Building and maintaining muscle is the primary goal for all lifters. Maintaining muscle mass and strength is perhaps the single greatest thing we can do to improve longevity and quality of life. In fact, strength training in general is the closest thing we have to a fountain of youth as humans. If you want to build/maintain muscle, implement these 3 proven muscle building strategies.

#1 Mechanical Tension-Put simply, lift heavier and lift longer. In other words, to maximize mechanical tension, prioritize compound movements that use a large range of motion where your body has more potential to lift heavier weights in a controlled manner. Ideal muscle building exercises include: squats, presses, deadlifts, leg press/hack squats, rows, pull-ups/lat-pulldowns etc. Key takeaway: The more weight you can lift for more reps, the more muscle you will build.

#2 Metabolic Stress-Also known as “Chase the Pump”. Think like a bodybuilder, do  light/moderate weight for high reps to pump your muscles full of as much blood as possible. The “pump” or burning sensation you feel when performing continuous muscle contractions, is actually the result of restricted blood flow to the muscle (occlusion) that causes a buildup of metabolites like lactate and hydrogen ions, hence the term “metabolic stress”. Key takeaway: Just think of drop sets, burn out sets, pyramid sets, basically any way you can perform a high number of reps with short rest periods you will accumulate metabolic stress (get a pump) and build muscle. 

#3 Muscular Damage-When lifting, you have both concentric (lifting) and eccentric (lowering) contractions, both forms of contractions damage the muscle, however eccentric contractions cause more muscular damage. For example, think about how sore you get when performing Romanian deadlifts or slow tempo reps. In other words, if you want to maximize muscular damage, perform the eccentric portion of the lift slowly and under control. Muscular damage causes micro tears in the muscle (muscle soreness), these microtears then signal the body to rebuild itself bigger and stronger than before (via muscle protein synthesis) resulting in hypertrophy. Key takeaway: lower the weights slowly under control and use a large range of motion. 

Bottom line: To maximize hypertrophy, make sure to incorporate these three muscle building techniques while getting adequate calories, protein, and sleep.