Posts Tagged ‘build muscle mass’

Just before I tackle the main purpose of this article which is to show how to build muscle vegetarian style I will briefly outline the different types of vegetarians. Vegans won’t eat dairy products or any other products of animals, pesco-vegetarians will cosume fish and other dairy products whereas lacto-ovo vegetarians will both consume milk and eat eggs but won’t eat meat. There are a few more sub categories but that is enough detail for the purposes of this article.

Why be vegetarian?

Well because of the nature of the food vegetarians do not eat, things like red meat and so on they have a lower risk of certain diseases including but not limited to hypertension, coronary artery diseaese, a variety of cancers and diabetes mellitus. As you may agree the reasons for changing to be vegetarian are compelling indeed and that is before we even discuss the idealistic side of things such as being less cruel to animals, saving food for others, preserving the rainforest, becoming more enviromentally friendly and such like.

Ok, so if I am vegetarian how on earth am I going to get adequate supplies of protein?

The answer to this question very simply is Soy. Soy contains all eight essential amino acids and in fact has higher levels of protein than beef. Particularly good sources of soy include: seitan, miso, soy milk, tempeh, textured soy protein and of course tofu. A variety of delicous tasting dishes can be made from these ingredients. Beans, rice, seeds, legumes, nuts and even vegetables are another great supply of amino acids which together should ensure you never get short on protein.

Ok so straight away that is protein deficiency taken off the myth list now what about vitamins and minerals like: calcium, iron, zinc, vitamin D, and vitamin B12?

Well vegans would be wise to take a supplement for this. vitamin B12 is found in dairy products so is not an area of concern for other types of vegetarians. A good meal replacement powder will see that you get adequate amounts of the other. Of course however many minerals and vitamins are easily available in the form of leafy green vegetables and fruit that you should not overlook if you wish to build muscle vegetarian style. 

So, overall there are many health benefits to being a vegetarian and being a vegetarian need not prevent you from achieving your bodybuilding goals. As ever planning is the key and this is just as important for meat eating bodybuilders too. With the above guidelines in mind go ahead and build muscle vegetarian style!! 

Ok, awesome, you have made the decision that it is about time you bulked up and put on some muscle mass. Whether it is because you want to look good at the beach or you have just watched another ‘Rocky’ movie or you just want to improve your sporting performance. So obviously you know that you are going to need to pump some iron. However you may not be aware of what you are supposed to be eating for muscle building nutrition. This short guide will show you exactly what to eat but first we’ll go through a few of the basic guidelines for a sensible muscle building diet.

Firstly to build muscle eat more often. Try to consume 5-7 mini meals each day. This is due to the fact that your body needs excess calories to support muscle growth and build muscle. If you don’t get enough calories then you cannot build muscle. 5-6 small meals every day will mean that you can take on enough calories without stuffing yourself too much at any single meal.

Secondly, you will need to cut out a lot of the junk food that you are probably eating at the moment. Go hands up, we are all guilty of having the odd meal of junk food and it is these which need to be replaced with quailty muscle building nutrition.

Thirdly, you will be needing to drink much more water than previously. Ensure that you have a bottle of water near you throughout the day to sip from. nearly all of the bodies reactions require water to some degree or other and that includes muscle growing reactions too.

Fourthyl, each meal should contain roughly the following proportions of carbohydrates, proteins and fats. Try to make them equal to 50% carbohydrate, 30% protein and 20% fat.

Fifthly, you need to learn what foods you should be eating for muscle growth. Here is a start to illustrate what some of the best muscle building foods are:

For protein: turkey, chicken, fish and shellfish, eggs, red meats, dairy products. These are great sources of protein so try and include them in your diet. However caution is advised as these foods are high in saturated fat so it would be sensible to mix them with the following foods that supply protein but with a great deal less fat: egg whites, lean meats like poultry and fish, non-fat or low-fat milk and dairy products, lean cuts of red meat, turkey breast,and skinless chicken breast.

For carbohydrates and long term release energy: bread, brown rice, oatmeal, bagel, pasta cereals and potatoes. For instant bursts of energy try to eat: fruits such as apple, raisins, orange, bananas, grapes and sports drinks.

Don’t worry about the fat portion of your meal that will take care of itself from the other foods naturally. Also ensure that you are eating lots of healthy fresh green vegetables that are rammed full of minerals and vitamins. If you want to buy supplements then you should go for a decent whey protein, essential fatty acids, creatine and a good multi-vitamin to start with.

