TECHNIQUES FOR MUSCLE GAIN BY WOMEN!
MUSCLE GAIN TECHNIQUES FOR WOMEN
Patience may not be an easy cup of tea when it comes to muscle gain. You will surely not become muscular in a day, but taking an enormous time and getting nothing out of it is a waste too.
Its obvious that change takes time, but if you’re vying to grow muscle and aren’t seeing observable size increase from month to month, it’s a proof that your technique and approach is not so good. And a workout is a terrible thing to waste.
Set Realistic Expectations
Getting jacked naturally takes years of hard work and sacrifice. So if the Incredible Hulk isn’t staring back at you in the mirror after a month or two of bulking, don’t grow discouraged and quit.
“Packing on natural muscle takes patience and persistence,” Aguzzi says. “A good amount of muscle gain can be achieved by gaining 10-15 pounds over 6-12 months. It took me about a year to add noticeable muscle and three years to increase muscle mass.”
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It can definitely take years to transform your body, but this is also definite that you should see an observable change in your body in quite some time.
“Most beginners can expect to see noticeable muscle growth within eight weeks of starting a new program,” Santiago says. “More experienced lifters will see noticeable change in 3-4 weeks.”
Track Your Fuel Intake
Eating “a lot” isn’t good enough. What may feel enormous can even come out to be very less in nutrition and hence can all go waste or may even harm you.
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“Often people who want to gain lean muscle are not consuming enough calories and are not eating frequently enough,” Aguzzi explains. “Our muscles need food to grow. Without enough calories, our body can enter a catabolic state, destroying the muscles we work so hard to gain.”
Santiago asks you to focus on your calorie intake and also advices you to modify it gradually. “It is important to control the surplus by slowly adding in calories each week to avoid too much fat gain,” he says. “Before you begin, you should track your intake for a week to figure out what your baseline calorie amount is.”
Eat Enough Carbs
Many of the lifters believe in taking low amount of carbohydrates for keeping themselves, but this may affect adversely in gaining muscles. Carbs are important for two reasons: avoiding muscle loss and creating glycogen to fuel your workouts.
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According to Santiago, taking low carbohydrates is one of the biggest downfall for the people who want to gain muscles. “Carbs are necessary because your body will prioritize burning carb calories first, protecting protein stores,” he explains.
“I always aim to eat carbohydrates before workouts so they will be broken down and used as fuel, and again after workouts to replenish those depleted glycogen stores,” Aguzzi says.
Prioritize Sleep
Most of us remain busy in our lives and feel the need of sacrificing one thing in order to get another. But skipping sleep is one of the biggest mistakes.
“Sleep and rest are very important for muscle recovery and growth,” Santiago explains. “If you don’t get enough sleep, your body doesn’t have enough time to recover, grow muscle, and burn fat.”
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The aim should be to get atleast 8 hours of sleep every night. If you skip your sleep, it is possible that you cannot give your best in your next training session.
Gear Your Workouts Toward Building Muscle
In general, the tried-and-true workout formula for hypertrophy, or muscle growth, includes moderate rep ranges, body-part splits, and plenty of rest.
“You want to train the muscle with 3-4 sets at a weight where you can achieve muscle failure at 8-12 reps,” Santiago says. “People also do not need to do 6-7 exercises per muscle group. Doing too much can cause overtraining, which is counterproductive when building muscle,”
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doing 4-5 exercises per muscle is recommended.
“There are many different programs or body-part splits that you can use,” he adds. “For example, you can do a push/pull/legs split, an upper/lower body split, a 4-day split, or a 5-day split. I personally use the latter.”
Slow Down Your Rep Speed
The outcome of your workout can be affected by the tempo with which you lift and lower the weight. When you lift for hypertrophy, move slowly.
“Muscles grow when they are under tension for longer periods of time,” Santiago says. “Slow and controlled reps mean longer time under tension for that muscle.” He adds, “Using slower reps also allows you to concentrate on using proper form and really feel the muscle working.”
Supplement Smartly
protein, aminos, and creatine are the most important supplements.
Get Out Of Your Comfort Zone
Once your training starts to become far more difficult than fun, you will know that you are going in the correct direction.
