Looking to build more lean muscle mass? Regardless of whether you are a male or female, this is a smart goal to work towards because the more muscle mass you have, the easier everyday activities will be and the easier time you will also have maintaining your body weight as well.
Since muscle is metabolically active, the more of it you have on your body, the faster you will burn calories 24/7, making it easier to prevent future fat gain.
This said, you need to learn how to build muscle correctly. Far too many people go about the process in the wrong manner and that can just cause them to quickly be frustrated. Following these simple exercise and meal ideas will help set you out on the right track for muscle gain success.
Let’s go over the key points that you should know.
Lift Heavy
First, you need to be lifting heavy. It’s vital that you are lifting a weight that challenges you because it’s this overloading stimulus that is best going to help your muscles grow and build themselves back up stronger than they were after each workout you do.
You aren’t going to see muscle gains if you are lifting a lighter weight that doesn’t fully challenge you, so moving away from this is a must.
However, what should be noted, is that you should not try to lift heavy weights for too long, while it is beneficial to you to gain muscle, it is only beneficial for a certain period of time. The longer you may do it, the more counterproductive it becomes, after a period of time, say an hour, your body would need to release stress hormones, these hormones are counterproductive to building muscle. You should include the weights into a workout regime but for around half an hour, and then move onto working on another area of your body.
Use Compound Exercises
Next, also focus on using compound exercises as often as possible as well. These are going to allow you to work multiple muscle groups at once, thus are going to be a better choice for increasing strength gains and for getting in and out of the gym quickly.
Good choices here include squats, deadlifts, bent over rows, bench press, shoulder press, push-ups, and lat pull-downs.
If you can form your workout around these exercises rather than isolation ones, you will see faster progression moving forward.
You may find that you do not need a gym to complete these work out routines, but you may find a gym motivates you. Either way, you should do 5-10 minute stints of each and you will start to see a change in your body emerge.
Eat A Higher Calorie Diet
Next, you have the nutritional element of things. If you want to build more muscle mass, you absolutely must be providing a higher calorie intake to do so.
You can’t build muscle out of nothing so if the calorie support you need isn’t there, results are going to allude you.
Aim to eat around 250-500 calories over and beyond what it takes to maintain your body weight daily.
This will give you enough of a surplus to see quality muscle gains without adding too much additional body fat.
Just because you are eating a high calorie diet, which is often thought of as being unhealthy, you can definitely eat high calorie meals which are good for you. Especially with all the exercise, as your body will be burning off most of the calories you need to eat double to ensure you remain healthy. You can find high calorie meals which are low in salt, sugar or fat.
It is good to work out how much fat, etc, you should have in your diet daily, so that you can manage your meals and make meal plans.
Focus On High Quality Foods
Finally, as you raise your calorie intake you also want to make sure that you are focusing on quality food sources as well. You want very natural food choices like lean proteins such as chicken, fish, steak, egg whites, and low fat dairy products.
Pair that with smart grains such as brown rice, quinoa, barley, and oatmeal along with healthy fats from nuts, seeds, oils, avocados, and fatty fish.
For snacks, choose natural based snacks such as natural snack bar options. These are convenient and fast to eat, so will give you the energy you need when you need it most. You want to eat them around half an hour or an hour before exercise, as most of these snack bars will be geared towards slow releasing energy, this is essential for gruelling work out sessions in the gym.
So keep these quick tips in mind and you can help ensure that your muscle building journey is a big success.