How to Gain 40 Pounds of Powerful Muscle in 1 Year

It Started During COVID

After approximately a decade of not working out, I managed to gain 40 pounds of muscle in one year. It all started when my good friend and boss invited me to start deadlifting in his apartment with him. This was COVID times, which meant no public gyms. So he bought enough gym equipment to fill the entire living room of his spacious Dubai apartment. I had stopped going to the gym mostly because I felt guilty about going. I felt that I should be working or spending time with my wife and children. Even though I listened to a thousand people on the Tim Ferris podcast say that it was one of the most important uses of their time, I literally needed my boss to give me permission.

A few months later and all of the equipment winds up in my garage. My workout routine went from twice a week to six days a week, still with not much structure. I mostly did my old high school routine, what we would call a bro-split: chest & tri’s, back & bi’s, legs, repeat. I’ll mention I was 180 pounds at the start of my fitness journey, and two months later I had gained as many pounds. I started getting serious and wanted to make sure that my time was being well spent. I started looking for great resources and found the reddit fitness community. I’m always overjoyed when I find a reddit community with a well thought out wiki, and r/fitness hits the mark.

Wendler’s 5-3-1 Begins

One common recommendation to gain muscle was a program call 5-3-1 from Jim Wendler. The program consists of four main exercises: squat, bench, deadlift, and overhead press. The program is designed to help you build strength gradually over time, with each workout consisting of one primary lift and a few accessory exercises. The workouts are organized into cycles, with each cycle lasting four weeks. Each week, you’ll perform three sets of the primary lift, working up to a heavy set of five, three, or one rep, depending on the week. The program is highly customizable, allowing you to adjust the exercises and weights to suit your individual needs and goals.

Because of the focus on only a handful of lifts, I found myself studying these lifts over and over again with videos from Juggernaut Training Systems, founded by Dr. Mike Israetel, also famous for his Renaissance Periodization channel. I realized that I had learned how to do most of these core exercises incorrectly. I started out with light weights and focused on form. The program has you slowly but steadily increase the weights, so it’s great way to build a foundation of strength and technique. And of course, that’s a recipe to gain muscle.

For warmups and mobility drills, Wendler recommends a set of exercises from Joe DeFranco. You may recognize that name from Tim Ferriss’ book, The Four Hour Body, where DeFranco is training NFL combine athletes to become top NFL recruits. Here’s his video of 11 exercises to do for a warmup. I have tried a lot of exercises and found this general routine to be the best, but feel free to mix and match your own exercises.

The Results

In the end, it was a really simple program to stick to. I built and printed a simple excel sheet that I brought to every workout to track everything. Here were my results: