#040 Building Muscle - The Busy Professional Guide

Welcome back to the 40th edition of the Boats & Logs Lifting Club. I really appreciate you being here. We are the based fitness community that focuses on mastering the basics instead of getting lost in the details.

Today, we will be covering a much-requested topic: How to achieve your dream physique when you are busy working your 9-5.

I hope you enjoy this newsletter.

The Problem

I get it:

It was easier to train 5 times per week when your only obligation was studying.

It was easier to stay consistent because your friends went to the same gym as you and could motivate you, even if you didn’t feel like it.

It was easier to stick to your diet when you could plan your day around it.

But now you’ve entered the workforce, and all these things break apart.

You train less and eat more junk.

Your muscles turn into fat.

The years pass by, and now you are looking worse than you did 8 years ago and have made no progress in the gym for the last 2 years.

Don’t let this guy be you.

It may be harder to get enough protein when you are eating at work, or you may not find the time to go to the gym as often as you have before. But it is far from impossible to achieve your dream physique while working 9-5.

Millions of people have done it, and you can, too.

In the next sections, we will cover strategies you can apply to make it easier to stay fit and achieve your dream physique while working 9-5.

Where to Start

Doesn’t matter if you are starting out in the gym, competing as a professional athlete, or if you are working a 9-5 office job in a cubicle. Everybody needs to nail the same basics to build an impressive physique (low body fat & high muscle mass):

• Daily Calorie Goal (300-500 calorie surplus to gain muscle; 300-500 calorie deficit to lose fat)

• Daily Protein Goal (0.7-1.0g of protein per lb of body weight)

• Hard training (around 10 sets per muscle each week)

• Proper Recovery

Get these things right, and you will reach your dream physique; fail one of them, and you will stagnate quite quickly.

If you don’t know where to start, don’t worry. There is a proven formula:

If your body fat is above 15%, your priority should be weight-loss. For this, set up a calorie deficit of 300-500 calories per day and stick to it until you achieve a body fat of 10-12%.

If you’ve achieved a body fat of 10-12% (or started out from there), you can either consume calories around maintenance to hold your weight and very slowly make gains. Or, what I would advise, start a lean bulk with a daily calorie surplus of 300-500 calories per day until you reach a body fat of around 15-18%.

After that, the cycle continues.

This is the proven and best way to make good gains.

Training & Recovery

One of the biggest challenges for busy professionals is training consistently. Many people still try to go 5-6 times per week to the gym because they believe they need that much volume to build muscle.

But what happens is either one of two things:
They start to hate their lives because it is literally only gym & work, or they skip at least half the workouts and make no gains.

If you are time-constrained, you need to minimize the time in the gym.

I usually advise you to do 10 sets per muscle each week, but you will still make gains if you do less than 10 sets. Theoretically, as little as 1 set per week can help you grow, but realistically, you should aim for a minimum of 5 sets per muscle each week.

I’d advise you to do 3 workouts per week, but you can also go down to 2 workouts if that fits your schedule better. Here are some ideas on how to structure it:

2 Workouts:
- Monday & Thursday: Full Body; 1 exercise with 3-4 sets for each muscle makes 6-8 sets per muscle per week
- Saturday: Upper Body + Sunday: Lower Body; 2 exercises with 3-4 sets for each muscle, make 6-8 sets per muscle per week

3 Workouts:
- Monday: Full Body + Wednesday: Full Body + Friday: Full Body; 1 exercise with 3-4 sets for each muscle makes 9-12 sets per muscle per week
- Monday: Full Body + Thursday: Upper Body + Friday: Lower Body; 1 exercise with 3 sets per muscle on full body and 2 exercises with 3-4 sets per muscle for Upper/Lower makes 9-11 sets per muscle per week

Obviously, these were only examples to give you an idea of how little volume you actually need to make gains. You can change the days and sets however you like.

What is important is that you can stick to your planned workouts to make progress, so pick days on which you are very certain that you can hit the gym.

Doesn’t matter if it’s before work, after work, or later in the evening. You need to show up to the gym. I personally like to go in the morning before work to free up my evening for social activities and have the gym interfere as little as possible with my life, but that’s just my preference.

Doesn’t matter which day or time you go. If you can’t do 3 sessions consistently, plan with 2, and if you have the time, add an extra session if you like. But don’t plan more than you can consistently achieve.

Regarding intensity, there is little room for discussion. As you are time-constrained and are following a low-volume approach, you need to train at high intensity. This means: Training to failure. Every set.

Due to social media, some people have a screwed picture of what training to failure looks like. It is NOT the point where you can barely move a muscle after having done 8 full reps and 13 partial reps with a spotter. Failure is the point where you can’t complete another rep without breaking form.

As you are probably training around 3 times per week, recovery shouldn’t be your biggest concern. Simply try to sleep at least 6 hours per night (better 7-8), and you should be good.

If you feel like your body doesn’t recover between workouts, try to lower the volume of each workout a little bit or take more rest days between your workouts.

Calories & Protein

Another problem many people have once they start working 9-5 is that their eating patterns get worse. If they are skinny and always had problems eating too little, they will start skipping meals and get even skinnier. If they always had a tendency to eat too much, they will start snacking more and eat too much.

But there is one simple way to hit your calorie and protein goal:
You need to make a plan!

If you are eating at the canteen at work or if you are going out for lunch with colleagues, you will usually roughly know what food you’ll be eating and how many calories and protein you will consume.

With that information, simply plan your day around it. Are you cutting and already know that you will eat a lot of calories for lunch? Plan low-calorie & high-protein meals for breakfast and dinner. Or do the opposite if you expect a low-calorie meal for lunch, but you try to gain weight.

Even better would be if you bring your own food to work. This is the easiest way to make sure you are hitting your macro goals.

This leads us straight to the next advice, which is meal prepping in general. When you are time-constrained, you don’t want to cook every meal. Try adding in quick meals such as shakes, and consider meal prepping some meals to minimize the time you spend in the kitchen.

It can also make sense to buy snacks to bring to work if you want to gain weight.

In the end, there are many, many strategies on how you can hit your macros despite working 9-5. All of them are highly individual. But if you really want to make progress, you write down how many calories and protein you want to eat and create a plan you can accomplish at least one day in advance.

This is your best shot at nailing your diet.

If losing fat is your goal, remember that you have two levers: calorie intake and calorie burn. Instead of minimizing your food intake, you can also increase your burn by upping your activity level.

Some very easy suggestions to implement that will increase your activity level:

• Take the bicycle to work

• Leave the bus/metro 1-2 stations early and walk the remainder

• Use the stairs instead of the elevator

All of these steps don’t have a huge impact in themselves, but if you really try to apply them consistently, they can save you around an additional 100-300 per day.

Thank you for reading today's newsletter. I tried to answer as many of your questions as possible. If you have further questions, simply DM me on Instagram.

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Stay strong,
Boats & Logs

Disclaimer

This is not Legal, Medical, or Financial advice. Before starting any workout program, diet plan, or supplement protocol, please consult a medical professional. These are the opinions from an AI voice.