A body builds muscle when it is put through a strenuous activity for a prolonged period. Muscles grow during the period when the body rests and not during exercise. When we lift weights the muscles are put through stress and they break down which results in production of thicker muscle fibers. But before you can hit the gym, you need to get stronger, gain some mass and get the energy to train hard.
What To Eat
It is very essential to have a muscle building diet because if you don’t eat enough all that hard work would go to waste. Eat the right stuff in the right amounts to see the right results. Try to manage more than 3 meals a day to give your body enough fuel to build muscle. Don’t eat to fill yourself but eat to complete yourself with what the body needs.
Eat a good breakfast, then eat before workout, eat after workout and besides that try to eat every three hours to keep your body powered up.
Eat foods with proteins and carbohydrates. Protein gives you the energy and carbohydrates help build up muscles. Carbohydrates are found in everything that you eat already in your daily diet, rice and potatoes being the prime example.
Supplements are a good way to gain energy and help in muscle building and muscle repair but it being supplement means it will only work with a good exercise routine and an excellent diet.
The most important thing to do is to stay away from fats and sugars, as fats hinder in muscle building unless they are healthy fats and sugars cause craving for more food. Good fat comes from stuff like olive oil, fish oil, butter and many other things in our daily diet.
Keep these little things in mind and it will help you with muscle gain.
Make A Routine
Make a schedule of what exercises to do on what day and which muscle to focus on each day. It is best to focus two muscles per day, try making pairs like
- Biceps and triceps
- Shoulder and back
- Chest and abs
- Legs and thighs
Push your body to the limit and try to lift as heavy weights as you can. Add weights day by day to take your body out of the comfort zone. More weight is more stress which automatically results in more muscle. Lift weights to get tired. By the time you finish your exercises your muscles should be fully exhausted.
Rest is as important as exercise. If you don’t give enough time to your muscles to relax they will hinder in muscle growth. And increase your sleeping hours to give extra time to the muscles for a complete rest.
Bottom line
The final verdict is that if you want to gain and build muscles, you need to eat more to get a good amount of calories and lift heavy weights to get the effects you want. In one line, eat more every day and lift more, day after day to make your workout worth it. “The pain you feel today is the strength you will gain tomorrow!” (Quite literally).