A building muscle is one of the main goals of those people who want to have a strong and tightened body. Muscle mass directly depends on the volume of tissues in the muscles of the internal organs. In other words, it is a mass of muscles without taking into account fats, by which the person becomes stronger and more durable.
Here are ten key rules for building muscles: which exercises are most effective, whether you need sports supplements and how long it takes to pump. Make your workouts not only enjoyable but also effective. Sit comfortably and read top 10 simple secrets for building muscles.
Secret 1: The best exercise is one to which your body has not yet got used to. The body will eventually get used to everything you do, which is why you need to change your exercises as often as possible.
Secret 2: Increase calorie nutrition. The second most important problem is the ectomorph, which does not allow muscle build up and increase body weight – it is a chronic lack of appetite. The body, in essence, only cares about ensuring a minimum caloric content, ignoring muscle signals that they need energy for growth. One of the main rules for the building muscle is that the caloric intake of food should exceed the norm by 15-25% (in total it is not less than 2500 kcal per day). The diet should contain a lot of correct fats and carbohydrates, as well as not less than 1.5-2.5 mg of protein per kg of body weight.
Secret 3: Work with both large and small weight. For many years, there has been a debate over the Internet about which style of training is the best. It’s better to work with a lot of weight, but with a low intensity, or vice versa, to take weight a bit smaller, but to work faster? Let’s say this: the right way is to make both options.
Secret 4: Drink during training is not only possible but also necessary. It is necessary to do this as thirst as possible, in order to prevent dehydration – in the process of training, many sweats are lost. Very useful water enriched with ascorbic acid – a vitamin of vivacity and strong building muscles, as well as ozonised mineral water. But from sports energy drinks, and more so from stimulators for building muscles, containing amino acids and hormones, which are sometimes offered to senior pupils in “Sports”, one must resolutely refuse, so as not to disturb the endocrine transformation of the body.
Secret 5: Basic exercises with barbells, dumbbells and losing weight – your choice. If your workout is mostly based on work with simulators, do not expect building muscle process.
Secret 6: Reduce the amount of cardio right to a minimum. Nobody asks to throw out a bike and a racetrack, just reduce the number of approaches to 1-2 per week. Otherwise, the hormones responsible for building muscles will go in support of cardiovascular activity.
Secret 7: Everyone wants to pump muscle, but few know that maximising the growth of all muscles, including hands, causes severe basic exercises, where the maximum number of muscles is involved. The building muscle process mostly stimulates by squats, bench press, and deadlifts. Squatting with a barbell on his shoulders is the hardest and most time-consuming exercise ever made of fictitious ones. She loads all of your body. And from such a heavy load your body experiences a hormonal explosion. There is an active release of growth hormones.
Secret 8: Your body type will tell you the frequency of training. A person with a slow metabolism (endomorph) can practice 5-6 times a week. At the same time, a slim boy, whose metabolism rages with the power of a hurricane, will get everything that is needed when attending the gym only 3-4 times a week.
Secret 9: The duration of training – one hour, and if you add a warm-up and a shuttle, then an hour and a half. All people are different, and it is impossible to give universal recommendations, it is the experts who speak about personal consultations with the trainers. This introductory lesson is usually provided free of charge. However, there are some awful mistakes that can not be assumed. A man was going to spirit long, finally came to the fitness club, and immediately decided to take a “bull for the horns” to quickly achieve remarkable results. What only beginners do not make! He spent all his life in the office, did not raise anything except a pencil, and then suddenly, then runs marathons ten kilometres, then it is torn with a barely obvious difficult for him … it is strictly prohibited!
Secret 10: Record the results of the training and fix your progress. Driving a diary is a necessary tool!
Why do you need to change the training program
As you know, when exercising bodybuilding or strength training in general, you need to periodically change your training program.
For instance, you use the program of top 10 core fitness exercises that are easy to do, which is very effective, but if you do it every day for two months without changing the order, the load and the number of approaches, you will not achieve the desired result and building muscle process will not run.
