Men and women can significantly build muscle mass with consistent weight training within a program designed to stimulate muscle growth and make nutritional adjustments. As you build muscle, you typically see increases in your total body weight.
Building Muscle
Building muscle requires you to frequently weight train at high volume, meaning you must complete multiple sets of a higher number of repetitions. Along with weight training, it's essential that an adequate number of calories is consumed so that you're getting 250 to 500 excess calories per day, says the American Council on Exercise.
Training Schedule
A weight-training program designed to develop muscle mass consists of multiple training sessions per week, says the National Strength and Conditioning Association. Those who are beginners see results from training three days per week, such as following a Monday, Wednesday and Friday schedule, which allows the necessary 48-hour rest period between sessions. Those who have previously training or are looking for more significant results split their muscle groups into separate workouts, allowing them to train more times per week. For example, you could develop your upper-body muscle groups on Mondays and Thursdays and lower-body muscle groups on Tuesdays and Fridays.
Exercises
A three-day-per-week training schedule requires you to develop all of the major muscle groups, including the chest, shoulders, back, legs, biceps and triceps during each session. To develop your chest, complete chest press, push-ups and chest flys. To work out your shoulders, complete shoulder press, lateral raises and upright rows. For your back, do lat pull-downs, rows and pull-ups. Leg exercises include squats, lunges, deadlifts, step-ups and calf raises. Biceps curls develop your biceps muscles, and dips and triceps press-downs develop the triceps.
Volume
Each session should consist of multiple exercises for each major muscle group. For each exercise, you should complete four to six sets of six to 12 repetitions. Allow one to three minutes between sets and exercises. The amount of weight you should use varies between each exercise. The weight you use should allow you to complete the assigned number of repetitions. If you're unable to reach six repetitions or if you can complete more than 12, you should make adjustments to the weight that you're using accordingly.
Effects
As you build muscle, your total body weight increases. You're likely to see increases on the scale after eight weeks of consistent training. However, your body composition percentage is likely to be significantly lower. Because men have higher levels of testosterone and growth hormone, they will see significantly higher increases in muscle mass and body weight.
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