Asking for advice on how to build muscle can seem rather daunting. This is largely due to the severe jargon which surrounds unfamiliar new techniques like body weight workouts and high intensity interval training but it is also something which needn't be so confusing.

This may come as a little shock, but the foundations of building lean tissue are primarily the same as they were thirty or forty years ago. Things have got more advanced in certain areas, but the overall principles still stand tall.

This consists of:

1. Multi-joint exercises outperform isolation exercise every day.

Exercises such as the lat pulldown, bench press, squat and lunge remain key figureheads in any size and strength routine.

Any compound exercise will recruit more muscle fibers than an isolation move, therefore you'll gain more size over a shorter period of time.

2. Know your rep range.

While high rep training has it's own benefits, you should be aiming for the 8-12 range if your goal is muscular hypertrophy. This is backed up by years of key studies from medical research studies carried out on the subject.

You'll be stronger on some exercises, naturally, but you can begin using your rep range as a guide to tell you if you are going too light or too heavy.

3. Change your program as you progress.

While consistently attending the gym is a great thing, consistency can also be a bad thing, as you're about to see.

That may sound strange, but consistently lifting the same weight over and over will not see you hit new results. As your body begins to adapt to an exercise, you will need to push it harder than before to see new results. Therefore, make increasing your lifts an absolute priority.

4. Don't forget to sleep.

Sleep is vastly under-rated by most gym users. You must remember that the body undergoes it's major rebuilding phase during the hours of a deep sleep.

Neglecting to go to bed at a decent hour is one of the top reasons why most men find it hard to develop a bigger body. Eight to ten hours is the optimal time to aim for. Less than this and you are asking for problems.

Imagine trying to build on a plot where the foundations were not yet set. Your construction would be constantly falling down again, that's exactly what you're doing to your body by not allowing rest.

These time tested, established techniques set the foundations for how to build muscle as far as relevant scientific research goes. While it's easy to over complicate things and turn any gym program into a science lesson, the basics of techniques such as hypertrophy, high intensity interval training and fat loss are primarily the same as they were a decade ago.