Sooner or later, the building muscle accrues to uniform loads, and accordingly, the effect of training is reduced. You have noticed that when you start training for a new program, you usually have good progress. Gradually, progress is slowed down, and eventually, you step into the so-called training plateau or stagnant result (when you train, and the results do not improve significantly). If you continue to act the same way monotonously and monotonously, then it is unlikely that the results will improve on you. Once you have done well with any program, you got a good result, after you “removed the cream from this program” – you need to change it and start moving forward.
Why change the training program?
Change of PT is not just a whim; it is a necessity that is caused by entirely earthly reasons, namely the desire to constantly progress in:
- working scales;
- building muscle mass;
- increased endurance and strength;
- reduction in the percentage of subcutaneous fat.
As you know, muscles – it’s not just threaded, it is a set of fibres that constantly learn and adapt to the load. For building muscle to grow up, a person must throw them an “uncomfortable challenge”, that which he had not known before, and with whom they had not been able to cope. The idea of overloading muscles is one of the most important principles of strength training.
When you start to raise new scales or perform new exercises, a time interval is created. This is when the body of the athlete and his muscles are actively responding to changes in the load and are eager to grow and change their initial characteristics (be it strength, time of stay under load, etc.). As soon as the “sweet month” (meaning not a period of 30 days) is passed, the building muscles need to be surprised and shocked again. Otherwise, we can get to the training plateau already known to us. Moreover, it is not necessarily to be surprised by the heavier weights, but also by the change in the quantitative parameters (approaches, repetition) and the use of different principles.
In which cases is it necessary to change the program?
There are several main reasons why you need to make changes or change the training program altogether and we will now consider them.
- The task is set. One of the most important reasons that directly affects the training plan is the purpose of the training. It depends on the purpose of the training method you will use. There is a bunch of ways to conduct your classes depending on your intentions, such as building muscles, super-net, circular workout, and so on.
- Lifestyle and daily routine. The second important factor. Not everyone has the opportunity to train every day, and someone has no time at all even for a few pieces of training a day. You have to adjust your program to your routine. For example, if a person has the opportunity to visit the gym twice a week, you need to make such a split, in which you can have time to work out all groups of muscles.
- Routine. Workout in the gym should not be monotonous. The routine may get bored very quickly, and accordingly, any desire to engage is lost. In this case, if a physical activity does not bring the former joy, charge energy, positive, you must necessarily and as soon as possible change the training plan.
The myth about training change
The notion of “change more often” is nothing more than a silly myth, created to make you buy as many sports magazines as possible. Of course, there is the truth that over time your body adapts to the scheme you are engaging in and the results are no longer clear. However, you do not need to change the program but adjust the load.
Your body still wonders how the muscle will work, through exercise A or B. Muscle just feels a tension, and if it increases with time (due to changes in the number of repetitions/weight), the body will begin to adapt by making the necessary changes.
- You can replace, for example, some exercises, leave the basic exercise, and change the auxiliary.
- You can change the number of approaches and repetitions.
- You can change the weekly workout plan, the schedule of exercises for the days of the week, for example, you previously trained your back and biceps, and now you will train your back and shoulders in one day.
- You can change the order of the exercises.
[su_quote]If you have a favourite training program that you really like, then you do not have to give up forever. Have a look – go temporarily to another program and then go back to your favourite training program.[/su_quote]
Diet for building muscles
For a person who came to a gym with a clear purpose to gain muscle mass, it is important to make not only an optimal training system, but there must be a proper diet program. The main element for building muscle is protein, so the diet should contain a lot of high protein products.
Basic nutrition principles for the muscle mass gaining
The human body is constantly consuming energy to support all the necessary processes and functions. During training, energy consumption increases at times; they can be filled only with food, therefore, restricting the flow of nutrients, a person hurts himself more than helps. The diet for the recruitment of building muscles does not involve starvation; on the contrary, the athlete must consume more calories than was spent. However, the nutrition program should be precisely balanced. The following rules should be observed for the building muscle mass:
- Fractional food. There are no large portions, it is necessary to fill the energy costs with frequent, but not very large meals. This will allow the digestive system to quickly process food and turn it into energy rather than fatty deposits. The same principle will allow you to gain muscle mass, without turning it into overweight.
