Bodybuilding is not all about pumping iron. There are a lot of different factors that can contribute to the results you see when you spend time weight lifting. Read on to find out how you can get optimum muscle growth with minimal effort.
When trying to build more muscle, you will need to eat more in general. Shoot for enough calories in your daily diet to gain a pound per week. Try different diet alterations to provide yourself with more calories. If you see no results within two weeks, try to pack in more calories.
You need to eat the required food in order to gain an average of one more pound each week. Research healthy ways for you to add muscle mass, and if after about two weeks you have not gained any weight, you may want to raise the number of calories you are eating again.
Warming up well is imperative when trying to increase muscle mass. As your muscles are getting worked out more, they are more stressed and prone to injury. Warming up prior to exerting them is a key factor in avoiding injury. Before you do any serious lifting, do 5-10 minutes of light cardio, and then do three or four light and intermediate warm-up sets.
When training, try to do as many sets and reps as possible. Commit to lifting at least fifteen times while resting for about a minute before the next lift. Doing so is important in stimulating muscle growth because of the lactic acid. The more times you can complete this process during your workout, the more muscle growth you can expect.
Cardio Workouts
Don’t try to build muscles when you are preparing for a marathon or tackling other extreme cardio workouts. Cardio is important in achieving good fitness, but intense cardio workouts will interfere with efforts to bulk up your muscles through strength training. If your goal is gaining muscle, concentrate on strength-training.
Many people overestimate how much protein they need in their diet at the beginning of their muscle building efforts. Doing so can mean a boost in calories consumed, and if these are not getting burned off by the exercise, fat can start forming. Increase your protein intake slowly, adding a couple hundred calories at a time every few days. Your body will be able to keep up with the increase this way, using the extra protein to grow muscle.
Compound exercises are vital if you wish to achieve optimum growth of any weight training plan. These are exercises use several different muscle groups in a single lift exercise. For instance, a bench press will utilize shoulder, chest and your triceps.
Don’t workout for more than sixty minutes. Your body starts producing excess cortisol, due to the stress it’s enduring, if you push beyond sixty minutes. Cortisol may block testosterone and puts to waste any of your efforts to build muscle. Making sure workouts are less than an hour is the perfect way to optimize your fitness plan.
To get the most from your workouts, figure out your limit and go beyond it, not stopping until you are totally wiped out. For every set, push yourself to the limit and don’t stop until you can’t do more. You can then begin using heavier weights and doing less repetitions to increase muscle size.
As you can see, there some things you can do to optimize your muscle building efforts. Now that you have been informed, use this advice right away to get the muscles you want.