How to Gain Muscle Weight
If you’ll ask people what their fitness goals are, you will most likely get weight loss as the popular answer. However, you’ll encounter more people than you might think who are actually struggling to gain weight. From skinny adolescents to athletes who want to develop muscles to optimize their performance, a lot of people want to gain weight the right way.
So how exactly are you supposed to gain muscle mass? It can be summed up by doing the following.
- Increase calorie intake
- Focus on nutrient dense, protein rich meals
- Increase your carbohydrates intake
- Incorporate weight gain supplements to your diet
- Low repetition, high intensity workouts
How do you gain muscle weight?
The main reason why you don’t gain weight is due to the fact that you are not eating more calories that you burn. But of course, you shouldn’t just eat unhealthy foods such as burgers and pizzas every day to gain more body fat. You can start by looking at your total daily energy expenditure. You’ll be able to figure out just how much calories you will need to take in order to compensate for your activities. You want to add around 500 calories to the usual calories that you burn and see what happens. Keep in mind that extra calories will mean extra pounds for you.
Focus on protein
Next, you have to remember that you should be very particular about the amount of protein that you take. Protein is the macronutrient responsible for providing amino acids, allowing the body to gain muscle mass. So just how much protein does your body need to consume in a day? A simple rule in knowing just how many grams of protein should you consume, is by determining your ideal weight. If you weigh 150 pounds, you’ll need to consume at least 150 grams of protein in a day. Once you are already used to eating the amount of protein in your diet, slowly stick to eating 2 to 4 grams of protein per pound of your bodyweight.
Eat smart
Protein-rich meals are usually consumed by bodybuilders right after workouts, or during morning when there’s a chance of muscle wasting. This allows the body to recover and build muscles. As for your carbohydrate intake, it is ideal to consume pastas, and whole grains right before doing your workouts. This becomes your body’s fuel, thus sparing the protein for recovery after workouts. Another important tip that you need to consider is the number of times you eat. Gaining muscle mass is an effort for a lot of individuals. This means that you have to eat every two to three hours, in order to avoid muscle atrophy.
Lift the right way
A lot of people make the mistake of implementing muscle wasting workouts when trying to gain muscle mass. Hypertrophy-protocol workouts are usually low repetition workouts that are around 70% of your one rep max. This type of workout will usually increase your testosterone and growth hormone. Around 3 to 4 can make a huge difference.