Muscle Building 101
Posted: Sun May 25, 2025 6:46 pm
So, you’re thinking about lifting but don’t know which routine to pick or how to actually build muscle?
By the end of this post you’ll know what routine you should go for and what a good routine looks like, as well as how to lose weight and gain muscle.
1. Exercises
Exercises are split into two types : we’ll call them poly (uses multiple muscles) and isolation (uses only one), a typical poly would be bench (uses pecs + triceps) or squats (quads+glutes mainly) or deadlift or overheadpress etc. A typical isolation would be biceps curls (uses only biceps unless you're retarded).
The first thing when you start weight training is to pick a valid routine, a valid routine is basically poly exercises first and mainly and then some isolation to finish some muscles off/for aesthetics and to correct weak spots. It should basically follow the 80/20 rule, with 80% poly and 20% iso.
Some people even just do 45mins short workouts of just poly and get jacked (like they go bench + pullups + rowing or shit like that) but personally I love me some isolation after my main exercises else I'd have small arms forever.
Sp the idea is to gain actual strength and get most of your aesthetics with main poly movements, and then do some isolation for lagging body parts, you can't isolate everything anyway or it'd take forever, you'll have to choose priorities, most guys pick biceps curls or triceps stuff to get bigger arms and also because stronger arms will also help you bench more (triceps) or row/pull more (biceps), but most women will usually isolate their glutes, most people also do some abs stuff etc you get the idea.
2. So what’s a good routine?
Muscles need recovery, you can't blast them everyday (unless you're on steroids) because they need time to build back up better after you train, so a good routine is built around these recovery times.
It's generally thought that larger muscle groups like quads take a bit longer to recover (few days) and smaller muscle groups (like the biceps, or side of the shoulder) recover quicker and so you can blast them every other day or even every day for some people.
This is just good to know so that you avoid designing a shit routine where you squat 4 times a week and you collapse and die after week 2.
Most optimal routines have you train each muscle group twice/thrice a week. That's a pretty sweet spot. So you have 6 days a week routine where it goes :
Monday : Chest/triceps
Tuesday : Back/biceps
Wednesday: Legs
Thursday: Chest/triceps
Friday: Back/biceps
Saturday: Legs
Sunday: rest
The idea is that each day, you BLAST a muscle group (so on monday, you do multiple poly exercises around chest/triceps with some isolation at the end towards chest and/or triceps if you really wanna destroy them).
And you also have 3 days a week routine called "fullbody" routines where you try to train every muscle group, so it goes
Monday: chest, back, legs, some isolation of choice
Tuesday: rest
Wednesday: chest, back, legs, some isolation of choice
Thursday: rest
Friday: chest, back, legs, some isolation of choice
Saturday : rest
Sunday : rest
Since you train every muscle group, you don’t have time to blast them with multiple exercises each. Most fullbody routines have you do one poly per muscle group.
As you can see, both types of routine have you train each muscle group 2 or 3 times a week.
3. Gaining/losing weight
Eating is super simple: you get an idea of your average calorie consumption (keep track of what you eat for 2-3 days and calculate the calories, I REALLY recommend the MyFitnessPal app or anything like it, it helped me a lot when I started out), that's your maintenance aka what you typically eat to stay the way you currently are. Your weight is not fluctuating since I assume you haven't made any lifestyle changes yet so yeah, let's assume you come to find out that you eat 2000 calories typically, that's called your maintenance.
Now if you want to lose weight, you start eating slightly less, so you'll be in a deficit. it's super slow but trust the plan, it works, you'll slooowly lose weight until you reach a weight where your body doesn't consume as much because you have less weight and so your deficit will become your new maintenance but we're not there yet.
A typical weight loss deficit is 200-300 calories deficit, some go for 500, beyond 500 you'll get pretty hungry etc I don't recommend it.
To gain weight it's the same thing, you add a 200-300 surplus, some like me do 500 because you gain faster but if you go beyond that you'll get fat too easily lol.
4. Cutting and bulking
Now when you add weightlifting into the mix something funny happens. When you eat at a surplus AND you workout your body will use the surplus calorie to build muscle. You'll gain some fat too but it's supposed to be mostly muscle; thats bulking.
When you eat at a deficit AND you weightlift you keep most of the muscle since they're kept stimulated and your body eats fat instead; that's called a cut. Just like with bulking it's not all black and white and you'll lose some muscle too but much less than if you weren't weightlifting.
