One the most frustrating aspects of fitness is definitely the time it takes to either lose weight or gain muscle mass. Thankfully, muscle gain isn’t always as complicated or longwinded as it sounds. Which is why we have teamed up with fitness experts Peak Body to round up some top tips for building muscle fast.
Keep training
This may seem like common sense but one of the biggest obstacles to gaining muscle is the dedication and persistence needed. Most fitness experts will recommend a training plan that relies on heavy resistance training. This usually involves four/five days of weight training, with each day dedicated to targeting different parts of your body. Although most fitness programmes involve performing 16 sets of four, it’s important to set an achievable goal that pushes you to your fitness limits without risking the chance of injury.
Eat as clean as possible
Possibly one of the hardest parts of building muscle is controlling what you eat. Unlike weight loss, you need to make sure you are eating enough calories to help your muscle growth. In order to do this, you must work out how many calories you need by using the below formula.
BMR = 66 + (13.8 x weight in kg) + (5 x height in cm) – (6.8 x age in years)
When you have worked this out, be sure to add an extra 200 -400 calories to your diet in order to give your body the right resources to create new muscle.
As well as tracking your calorie intake you should focus on your consumption of protein throughout the day. The recommended amount of protein is 0.7g per 1lb of body weight. You can either get your protein from products such as nuts, fresh meat or protein shakes.
Don’t be scared of supplements
Although exercise and diet are a great basis to start with, introducing supplements to your diet can not only help build muscle but can speed up the process. Some of the more popular supplements are:
SARMS
Unlike steroids, SARMS have less androgenic properties, which permits SARMs to target tissues much more directly and reduce the negative side effects experienced with steroids.
Protein products
As mentioned earlier protein is key in building and maintaining muscles as other body tissue. Although it is recommended to get your protein from foods, most people can struggle to reach the daily protein goal with just food alone. Which is why they use products such as shakes, protein bar and capsules as an easy alternative.
Creatine
Creatine is a substance that is naturally found in muscle cells. It helps you gain and retain active lean tissue, as well as helping your muscles produce energy ideal for intensity workouts. In theory the more muscle and energy, you have the harder you can work in the gym.
Listen to your body
It can be tempting to either work too hard too little. However, it is critically important to listen to your body and how it is reacting to the exercise. You should always feel like your improving or making some kind of progress in your workouts. But you don’t ever want to push your body to the point of injury. When it comes to heavy lifting you can usually judge this on the first rep, does the movement feel extremely forced or rigid? If so, it’s probably best to lower the weight or abandon that exercise altogether.
This can also work the other way. If your body doesn’t feel like the exercise doesn’t feel like it’s challenging your strength or fitness anyway you are probably not pushing yourself hard enough and won’t see the results you are so desperate to achieve.
Make sure you get sleep
Muscle recovery requires so much more than good nutrition. Rest and sleep are key to letting your body recover. When you sleep, your body releases human growth hormones, which are key to muscle growth and also helps to reduce stress.
The National Sleep Foundation recommends that adults ages 18 to 64 should sleep around seven to nine hours per night. So, it’s important you take this account when looking to speed up muscle growth.
