Wether you are an athlete, fitness enthusiast, or bodybuilder, one of the biggest challenges is to keep your body lean while on a muscle building training program.
All too often in the quest for more muscle, weight trainers end up packing on too much extra body fat. For men and women alike, higher bodyweight levels usually go hand in hand with an increase in strength. This causes many to over enthusiastically increase their bodyweight. Don't let your 'mass building' plan turn into a 'fat building' plan.
Increases in strength are generally accompanied with an increase in muscle mass. Since body fat usually is not the goal, the trick is to go for 'quality' gains. That is, gain lean muscle mass without the fat.
The important thing to remember is that the actual physical weight of new muscle that the human body can grow on a daily basis is very small. From a physiological stand point of view and simply put, you can only gain a trivial amount of true lean muscle weight even on a weekly basis.
So throw out the notion that you are going to pack on 20 pounds of muscle in your next 6 or 8 week strength building program. You might gain that much weight alright, but not without adding inches around the midsection and covering up all that muscle definition with fat.
Don't forget the old saying "You can't flex fat". Before your muscle building diet gets out of control and you find yourself soft as a marshmallow, take some steps to keep lean.
Short bursts of cardio. Even while mass building, 12-20 minutes, once or twice a day will do wonders for your metabolism and not cut into your muscle building. Performing cardiovascular exercises is not going to ward off your muscular gains. Rather, it will keep your fat at bay.
Usually a muscle mass building program will require a slightly higher calorie intake than your maintenance level. However, performing the short bursts of cardio will result in the following equation:
Short bursts of cardio = faster metabolism = less body fat stored and extra calories put to good use
It is important to make sure you keep you metabolism running at an optimal level. Don't think of metabolism as just calorie burning. It is a lot more than that. Along with your weight training or bodybuilding program, you cardio work will ensure a metabolism that is processing at an optimal level. The next important item is to fuel the furnace properly.
Eat good healthy bodybuilding foods. Being on a 'mass building' program does not mean that each meal is like an open buffet ticket. Eat productively with proper quantity.
The old school phrase of 'bulking up' was just a nice way of saying 'get fat and strong'. Great if you are a powerlifter but not if your goal is a more muscular and fit looking physique.
Easiest thing to do? Eat all the foods that you would eat if you were trying to lose fat, just more of them. Eating higher amounts of protein usually is a staple of any good muscle building program. Good fat food sources like avocados, nuts and salmon can dramatically boost your muscle building efforts. The key is to not go overboard on the quantity.
Be certain to avoid getting 'over-carbed'. Too many days of eating too much carbohydrates will put you into a 'fat storing' mode to go along with that muscle building.
Some quick ways to keep yourself in check? The mirror, a good quality bathroom scale, and a tape measure. Always check the mirror and the scale. The key here is to be honest with yourself. Don't just see what you want and ignore the truth. Keep your midsection in check. A few days of cutting down your food intake is great prevention measure in keeping your physique shapely and fit.
The scale does not lie. If you are gaining bodyweight too fast, pay attention and slow it down.
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