Studying the different styles of muscle workouts, you’re sure to see plenty of variations and confusing concepts. Most of these muscle workouts DO have one similar “ingredient,” though - they all tend to advocate for consuming enormous amount of calories while building muscle, then drastically reduce calories while burning bodyfat. It’s known as bulking and cutting technique. The problem with bulking up and cutting down is that you are fatter than normal during the bulking phase. But you CAN perform muscle workouts that do NOT involve packing on pounds of bodyfat!

Of course, we all want to know the “secret to that!

The truth is, a lot of gym instructors are giving us information that isn’t necessarily getting us anywhere. You really to NOT have to increase your caloric intake to gain muscle mass! In fact, you can add muscle while eating in a calorie deficit. You may wonder how. First of all, adding muscle is mainly caused by UTILIZING that particular muscle. Caloric intake is what regulates the amount of your bodyfat. Essentially, fewer calories equates to less bodyfat, and longer, harder muscle workouts equates to MORE MUSCLE! This is the ideal combo for dramatically improving the look of your body.

“Exactly how much food should I consume to still be able to effectively gain solid muscle?”

The general rule of thumb is to simply find out just what YOUR body needs to keep your weight the same, and consume slightly LESS. There’s really no set number; it will vary from one individual to the next. How many pounds do you weight? Take that number, and multiply it by 10. So a 180 pound man would want to average roughly 1,800 calories per day. By following this caloric deficit for the first two weeks, the main objective is to monitor and record your bodyfat percentage. You can keep eating the same amount of calories throughout your time of muscle workouts as long as during that two weeks your bodyfat did not increase.

“What about protein? How much do I need during muscle workouts?”

Again, you want to be careful who you’re listening to. “Experts” can get a little crazy on the subject. NOT SO! We could go on an on about this touchy subject ALL DAY. Luckily, Brad Pilon already did this in his recent book “How Much Protein”. Brad worked in the supplement industry as the Head of R&D for one of the largest supplement companies in the world. Brad explains that the average person only has to have a half a gram of protein for each pound on your body. This means only 100 grams of protein daily is required for the 200 pound man. To be safe you could round up to 100 grams, but there isn’t really any reason to be obsessed with protein. Remember, muscle size is much more related to muscle workouts than with dieting. Lower caloric intake is used for losing the bodyfat.

Thinking of using supplements to enhance your muscle workouts?

Creatine is the ONE supplement while training with muscle workouts that I would recommend above any others. It’s really the ONLY supplement on the market today that has been shown in studies to actually increase muscle strength and size past eating solid foods alone. A vast majority of other so-called “bodybuilding supplements” are little more than nutrients you should already be getting enough of in diet anyway. Have about three to five grams of creatine just after your muscle workouts for the best results.

Share This

Tags: muscle, muscle workouts, workout

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 31st, 2010 at 2:41 pm and is filed under Massage Therapy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.