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Here’s 10 ways to build muscle faster – and I’m sure most of these tips are ideas you’ve never heard of. So don’t skip this one, guys! You will grow faster as a result.

(1) EAT CRUCIFEROUS VEGGIES

 

I eat at these at virtually every meal.

While there are many many reasons to eat your veggies, you may not know that the DIM (3, 3’-diindolylmethane) created when these veggies are metabolized helps your body metabolize estrogen.

Cruciferous veggies include:

• Broccoli
• Brussel Sprouts
• Cabbage
• Cauliflower
• Kale
• Turnip
• Watercress

My favorites are broccoli and cauliflower.

(2) TRY “OMNI CONTRACTIONS”

 

Guys, add these INTENSE bad boys at the end of some of your THT Training sets. They will really help hit those fast-twitch muscle fibers for growth and maxmize metabolic stress levels – promoting more growth stimulation. Here’s a quick demo vid of me doing some omni-contractions…

NOTE: If you’d like 5 x FREE additional advanced strategies like these omni-contractions to plug into your workout, just pop your email below and click the button.

You don’t have to go to your email to click a confirm link or anything like that; the required info will appear immediately after you enter your details. Enjoy them gains! 🙂

(3) KEEP VITAMIN D LEVELS UP ALL YEAR

 

If you’re in a part of the world where it gets dark for half the year (like me) your vitamin D levels will be low during that time. There are studies you can read about in my post here linking Vitamin D levels with muscle growth and testosterone levels.

I take 10,000 IU per day (that’s just 1 pill) during autumn and winter. The brand I use is high in quality but really cheap. Enough for 2 full years (2 x 6month periods) is only a little over $17 USD. It’s the Healthy Origins brand on Amazon here.

MyProtein also do them at a lower dose 2500IU per day. 360 caps is only £11.99, so I just think it’s a no-brainer. You’d be foolish not to top up with Vitamin D. Even the UK government is recommending due to the health benefits.

(4) KEEP SUGAR LEVELS LOW

 

Apart from cheat meals (I have just 1 per week) I have little to no sugar in my diet. Higher levels of sugar will impede the metabolizing of estrogen (similar to point 1 above). Sugar can also make you age quicker.

(5) HAVE COFFEE/CAFFEINE PRE-WORKOUT

 

No doubt about it. Pre-workout caffeine works! It boosts workout performance and just makes you feel ready to go!

300-400mg (400 at an absolute max) will no doubt improve your performance at the gym. Great news is that it’s dirt cheap to buy caffeine pills. Prolab Caffeine has been a trusted product for many years. 1 x pill contains 200mg. 100 x pills is just $7.65 on Amazon. And MyProtein do the same 100 x 200mg pills for just £4.99.

There’s also the option of making your own powerful homemade pre-workout. My full video instructions here.

(6) DON’T HAVE CAFFEINE POST-WORKOUT

 

On the flip side, don’t take any caffeine after training. Cortisol levels (a catabolic hormone) are up after training. And caffeine can inhibit the clearing out of this cortisol. Keep your caffeine solely a pre-workout affair.

(7) MEDITATE

 

Yep. For a study on this, see my article: Can Meditation Make Your Muscles Bigger? Basically there is a link between meditation and levels of cortisol, growth hormone and testosterone. If interested, check out a free app like Calm to get started with mindfulness meditation.

(8) GET ENOUGH SLEEP

 

A lot of the repair and growth of muscle tissue occurs while you sleep. Growth hormone levels are also elevated. See this detailed post on what happens when you get 8hrs sleep per night.

(9) GET ENOUGH FOOD

 

Lower testosterone and a more catabolic environment inside the body are the inevitable result of chronically being in a caloric deficit. Even when cutting, take 1 day per week to calorie and carb-up to help prevent this. My full cutting strategy here takes all this into account…and then some! Leading to blistering fast fat loss and a sculpted six-pack.

(10) START TAKING CREATINE – PROPERLY!

 

For a start – weigh it! 5g per day is not a lot. A lot of people are “eye-balling” it and using too much.

But more is not better! In fact, it’s much much worse! Taking too much can cause creatine saturation outside the muscle cell, which prevents effective creatine uptake into the muscle for weeks or maybe even months. Take the recommended dose and no more.

If you’d like my free creatine cycling and supplementation schedule, input your details below and the info you want will appear immediately.

 

Hope that helped!

Need help? Ask me below or on the MuscleHack forum or on my facebook.

Mark McManus