. It helps regulate the balance between building new muscle, that protein synthesis, and breaking down old muscle. Having the right amount of estrogen is essential for women to achieve their muscle-building goals and maintain overall strength and fitness. There was a systematic review that was published in 2023. In this journal, the researchers looked at the role of estrogen in female skeletal muscle aging, and the study aimed to explore how estrogen deficiency, such as in postmenopausal women, or estrogen supplementation, such as through estrogen therapy, effects skeletal muscle mass function, damage, repair, and energy metabolism. And the review includes 32 studies and suggests that estrogen deficiency in postmenopausal women is associated with reduced muscle mass and strength. The other thing that's important is cortisol. Now, cortisol is your primary stress hormone, and it can really mess with your muscle building goals. It can disrupt the delicate balance needed for muscle growth when you're totally stressed out. Cortisol acts like a signal to your body telling it to tap into muscle tissue for energy when it's stressed. It's like your body's emergency fuel, but the downside is that it can lead to muscle breakdown instead of muscle growth. So if you're constantly stressed, your body might end up breaking down more muscle than it can rebuild. And that's a problem if you're aiming to get stronger or gain muscle mass. There was a study in 2021. It was a meta-analysis published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology. It looked at how cortisol levels affect muscle strength and mass. The researchers found higher cortisol levels were linked to weaker grip strength and linked to lower overall overall muscle mass, especially in women. The research provides insight into how cortisol could influence the development of sarcopenia. Remember, sarcopenia is low muscle mass. You also have to do the work, and in order to build muscle, you need volume. So you want to do 6 to 30 repetitions per set. You want to do multiple sets with about a 90-second to 2-minute rest break in between when you're doing this. Here's the thing with exercise, it should never get easier. You're getting stronger, but in order for something to be exercise, you have do more than what you're used to. So how do you continue to progress? You can add an extra set, you can add more reps, you can change the tempo, you can add another exercise. If you've got a very stable schedule, you can do 8 weeks of a specific program where you're continuing to progress within that program and then take a week, and it's called a deload, where you lighten your loads, you cut your intensity and volume, and it kind of gives you time to mentally recover. It can reduce your risk of injury. So you can give yourself that little deload, take a week of going a little bit easier and lighter. And then go back and hit it again. You gotta really dial in your recovery because your recovery is really where you're building the muscle. This is where you're repairing. This is where you're rebuilding. And sometimes this can be the hardest thing for us to do. Really critical here as you do more intensity, make sure you're getting good sleep. Sleep is where we're raising growth hormone, recovering and repairing. And another thing that can be really helpful here is sauna. There was a randomized controlled trial published in 2022 in Biology of Sport that found that a single post-exercise infrared sauna session improved neuromuscular performance, reduced muscle soreness, enhanced perceived recovery without any detrimental effects on the autonomic nervous system. It supported great mood and supported readiness for working out again. Another one that can work well is red light therapy. There was a 2015 study that looked at using red light therapy to see how it helped the muscle cells, and it found that it actually improves mitochondrial respiration, which is great for energy production and great for enhancing exercise performance. Another thing that you can do that can help with recovery is cold plunging. However, there's a caveat with this. Whereas sauna and red light can actually be done after a workout and help, cold plunge actually can get in the way of muscle protein synthesis. When you work out, you're going to create some inflammation. That's actually a good thing. If you go and do cold plunging too soon, you can actually get in the way of that process. And while it might reduce inflammation, it might also reduce muscle protein synthesis. Let's talk realistic expectations. Typical rate of muscle growth, 1 to 2 pounds a month. With the strategies I just gave you, hopefully these will take you to the higher end of that. And what you measure, monitor, you can improve. So make sure to watch this next video where I explain exactly how to measure your body composition so you know how much muscle you're building and how much fat you're losing over time.