Health Dept Magazine Health Dept Magazine

1. DYTRADE
   August 24th, 2011 - 17:15

   It’s your diet…
   Eat 5 to 6 small meals a day to keep your metabolism going. Make sure they are high in protein and low in fat. Good carbs are ok.

   Try confusing your muscles by mixing up your exercises each time you work a muscle group. i use the CORE program and it works great. I also have a trainer that is trained in CORE workouts.

   The key is high protein. You should have a high protein meal no less than 30 minutes after you workout.

   http://exercise.about.com/library/bltotalcore.htm

   Good Luck.
2. James H
   August 24th, 2011 - 17:15

   You have to exercise regularly while decreasing you fat intake, and increasing your protein intake.
3. SnuffySmith
   August 24th, 2011 - 17:15

   Use weights. You can build with weights. It takes time though and you must be patient. It requires work to do so.
4. Robbie
   August 24th, 2011 - 17:15

   Hate to break this to you, but . . .

   There is NO way to build muscle without adding some bodyfat. Likewise, it is impossible to get your bodyfat in the single digits without compromising some muscle. Outside of awesome genetics — and plenty of steroids — this is impossible.

   There is one big reason for this, one you probably already know. Building muscle requires excess calories — a calorie surplus. Burning fat requires a caloric deficit — burning more calories than you are taking in. Two entirely different strategies — two that you CAN NOT do at once (not unless you are an absolute beginner, in which case your body is merely adapting to all the new work, and even the weight training itself will burn calories and fat).

   "Cutting up," which many bodybuilders do right before a contest, always results in some lost muscle — esp. at the pace that most bodybuilders do it. Now, what they don’t tell you in the muscle mags is that these folks are always using tons of "stuff" to help achieve this while keeping most of their muscle mass in tact. And, what they don’t tell you is that for the rest of us, this is just impossible.

   To answer your question, you CAN build muscle while retaining a fairly low bodyfat percentage by: gradually adding more food to your diet and creating a small caloric surplus of 200 – 300 calories a day (above your required needs for maintainence) while training correctly and minimizing cardiovascular training (like 3 times a week for 20 – 30 minutes). When you are "bulking up," you need to conserve as many calories as possible for building muscle.

   Now, does this mean you won’t gain any fat? No – you WILL put on some fat. Excess calories will not all go to muscle — though some of it will. The trick is — not eating TOO MUCH so you won’t gain too much fat. You want to eat ENOUGH and add a little bit of cardio so that the fat gain is minimal. Rule of thumb — if you are gaining more than 2 – 3 lbs a week during your bulk-up phase, you are gaining too much fat (not possible to gain that much muscle a week — without steroids). Also, check your body comp test every couple of weeks, and keep your bodyfat within reason (if you’re at 9% now, don’t let it go above 12%, so when you lean down again, it won’t be so hard or take so long).

   I’ve been doing this a long time. Good luck!
5. shadowgumagus
   August 24th, 2011 - 17:15

   Unless you have really good genes or are on steroids that’s pretty impossible to accomplish.
6. jawadams1
   August 24th, 2011 - 17:15

   This is one of the hardest things and well kept "secrets" of the bodybuilding world.

   1. Stay away from weight gaining powders – how much muscle do you think you can build from low quality protein a HUGE amount of sugar anyway?

   2. Eat WHOLE food sources mostly. Tuna, chicken, beef (extra lean) etc are great. You can "fill in" some spots with some protein shakes if you need to though

   3. Don’t do so much cardio. Don’t get me wrong, cardio helps. But when you eat 500 calories above your daily requirement so as to build muscle, then burn off 700 calories from cardio, you’re not really ahead.

   4. Train in the morning. I get up at 5:45 AM Monday-Friday so I can weight train for 45 mins-1 hour. Not only is your weight training out of the way for the day (so you’re less likely to skip it) but this will keep your metabolism going all day long (did you know weight lifting makes you burn fat 2 or 3 times longer than cardio?)

   5. If you are gaining, then do some cardio on your non weight days. High Intensity Interval Training works awesome. Just Google "HIIT" to see what I mean,

   6. Be careful of your carbs! Did you know that Whole Wheat bread isn’t much better than white? That’s because the grain is finely ground up that your body absorbs it super quickly. If you can get "stone milled or stone ground" whole wheat bread that is great, because it isn’t as finely ground. Your best option is wholemeal rye bread though if you can find it for carbs.

   7. Know your body fat and KEEP TRACK OF IT. You need to know if you’ve gained or lost fat, the mirror can be deceiving!

   8. You hear everyone saying "eat 1g of protein per pounf of bodyweight". So would a 200 lbs guy with 34% bodyfat eat the same amount of protein as a 200 lbs guy with 6% bodyfat. The logical answer is no. Eat about 1.1-1.2 g per pound of LEAN bodyweight. In other words, find out your bodyfat percentage and subtract that from your total weight to get your lean weight.

   9. And last, stay committed! Too many guys give up too easy when only a simple adjustment is needed.

   These are just some basic guidelines. If you want a specific routine for your workout and your food needs, Try this program, it worked wonders for me (I’m 200lbs at 9% bodyfat and I was 220lbs at 21%).

   http://www.shreddedandripped.com/musclehead

Leave a comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.