Do big exercises
Doing one set of Heavy BB Squats will generate greater muscular development than 50 sets of leg extensions. More is not always better. I have been guilty of this mistake many times - wasting my time doing what felt like 1000 bicep curls. Remember to effectively stimulate and develop your muscle tissue you do not have an endless period of time. Pick your sets and pick your exercises and make sure the workouts you are doing are using the most muscles in the shortest period of time.
The other simple reason to utilise these bigger exercises (Bench press, Squat and Deadlifts) and make them the core foundation of your program is that these exercises will produce more testosterone and growth hormone than any other exercise therefore improving your muscular development.
Calories going in must be higher than calories going out
Sounds simple but many newcomers frequently make this mistake.
First Step:
Find your Base Metabolic rate - your base metabolic rate is simply how much energy you would burn if you did nothing all day.
For men: BMR = 10 x weight (kg) + 6.25 x height (cm) - 5 x age (years) + 5
For women: BMR = 10 x weight (kg) + 6.25 x height (cm) - 5 x age (years) - 161
Second Step:
Work out how much extra energy you use throughout the day, eg in a weights session, walking etc. If you are not currently doing any exercise then have a think about what exercise you are planning on doing:
On average a standard weights session will burn 300-350 calories per hour.
Third Step:
The last step is to plan out what you're eating each day to ensure that the calories going out are not exceeding the calories coming in as this is key in your muscle gaining journey. For more information on the best things to use to fill those calories please read this article - /studios/darlinghurst/articles/weight-loss/what-carbs-are-the-best/
- Effectively manage the timing of your carbohydrates consumption
Before reading on please read this article to get a better understanding of what Carbs actually do - /studios/ponsonby/articles/weight-loss/do-i-really-need-to-eat-carbs/
Also read this so you understand how Carbs effect your insulin levels -
/studios/ponsonby/articles/weight-loss/what-carbs-are-the-best/
Now that you have read these articles you will know that when carbohydrates are consumed they will be broken down into glucose to be used as energy. If they are not used they will be stored in your muscles and liver as glycogen.
Where this is important for muscle growth is in taking advantage of how you can utilise some of the poor and moderate choices of carbohydrates to boost insulin production and speed up protein and fat transportation into your muscle tissue.
Post training, you will generally have a 30minute window to consume a combination of protein and carbohydrates to boost muscular recovery and therefore increasing muscular growth. How you can make this more successful is by adding in some moderate or poor carb choices at that time. Yes - I did say to use the poor choices.
An example of this could be something like Chicken and white rice. Or a protein shake with Glucose - Glucose would normally be outlined as a poor choice due to how it spikes blood sugar levels. However, post weights training we actually want to spike insulin levels to speed up protein and fat transportation into your muscle tissue.
*Disclaimer: Individual results vary based on agreed goals. Click here for details.
