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The Top Ten Muscle Builders

Feb 7, 2011 | By Eric Brown
The Top Ten Muscle Builders
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The 10 most effective methods that you can use to build muscle range from heavy weight training to advanced supplementation techniques. By optimizing your intake of protein, fat and carbohydrates and using heavy muscle builders like the squat and deadlift, you are halfway there. You also need to drink enough water and get plenty of rest; and the top three supplements to round out the list include fish oil, creatine monohydrate, and branched-chain amino acids. Consult your physician before beginning any diet or exercise program.

Diet

The first three major muscle builders are the three macronutrients: protein, carbohydrates and fat. You need all three -- and possibly twice as much protein as someone who is not lifting -- to build muscle. You need testosterone to respond to training and build muscle as well, which is why you need fat in your diet. Fat, particularly essential fatty acids such as oily fish, are critical for hormone production and regulation. So get protein from lean red meat, chicken, milk and eggs as well as oily fish, and you will cover the first two items. Get your carbohydrates from fruits, whole grains and vegetables.

Compound Movements

Training with compound lifts is not always popular because it takes time to learn the techniques, plus it is very demanding on the body. However, such training will cause your body to respond by producing more testosterone. Squatting and deadlifting is not exactly fancy, but by working the largest muscles of your body, you are triggering the greatest adaptive response.

Recovery

Rest is critical for muscle building. You do not build muscle in the gym, you break it down. So keep your sets and reps in the gym under control; five to eight repetitions of three to five sets per exercise is plenty. If you can do more repetitions or sets, you are not training hard enough. The demand this creates on your body is extreme, and you need to rest and recover to be able to do it again. Your goal is to progressively add weight to the bar, and if this is not happening, you may not be resting enough. Water is also critical to recovery, as your muscles are nearly 75 percent water.

Supplements

Flax oil or fish oil are exceptional sources of essential fatty acids, so supplementing with one of these can make up for dietary deficiencies. Creatine monohydrate is a useful supplement that can help you grind out difficult repetitions in the gym, and is one of the few supplements to actually produce an anabolic response. Branched-chain amino acids, leucine, isoleucine and valine, comprise nearly 35 percent of the amino acids in your muscle, and are also an effective supplement.

References

Article reviewed by Leon Teeboom Last updated on: Feb 7, 2011

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