Finally a few words regarding the timing of your meals. To build muscle eat within one hour of finishing your workout, before bed and immediately on rising. If you desire muscle growth then these are very important times. You will be in a great place to start making good muscle gains if you follow the above guidelines.

There are many advice columns, hyped up products, infomercials, e-books and so on all giving advice about the newest latest and easiest ways to build muscle. so, if there are all these different ways to grow muscle then how come it is so difficult for some people to do so? Well, the answer is partly supplied by the question itself. With so much conflicting and individualistic advice about, both on the net and in bookstores and magazines, how on earth is someone new to bodybuilding supposed to know what to do?

Whilst some of this advice is good, much of it is irrelevant to the novice bodybuilder who just needs to get the basics down properly to start making progress. So with that in mind here are three sure fire steps to help anyone build muscle easily.

1) Train intensely. Ensure that in your program you use the multi-joint mass building exercises that follow: deadlifts, rows, squats, benchpresses and pull ups. These are tried and tested exercises that will help you build muscle easily. Steer away from exercises that isolate individual muscle groups, these are usually not designed for packing on mass but more for carving definition and toning up. Also do not hang around in the gym, be focused push yourself hard for 45 minutes then get out.

2) Pay attention to muscle building nutrition. For many years experienced trainers have been quoted as saying that 80% of bodybuilding success is down to correct muscle building nutrition. This is still true today! As a general guide half of your food should come in the form of carbohydrates, protein should make up 30% and the remainder should come from fats.

The following foods are recommended, for carbohydrates: potatoes, rice, pasta, brown breads. For protein: chicken, turkey, beef and fish, especially mackerel and tuna. all the fats that you need will be supplied by these foods. If you really wish to boost your progress and have the money available then try taking the following: whey protein, essential fatty, acids, creatine and a good multi-vitamin product.

3) Rest. Muscle recovers and grows whilst you are at rest so naturally you should spend sufficient time allowing your body to grow. This sounds very simple and it is, yet the amount of people that train too much and do not give their bodies adequate time to eat is enormous. Most people will find that two workouts per week are sufficient.

Ok, I said it was simpie and it is. If you just stick to those basics you too can build muscle easy. Whilst you may delve as deep as you like into all of these topics, essentially that is all you need to know if you wish to grow. Now with those things in mind, ensure correct muscle building nutrition, train hadr and intensely and give yourself time to recover!

There is much advice floating around both on and offline about how to build muscle fast. As a personal trainer myself here are a few little known facts and secrets that I personally consider worth your while contemplating on your quest to build muscle mass:

I often hear that you should train each muscle group just once a week. Whilst this may produce optimal progress for extreme hardgainers it is not true for most people. Of course you need to avoid overtraining but in life generally you get good at things by doing them  more often not less and this is true to some extent in bodybuilding too. Muscle groups should be hit at least twice a week, no less. Ideally you should rotate your workouts through periods when you are near overtraining and periods where you near undertraining. This provides times of great stress for the body and also times when the body has more time for growth and repair than necessary. This will prevent you from hitting training plateaus.

Ensure that your training sessions don’t exceed 45 minutes. If you think that is not long enough then either your routine is too long or you don’t workout intensely enough. 45 minutes will be plenty if you really focus on intensity and avoid distractions. If your workouts last longer then this then testosterone levels drop dramatically due to the increased production of cortisol which actually causes the body to eat muscle tissue and store fat. exactly the opposite to what we want.

You should cycle your training. after a while a workout loses its ability to stimulate growth as your body has already adapted to it. Vary your routine before your gains start to diminsh. You should also try not to alter your routine too often either. Doing so could confuse your bodies muscles overly so and stop it working its way into a nice groove.

Big gains are unlikely to occur for you if you don’t use the correct exercises. The classic time proven muscle building exercises are the multi-joint exercises otherwise known as compound exercises. The time proven exercises being: bench presses, rows, squats, pull ups, shoulder presses plus any exercise that moves your entire bod through air ie, not just moving individual limbs. If you use these exercises, with a few of their variations and correct muscle building nutrition then you can’t help but stimulate muscle mass growth. With those guidelines in mind, go pump some iron, eat correctly and get huge.

Normally bodybuilding articles talk about how to build muscle, diet, training workouts, muscle building nutrition and so on, however whilst these are all really important there is one things slightly different I would like to introduce to you and your muscle building armoury. It is the reticular activating system (RAV).

