Many people who are underweight want to “bulk up” or “get bigger.” In reality, they lack muscle mass and perhaps some body fat, but more often than not, even thin people have excess fat.
Even more frequently, people with excess weight, who look in the mirror and want to lose 10-20 kg thinking everything will then be okay, actually don’t realize they lack muscle mass. This becomes clear once they lose the extra weight. And fat is lost much faster than muscle is built.
My experience shows me that most people have a deficiency in muscle mass, regardless of whether they are thin or overweight.
Those who are underweight and think they want to gain mass, whether men or women, primarily need to gain muscle mass. And in adults, this doesn’t happen without weight training. Regardless of what you eat, without exercise, you won’t increase your muscle quantity. Fat, yes, of course, can be increased through diet alone – for example, if your fat percentage is insufficient. Muscle is a more complex situation.
We can conclude that building muscle mass is a task for almost everyone today.
To build muscle mass, three main conditions are required. They are the holy trinity of health:
- Regular workouts
- The right amount of proteins and fats, vitamins and minerals (micronutrients)
- Good and regular sleep
For the main principles of exercising to build muscle mass, read here and here.
If you want optimal results, there’s no drinking energy drinks, no drinking 6 coffees, no daily alcohol, no snacking, and no eating all kinds of (non)food. All these habits slow down the building of lean muscle mass, but even worse – they deteriorate your health.
An important note is that you shouldn’t exercise too often or excessively because:
MORE EXERCISE DOES NOT MEAN MORE MUSCLE.
Fast muscle mass, the “gimme gimme now” approach
Then there are steroids for all those who “want fast results,” which I will briefly explain in the next article. I would say that fast results are only 0.1% of what you’ll get from using steroids. As for the rest… we’ll talk about that next.
Dino Nikolic
Creator and author of Muskultura
28.01.2026