Now if you understood all those concepts, all that you have left to do is find a beginner routine that more or less follows these principles and to start!
By the end of this post you’ll know what routine you should go for and what a good routine looks like, as well as how to lose weight and gain muscle.
1. Exercises
Exercises are split into two types : we’ll call them poly (uses multiple muscles) and isolation (uses only one), a typical poly would be bench (uses pecs + triceps) or squats (quads+glutes mainly) or deadlift or overheadpress etc. A typical isolation would be biceps curls (uses only biceps unless you're retarded).
The first thing when you start weight training is to pick a valid routine, a valid routine is basically poly exercises first and mainly and then some isolation to finish some muscles off/for aesthetics and to correct weak spots. It should basically follow the 80/20 rule, with 80% poly and 20% iso.
Some people even just do 45mins short workouts of just poly and get jacked (like they go bench + pullups + rowing or shit like that) but personally I love me some isolation after my main exercises else I'd have small arms forever.
Sp the idea is to gain actual strength and get most of your aesthetics with main poly movements, and then do some isolation for lagging body parts, you can't isolate everything anyway or it'd take forever, you'll have to choose priorities, most guys pick biceps curls or triceps stuff to get bigger arms and also because stronger arms will also help you bench more (triceps) or row/pull more (biceps), but most women will usually isolate their glutes, most people also do some abs stuff etc you get the idea.
2. So what’s a good routine?
Muscles need recovery, you can't blast them everyday (unless you're on steroids) because they need time to build back up better after you train, so a good routine is built around these recovery times.
It's generally thought that larger muscle groups like quads take a bit longer to recover (few days) and smaller muscle groups (like the biceps, or side of the shoulder) recover quicker and so you can blast them every other day or even every day for some people.
This is just good to know so that you avoid designing a shit routine where you squat 4 times a week and you collapse and die after week 2.
Most optimal routines have you train each muscle group twice/thrice a week. That's a pretty sweet spot. So you have 6 days a week routine where it goes :
Monday : Chest/triceps
Tuesday : Back/biceps
Wednesday: Legs
Thursday: Chest/triceps
Friday: Back/biceps
Saturday: Legs
Sunday: rest
The idea is that each day, you BLAST a muscle group (so on monday, you do multiple poly exercises around chest/triceps with some isolation at the end towards chest and/or triceps if you really wanna destroy them).
And you also have 3 days a week routine called "fullbody" routines where you try to train every muscle group, so it goes
Monday: chest, back, legs, some isolation of choice
Tuesday: rest
Wednesday: chest, back, legs, some isolation of choice
Thursday: rest
Friday: chest, back, legs, some isolation of choice
Saturday : rest
Sunday : rest
Since you train every muscle group, you don’t have time to blast them with multiple exercises each. Most fullbody routines have you do one poly per muscle group.
As you can see, both types of routine have you train each muscle group 2 or 3 times a week.
3. Gaining/losing weight
Eating is super simple: you get an idea of your average calorie consumption (keep track of what you eat for 2-3 days and calculate the calories, I REALLY recommend the MyFitnessPal app or anything like it, it helped me a lot when I started out), that's your maintenance aka what you typically eat to stay the way you currently are. Your weight is not fluctuating since I assume you haven't made any lifestyle changes yet so yeah, let's assume you come to find out that you eat 2000 calories typically, that's called your maintenance.
Now if you want to lose weight, you start eating slightly less, so you'll be in a deficit. it's super slow but trust the plan, it works, you'll slooowly lose weight until you reach a weight where your body doesn't consume as much because you have less weight and so your deficit will become your new maintenance but we're not there yet.
A typical weight loss deficit is 200-300 calories deficit, some go for 500, beyond 500 you'll get pretty hungry etc I don't recommend it.
To gain weight it's the same thing, you add a 200-300 surplus, some like me do 500 because you gain faster but if you go beyond that you'll get fat too easily lol.
4. Cutting and bulking
Now when you add weightlifting into the mix something funny happens. When you eat at a surplus AND you workout your body will use the surplus calorie to build muscle. You'll gain some fat too but it's supposed to be mostly muscle; thats bulking.
When you eat at a deficit AND you weightlift you keep most of the muscle since they're kept stimulated and your body eats fat instead; that's called a cut. Just like with bulking it's not all black and white and you'll lose some muscle too but much less than if you weren't weightlifting.
Now if you understood all those concepts, all that you have left to do is find a beginner routine that more or less follows these principles and to start!