Posts Tagged ‘muscle building nutrition’

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!

Bodybuilders are always looking for ways to blast through muscle building plateaus, mix up their routines, discover new ways to stimulate muscle growth and increase strength. Finding and making use of new different exercise techniques is essential for muscle building success as your muscles soon adjust to the demands of new exercises and will be unable to continue grow until new demands are made of them.

There are many methods in which to trigger growth including the regular progressive overload principle of using certain amounts of sets and reps and doing as many reps as possible until your muscles won’t allow you to do anymore. Other variations include: compound sets, drop sets, partials, supersets, 21s and such like. However here we will be looking at stimulating muscle growth using negatives.

So, what exactly are negatives? And how can you build muscle fast using negatives?

Well, negatives are performed as follows. Using bench pressing as an example, lets say your usual bench-press is to do 110kg for 8 reps. You have stopped making any significant muscle building progress and gotten stuck at this weight. Put another additional 20kgs on to the bar and have your gym partner aid you in pressing the bar until your arms are nearly locked out. Now from the top start position get your helpers to let go of the bar so that you can gradually under control lower the barbell. Then yet again allow your friends to aid you press ther weight up. Repeat this as many times as you can until you can no longer lower the weight safely and under control.

Why should I do negatives? And will I build muscle fast using negatives?

Well your muscles are actually stronger in the lowering phase so when you do regular reps you are only placing stress on the muscle fibers in the lifting phase which are not as strong. So, you can allow your muscles to handle more weight by doing negatives. Do a few workouts such as this and you can trigger muscle mass growth and therefore improve your training sessions efforts for your normal workout routine and increase your overall musculature.

Are there any problems with this?

due to the fact that your muscles will probably not be used to doing this type of work and also for physiological factors you will quite possibly be very sore on the next few days after your training session. Obviously do not return to the gym until you have totally recuperated and keep high your protein intake and be completely sure to take a very good protein shake straight after your training session.

Negatives can be made use of for just about any exercise but work best for the classic mass builders such as the major compound multi-joint exercises like: squats, deadlifts, pull ups, shoulder presses, and such like. To trigger muscle growth and break training plateaus then use these workouts on an infrequent and occasional basis.

With those points in mind keep taking on good solid muscle building nutrition, rest plenty and workout vigorously and regularly and you will likely have no problems stacking on muscle mass. Now go ahead and build muscle fast using negatives.

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.

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.

‘Why am I not getting bigger?’ is one of the most common question from bodybuilders around the world. After all you are training hard, with good muscle building nutrition in your diet, yet your gains are still minimal. Your motivation can be dramatically reduced by the sense of frustration after months of effort. So, what precisely is the answer? Well, there are a few likely causes, see if any of these ring a bell with you, together they show you how to build muscle:

1) Are you eating lots? Under eaters could be the real name for many hardgainers. As this really is a massive cause of lack of muscle mass. The key to building muscle mass is frequent high calorie meals! Consuming food every two hours is a very useful guideline that will help you intake the required amount of calories. Make sure you snack lots on food such as: dried fruit and nuts, yoghurt, cottage cheese,  cereal and milk, protein bars, fresh fruit, and protein shakes, etc

2) Are you getting enough protein? To build muscle mass fast you should aim for 1.Each day you should get per pound of body weight 5 grams of protein. Superb source of protein for muscle building are: chicken, fish, turkey as well as dairy products. As you want to bulk up do not by the low fat variety for every product you need the excess calories. Sure you need quality calories but make your life easier and eat everything, remember you can go through a cutting up stage in a few months time. making use of whey protein shakes is an excellent way to increase your protein intake, the larger tubs of course are normally better value of money.

3) Has your workout become unstimulating? If you can reel off your routine from the top of your head then that probably means you have been doing the same for thing for quite a while now. If you do not stimulate your muscle in a variety of ways then it will stop growing. What about really mixing things up with aided lifts, negatives, partials, super sets and so on. You could try 10 sets of 10 reps for any major exercise like squats, simply reverse your workout order, do more supersets (get ready to be sore!) how about taking a week off from your session to allow your body to completely recover. There are endless variations that are possible make sure you use them.

4) Are you getting enough down time? Have you ever witnessed someone go to the gym and then come out with more muscle than when they entered? Never. Obviously, your muscles grow when you are at home resting, not when you are pounding iron in the gym. If you are not resting lots then you are limiting the amount of time available for the muscle to grow. If anything you should be giving yourself too much time to grow as opposed to too little. Try limiting your workouts to one muscle group per week. Also reducing the number of sets per body part, how about a maximum of 3-5 really intense sets per body part per workout. Why not try them yourself, you might be pleasantly suprised by your progress!

5) Are you consuming enough water? If you don’t drink plenty of water then your progress won’t be as fast it should be. In order to grow, your muscles need copious amounts of water. Carry a bottle with you in the car and never stop drinking from it.

So the question we began with: “Why am I not growing quicker?’as you now know has potentially many answers. Answer the list of question in this article and if you need to adjust something then start doing it today. If you are not meeting just one of the above points then you may well have found the reason for your limited growth. If there are more than one of these points that your bodybuilding lifestyle does not meet then urgent change is required. Of course there may well be other reasons why you might aren’t growing but they are are the usual suspects. Now hit the gym and go get massive!