The Keys to Unlocking Muscle Mass

With winter quickly approaching more and more people are looking to add muscle mass to their frame. If you don’t know already, one of the biggest keys to being able to maintain your weight as you get older is having a larger amount of muscle on your frame. The reason for this is because it will increase your resting metabolism, which basically means that you can eat more every day while just sitting on the couch and not gain weight! Who doesn’t want that?

Not only for that benefit, but adding muscle mass to your frame also makes you look more aesthetically attractive as it adds curves to your body and also helps to make you stronger so there is less likely of a chance you will get injured performing every day activities.

So if this is your goal this winter, to unveil a new and improved you, there are a two main things you should know.

1. Building muscle mass takes calories! This is THE most important thing to remember if you are looking to gain muscle. Just like you can’t build a house without bricks, you cannot build muscle without the building blocks supplied from amino acids and the energy supplied from carbohydrates. Unless you are consuming more calories than your body needs to function on a daily basis you are not going to see your scale weight going up, plain and simple.

Obviously this does not give you the free pass however to consume vast amounts of fast food and candy as while this will add weight no doubt, it will not be the kind of weight you are desiring. What you are going to want to do is keep the food coming from clean, healthy sources so that you add nice, lean muscle to your frame rather than excess fat. Aim to consume 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight a day in order to meet your amino acid needs and then the remainder of the calories should come from carbohydrates and fats. To gain approximately one pound of muscle a week you will want to take in 500 calories more than your burn on a daily basis (found by figuring out your resting metabolic rate and then adding the number of calories you burn during your daily activities to it). If that is a little too fast for you, you can reduce the number to 250 for half a pound of muscle a week, and similarly if you want to speed up the process, shoot for 1000 calories for 2 pounds a week. Note however that anything more than 2 pounds a week and you really risk putting on additional fat tissue as your body simply cannot handle this many excess calories at a time and will just convert them straight into bodyfat.

With regards to the numbers equation, if trying to calculate how many calories you burn performing your everyday activities is simply too time consuming, a good rule of thumb is to multiple your body weight in pounds by 14 or 16 depending on how active you are. This will provide you with a rough guideline to how many calories you need a day. After you have this number, add enough calories to put you in a surplus and then see what your results are after a week or two in terms of muscle mass gain. If you are not gaining add more calories and if you are gaining too fast lower them slightly.

2. There must be a stimulus present! This one, while not quite as important as the first is still very essential if what you hope to add is muscle. In order for your body to build muscle mass there must be an overloading stimulus present so that it can repair the damage done and then come back, growing stronger and bigger in the process.

Every time you lift a heavier weight than your body is used to you create tiny microtears in the muscle tissue. It is when you allow your body to rest that it will repair these tears and generate new muscle mass. If you are only going into the gym and lifting the same weight over and over again you are not going to be applying enough stimulus to promote growth and will see a plateau occurring. This is why it is of utmost importance that you lift a weight that has you fatiguing in approximately 8-12 reps if muscular hypertrophy (growth) is your goal. If you are getting into the 20+ rep range you should be bumping up the weight.

Additionally, it is important to keep varying your workout so your muscles do not become too adapted to it and stop progressing. Simply changing the exercises, the exercise order or the type of body part split you are doing is often enough to get your muscles responding again.

A final word when it comes to workouts is rest. If you do not allow your body enough rest between workout sessions you are not going to give your muscle enough time to regenerate and grow stronger and you will never see new muscle mass added. Never work on certain muscle group more than once in a 48 hour time period and always allow at least one full day of rest from your workout program.

By following these two principles this winter you should be able to see some solid muscle mass gain. Remember that in this game, slow and steady is much better than consuming vast amounts of food and taking on a more sumo wrestler type of look. Eventually you are going to want to lean down again come spring to reveal this new muscle mass so the least fat gain you can put on the better. Eat, lift, sleep and repeat. Do this and I am sure you will see great success!