Gaining muscle mass helps you in more ways than you think. Any time you build muscle, your metabolism naturally increases. This helps you keep your weight under control. By adding muscle to your frame, you will perform better in contact sports like football, ice hockey and rugby. Lastly, you will be able to execute daily tasks with more efficiency. Take the appropriate action to build muscle quickly.
Healthy Eating
What you choose to eat is the deciding factor between building muscle mass or not. If you eat foods that are high in saturated fat, sodium and sugar, you run the risk of gaining excess fat. Not to mention, these foods offer little in the way of nutrients and they can actually sap your energy levels. Choose foods instead that offer you quality sources of protein, fat and carbs. Lean beef, chicken breasts, fish, eggs, low-fat dairy, fruits, vegetables, whole grains, seeds and nuts are examples. If you are extremely thin, add 500 to 1,000 calories to your daily diet to help bulk up.
Frequent Meals
During the course of the day, your muscles need a constant stream of nutrients. Feed them every two to three hours with balanced meals that contain protein, complex carbs and healthy fat. This will also keep your energy levels high and metabolism lifted. Broiled salmon with a baked yam and steamed broccoli is a meal example.
Water Consumption
Water is a vital nutrient to keep muscles hydrated and to keep the body working properly. To help build muscle quickly, drink water as you main source of liquid. The Institute of Medicine recommends that women get approximately 2.7 liters of water a day and men get approximately 3.7 liters a day. If you are not familiar with the metric system, this comes out to about 12 cups and 16 cups. Beverages that are high in caffeine and sugar should be avoided, such as flavored lattes, energy drinks, soda, lemonade, sweetened teas and fruit punch. Restrict your intake of alcohol as well due to its high caloric content and dehydrating effect on the body.
Exercise Selection
When doing your workouts, choose compound exercises over isolation exercises. These involve more than one joint and more than one muscle at a time. By doing compound exercises, you will recruit a maximal amount of muscle fibers and quickly gain muscle mass. Bench presses, clean and presses, squat presses, deadlifts and dips are examples. Use the heaviest weights you can handle with your exercises to fully tax your muscles.
Post-Workout Shake
Post-workout shakes help quickly restore used up glycogen and shuttle nutrients to damaged muscle fibers. This helps promote fast recoveries. Include whey protein, dextrose powder and creatine in your shakes. The whey and creatine help muscle recovery and the dextrose powder replenishes your glycogen stores. Glycogen is the stored form of carbs which are used for energy during your workouts.
Sleep
Sleep is an important, yet often overlooked facet of building muscle. It is during sleep that muscle-building hormones like testosterone and human growth hormone are being released. If you deprive yourself of sleep, you will not get this benefit and you will also not have adequate energy levels during your workouts. The Centers for Disease Control recommend that adults get 7 to 9 hours of sleep a night.
Member Comments