- High-calorie meals. Because of the preceding paragraph, small portions should have a lot of calories. Otherwise, you will have to eat more often. Building muscle mass, the diet should be 70% higher in calories.
- Only slow carbohydrates and fats. The diet for weight gain should not contain fats or fast carbohydrates, because they are long processed by the body and in most cases turn into a fatty layer, not energy. These products include flour, confectionery, sweet fruits. The body is not able to use the resulting nutrients from fast carbohydrates and in most cases sends them “in stock”.
- Drinking mode. Diet for the recruitment of muscles creates a certain stressful situation for the human body. During this period, the body accelerates metabolism; all metabolic processes require an increased amount of water. If it is not enough, dehydration may occur, which not only stops the growth of the muscle mass but also adversely affects the overall well-being. The bodybuilder should consume at least 3 litres of water per day.
- Time to eat. Most of the daily diet should be eaten up to 4 o’clock in the evening. After this mark, you should avoid foods high in fast carbs, fats.
- Athletic diet. All of the above rules will work for a set of dry muscle mass provided that the person will actively engage in sports. Otherwise, all this food will turn into fat. For building muscles, it is necessary that the meal was before training for 2 hours and 2 hours after it. To accelerate the process, you can combine a diet with the consumption of sports supplements, for example, from the Energy diet.
Daily rate of protein, fat and carbs
The success of a diet for a building muscle mass largely depends on the balance of nutrition. The athlete must adhere to the inverted pyramid’s principle of nutrient intake, which looks like this:
- 55-60% of carbohydrates;
- 25-30% proteins;
- 10-20% fat.
To comply with this rule, it is necessary to calculate the daily rate of consumption of substances for the growth of muscle mass. It is important to fulfil the main task in such a diet – to consume more calories than to spend. To calculate the daily caloric intake rate, you can use the following formula: multiply your weight by 30. To increase building muscles, it is necessary to add another 500 to the value obtained. There are some differences in the ratio of the elements in men and women. The following recommendations should be followed:
[su_accordion][su_spoiler title=”For men” open=”yes”]1. Building muscle mass in a diet, it is very important to consume the required amount of proteins. Some amino acids are capable of reproducing on their own, and some of them work only with food, such as meat, milk, fish or eggs. For men, the daily protein content is determined from the calculation of 2 g per 1 kg of weight. If a boy weighs 75 kg, then in a day he must generally get 150 g of protein. 2. Fat though should be reduced, but without them, the body will not be able to function properly. The required amount of this item depends on the age: up to 28 years – 130-160 g, up to 40 years – 100-150 g, over 40 years – 70 g. 3. Carbohydrates are divided into complex and simple. The latter is not particularly beneficial for a diet on a mass set, but the first must be at least 0.5 kg per day.[/su_spoiler] [su_spoiler title=”For women” open=”no”]1. Protein for girls is no less important than for men. With their lack of women, the appearance of nails, hair, skin worsens. The daily norm is slightly lower than that of men and is 1.5 g per 1 kg of weight. 2. The required amount of fats depends on the girl’s age: up to 28 years – 86-116 g, up to 40 years – 80-111 g, older than 40 – 70 g. 3. Building muscle mass, girls need to receive 400 grams of slow carbohydrate during a diet.[/su_spoiler][/su_accordion]
List of allowed and prohibited products
Any mass recruitment program should be supported by the optimal power supply, which includes all the necessary elements. They can be taken exclusively with food or using sports supplements. If you have gone along the path of natural nutrition, you should understand what foods will bring maximum benefits during the diet, and which will only interfere. Muscle-friendly and prohibited options for food will be described below.
