Building muscle isn't complicated. It requires clean nourishment and overloading the muscles through resistance training.
The method of overloading the muscles shouldn't just be consistent or lifting weights, but also using resistances that are increasingly difficult and "repping it out" until you can't complete another full repetition.
We'll get into the weight training side of things a little later in this article. But first I want to talk about muscle nourishment.
There are two essential elements of nourishing the body for muscle growth - and one optional element:
- Total calories
- Complete protein
- Supplements (optional)
Eating for muscle growth isn't as simple as merely eating additional calories above and beyond the amount required for maintaining your current level of mass.
Nutrients matter!
But at the end of the day if you're not eating enough calories you're not going to be able to build muscle very fast, if at all. So you need to take care to be sure that you are eating a sufficient number of calories every day to build muscle.
How do you do that? It's actually very easy.
Eating for Growth and Measuring Your Progress
Weigh yourself every week. If your weight has increased you can rest assured that you are eating an adequate number of calories to grow.
But you don't want your growth to be fat, which is where nutrients come in, specifically complete proteins. If you're loading up on carbs and fat, and depriving your body or protein, your muscles won't have the amino acids necessary to build new muscle tissue.
If your excess in calories is mostly made up or carbs and your weight gain will end up being more fat than anything else. It is certainly okay for a certain amount of calories to come from carbohydrates and fats, but the amount should not exceed sixty or seventy percent of your total calories on a daily basis.
Your proteins should also come from complete protein sources: meat, poultry, eggs, dairy, fish and whey.
These proteins contain all of the essential amino acids, making them ideal for muscle building.
Quick Note on Supplements
Despite what the supplement companies would have you believe they are absolutely not required for muscle growth. However, they can help.
In addition to a quality whey protein supplement, an amino acid supplement, creatine, and mass gainers can all enhance muscle gains when used correctly.
But don't get the impression that supplements are going to give you dramatic gains above what you would get from proper training and nutrition alone. They will help, but the real secret weapon for building muscle has always been - and always will be - training and nutrition, not supplements!
Now that we've gotten through the basics I want to share a little-known method of building muscle called "Phased Muscle Building".
The Problem of Gaining Muscle and Getting Fat
The problem with most muscle building programs is that they take nutritional implementation to the extreme in order to ensure adequate muscle gaining nutrition. So they prescribe a "see food diet" consisting of calories being consumed on a daily basis that are well above maintenance level.
Admittedly, this will ensure clean muscle building nourishment, but it will also guarantee undesirable gains in body fat. A method of getting around this is to implement a phased approach to gaining muscle mass.
Typical cycling approaches consist of gaining mass for extended periods or time before spending months cutting off unwanted fat gained in the process of bulking. This method can be effective, but it will make you fat and soft looking for many months before eventually getting cut.
A phased muscle building approach is similar to these types of cycling implements, but because it operates on a shorter time scale it will allow you to gain mass without getting fat in the process.
Here's how it works...
Building Muscle in Phases Strategy
You spend two to three weeks pounding the calories (with plenty of complete protein), abstaining from cardio, and lifting with compound movements using heavy weights that lead to failure within five reps.
If you're eating enough and training hard you will easily gain 2-5 pounds a week.
After a short one to three week mass gaining phase you'll switch to cutting fat for a single week.
Your fat loss week will consist of twenty to thirty minutes of cardio five or more days, cutting out most carbohydrates, eating around 1,500 calories per day (with a high percentage coming from complete protein), and lifting lighter weights (compound and isolation movements) that lead to failure in ten to twelve reps with very little rest between sets.
Fat loss occurs at a faster pace than muscle growth. Spending two or three weeks building for every one week or cutting allow you to gain mass (muscle and fat) before spending a week cutting off the fat you gained with the muscle, leaving behind most of the muscle you added while bulking.
The best part of this phased approach to building muscle is that it allows you to gain muscle without getting fat. It doesn't do much good to pack ten pounds or muscle mass if you add twenty or thirty pounds or fat over the top of it.
The goal isn't to look big and fat, but to look big and muscular!
This strategy of building muscle in short phases will give you the ability to gain lean muscle mass without looking fat and soft for months out of the year.
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