You may think building muscle mass is no more than signing up at a gym and throwing around dumbbells until you collapse, but you are wrong. There are quite a few factors that will effect your workout efforts. Check out the tips presented here to give you better idea of what it takes to successfully build sculpted muscles.
Proper warm ups are critical if you want to build muscle mass. As muscles grow stronger, they are more stressed and prone to injury. However, if you correctly warm up, injury can be prevented. Warm up by completing a cardio exercise, such as running on a treadmill, for 10 minutes before you begin weight training, and then start off with some light reps to get into the groove.
Eating meat can help with muscle-building. Eat 1 gram of meat per pound of body weight. This will allow your body to store some of that protein, and stored protein can result in increased muscle mass.
Creatine is a very popular supplement with muscle builders, but you need to use it with caution, especially if you are taking it for an extended time period. Stay away from these supplements if your kidney is not healthy. There are other side effects from creatine, including heart arrhythmias and muscle disorders like cramping. These risks are especially dangerous in adolescents. Try to ensure that you use the supplements safely if you decide you are going to integrate them into your workouts.
Build Muscle
Don’t combine intense cardio exercise with muscle building routines. If your goal is a well-balanced fitness program, then cardio is essential. However, if you are trying to increase your muscle size, excess cardio could undo your hard work. Make sure to use strength training the most when building muscle.
A diet rich in lean protein is your best friend when you are trying to build muscle. Muscles are made from protein, meaning you need to keep levels high so they can rebuild. When your body lacks the protein it needs to effectively build muscle, you will have much less success in achieving the muscle mass and physique you seek. Eat lean, healthy proteins at two out of three of your meals, and eat a protein-rich snack at least once daily.
Carbohydrates are essential to muscle building success. Carbohydrates not only fuel your body, but they are necessary to increase muscle tone. If you’re seriously training, every day you have to eat about two to three grams of carbohydrates for every pound you weigh.
Consuming a sufficient amount of protein is a significant factor in building muscle. A good way to consume protein is through shakes and supplements. For best results, use them immediately after your workout and immediately before your bedtime. You should only drink one shake per day if you’re trying to lose weight. However, if you want to gain weight as well as build muscle, you should consume as many as three protein shakes or supplements daily.
Cool down with a short stretching routine to ensure that your muscles start the repair process from a healthy point. If you are younger than forty years old, you should be capable of maintaining each stretch for half a minute. Someone over 40 should hold their stretches for at least 60 seconds. This will help to insure that you do not get injured after doing exercise to build muscle.
Do not extend your workouts to more than 60 minutes. The body begins to produce more cortisol, a stress hormone, after sixty minutes of working out. Cortisol may block testosterone, which hurts all your efforts that you have been putting in towards achieving more muscle mass. Restricting workouts to 60 minutes or less helps you get more out of each workout.
Try to make it seem like you’re bigger than you really are. You can achieve this by focusing your strength training on your shoulders, upper back and upper chest. By doing this, you can cause your waist to appear smaller than it actually is, which can also make you appear to have greater size.
When you are done with a workout, stretching is very important, so that your muscles can repair themselves and rebuild. Hold a stretch for about thirty seconds if you are under forty years old. However, if you are older than forty, you should try to maintain a stretch for about sixty seconds. This prevents injuries from occurring when exercising.
When you workout, it is important you train with different muscles; such as, chest with back, or hamstrings with your quads. This will let one muscle group rest while the other is working. You will be able to workout more efficiently and exercise more than one muscle at a time.
Protein Intake
Building muscle does not necessarily equate to achieving a ripped physique. There are various muscle routines that you must pick from prior to working out. Depending on how large you want your muscles, you may want to consider adding a supplement to your diet.
You should not increase your protein intake the minute you begin working out. Unless there is enough exercise to burn off this increased caloric intake, the likely result is going to be fat production and the wrong sort of weight gain. Increase your protein intake slowly, adding a couple hundred calories at a time every few days. Your body will be able to keep up with the increase this way, using the extra protein to grow muscle.
Make sure you are eating enough calories. There are online calculators available for determining how many calories you need to eat in order to gain a given amount of muscle in a certain time frame. Use these calculators to estimate your calorie requirements, but don’t forget these calories need to be healthy ones consisting of healthy carbs, proteins, and other nutrients.
Think about how often you plan to exercise before you start muscle building. Developing a reasonable schedule for working out will help you build muscles without hurting yourself. It is recommended that novice muscle builders workout only twice each week, while those with experience can do so three times each week.
Cheating a bit when lifting can help you maximize your workout. If you use more of your body to get a few extra reps into your workout then you are increasing the output of your workout. Cheating a little is okay, but cheating a lot will just be cheating yourself out of great results. Have a rep speed that’s controlled. Don’t compromise your posture and balance.
Make sure you implement a good diet routine as you workout. You need to do things like increasing protein and avoiding foods rich in fat. Muscle building is not a free pass to eating more; you still need a balanced diet. You should consider taking vitamins and protein supplements to help you build muscles quicker.
Be smart about when and how you work out to optimize muscle growth and minimize injury. If you are working on your muscles for the first time, only do strenuous workouts two times a week. Those that have more experience and have already been conditioning their muscles can safely work out this way three times in a week.
As you can see, there is more to weight training than lifting barbells. Some of the ideas here are simple to implement, and greatly increase your chance of success. With the information you have just learned, start your weight training routine right away so you can see those results.
Work on improving your bicep curls. When most people perform these curls, they fail to glean the full benefits because they do not move the bar or weight beyond the parallel point. However, the bicep curl is the strongest at the top half. By doing barbell curls while sitting, can help you fix this.