The right combination of diet, weight training and supplements all go a long way into building muscle mass with the desired tone and cut. These are the three basic rules of every successful bodybuilder. Let’s explore each of them in greater detail:
Rule No. 1: The Right Diet
- No amount of workout is going to help you achieve your ultimate goal of building body mass without having the right diet in place. The general rule is you will need to consume specific foods for the workout activity that you plan to do, not so much as after the activity is complete. If you did the opposite, you are more likely to accumulate fats rather than build muscle mass. Hence, the following points should be considered:
- Drink lots of water up to 8 glasses throughout the day to keep yourself hydrated during your workouts.
- Skipping meals will not help you lose weight the way you plan it. This is a pure myth. The body in effect senses this and as a natural self-protection automatically adjusts its metabolic balance to keep the fats in reserve whilst cannibalizing muscle mass for use as energy instead of fats.
- Instead, consume up to five small meals a day instead of the standard 3 square meals. Doing this will trick your body into a continuous slow burn of the calories hence fat whilst keeping your hunger at bay. What you really wish to avoid is an increase in the overall intake of food.
- Limit your carbohydrate intake during the initial weeks of your workout.
- Conscientiously keep track of your calorie intake by keeping a journal, including a record of your workout activities and weight changes. This will help you decide if you need to increase or decrease your food consumption. With today’s technologies, we have the option to use any off-the-shelf PC or handheld software that can do this for us effectively.
- Keeping a close watch on nutritional information and sodium content in the foods that we buy everyday is important. Salt or sodium has the effect of causing water retention in out bodies.
Rule No. 2: The Right Weight Training
- Heard of the statement “No Pain, No Gain!”. This is great as a motivational statement but should not be taken out of context, at least not in weight training. Successful weight training is about progressively building up your muscle capacity for lifting heavier weights beginning with resistance training.
- Lifting weights heavier than what your muscles can currently handle will only result in serious injuries. Even the Olympians carefully and progressively choose the weights they carry during a weight lifting competition. For our purpose, once you have reached the right weights to carry, focus instead on repetitions to build muscle mass and capacity for the next level of weights.
Rule N0. 3: The Right Supplements
- Proteins are the basic building blocks of lean tissue mass. Whenever we do weight training or engage in other high strength activities, our muscular tissue is constantly undergoing a cycle of damage and reconstruction. Proteins therefore play an important part in rebuilding with lean tissue mass. Obviously the more we train, the more protein we will require.
- Traditionally, we get our sources of protein from food items like eggs, milk, cheese, fish, poultry and red meat. However, we do not always get this dietary balance in our food intake. Dietary supplements like specially formulated protein powder will help.
In summary, never lose sight of these three basic rules when building up your body i.e. right diet, weight training and supplements.