The RAV works alongside the visual parts of our brain and directs our attention to certain things that our sub conscious has programmed into it, to be important to achieve our goals. This sub-conscious program that we have is literally what makes us notice and therefore see, hear and take action on the things that we do on a day to day basis.

Neuroscientists have now proven this and as such it proves the vaildity of positive thinking and the law of attraction. If you do not know what the law of attraction is it is basically the premise that ‘what you think about, you bring about’ or ‘thoughts become things’. Now in the past this was thought of as being a bit to new agey for the majority of people however there is an increasing acceptance of this mental approach worldwide.

Now it doesn’t really matter if you take the neuro-scientists approach about it or the new age approach to this as it will still work. Therefore by reprogramming our subconscious mind it is possible to activate our RAV which in turn will ensure that we take the correct steps to achieve our goals as we will simply be recognisiing the most effective way to get there more easily. Some people will come across strange co-incidences that will help there progress which is not uncommon and often gives this ‘law of attraction’ an unearthly feel whereas the truth is those things were probably there waiting to be found all along!

So how is this of any use to a bodybuilder? Well consider now your present thought patterns. In your mind, what exactly are you saying to yourself on a daily basis. Are they thoughts like ‘losing weight is too difficult’ or ‘I never grow muscle fast’ for if they are then that is exactly what your RAV system is choosing for you to notice and act upon on a daily basis. It is therefore your sub conscious thought patterns that you need to change to positive muscle building patterns such as: ‘muscle gains come quickly and easily’ or ‘I am getting ripped fast’ and so on.

How can you alter these patterns? Here are a couple of things to try:

1)       Visualisation: first you need to set aside 5 minutes or so each day to do this. Very simply find a quiet spot and close your eyes and paint a realistic and crystal clear picture of precisely how you desire your physique to be. Large biceps, huge chest muscle, massive quads and such like, ensure that you can see as vividly as possible this vision and keep it in your mind with a sense of strong self belief.’

2)       Speak out aloud clearly and confidently simple statements like: I am extremely fit and healthy, I am huge and muscular, I am growing more and more each day and so on.

Go through these everyday. For most people just 21-30 days is all that is required to over ride the old thought patterns and to start operating on the new ones. Following that, keep doing them in order to continually reaffirm your new thought patterns.

If you don’t believe that this stuff works then I suggest that you take a look at a few sportsmens autobiographies or sports studies books, I gaurantee that you will find these processes talked about in depth, particularly visualisation which is an amazingly productive technique that should get daily usage!

Ok with these positive thoughts and feelings in mind, go build muscle mass!

As we are all aware a good muscle building diet is critical to build muscle mass. The timing of your meals is also important. Two hours before your workout is when I advise you to eat your meal.This should provide plentyof time to so that you don’t start your workout when you are bloated or still feeling full and sluggish.

Ideally this preworkout meal should be something that you are used to and that you know won’t make you feel heavy and bloated as you want to be at your best to give your all in the gym. You should try to include some slow burning energy such as oatmeal but make sure that you have some protein first. If you don’t eat protein first then you are putting yourself at risk of becoming tired. This happens because both the protein and carbohydrate cause the body to release certain chemicals that affect the brain. Protein stimulates the release of tyrosine which signals your brain to be alert and energetic as opposed to the carbohydrate which stimulates the release of tryptophan and instructs the brain to make you feel tired. Therefore always consume the carbohydrate last.

If you really want to know how to build muscle fast then great advice is to drink a protein and carbohydrate shake about half an hour before you workout. This will give you a good boost of ebergy for your session. Ingredients ought to include whey protein, maltodextrin, wxymaize or dextrose. Try to aim for 25 grams of protein and around 40 grams of carbohydrate. Doing this will increase your bodies insulin levels which is one of the bodies strongest muscle building hormones. Furthermore it will also stifle the amount of cortisol that is made by your body which has a very bad impact on muscle building.

Remember that you aren’t going to breaking any personal bests in the gym if you are feeling tired and hungry when you start your workout. Always try to have fruit or meal replacement powders or bars handy should you not have time for a proper pre-workout meal.

Try and wean yourself off the coffee with green tea which has many more health benefits whilst also providing some caffeine. One more thing, don’t forget to keep taking on board the water all day. Ok bear those things in mind and you’ll be hitting the gym in peak mode for an awesome muscle stimulating workout which you will be able to grow from because you will have had the correct muscle building nutrition.