The 5 Rules of Gaining Muscle Mass

We’ve compiled a list of the 5 most important nutrition rules to help you get the best gains from your workouts. Here they are in order of importance

Pack on the pounds

Whenever you start anything new, there’s always a learning curve and you’re bound to make a few rookie errors along the way. In bodybuilding there are two main mistakes beginners tend to make

Following a training program that’s not appropriate for their goals

Underestimating the importance of nutrition

You don’t grow just because you train; growth is actually dependent on proper recovery from training. And the way you recuperate best is by providing your body with the nutrients it needs at the appropriate times for optimal recovery and growth. Your goal is to add lean mass — muscle tissue. That’s true whether you’re a hardgainer, a guy with good genetics or a guy who carries excess bodyfat. Here are the basic nutritional principles you need to support your training to maximize your chances for muscle growth right out of the gate

Make sure you consume adequate calories every day

The bottom line is you can’t add weight if you aren’t taking in more calories than you’re burning. If you’re trying to pack on muscle, you have to consume enough surplus calories to support that growth. If you’re heftier to begin with, this task is a little trickier. You need to get enough calories to add muscle mass, but you also want to avoid an excessive increase in bodyfat. While you’re adding muscle mass, you should regard maintaining or just slightly increasing your bodyweight as progress

Split your total calories fairly evenly over 5–6 meals per day

This recommendation is a bodybuilding standard. The more frequently you feed your body, the better the contribution you’re making to build muscle mass while at the same time avoiding the addition of bodyfat. If you consume 3,000–4,000 calories over six meals versus just three meals, your metabolism will stay elevated and you’ll gain more muscle and much less bodyfat. Those who consume the same number of total calories, but in fewer, larger meals, however, send their bodies the signal to store bodyfat

Take in at least 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight each day 

When you want to build muscle tissue, you have to provide your body with the amino acids it needs. These aminos (there are 22 in total, essential, nonessential and conditionally essential) come from protein foods and protein supplements. Eating a variety of different protein sources is the best way to make sure you get a broad range of aminos. By targeting at least 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight, split fairly evenly over your six meals, you’ll keep a steady flow of aminos in your bloodstream to fuel growth

Eat plenty of fruits and vegetables

Many beginners focus too much on protein or calories at the expense of other types of foods that are dense in nutrients per calorie. Make sure you get in at least six servings of vegetables and fruit each day. They’re low in calories but rich in vitamins and minerals to support gains and overall health. At larger meals, you should consume more than one serving and you can do your body an even bigger favor by having a few different fruit or veggie items on your plate

Emphasize workout-window nutrition

Around the time of your workouts — before and after — your body needs protein and fast-digesting carbs (sugar) to drive the recovery process. Consuming sugar before and after your workouts helps reload glycogen burned during exercise, and it delivers amino acids to your muscles so that they recover and grow more quickly. Take in about 25–40 grams of protein before and after your workouts, depending on your bodyweight. Hardgainers should match their sugar intake to their protein consumption, gram per gram, pre- and post-workout. If you’re a bigger guy starting out, you can cut the sugar before workouts and just take it after

8 Ways Exercise Makes You Gorgeous

     Anyone who makes a habit of going to the gym, unfurling a yoga mat or hiking in the woods is privy to a secret known only to the physically active: The rewards of exercise extend far beyond slimming down or adding muscle tone. Dozens of subtle changes visibly revamp the body and the psyche in ways scientists are only beginning to understand

Maybe your skin looks brighter, your step is springier or you’re more confident at work. Such small victories may go unnoticed by unobservant exercisers, but those on the lookout for these benefits will find them every bit as valid as gains measured by scales and calipers.

1. Smoother, More Radiant Skin  . Working up a good sweat is the equivalent of getting a mini-facial, she says. “When the pores dilate, sweat expels trapped dirt and oil. Just be sure to wash your face afterward so the gunk doesn’t get sucked back into the pores.”

Working up a good sweat is the equivalent of getting a mini-facial.

Breaking a sweat isn’t the only way exercise benefits the skin — it also reduces bodywide inflammation, helps regulate skin-significant hormones and prevents free-radical damage. When you exercise, the tiny arteries in your skin open up, allowing more blood to reach the skin’s surface and deliver nutrients that repair damage from the sun and environmental pollutants. These nutrients also rev up the skin’s collagen production, thwarting wrinkles. “As we age, fibroblasts [the collagen-producing cells in the skin] get lazier and fewer in number. But the nutrients delivered to the skin during exercise help fibroblasts work more efficiently, so your skin looks younger.

2. Greater Self-Confidence

Confident people radiate a certain physical appeal and charisma. A recent British study found that people who began a regular exercise program at their local gym felt better about their self-worth, their physical condition and their overall health compared with their peers who stayed home. The best part was that their self-worth crept up right away — even before they saw a significant change in their bodies.

