I know the answers you seek but first you must humor a cautionary tale. When I was going fitness crazy trying to bulk up and shed pounds of baby fat at the end of high school I believed what many will tell you, "no pain no gain" and that, "pain is weakness leaving the body" in actuality pain in the context of weight lifting or exercise is the first warning of a life long suffering you are about to inflict on yourself and quite likely you will be crippling yourself to some degree. if your knee hurts when you run solve it quick, and mitigate, if your shins hurt that's just shin splints get some DMSO, IF your chest hurts when you run cut it down, if you are making yourself pass out doing HIIT go back to regular cardio for a bit and then start again on HIIT in a month or two but go slower. Most importantly for weightlifting: FORM COMES FIRST. If you aren't doing a movement in proper form you are setting yourself up for disaster. When I got to the point I could do over a hundred of any body weight exercise I stopped treating form as important for those exercises as important, thinking I had well established my physiological foundations, so in my hubris I would take phone calls from friends, work, family, and girls while doing those, it go to the point I would just start doing body weight movements while on the phone, and being a cheap cunt I kept the phone either in hand or in the crook of my neck during the movement, one day I missed my workout due to a funeral and took a phone call from a friend and decided what I'd be doing chin ups on a home doorframe bar with the phone in the crook of my neck, I did 100 reps on the phone and felt a bit sore then did my daily dead lifts on my home bar to stimulate T production and then did a hundred more chin ups and push ups before I accepted that I might have sprained my neck, I had sprained my trapezius muscles on either side at the juncture between neck and shoulder and just some neck muscles, after probably 25-35 reps on the phone, then I finished my workout thinking no pain no gain and in the process I tore my trapezius muscles on both sides. It was two weeks before I could lift my head on my own, half a dozen times a year for the better part of a decade I would agitate the injury and loose days or weeks in bed, at the moment I'm suffering an episode but thankfully it's just a lot of annoying strain in my back and neck and can hold my head up on my own during these episodes. Respect proper form. If you skipped the above bit about lifting, read it, it's the most important advice you will hear in lifting. Now for the tips, I'm going fast, ask if you want more detail. - Testosterone: quit jacking it, do fuck your woman with intent, not random whores, high weight high exertion lifts, without letting this consume you just get a dead lift bar learn to deads carefully and properly at a lower weight to learn signs of injury, hit that fucking bar all the damned time, do 2 or three good lifts and fuck off with your day, maybe morning and at night, watch your blood pressure and look for signs you might be fucking up your blood pressure, squats, treat squats similarly but expect faster blood pressure problems if you are building muscle fast, the blood pressure concern is mostly about high and intense variation, lots of new muscle with a high pump with a dopamine spike and a bit of light cardio could actually drop your ass, having naturally high blood pressure likely avoids this, doing these frequent heavy lifts hard as possible and hitting up shit tons of caffeine while being stressed about work, smoking a cigarette and stewing in ass maddening traffic could straight kill you if you have high blood pressure, but that risk goes up if you are stressed while doing a serious deadlift or squat, over exertion is something you need to manage and learn on your own, know the risks and the signs. - Variation: whether you want fuller more shapely muscles or to turn your show muscles into old man strength variation is the key and it's suited for quick yields, just remember, proper form is key, essentially if you are doing arms don't just do normal curls and zotman's, do preacher curls, hammer curls, regular curls, inclined curls, rows, flies, do it all and learn all the variations out there, if you run run in your running shoes most but run in all your shoes, variation is key even in the tiny adjustments of the movements due to changing points of balance, figure out what is safe and modify every movement you can to create more variation, then go outside of mere weightlifting, resistance training, band curls, try a bow flex, it shouldn't be different but it is a little, get into super slow body weight movements variations isn't only about the outer layer of muscle it's about density and quality of connection at the connective tissues which will enable higher weights and ultimately more gains sooner this means planking, wall sits and even yoga, never fuck around with slow shit on a machine or under a bar unless your spotter is as strong as you and loves you and will watch you like a hawk that wants to eat your ass. Next step for variation is fast twitch shit and basically that means weight bags, weighted sprints and training to box or do MMA, feel free to skip this one if you want to keep your where it is over the long haul and these are just show muscles. I do variations in "super sets" (search it if you don't know) and it's always been a good process for me, I don't do every variation I know on every day I work a group because I believe in muscle confusion, many don't these days but I think it works. - Pump, Pampering and Blood flow, the goal of a workout is to inflate your muscles with blood to the point the blood inflation is ripping at your muscle fibers, learn to focus on the pump learn to use your mind to feel the movement and meditate on the feeling while trying mentally to get more blood there, visualize it or feel what ever works for you but this thoughtfulness shit really does work, meditate on your muscles getting pumped, during the work out, think about how squeezing or bearing down during an erection can get your dick bigger or angrier, that's blood flow, transfer that innate understanding to pump state, learn to lift for pump and do your key lifts with it in mind, example I squeeze the focused muscle group at the top of a movement after my warm up, I don't do this with sit-ups or crunches because I have heard tell of people shitting themselves and have no urge to find out, but I have expedited a bowl movement in an early attempt, and that shit was not fun. The kai murros curl is a good way to learn this shit, IDGAF if he's a nigger he taught it well; slight