People are always asking me how they can get bigger, or put a stone on, or
add inches to their arms, and all such like questions. I have come to the
conclusion that people are looking for a quick fix, a 2 week programme to
achieve all their goals - or a tablet to swallow that will make their muscles
big in an instant. Well this article is for all those dedicated bodybuilders who
are willing to put hard work and dedication into developing their physiques.
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First off - your quest for massive muscles can be broken down to two parts:
training and nutrition. Now some people may put more emphasis on diet over
training or vice versa - but to me this makes no sense, as it infers that if you
were to have a good diet and do no training then you would be able to build muscle. Conversely if you were to train your ass off in the gym and eat sparingly
then you would most probably lose weight, let alone build any muscle. Therefore
my personal view on this, is that training and nutrition both play a 50/50 role
in your quest for ultimate physique development. Thus you will need to pay equal
attention to both training and eating.
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So lets address the nutrition part first. How much protein, how much
carbs,
how much fat, how many meals, what types of foods? You may be wondering about
all of these questions, so we will address each one. Now before we get in to the
specifics of each one of these questions, I feel it necessary to point out that
this article provides the information for you to BASE your diet plan on,
not your actual diet plan. It is a guide only, the quantities of food and
frequency of meals needed to build muscle can vary vastly for the individual,
depending on several factors. For example different body types and metabolisms
(genetics). What I mean by body types and metabolisms is how different people
have different metabolisms, and how the amounts of food needed to build muscle
can vary significantly from person to person. Do bear in mind though, that the
more muscle you are building, the more protein you will need to eat, not only to
maintain your current muscle mass, but also to enable your body to keep adding
new muscle to your frame.
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Right, so lets decide how much protein is required to eat on a daily basis. A
good guide to deciding how much protein to eat is using the age old value of 1.5
grams of protein per pound of bodyweight. This equates to 300 grams of protein
for a 200lbs bodybuilder. Again this is only a guide, it is best to experiment
with this figure to see what works best for you. As for protein sources - there
are two classes of protein: first class proteins and second class proteins. What
this means is this: in human nutrition there are 22 amino acids, 8 of which are essential.
The other 14 are non-essential. A first class protein contains all of
these essential amino acids, a second class protein does not. What I mean
by essential and non-essential, is that if your body is for some
reason short on a non-essential amino - this amino can be
manufactured in the body from a combination of other amino acids. However if
your body is short on an essential amino acid, it cannot manufacture it
from the ones that are available. Therefore it is important to eat a first class
protein every meal. Good protein sources to use would be: Chicken, Turkey,
Steak, Fish, Eggs etc. The more proteins you combine in a meal the greater the
amino acid profile you get, and hence the greater the muscle building effects of the meal.
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The fat in your diet should be kept to a
minimum. However this does not mean that you should cut it out 100%. As a quick
guide to what fats are desirable and which aren't, if a fat is solid at room
temperature then you should keep clear of eating it. If however a fat is a
liquid at room temperature - then it is much more desirable. Remember a
certain amount of fat is needed to absorb fat soluble vitamins, for your skin,
your joints and also keep your muscles sensitive to insulin. Good sources of
fats in your diet are, Extra Virgin Olive oil/Safflower oil/Flax oil or almond oil. A few egg yolks, NATURAL peanut butter
and other nuts such as Cashews/Almonds/Walnuts, seeds, oily fish such as
Mackerel or Salmon and avocado pears. An off-season intake of 60 - 100 grams of
fats should be ample.
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Lastly, lets talk about carbohydrates. In my opinion today's bodybuilders
don't eat enough carbohydrates, and eat too much protein. What I mean by this is
that they aren't getting the ratio of proteins and carbohydrates in their diet
correct. Although in this part of the article I am going to be talking about
carbohydrates, I also feel it necessary to talk about proteins. Although it's
the proteins in your diet that are simulated into muscle tissue - this process
of protein synthesis is made more efficient by the amount of carbohydrates you
eat. For example, lets say that you can assimilate 100 grams of protein per day.
Then by all means eat 110 grams of protein, or even 120 grams per day. However
if you were to eat say 200 grams of protein daily, this would be a waste, as you
would only be assimilating half of this amount, the rest could be burnt as
energy, go to waste, or even be stored as fat. So lets say you have decided to
eat 110 grams of protein daily, how do you know that the protein you consume is
being used for what it is meant to be used for (building muscle)? This will be
determined by how much carbohydrates you eat. The amount of carbohydrates that
you consume will determine at what state your body will be in, assuming that you
are eating enough protein i.e. Thermogenic (fat burning), Anabolic (tissue
building) or Repair (static - no growth). If you are eating enough carbohydrates
to feed your brain, fuel your body with energy, keep your liver and muscles full
with glycogen, then the protein that you are eating will be doing its desired
job of repairing and building muscle tissue. Eat less carbohydrates and your
body will have to break into the protein to fuel itself, and thus the muscle
building effects will be lost. Thus when you are happy that you have your
protein right - the only thing you should change between off-season and
pre-contest is your carbohydrates and maybe your fat - depending on how clean
your diet is off-season. As a rough guide for an off-season diet, I recommend
eating at least double the amount, if not three times the amount of
carbohydrates than protein. |
This article is only a very basic guide for beginning bodybuilders, more
advanced athletes will and should already have their diets finely tuned and
tailored to meet their own metabolic requirements. Use this information as the
bare bones of your diet - and please remember be consistent, if you think that
you did well eating six meals for two days - then you are wrong. Try eating six
meals for the rest of your bodybuilding life - then you have done well. |
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Good Luck - PJ |