3. Increased Stature

a yoga instructor and founder of YogaForce took up yoga as a means to relieve stress. But it wasn’t until she had a checkup a few years later that she saw the full effects of her practice. When the doctor measured her height, they both noticed she’d grown an inch and a half. “I couldn’t believe it,” she says. “I’d always wanted to be taller; now I fit into my clothes better and feel more spacious in my body.”

4. Less Stress and Anxiety

Anxiety, fearfulness and uncertainty all drain your vitality and dampen your mood, which in turn tends to show on your face and in the way you carry yourself. Roughly 40 million Indian over 18 suffer from anxiety disorders, according to the National Institutes of Mental Health — that’s nearly 20 percent of all adults — and for many of them, that anxiety strips both the smile from their face and the spring from their step. Exercise has been shown to alleviate most mild to moderate cases of anxiety, and can very quickly improve mood.

Exercise has been shown to alleviate most mild to moderate cases of anxiety, and can very quickly improve mood.

Exercise is like taking a tranquilizer, but better because you get the side effect of improved health and fitness.” Studies out of Raglin’s lab suggest that as little as 15 minutes of exercise bestows a calm that can last for hours. As for what kind of exercise elicits the biggest response, he recommends either heart-thumping aerobic exercise, like running, cycling or swimming, or a mixture of aerobic and anaerobic exercise, such as weight training.

5. Better Immunity and Detoxification

With spring cold season on the horizon, exercise’s immune-enhancing powers are nothing to sneeze at. Exercise shores up the immune system by goosing the body into churning out more white blood cells, including neutrophils and natural killer cells. More white blood cells mean fewer bacteria and viruses sneak past the gate. Net effect: You don’t get that worn-down sick look that comes from feeling under the weather, and small blemishes and wounds of all kinds heal faster.

6. More Restful Sleep

exercise sharpens the body’s sensitivity to the stress hormone cortisol, which can enhance sleep. Sleeping better leaves you looking fresh and healthy.

7. Less Visceral Fat

Yes, exercise can help you lose your love handles, but it’s the loss of excess fat deep inside the body that boosts your overall vitality and your looks.

The body contains two types of fat. The one you can pinch (subcutaneous) is relatively benign. But the less visible stuff, the visceral fat that pads the abdominal organs like so many packing peanuts, can be a killer. Excess visceral fat fuels low-grade inflammation in the body and is tied to a virtual who’s who of 21st-century ills, including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, colon cancer, breast cancer and dementia. It can also upset the balance of important hormones (more on that to come) that affect your skin, hair and general appearance.

8. Stronger Sex Hormones

Getting fit not only makes you look sexy, it also makes you feel sexy by balancing the body’s sex hormone levels, which in turn can improve the appearance of hair, skin and muscle tone. Although the most studied hormones linked to exercise are endorphins, sex hormones, such as testosterone and human growth hormone (HGH — the same youth-serum substance celebrities pay thousands to be injected with), also get a boost.

Getting fit not only makes you look sexy, it also makes you feel sexy by balancing the body’s sex hormone levels, which in turn can improve the appearance of hair, skin and muscle tone.

When British scientists compared the hormone levels of 10 middle-aged men who ran more than 40 miles a week with 10 healthy, but sedentary, men, they found that, on average, the runners had 25 percent more testosterone and four times more HGH than the couch potatoes.

Weight Loss VS. Performance Goals

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If you are a runner, triathlete, or competitive anything, this post is for you. In the training world we often help individuals who have goals to lose weight, tone up, and/ or compete in a race. If you are in this boat one thing to remember this this: weight goals and performance goals are different.

If you want to run in a race and perform well, that is great. If you want to lose weight, that is awesome, too. But doing both at the same time can lead to bad results. Separate your goals and work on one at a time. The needs and actions required for weight loss are different than those required for increasing performance. Let’s look at why:

We will use running as our performance example. An individual who wants to increase their running performance will need to do some key things: run according to a plan, lift weights, eat well, and get lots of rest. Their training will include long runs, tempo runs, sprints, strength workouts, and lots of soft tissue work (massage). They will need to eat a balanced diet with enough carbohydrates to fuel their runs. Sleep is important as well as the body will need to recover from the days work.

An individual who wants to lose weight will need to do the following: train according to a plan, lift weights, eat well, and get lots of rest…
Wait….
What’s the difference?

The difference is actually quite immense. The individual who wants to lose weight may only need to eat 1,200 – 1,800 calories per day. Their training volume should be between 3 to 5 hours per week and they should still make time to sleep. The runner, on the other hand, needs to eat 1,200-1,800 calories per day AND whatever extra calories to fuel their training. In weight loss mode, we modify the training and eating so that your body burns excess fat. For performance training, the goal is to fuel the body so that it can be in prime function for the runs. If you try to increase your awesomeness at running while also trying to lose weight, you place yourself in an interesting hormonal situation.