recline to your seated position, bicep parallel to reclined torso, long slow lift on high weight, imagine your forearm is the minute hand of a clock and squeeze your bicep from a bit after 11:00 until you can't move it back toward your bicep any further, about 1:00-1:30, repeat, until failure and keep doing drop seats on these squeeze/pump focused movements. the negroe became Mr. Universe doing lifts with half the weight of many of his contemporaries because he paid attention when Schwarzenegger talked about pump being key. Pamper: massages and saunas along with chill boxes are good for helping improve blood flow, so are spicy foods, but massages are the biggest part of blood flow aids while lifting, loose the knots, they are holding you back, buy a good mattress and learn better posture for your body shape, yes this is actually helpful, massage loosens up bound up muscle and connective tissues but also makes vascular tissues more pliant and encourages vasogenesis; intently fucking your woman, spending quality time with family and close friends and being in close contact with them, hugging etc, having a dog you play with having kids, all produces oxytocin which may have some vasogenesis effect but it helps improve blood flow too, a good social life leads to a better pump. Quit nicotine, vaso constrictors aren't good for show muscles. Secret blood flow tip, good cardio vascular health means better blood flow, means higher pressure pump, means more micro tearing in muscle tissues, so learn to do cardio more, you aren't trying to be a marathon runner, start with 30 minutes of walking get to joggin, running then go to sprints, suicides and other HIIT, but very limited HIIT, we don't want to burn calories we need for our other muscles but never forget your heart in the primary muscle, in other words build good cardio and then settle for sprinting or burpees. in case it wasn't clear vasogenesis and bigger muscles means more blood, it takes a while for your body to catch up to your new demands for blood and this could lead to bad low blood pressure and mental and emotional consequences, I get so much blood in my legs on leg day I turn into a 17 year old girl on a heavy flow day for a little while toward the end of my sets and after, be aware low blood pressure can mean mood swings from depression to anger to regression. Massage and cardio both clear your lymphatic system which has an impact on your endocrine system and therefore management of blood pressure and testosterone, and it all helps your sleep which is amazing for recovery and rebuilding and keeping a schedule for lifting, among other things. - Drop Sets and the meaning of "to failure": a drop set is is when you reach failure at a given weight and then do the same movement at a lower weight. you do x rets in a given a set, on high weight between 2-10 depending on the movement, arms should typically aim for eight repetitions in a set if failure comes well after those goal reps you need to go up in weight if failure comes to early for the goal, say 3 reps, you should go down a bit, dead lifts are 2-4 reps depending on school, weighted squats maybe 6, if you are in a home gym you'll have to change your way of thinking most likely, but you don't just do six reps and call it a day, you do sets, super sets, drop sets etc, until you can't do any more on a given group then you either swap groups for a bit or rest and then you go back and do more sets, with the same general goals, failure is when you can't, while feeling safe, complete a movement with proper form at your current resistance/weight, a drop set is when you drop the weight and resistance and do another set, you shouldn't do that ad infinitum, not because it's bad for you but because it's a waste of time and you are just pumping to much acid into your muscles and gonna be sore longer with less return than it's worth, but a single dropset is a good idea with a heavy emphasis on pump. - Supplements/diet: Do your own protein powder research that is a whole can of worms, do what's best for you, most of it don't taste to hot, I do gold standard whey. vitamin and mineral supplements, do your own research and lots of it, holy shit this is bigger can of worms than protein powder, at least take a daily vitamin, some D3 supplement, probably have an occasional zinc sup for T, find a good odorless fish oil sup if you don't have a fishy diet, B vitamins are important but learn the signs of overdose and niacin overdose and avoid it, if they always make you feel like shit try the pre-methylated ones and if that helps tell a doctor that you think might take faggy gluten sensitivity hoohah seriously, you may have it. Eat Red meat, steak has taurine and so do some energy drinks, there are links to organ and muscles health but also natural HGH and testosterone, production some energy drinks even have creatine. those red rocket hot dogs don't count as read meat unless it's an all beef frank. Bread, seed, soy, it's all bitch shit bad for T but don't let avoidance ruin your social life, Learn to like low sugar and low sodium peanut butter, grilled chicken and rice, ain't a meme, you will eat a whole lot of this, if you like sweets low/no sugar dark chocolate and throat coat tea(slippery elm bark makes it sweet), don't get too obsessives over sugar/carb management until you are trying to trim up but don't foster bad habits either, the fastest road to being a fat cunt is drinking sugar, the second fastest is dipping your food in sugar. Creatine works to help build show muscle fast, but supposedly you can fuck up your endocrine system last I checked, my knowledge on this subject in particular is likely out of date, I don't use it or a pre-work out, though I do drink energy drinks on occasion as a pre-work out, but I have low blood pressure naturally, do your own research and experiment with caution. - Priorities: children, wife, job, lifting; Nothing else interrupts lifting time unless it's an emergency. I think I'm forgetting something but I've got to go; back in the day 4chan.org/fit/ was a great resource, it might just be a gay hook up forum these days, bodybuilding.com also had great and helpful forums the last time I was in that loop. Show muscles do come with strength and the appearance of strength is probably the single most important thing you can do besides work to live if you want more positive life outcomes. Fit people are more likely to find better more committed mates, motivate their children to achieve and see promotions or better job prospects, don't let bug men and low effort shitters who entertain naïve thoughts like "brains over brawn" convince you of "goy muscle" faggotry. Edit: cold showers.