[su_box title=”Forbidden foods include:” box_color=”#fa4b2a” title_color=”#ffffff” radius=”0″]
- sausages, greasy meat, ham, sausage;
- industrial products with flavours, dyes, flavour enhancers, preservatives and other chemical additives;
- fat, spread, butter, mayonnaise, margarine;
- candies, pastries, cakes and other sweets;
- pickles, smoked meat, marinades. [/su_box]
A list of recommended food for building muscles :
[su_box title=”Protein products” box_color=”#000000″ title_color=”#ffffff” radius=”0″]
- Meat. For a day, an athlete should consume 150-200 g of the low-fat dietary meal for mass recruitment. Good for diet of turkey fillet, chicken.
- You can use milk, yoghurt, which contains a small amount of fat.
- Eggs for bodybuilder become a source of protein if you remove the yolk from them. An important product for athletes when mass is to be cheese, which contains not only protein but also a lot of useful trace elements.
- Fish. To obtain essential omega, salmon, tuna and other marine fish varieties should be consumed.
- From grain crops should be used germinating wheat, whole grain bread, sunflower seeds in fried or raw form. Buckwheat and lentils are also rich in protein. [/su_box]
[su_box title=”Carbohydrate products” box_color=”#000000″ title_color=”#ffffff” radius=”0″]Carbohydrates will become an important source of energy, so you can not cut them. Doing this is worthwhile only if your goal is to lose weight. If you follow the diet for building muscle mass, you can and should use the following products:
- brown rice, which contains a little more carbohydrates than the white variety;
- unsweetened fruits, cut pears, bananas, grapes;
- garlic, herbs and other vegetables;
- groats;
- pasta from durum wheat.[/su_box]
[su_box title=”Fats” box_color=”#000000″ title_color=”#ffffff” radius=”0″]When observing the diet it is recommended to reduce the intake of fats, but they can not be completely eliminated. This is especially true of girls, because the lack of nutrition in this element leads to deterioration of the appearance. It is recommended to use the following to obtain a fat mass:
- cashews;
- almond;
- Brazilian nut, walnut;
- mackerel;
- hazelnut;
- apple mashed potatoes.[/su_box]
Exemplary weekly menu for building muscle mass
This diet for ectomorph (a person who is naturally skinny) should include at least 6 meals a day. Portions are small, which allows a person to not suffer from hunger and not overeat. The result should be measured one month after the start of observance of the regime and training. As a landmark, you can use the following menu for building muscle mass:
Monday:
- Oatmeal, nuts, apple.
- Potatoes, chicken fillets, vegetables.
- Cheese and banana.
- Fish, rice, vegetables.
- Tuna with vegetable salad.
- Fruit salad.
Tuesday:
- Oranges, nuts, buckwheat porridge with honey and milk.
- Boiled pasta, baked veal, vegetables.
- Whole grain bread, kefir.
- Cheese with honey, kiwi.
- Mackerel baked, vegetable salad.
- Strawberries, yoghurt, peanut paste.
Wednesday:
- Oatmeal, banana, apple, nuts.
- Potatoes, lean beef, vegetables.
- Black bread, omelette, apple.
- Milk and fruit lanes.
- Turkey fillet, rice
- Jam cheese
Thursday:
- Rice porridge on milk, nuts, apple.
- Vegetable soup, veal.
- Whole grain bread, kefir.
- Fruit salad.
- Turkey fillet, baked potatoes.
- Vegetable salad.
Friday:
- Chicken fillet, omelette, vegetables.
- Potatoes, lean beef, banana.
- Apple cheese with jam.
- Fruity Stripe.
- Chicken Fillet with Vegetable Ragu.
- Strawberries, yoghurt, peanut paste.
Saturday:
- Nuts, banana, oatmeal.
- Chicken fillet, potatoes, vegetables.
- Kefir, whole grain bread.
- Kiwi, cheese with honey.
- Baked mackerel, buckwheat porridge, vegetable salad.
- Fruit salad.
Sunday:
- Chicken fillet, omelette, vegetables
- Veal, vegetable salad, apple.
