Overload your muscles. Let them build back up stronger. Overload them again. Repeat.

That is the most basic way for how to increase muscle mass. While it is simple in theory, it’s hard in practice. To help clear up confusion and shed light on the best way to increase your muscle mass as efficiently as possible, I will give you some tips in this article.

The number one factor, in my experience, to increasing muscle mass is intensity. High-intensity workouts where you put forth maximum effort will give you maximum growth. Of course, the downside to high-intensity workouts is if you don’t know what you’re doing, you may find yourself injured. Then you are actually decrease muscle mass and set of increase it.

Notice that intensity has nothing to do with the amount of weight you lift. Always lifting the heaviest weights does not always mean you’re working out at high levels of intensity. For example, if it takes you five minutes to psyche up to get into the mind state to lift a huge amount of weight, and then you only do a few reps and are so exhausted afterwards you have the rest, you are not performing at a high level of intensity.

In practice, it is rare that the best way to increase your intensity is to increase the amount of weights you lift. However, I can see why it is easy to make that mistake. Lifting a large amount of weight is intense, and it is essential to building muscle mass. However, it is not the most important part.

If you’re interested in increasing muscle mass, you must track how much work you perform during your workout. This is how you measure intensity. It’s easy to track your progress in the gym. How much did you lift, how many times did you lift it, and how long did it take you?

Let’s look at this example. Let’s say you did a series of lifts where you lifted 100 pounds five times. You did three sets of this exercise, and it took you five minutes to perform. That means you lifted 1500 pounds total, or 300 pounds per minute.

Your intensity is 300 pounds per minute.

However, lets say that you decrease the weight to 75 pounds. Since it is lighter, you were able to complete your three sets of five in only 2 minutes. That equates to an intensity level of 562.5 pounds per minute!