Kelsey HigginsonSports Nutrition Coach and Founder at Clutch Day Coaching

How athletes put on muscle 💪

29 Mar 2025 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

1:12

In this instructional video, the speaker outlines three essential strategies for athletes seeking muscle growth. First, he emphasizes the necessity of lifting weights at least three to four times per week to provide the mechanical stimulus that breaks down muscle fibers, prompting them to rebuild larger. Second, he stresses the importance of consuming sufficient total calories to support recovery, noting that inadequate food intake prevents repaired muscle from forming. Third, he recommends targeting 1.7–1.8 g of protein per kilogram of body weight and combining hypertrophy work with dedicated strength and power training, ensuring the added muscle translates into functional athletic performance rather than merely aesthetic size.

Chapters

Here are 3 tips to muscle growth. Number 1, if you aren't lifting, it's never gonna happen. You need to be lifting at least 3 to 4 times a week in order to be able to see a good amount of muscle growth. The reason for this is muscle needs stimulus in order to grow. It needs to be broken down to be built back up. So when you're lifting, take a bicep curl for instance, you're coming down and up and literally it's tearing those muscle fibers apart. That has to happen in order to stimulate growth. That leads me to the second thing is you need to be making sure that you're eating enough food in general. So if you're not eating enough food in general, then your body will never be able to repair that growth. It's just going to stay broken, which leads me to my third thing, is enough food in general, yes, but enough protein in that food. So with the protein, I would say at least 1.7 to 1.8 grams per kilogram of body weight is what you want to be shooting for if you were an athlete trying to also put on muscle. My last piece of advice would be, if you are an athlete and you're wanting this muscle to translate into playing really well, don't just use like a bodybuilding program. Make sure that you're for strength and power as well, or else this muscle might just turn into more like aesthetically pleasing empty muscle, which is not what you need as an athlete.