What is the ultimate definition of a dream masculine physique? It’s “V” shaped, rippling with muscle and buffed up like our favourite heroes’ bod.
We are at the basic level,our bodies. We use our body to do many things- curl our biceps to show our strength, out with our muscled legs at our enemies and attract attention to ourselves by the way we look.
We all dream of a physique which will make us feel good about ourselves. This is what drives us to the gym, swimming pool, playing ground, dance floor etc.
But, the path to the dream physique isn’t as smooth as the gym flooring. It needs the right diet, exercise and dedication to build muscle. But before you worry yourself silly about how to start your journey to being a Greek god or a goddess, we are here to give you invaluable muscle building tips, super diets to build muscle and specific exercises for muscle building.
Before we start, we have a special word for the skinnies – don’t get de-motivated if you are too thin. Joining a gym can be pretty intimidating but just go ahead and do it.
The biggest misconception about skinny guys is that they either don’t eat well or that lifting heavy weights will make them muscular faster. But this, as we shall see, is absolutely wrong. Overeating may get you to the toilet, but will not make much of a difference to your physique, unless you are eating right. And eating right means having foods which offer the right amount of calories.
To gain the proper weight, one cannot just eat anything! Change can be expected once you stick to a proper diet for muscle building. You need to gain muscle, not fat hence the diet is structured accordingly. Similarly, lifting heavy is not always the solution. This is the main reason that muscle building workouts are different for a first timer and a regular gym-goer.
Muscle Building Diet Food
The Secrets Behind Building Muscles
So, now that we have cleared your misconceptions about muscle building, the next question in your head, we are sure would be the right way to go ahead. From the books of the great wizards of body building, we bring to you the secrets that will help you reach your goal!
Exercising and Resistance Training
Resistance training is a type of exercise which causes the muscles to contract against an external resistance which results in an increase in strength, tone, mass and/or endurance. The ways of inducing resistance externally can be through using dumbbells, rubber exercise tubing, one’s own body weight, and even objects like bricks, and bottles of water. For the newbies: Just remember that these are basically the general type of lifting that we do in the gym to get our body bigger, stronger and more toned, to increase our muscular endurance.
Eating for More Muscle Mass
When muscle building, your diet will need special consideration and planning. There will be no benefits from working out if you don’t follow it up with the right type of diet. Hence, to make those hours at the gym worthwhile, start including protein-rich foods in your diet. Egg whites, fish, beans and legumes, lean red meat, chicken, turkey or whey protein are muscle–building foods that you should already be including in your diet.
Dedicated Routine- Maintain Resistance Training Load
Here comes the hardest part: Following a dedicated routine. Muscle building exercises need to be carried out in a systematic way for feasible muscle growth. Specific muscle groups are targeted using dedicated exercises. A proper muscular structure cannot be achieved if you change your training load for every routine. Also, weights need to be increased gradually. That’s when they produce the maximum results.
Say No to Steroids and Drugs
Most of you very would already be aware of the ill-effects of steroids and other body-building drugs. For those who don’t, let’s just say that these may give you amazing results quite quickly, but their prolonged use leads to impotency. So to continue your lineage of body builders, we advise you to refrain from taking any steroids and stick to a muscle building diet instead. The process is slow, but sticking to it will surely make you win the race!
It’s time to turn our attention to the muscle building diet. What does this muscle building diet include? What should we eat and how much? We shall be answering these questions now.
Muscle Building Diet
The main constituent of a muscle building diet is protein. Protein rich foods like eggs, chicken, fish are some of the basic foods which provide amazing protein content to the body.
Now, the main aim of your diet is not to increase fats, but the muscle mass in your body. Hence your diet shouldn’t be overloaded with useless calories, just because you want to increase “mass”. The cholesterol present in eggs and ½ gram of leucine/egg adds the required weight to your muscle building routine.
Along with eating a diet which is low in calories, you also need to cut down on the carb intake in your muscle building diet. The immediate intake of carbs after a training session should be 1.2g/kg/hour at 30-min intervals for 4 hours and the carbs should be of high glycaemic index. This is recommended the carb intake for the perfect “body builder” body!
Now, with all these restrictions in the diet, you may lose out on some important micro nutrients like Vitamins C, D & E.
How are these important? Well, Vitamin D metabolises & helps in absorption of Calcium in our body. Being Vitamin D deficient can impair muscle function and performance. You certainly don’t want that, do you?
Exercising promotes increase of free radical production which affects a number of cells important for exercise performance. Vitamin C & E act as powerful antioxidants in the body, buffering free radical and oxidative stress to minimise cellular damage. We suggest that you take supplements for plugging the loss.
We now give you a low-down on the best muscle building foods to include in your diet that will give you the ample amount of nutrients you need!
Protein Shakes
Muscle Building Diet Protein Shakes Drinking a protein shake before a workout is a catalyst for optimal muscle growth & nutrient usage. Research shows that Protein shakes lead to reduced muscle breakdown, increased protein synthesis, rapidly refills muscle energy stores, providing increased blood flow to your muscles, upping creatine transport and improving the body’s capacity to use carbohydrates.
Lean Meat
Muscle Building Diet Lean MeatFor ages, meat has been considered one of the best muscle building foods, and here’s why
Meat contains a muscle building mix of proteins packed with essential amino acids, B-vitamins and creatine. It also contains saturated and mono- saturated fats which can support healthy testosterone levels while being good for the heart.
Eggs
Muscle Building Diet EggHow can one forget the little heroes of muscle building foods? Eggs are the most preferred choice when it comes to building muscle. The cholesterol found in the yolk serves as the building blocks for your steroid hormones, adding fuel to your muscle building fire.
Green Vegetables
Muscle Building Diet Green Vegetables
Are you surprised to find them in this list? Don’t be! These greens are rich in vitamins C, D, E, & A, folate(Folic acid) and are important for efficient muscle contraction as a whole. The veggies are also instrumental in cutting down fats and helping you absorb your important micronutrients!
There you go! We have listed all the important pointers for you to go ahead and start your muscle building journey.
There’s always a tendency, especially for the beginners to give up on their workout sessions because they aren’t seeing the results they pictured in their heads. Our advice to all of you is that you need to realise that along with the right routine, diet and amount of dedication, it is also necessary to have patience, faith and a positive attitude in your workout.
The transformation of your body, the feeling of muscles building and getting stronger- nothing can beat that!
But remember, it is important to regulate the percentage of fat in your body. An ideal male body needs 2-3% of essential fats, while the female body requires not more than 5-12%. So, too much of fat may weigh your body down, instead of buffing it up.
These were basic pointers for beginners who are just getting into weight lifting with the dream of a perfect body. So keep your chin up, eat right and exercise hard for that super-sculpted physique that will be the envy of one and all.
See you on the “bulkier” side!
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