Gaining muscle mass can do more than just improve your physical appearance. Stronger muscles can also help prevent injury, improve your balance and posture, prevent osteoporosis, and improve your stamina during daily activities like lifting a child or lugging around heavy groceries. You do not have to spend countless hours in a gym to build muscles.
Step 1
Consume about 500 extra calories every day. To create new muscle, you must eat more calories to replace what your body burned off during exercise or strength training. Do this with nutritious snacks like low-fat cheese and lean proteins, not potato chips.
Step 2
Lift weights or strength train for approximately 20 minutes, two or three times a week. You don't have to do 90-minute sessions every day to see results. In fact, you can injure your muscles this way, which will force you to take longer breaks and hinder your muscle-building goal.
Step 3
Drink more than eight glasses of water a day. Dehydration can prevent your muscles from repairing themselves between workouts. In addition, sufficient hydration can help flush toxins from your body, which can build up during exercise.
Step 4
Sip on a protein shake after you exercise. Muscle tissue develops when the body synthesizes protein into muscle. Muscle growth depends upon the amount of protein available in your body.
Tips and Warnings
- Although some diets ban carbohydrates, it is important to consume them if you are attempting to build muscle mass. Carbohydrates provide fuel to your muscles and help to repair muscle tissue, which is how muscle mass is developed.
- Start slowly when strength training or weightlifting. You can injure muscles, tendons or ligaments if you attempt to lift or do too much right away. Give your muscles at least one full day to recover. If you want to do weight training every day, alternate days between your upper and lower body.
References
- Virtual Medical Centre: Protein Shakes
- MayoClinic.com: Weight Training: Improve Your Muscular Fitness
- IronMagazine.com: 10 Things You Must Do to Gain Muscle Mass!
- Health Services at Columbia University: Do Bodybuilders and Other Weightlifters Need More Protein?
- "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Total Nutrition"; Joy Bauer; 2005



Member Comments