- Banana cheese with jam.
- Fruity Stripe.
- Chicken fillet, rice, vegetables.
- Vegetable salad.
A combination of a diet with sports nutrition
Some people who stick to the diet for building muscle mass cannot fully prepare themselves for 6 meals. This may be due to a complicated schedule of work or lifestyle. Sometimes it is simply possible to use sports supplements to achieve the desired result, for example:[su_spoiler title=” Gainer” open=”yes”]This variant contains a lot of carbohydrates, during a diet helps to gain weight, to achieve the necessary caloric intake, accelerates the assimilation of protein. It is not necessary to be fond of them, because it is possible to dial not the mass that I wanted. You need to drink it before workout an hour, then immediately after it.[/su_spoiler][su_spoiler title=”Protein”]Protein powder – the richest source of protein. He is involved in the creation of muscle mass. Interfering with the gainers it should not be taken, also take an hour before physical activity.[/su_spoiler][su_spoiler title=”Creatine”]Contributes to retaining water in the muscles, drinking it 40 minutes before the workout.[/su_spoiler][su_spoiler title=”Multivitamins”]During the diet for building muscle mass, you need to get all the necessary vitamins. They will protect the intestines from collapse, improve the assimilation of all useful elements.[/su_spoiler]
If the goal not only building muscle mass but also to drying out, then you should increase the restrictions on products that contain sugar. Quick carbohydrates need to be completely removed, and these are foods, flour products, candy, cakes and chocolate. The number of meals should be increased to 7-9 per day in small portions. The body absorbs fewer volumes of food faster and does not delay anything. It should reduce the consumption of animal fats and increase – plant.
6 gross bugs in building muscles
There is a widespread view that it is very difficult to screw up with a set of muscle mass, and especially during the winter off-season. Success will surely be guaranteed if you lift your weight, eat everything that comes in sight, and have a good rest. But, in fact, there are no guarantees of success, because the errors in the process of building muscle mass keep us on every step. Learn about the major mistakes during the pick-up period and how to avoid them.
1. You are gaining a “dirty” mass
Of course, the phrase “we are what we eat” is old as the world, but it fits perfectly into a conversation about a “clean” and “dirty” mass set. Set on semi-finished products and ready-made foods that contain a lot of sugar and fats, do not pass past the fast food, and you’re guaranteed to gain a mass that does not closely match your expectations. Ten years ago, the strategy of absorbing any kind of food in the field of vision was very popular among bodybuilders. As a result, athletes received a frightening increase in body weight with an uncontrolled increase in not so much muscle as fat mass.
This approach often leads not only to health problems but also to the not-so-desired changes in appearance. The “pure” mass set has become popular because its followers look good year-round. In addition, after a training cycle for the mass, they do not have to move into long and incredibly difficult periods of drying. The only minus – a pure mass set requires a much more discriminating attitude towards food. The basis of a diet with a “clean” mass set should be natural, unprocessed, whole foods with high fibre content, such as fruits and vegetables, as well as songs of pieces of meat that have low saturated fats. Products with added sugar should be avoided – they are quickly absorbed and usually contain very few nutrients. It is better to stay away from calorie sauces and refills too.
2. You start training not from the right exercises
Our regular readers know that it is extremely important to start training with heavy basic multifunctional exercises – squatting, bench press, and thrust. They need to do it when the muscles are full of strength, and there is no tongue about fatigue. Multi-articular exercises should form the basis of your training. Their name accurately reflects their essence: more than one pair of joints works in unison. The more joints involved in the movement, the more active building muscles. For example, when you make bench press, the elbow and shoulder joints work. The muscles attached to them – in this case, the pectoral muscles, front delts, and triceps – also work together. Equally important, multi-articular movements stimulate more secretion of testosterone and growth hormone, and these anabolic hormones play a key role in the synthesis of muscle protein and in muscle growth.