When you decrease your calories, your body will naturally decrease your resting metabolism. Also, when you exercise and burn calories, your body will also decrease your metabolism to try to save energy throughout the day. This decrease in metabolism is often not noticeable, but if you track your steps you should see them drop. You just lose the motivation to move around much more throughout the day. If you combine epic training and weight loss eating, your body can slip into a state where it will not want you to expend any more calories than absolutely necessary.

Imagine that your resting metabolic rate is 1,800 calories per day. If you decrease your calories to 1,300 calories per day and pick up some exercise, you should be able to lose about a pound a week. This is taking into consideration that your resting metabolic rate (RMR) will drop. But, if you add performance training onto this, and you are burning 500-1000 calories during your training session, this does not leave much for your body to live off of. It will do whatever it can to slow your RMR to conserve calories for essential uses, and can even set you up to store much of the food you eat as fat.

In a nutshell, if you combine your performance and weight loss goal, you will achieve neither to your fullest potential. However, if you separate them, and attack one at a time, you can achieve both exactly to your expectations.

If you are a runner and are interested in learning more about how your weight effects performance,

10 Essential Rules to Get Muscle

Here are the top 10 nutritional strategies you need to ensure you're on track to a lean, muscular physique.

Anyone can eat enough to get big. But if you want to add the kind of size that looks right..The greats of yesteryear knew it was possible to grow from scrawny to huge in a way that builds symmetrical, streamlined muscle and gives you a dense, lean look from your traps to your calves. They knew that with patience and the right plan, you can have the size, and the abs, too.

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To get some new insight into proper weight gain, I talked with a nutritionist and several sponsored athletes to assemble these 10 smart, practical nutritional tactics for the aspiring bodybuilder who wants to look good, not just big.

1. Know Your Magic Number

Are you putting on the wrong kind of weight when you want to be losing it instead? Or maybe you're stuck in neutral? Either way, the problem may be that your calories in versus calories out balance is out of whack. To get on the right track, multiply your body weight by 16-18 to get your ideal growth range. According to this formula, a 160-pound guy should be taking in 2,560-2,880 calories per day (160 pounds multiplied by 16 and then by 18). For best results, those calories should be spread among 5-7 meals, one every 2-4 hours. If you need to drop a few pounds, multiply your body weight by 12. If maintenance is the aim, you'll want to fall within the 13-15 range.

When you plan the meals to hit these numbers, keep in mind that not all calories are created equal. If they were, we could all live on ice cream while we sculpt our bodies. In reality, you hit those numbers by taking a hammer and chisel to your diet to trim away the junk. Replace empty calories with a proper ratio of 30 percent protein (see number 3 below), 50-60 percent carbs (mainly whole grains, fruits and vegetables, as explained in number 5), and 10-20 percent high-quality fats (see number 6).

2. Avoid The Extremes: Make Small Tweaks

Yeah, you really can gain or lose too much weight too fast. If you're gaining more than 2-3 pounds a week, it's probably mostly body fat. If you're dropping more than 2-3 pounds a week, it's probably a lot of muscle tissue.

If, after three weeks, you're not moving toward your target at a steady pace, adjust your calorie level up or down by 200-400 calories per day. Maintain your current macronutrient ratios, and stick with that new level for another three weeks. Keep tweaking your macros until the scale is moving steadily in the right direction.

3. Include Protein With Every Meal

Developing a jaw-dropping, well-balanced physique comes down to protein or, more specifically, to the amino acids found in complete proteins such as meat, fish, and dairy.

For protein I eat a lot of fish, mostly tuna, eggs, milk, chicken, sometimes red meat, oats, nuts seeds and kernels," says Muscle Beach-sponsored athlete Ike Anil Kumar

Lean meats are one of your body's greatest fat-burning sources, helping to jump-start your metabolism and build healthy muscle tissue while helping you feel full and satiated

Breakfast." "Approximately 15-20 percent of your daily calories should come from lean protein such as chicken and turkey breast, fish, lean cuts of beef including loin and round cuts, and egg whites.

4. Supplement With Shakes

If you're having trouble squeezing enough of those filling foods in your meals, make protein shakes your secret weapon. Add a 20-25-gram protein shake to your meal plan once or twice a day to hit your numbers without feeling stuffed. 

