There are many reasons why you would want to gain muscle mass. One is it makes you look good. This is not only true for men, but also women for whom the athletic look is in. Muscles make you attractive, exhibiting signs of positive qualities like self-control and discipline.
Well, muscle building is not just about looking good. Building muscle helps strengthen connective tissue and boosts the bone density. Higher the muscle mass, greater will be the rate of metabolism. Muscles use calories to sustain themselves. They eat up calories when you are not working out. If you have to move that couch or push a car, you require muscles.
Muscles play a role in supporting overall health. One of the most important uses of muscles is its ability to store glucose as glycogen. It increases sensitivity to insulin and protects against insulin resistance. Moreover, lack of muscle mass, known as sarcopenia is said to be associated with diabetes. Hence, we can say that there are innumerable benefits of building muscle mass.
There are many ways to building muscles. People usually feel that when a strict training and diet program is not able to help them and is not giving them the edge, they must go for drugs and supplements to build muscle.
However, long term use of supplements and drugs in muscle building is related to causing various adverse effects on our mind and body, such as memory problems and heart ailments. Taking supplements may actually hamper the ability of the body to itself produce hormones like testosterone. Drugs and supplements for muscle building may otherwise wreck your health. Therefore, it is advised to go for natural methods when it comes to muscle building.
Discussed below are several tips to build muscles the natural way; without using dugs/supplements that usually come with some or other side effects.
Lift Weights:
Hypertrophy is the process of increasing muscle size. All you need to do is lift a moderate amount of weight for building muscles. The biggest mistake made by muscle builders is that they train like a bodybuilder. More muscle implies more strength and vice versa.
The optimal rep range for building muscles is 8-12. Four main exercises are recommended – squat, bench press, dead lift and overhead press. These are not just for power lifters, but also important to increase strength and lean muscle mass.
Add Weight:
Do not worry about the pump and soreness. Focus on adding weight. Try lifting more than what you did last time. You will become stronger and this would help increase your overall muscle mass. You will not be able to build muscles if you get stuck on the same weight for months.
Do Compounds:
What this means is that perform exercises that work on multiple muscles at the same time. With this, you would be able to lift heavier weights that will lead to more muscle growth. The major portion of your routine should consists of heavy squats, benches, barbell rows and overhead presses.
Use Barbells:
Try lifting heavier weights with barbells rather instead of using other tools. In this, you must balance the weight by yourself. Barbells utilize more muscles and hence, more growth occurs.
Increase Frequency:
If you train a muscle often, it gets triggered to grow more. As you do more of an exercise, heavier you can lift. Start squatting, pulling and pressing thrice instead of just once a week.
Allow the Muscles to Recover:
Muscles need to recover from workouts to grow stronger. If you keep them working hard and don’t give them time to recover, you would gain nothing. Take two to three days of rest in a week. Muscles can recover by taking good amount of food, water and sleep.
Eat More:
Body uses food as a fuel and for recovering muscles. In case of food shortage, muscle can’t recover or grow. Usually, 3000 kcal/day is needed for building muscle, but daily intake might vary from person to person, depending on the body type, height, gender and so on.
Eat Protein:
Protein is used by the body to build muscle, and for recovering damaged muscle tissue after workout. The need for protein is decided according to body weight. Per kg of the body weight a person needs 2.2 gm of proteins.
There are numerous protein-rich foods that are good for building muscles. One can go for beef. It has high protein content and gives a boost in getting rid of body fat and building muscles. Another option is brown rice which gives energy throughout the day and while workouts. Eggs, cottage cheese and milk must also be included in the diet as they are rich source of protein.
Combining the above-mentioned methods will help you find a way to build muscles without using supplements or drugs. Don’t skip steps or think about some shortcuts would help you. Dedication and rigorous training are the only keys to effective muscle building. Hence, you can build muscles without supplements and drugs following the above regime.