Just do not think that one-way exercises should be avoided, especially since the training of the hands, the back of the hips and shoulders is almost entirely composed of such movements. Just make sure they do not form the backbone of your training program. In most cases, they must be performed after the completion of heavy multi-articular work! If you want to gain weight, you should also think about training for strength or include in the training plan period in the powerlifting style. Such training is built around heavy multistage movements with the manipulation of intensity and volume of the load for maximum development of power indicators. In the long run, when you return to the schemes of muscular hypertrophy, strength will accelerate the building muscle volume. You will be able to work with a big weight and do more repetitions.
3. You forget about calories
As you know, for muscle growth we need so-called “extra calories” – an excess of calories. Be sure to calculate the number of extra calories needed to maintain building muscles. Learn to focus on products in order to accurately determine your daily calorie needs. Your goal – a set of mass, and a set of maximum pure muscle mass, and not subcutaneous fat. Therefore, the daily excess of calories should correspond to an increase in the weight of 0.25-0.75 kg per week, that is, 1-3 kg per month.
If you are gaining weight faster, then faster, fast-paced, you store fat. Regarding building muscle mass, it is necessary to put only realistic goals. In practice, this means that you have to learn to count calories, at least for the first time, until you learn how to assess the caloric content of the dishes on the eye. Many will recognize this process as tedious and costly in time, and will not want to bother with a head. But let’s remind you that you want to avoid gross mistakes in the mass set, and uncontrolled food intake is one of the worst!
4. You set everything to the maximum
Over motivation is a great stimulus to start a building muscle mass phase, but until you bend the stick. And by itself, the idea suggests that the summing up of the maximum value of all training variables will bring the desired result more quickly. In fact, such an idea is too counterproductive, especially if one of the following is true:
- You are doing more exercises for muscle groups, believing that the more, the better.
- Each approach is brought to a muscle failure.
- Train more often so as not to miss any opportunity to stimulate building muscle process.
- Hold your fervour and learn to correctly manipulate all the variables of muscle growth, instead of immediately pressing all the gas pedals. Approach the training with your head!
5. You do not follow the dynamics of your results
If you do not remember everything that you did on your shoulder training, including work scales, approaches, and repetitions, then it will be difficult for you to determine if you are moving towards a training plateau or confidently progressing from month to month. Approximate estimation of the dynamics of the results could work in the past – and for beginners, because they all work, at least, until the time. But the more you reach, the harder is given each subsequent step. How to understand that you are progressing?
The easiest way to keep track of the results is to record them, noting the dynamics of power indicators and other measurable values of the training process. If you conscientiously document the exercises, working weights and loading volumes, the more accurately you will be able to evaluate your athletic achievements and will be able to make the necessary adjustments promptly. The training diary is not the only document to document your achievements. One more – floor scales. Constant monitoring of building muscle mass – which, if you build muscle predominantly, should not exceed 1-3 kg per month – the best insurance from too fast or too slow mass recruitment.
6. You ignore the recovery
You were told that the training should be intense, but not too much. There is a lot to eat, but not overeat. In a sense, achieving success is the art of balancing the golden mean. Another rule of your mass recruiting quest is to keep in mind that this process requires time, well-trained and fasting, and other recovery factors. Your efforts in the gym – a stimulus required for the activation of muscle hypertrophy. But this does not end there. Consider what is your food and how well it sustains these incentives, not only building muscle after today’s training but also storing nutrients for tomorrow’s session.
The concept of recovery is sufficiently large, it includes a lot of items in addition to nutrition and post-eating food. Values are dietary supplements and workout hitch in training, sleep, days of rest, stretching and massage, as well as the degree of physical activity outside the gym. Most likely, you will have to deal with an increased delayed muscle ailment syndrome, one of the most obvious signs that you had a good workout. Clearly, it is difficult to start the next workout if the body still hurts after the previous one. In addition, persistent muscle pain can affect the quality of your life. In a word, if you are asking the body to work on the limits of the training, you also need to optimize the recovery process. In this context, everything you do and eat outside the gym is also an important part of the building muscles plan!
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