“Your body has the ability to adapt to everything you do,” says Santiago. “If you consistently lift weights that are comfortable to you, the body develops a tolerance and you will not see the progress you are looking for.”
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Or, being said more bluntly: “Don’t just lift the weights, body-build! Get in the gym and lift heavy and push yourself beyond your comfort zone, because that is what will change your body.
Be Consistent
Muscle gain is not a job of an hour or a day. You need to focus on it 24/7. Even when its your rest day, you cannot stop eating your diet, or skipping your sleep. The schedule is important even for the rest days. When it comes to building mass, dedication is the closest thing there is to a magic pill.
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Santiago being a personal trainer says, “My biggest piece of advice for anyone trying to get big is consistency, consistency, consistency!” he says. “Set a goal, stick to the plan, stay motivated, be patient, and make sure your nutrition is on point.”
Aguzzi says that the formula is basic, as long as you don’t ditch it. “If you train hard, eat clean, and rest well, your muscles will want to grow,”
Increase Your Training Volume
Training volume—your number of reps multiplied by your number of sets—is a primary determiner of hypertrophy (aka how to grow muscle). And to increase volume, you may actually need to go lower in weight than you might guess.
“Compared to training for strength, intensity is going to drop during the hypertrophy phase of a program, with intensity sitting between 50 and 75 percent of the person’s 1RM, the maximum weight he or she can lift for one rep,” says Ava Fitzgerald, C.S.C.S., C.P.T.
Focus on the Eccentric Phase
When you lift any weight, there are two phases, a concentric (hard) and eccentric (easy) phase. For example, lowering down in a squat is an eccentric phase and standing back up is concentric . And, according to research published in the European Journal of Applied Physiology, eccentric work is far better at triggering hypertrophy.
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To increase the amount of eccentric effort in your workout, you can do these two things: either slow down the eccentric phase of each exercise you perform or integrate eccentric-only variations into your routine.
Take the squat, for example: To make it eccentric-only, you would lower to the floor, and end the exercise there. Note: If you’re trying eccentric-only exercises, you’ll need to substantially increase the weight that you use. Physiologically, muscles are far stronger moving eccentrically than they are concentrically.
Decrease Between-Set Rest Intervals
set a timer to 30 to 90 seconds. When lifting for hypertrophy, it is recommended to have rest periods of 30 to 90 seconds because they encourage a quick release in muscle-building hormones. It also makes sure that you really fatigue your muscles, according to Fitzgerald.
Eat More Protein
“Exercise training breaks down your muscles. Protein builds them back up. And the harder your lifting workouts, the more important protein intake is to your recovery”, Fitzgerald explains.
Focus on Calorie Surpluses
It is recommended to consume around 250 to 500 extra calories per day. We need to make sure that any of the weight that we are gaining is only because of the muscles. And to ensure that, it should all come from proteins. In a 2014 Pennington Biomedical Research Center study. People who consume protein rich diets having high calories, could store 45% of those as muscles, while the ones following the same amount of calories with low protein, stores 95% of it as fat.
Snack on Casein Before Bed
Casein protein absorbs slowly into the bloodstream. It is most famous among the bodybuilders as it keeps your muscles filled with amino acids for longer periods than other types of protein example, whey and plant proteins.
Outside the Gym
1. Time your carbs.
Eat more carbohydrates at breakfast and immediately after your workout in that half-hour anabolic window to maximize muscle recovery. Your body has that short window post-workout to restore, so get a liquid carbohydrate and protein drink into your body to help replenish your glycogen stores as fast as possible. This has proven to restore muscle recovery, increase lean muscle gains, and increase growth hormone levels. During your cardio session, sip on a carb-rich or calorie-rich drink to make sure you keep your calorie intake up. And common sense here: The rest of the day eat good-for-you foods, i.e. lots of color and protein. For more advice, follow this eating plan to gain weight in a healthy way.
2. Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate!
Try to drink half the water as your body weight(in ounces). This helps your muscles to stay saturated.
3. Sleep.
This is what is the most important and commonly neglected thing. After a workout, your muscles use the water and nutrients you’ve consumed during the day, and will start working while you are asleep to build and grow your muscles.
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