Tips For Bodybuilders: How To Gain Muscle While Avoiding Fat
If you're anything at all like most bodybuilders, your ultimate desire is a simple one: To have an impressive, muscular physique with razor-sharp definition and the envy of everyone around you. You want to be huge, and you want to be shredded.
This desire for the perfect body makes many people dive headlong into an exercise regimen. Everyone wants to bulk up, and bulk up fast, but at the same time they're also worried about gaining the extra bulk of body fat.
If you want to add a significant amount of muscle to your frame over as short a period of time as you can, you will always end up gaining some extra body fat along with it.
Unfortunately, that is just the way the body works, and if you want to get bigger, you're going to have to accept the fact that body fat will come along with the muscle gain.
In order to gain muscle size, you must consume a surplus of calories in order to support protein synthesis. However, there is no way to divert 100% of this caloric surplus towards muscle growth. A certain amount of it will always end up as stored body fat.
As all bodybuilders know, in order to make dramatically change your appearance in the quickest amount of time, the most effective way to do so is to focus on gaining size. For a set period of time, gaining size will be your goal. Only then can your priority shift to focus on losing body fat.
Considering this information, it's clear that the goal of the bulking phase is to gain muscle size, to build up as much as possible while doing what you can to minimize gaining extra body fat. However, it's important to remember that during the bulking phase, your goal is not to lose body fat, merely to gain as little as possible.
There are three primary ways to accomplish this:
1) Use a precise caloric surplus. A caloric surplus is required to fuel muscle growth, but haphazardly cramming more food down your throat beyond what is necessary to build muscle tissue will simply cause you to gain more fat.
The generally accepted caloric surplus for supporting muscle growth is 15-20% more calories than is needed to maintain your weight. If you are consuming a caloric amount within this range, there is no need to go any higher.
2) Make good food choices. Most of your food intake should be in the form of high quality lean proteins, healthy/unsaturated fats and natural, high fiber carbohydrates.
Don't just eat anything and everything; make sure you're concentrating on proteins, especially lean proteins, and keep an eye on your blood sugar. Also, avoid all those saturated fats.
3) Implement cardio sessions. There's no need to go overboard here, but implementing 2-3 cardio sessions throughout the week is another way to cut down on fat gains during a bulking cycle.
Keep these sessions no more than 10-20 minutes long, sticking to high intensity/low duration forms, as these kinds of session have the advantage of not causing the same amount of muscle loss as longer duration forms.
Once you've gained an amount of muscle size that you're happy with (and this is totally up to the individual), you can then shift into a fat loss cycle and focus on stripping off body fat while maintaining muscle size.
The trick is to minimize it rather than try to totally avoid it, and you can do this with a reasonable diet and sensible exercise. - 17269
This desire for the perfect body makes many people dive headlong into an exercise regimen. Everyone wants to bulk up, and bulk up fast, but at the same time they're also worried about gaining the extra bulk of body fat.
If you want to add a significant amount of muscle to your frame over as short a period of time as you can, you will always end up gaining some extra body fat along with it.
Unfortunately, that is just the way the body works, and if you want to get bigger, you're going to have to accept the fact that body fat will come along with the muscle gain.
In order to gain muscle size, you must consume a surplus of calories in order to support protein synthesis. However, there is no way to divert 100% of this caloric surplus towards muscle growth. A certain amount of it will always end up as stored body fat.
As all bodybuilders know, in order to make dramatically change your appearance in the quickest amount of time, the most effective way to do so is to focus on gaining size. For a set period of time, gaining size will be your goal. Only then can your priority shift to focus on losing body fat.
Considering this information, it's clear that the goal of the bulking phase is to gain muscle size, to build up as much as possible while doing what you can to minimize gaining extra body fat. However, it's important to remember that during the bulking phase, your goal is not to lose body fat, merely to gain as little as possible.
There are three primary ways to accomplish this:
1) Use a precise caloric surplus. A caloric surplus is required to fuel muscle growth, but haphazardly cramming more food down your throat beyond what is necessary to build muscle tissue will simply cause you to gain more fat.
The generally accepted caloric surplus for supporting muscle growth is 15-20% more calories than is needed to maintain your weight. If you are consuming a caloric amount within this range, there is no need to go any higher.
2) Make good food choices. Most of your food intake should be in the form of high quality lean proteins, healthy/unsaturated fats and natural, high fiber carbohydrates.
Don't just eat anything and everything; make sure you're concentrating on proteins, especially lean proteins, and keep an eye on your blood sugar. Also, avoid all those saturated fats.
3) Implement cardio sessions. There's no need to go overboard here, but implementing 2-3 cardio sessions throughout the week is another way to cut down on fat gains during a bulking cycle.
Keep these sessions no more than 10-20 minutes long, sticking to high intensity/low duration forms, as these kinds of session have the advantage of not causing the same amount of muscle loss as longer duration forms.
Once you've gained an amount of muscle size that you're happy with (and this is totally up to the individual), you can then shift into a fat loss cycle and focus on stripping off body fat while maintaining muscle size.
The trick is to minimize it rather than try to totally avoid it, and you can do this with a reasonable diet and sensible exercise. - 17269
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