5. Never Fear Carbs—At Least Not The Good Carbs

If you’ve never tried to train hard and add significant amounts of muscle, "carbs" has maybe become a dirty word to you. That's a mistake. If you train intensely, you need carbs—and lots of them. Following a low-carb diet for too long can leave you feeling depleted and potentially catabolic, shedding muscle mass instead of body fat. Of course, carbohydrates cover a wide range of foods, and not all of them are bodybuilding-friendly.

"Vegetables are a great source of carbs, "They're nutrient rich and high in fiber so it takes your body longer to break down, absorb, and digest them, which helps you feel full for longer. Plus, antioxidants found in many vegetables support good health and disease prevention."

Carbs can be split into two basic categories: simple and complex. Simple carbs include foods such as candy, fruit juice, cereals, pasta, cakes, cookies, and white bread. Your body can break down these kinds of carbs quickly, but that can cause your blood sugar levels to spike, leaving you feeling shaky, dizzy, and drained after the subsequent crash. For the most part, you'll want to limit the amount of simple carbs you consume—except for right after your workout (see number 7).

Instead, choose complex carbs that break down more slowly in the body, giving you more sustained energy and avoiding those spikes in your blood sugar level.

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6. Separate Fat From Fiction

Like carbs, fat comes in a couple varieties. The bad-for-you fats include saturated or trans fats like those found in butter, cheese, ice cream, and marbled red meat.

Good-for-you fats contain monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fat, which includes the essential fatty acids omega-3 and omega-6. These fats are healthier and can even reduce your risk of disease and inflammation, a welcome benefit for those who train hard. Good sources for good fats include fish, seeds and nuts, and oils such as olive, canola, sunflower, and corn.

7. Don't Let A Workout Go To Waste

If you're serious about transforming your body, you have to get your nutrition right. Period. Before you hit the gym, set the stage for success by consuming an array of nutrients, including L-citrulline, arginine, beta-alanine, and creatine, all of which can to enhance growth, strength, and endurance. The best pre-workout products deliver a mix of these.

After your workout, immediately consume 20-30 grams of whey protein, along with amino acids and a fast-acting carb. Post-workout is the one time of day when sugar or candy is not such a bad thing, because the carbs in them help deliver protein to your recovering muscle tissue.

8. Beware Of Hidden Sodium

Like carbohydrates, sodium has gotten a bad rap for years. The line of thinking has been that consuming too much sodium causes the body to retain too much water, which can lead to increased blood pressure, a risk factor for heart disease, stroke, and kidney disease. Some bodybuilders have even gone on super-low-sodium diets thinking they were avoiding the kind of water-swollen physiques that don’t do well at shows.

Several studies have shown that consuming less sodium can lower your blood pressure, but not by much at all.[1,2,3] The fact is, it's important to get enough sodium in your diet. The best nutritional approach is to be aware of your sodium intake and aim for levels that are neither too high nor too low, which can sometimes be tricky.

"The problem is that sodium is often hidden in foods advertised as low-fat or non-fat,"

9. Stay Hydrated!

Dehydration is a more common problem than you might realize, and one that can directly influence the way your body looks. A dehydration level of just 1-2 percent of body weight can compromise your work capacity and exercise performance, really screwing up your workouts and leaving your muscles looking flat.

Symptoms of severe dehydration are pretty obvious: muscle cramps, lightheadedness, and heart palpitations. Signs of minor dehydration, however, can be harder to spot. To reduce the risk, maintain a steady fluid intake all day long and keep an eye out for darker-than-normal urine, which can signal dehydration. If you use thirst as a signal that you need to drink more fluids, you've probably waited too long.

You may have heard that any liquid, even caffeinated beverages, can help meet your body's hydration needs. That's true to an extent, but your best bet is to drink good old pure water, free from calories, coloring, and additives.

"To arrive at a rough idea of the amount of water you should drink every day, divide your weight in half. That's about how many ounces of water you should consume each day," Bachus says. "If you weigh 180 pounds, consume approximately 90 ounces, or a little more than 11 cups, of water a day. Don't worry about drinking too much water. Your body will just flush the excess, along with excess sodium."

10. If You Booze, You Lose

Alcohol is counterproductive when improved aesthetics is your goal. In fact, it does a kind of "double whammy" to your body, not only reducing your body's fat-burning ability, but actually increasing your fat storage. So, if you’re one of those people who likes to celebrate a massive workout with a bottle of beer, it's time to drop that little luxury.

"Your body converts the majority of the alcohol you consume into energy to fuel your body," Bachus explains. That may sound like good news, but it means your body is burning alcohol instead of stored body fat. Worse still, any alcohol your body doesn't burn ends up being stored as fat. "

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And then there is the hard truth that if you've had too much to drink, your better judgment may crawl into the back seat as you pass that all-night diner on the way home. If you really want that sculpted body you dream about, keep your eyes on the road ahead and drive on by those seven-egg cheese omelets and cinnamon rolls.