There are a lot of things that you can do to try and increase muscle growth.

And I've tried a lot of them.

But there is one thing that I'm especially interested in changing this year to add more muscle.

For the past several years, I've been focusing on gradually leaning out and reducing body fat, while maintaining muscle.

After reaching sub 10% body fat last year, I'm excited to add more muscle to my frame again.

Cutting down body fat and maintaining strength requires that your program is efficient and effective.

Especially when you're short on time like I was.

Here were the 4 things I focused on (while only doing 12 exercises per week) to get to sub 10% body fat while still repping out 2.5x of my bodyweight for deadlift and 2x my bodyweight for squat.

We had a lot of life transitions happening then, so I was limited to 3x/week working out.

Because of that, I needed to make sure I was hitting a high intensity on a few main compound lifts.

And this can absolutely work for a while, or if you're in maintenance mode like I was.

But I found myself plateauing, and even starting to regress a bit.

I got really lean, but I found myself small and lacking size in my arms and shoulders.

So now that I'm at a spot to focus more on adding lean muscle, I've noticed that intensity is not enough on its own based on my training experience.

So the one variable I'm focusing on changing this year, that I believe will drive the most muscle growth, is my overall workout volume.

And this isn't just about doing more.

That's where most people mess up, get lousy results, and eventually wind up hurt.

I see many people at the gym that are doing a lot more than I am, but still see very little results.

It's about doing more of the right exercises at the right intensity.

So this year, I'm focusing on more hard sets.

Most research has a range between 12-20 sets, per muscle group, per week, as the optimal range for muscle growth.

When you're only able to do 12 exercises per week like I was, those better be compound movements (as those will have the most overlap across multiple muscle groups).

While the benefits of compound exercises still apply, I can be a little more strategic in areas that I want to see more growth in, such as with my shoulders and arms.

There are really only two ways you can add more volume to your current program:

1) Do more sets each session

2) Do more sessions

I have the time carved out in my schedule to add more sessions this year. This is something I wasn't focused on doing in previous years.

And I think if you are focused on adding as much muscle as possible, and you have the ability to make it work, more sessions is probably better than simply doing more each session.

Mainly because of how many exercises and sets you would have to do in 2 or 3 sessions to hit 12-20 sets per muscle group each week.

Those sessions would be way too long, and most of the work you do probably wouldn't be very effective.

This is commonly called 'junk volume', where you're just there and kind of going through the motions.

This is why program design is so important, and why simply blasting 10 chest exercises in a session doesn't work for most people.

Remember, if you're after optimal muscle building, it needs to be 12-20 hard sets per muscle group.

That doesn't mean all the way to failure, but that does mean you're getting close to failure, only leaving 1 rep in the tank to maybe 3-5 reps in the tank at the most on selected exercises.

Which means those sets should leave your muscles burning.

They should be uncomfortable.

But more sessions doesn't work for everyone's schedule or life season.

If you want to build muscle, but you're short on time, here is what I would do:

• Start on the low end of the 12-20 range. Aim for 12 sets per muscle group and then build up if you can handle more.
• Focus on compound movements. These are the cheat code to targeting multiple muscle groups at once. For example, a weighted chin up will count towards your back volume and your biceps volume. Compound pressing movements will usually count towards chest, shoulders, and triceps volume.
• Add volume to the areas you want to see grow, reduce volume on the areas you're fine maintaining or not growing. For example, maybe you don't care about having more muscular or bigger legs. You can maintain where you're at there with 4-8 sets per week, and then shift your time towards areas like shoulders or arms (you know, the muscles you can actually see regularly in the mirror)

If you want to grow, there is no way around it.

You need to go hard.

But if you're already going hard, then it might be time to crank up the volume like I'm focusing on this year.

Here's to working harder and smarter this year.

Let's grow together,

Dave