We’ve gone over 5 simple steps that will really help you in building muscle much faster.
Alpha’s School
Step.1: Macro Calculations: Ok that makes sense doesn’t it? Well you need to know what and how much to eat each day to gain muscle if you’re looking forward to build your muscles fast and in an efficient way. Well I prefer ya’ll to note down this step and calculate your macros as we proceed in this step. So basically for gaining muscles you need 4 important things from food. i.e. Proteins, Fats, Carbohydrates, Micronutrients (Vitamins and Minerals)
The amount of Protein, fats and carbohydrates that we need are the ones that we’ll calculate as macros. Because nutrients are like no minimum nor maximum amount is required.
We’ll be calculating our macros with the help of our weight(in pounds) If you need me to give you the same calculations in terms of weight(in Kilograms) then comment down below and let us know. Anyways let’s assume a male with weight- 148 pounds (67 Kg)
i. Protein: The amount of protein required= weight(in pounds)= 148 g of Protein
That was pretty simple, wasn’t it?
ii. Fat: The ideal amount of fat required= weight(in pounds)/2 = 148/2= 74 g of Fat
Well even that one might’ve been easy to calculate. But here’s the tricky one..
iii. Carbohydrates: The Carbs needed daily= Carb calories/4. And to find out the amount of carb calories we’ll need to do some other calculations. So if we do (Protein × 4) + (Fat × 9), we get a value…that is (148×4)+(74×9) = 592+666= 1258. Now carb calories= Total amount of Calories we need a day- the value that we found right before….But to know the calories needed…it’s simple….just take your weight(in pounds) and multiply it by 18 for men.(multiply by 16 for a woman) so we get calories required as 2664. So now carb calories= 2664-1258= 1406 So we get our carbohydrates requirement as 1406/4= 35.5 g
Did you just skip those calculations because you hate maths…..well don’t bother too much gentlemen, it’s just that it is a bit lengthy, or else it’s really a very easy calculation. Please don’t skip calculating your macros.
Well now that we have all the macros. It’s time for step.2.
Step.2: What to eat: Yeah you’re right, now that ya’ll know how much of everything you need. It’s necessary for you to know that which food to eat to fulfil the particular macro requirement.
i. Foods rich in Protein: Chicken Breast, Beef, Eggs, Salmon, Tuna, Brown Turkey, Greek Yoghurt, Cottage Cheese, Tofu, Moong, Black Beans, Nutritional Yeast, Chick Peas, Pastas made of barley or with chick peas and mostly many other fishes too…..(We’ve even added Veg sources of protein for those vegetarian body builders out there.
ii. Foods rich in Carbohydrates: Sweet Potatoes, Brown Rice, Barley, Beans, Yams, Oatmeal, Khus Khus, Legumes, Corn, etc.
iii. Foods rich in Fat: (By Fat we mean good sources of Fat) Avacados, Nuts, Peanut Butter, Almond oil, Cheese, Butter, Coconut Oil, Goat cheese, etc.
iv. Foods rich in Micronutrients(Vitamins and Minerals): (Mostly it consists all the Fruits and Vegetables) Milk, Cashews, Bananas, Spinach, Broccoli, Potatoes, Peppers, Apricots, Oranges, etc.
(Tip: I always like to have a minimum of 5 meals per day to fulfil all my macros, because trying and targeting all the required macros in the regular 3 meals is not possible. Hence I’ve put an habit of eating 5-6 times a day to get all the required macros)
Actually this is not just my personal tip, but even many great bodybuilders, for e.g Dwayne Johnson (The Rock) does this to gain muscle, and this is a very effective way of gaining muscle.
Step.3: How you should Workout:
I. Periodization: This method helps you to build muscle much stronger and faster. Periodization is a very simple way of switching between variations of sets for particular period of time. In simple terms, a set for an exercise could be of low reps and heavier weights, or it could be of moderate reps and medium weights, and a set could even be of higher reps and lighter weights. So Periodization is all about using one kind of the set for each exercise for 2-3 weeks, then switching to another kind of set for another 2-3 weeks. This helps you to gain more muscle as this process doesn’t allow your muscles to adapt one single kind of pressure, so the muscles are forced to be more strong and produce more muscular tissues.
II. Progressive Overload: Many of the body builders out there wouldn’t consider this as an effective way to build your muscles. But believe me we have tested this, and I myself do adopt this method to build more muscle. So to those who don’t know about Progressive Overload, in this process, you can keep on increasing the weight of each set after every week. Like if you do curls with 10 Kg and 2 sets of 8-9 reps for a week, then you can increase the weight by 2.5 Kg, i.e., 12.5 Kg for 2 sets of 8-9 reps. This helps put more pressure in your body to grow more muscles. As you I said before, this too doesn’t allow our muscles to adapt to one particular pressure, and hence feels the urge to build more muscular tissue in our body. However it is really necessary to have a good form while doing the workout, if you are not able do a workout with increased weight, try reducing like 2.5 Kg from the dumbbell or barbell whatever you’re using for the workout, and continue with the same weight for another 1 week and then try to increase the weight. And yeah you need to do Periodization with every 2-3 weeks, and between those 2-3 weeks of 1 kind of a set for a period you will try progressive Overload every week. And one more thing because of heavy weight, if you go fast on the negative part of the contraction, it won’t help you in gaining any muscle, instead you should go slow on the negative portion of contraction.
III. Divide and combine your workouts: I that sounds crazy, but instead of doing all the workouts divided, you can do it like Back and Chest one day, Shoulders, Biceps and Triceps the other day maybe even Abs too, and legs the third day, then take a break for a day and repeat the same again. I like to do the three days in Thursday, Friday and Saturday, then a day off on Sunday, then again repeat the same again on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and then again repeat the whole schedule. But one more important thing is that in this whole process you should try and only target on the muscle you’re trying to grow.
Step.4: Readjustments: After every 2 weeks, check yourself in the mirror and check your weight to see if your gaining muscle and weight or not, if not then add on 250 to 500 calories recalculate the whole macros calculation. And if you feel like you’re gaining muscle but also gaining too much of fat, then reduce 250 to 500 calories and recalculate your macros. Again after 2 weeks, do the same again.
Step.5: Keep your motivation: Above all these steps one more important thing is to workout regularly, and to do that you should have a motivation and inspiration, on why you want to grow muscle, and like whom you would like to grow muscle, this will help you to workout regularly and have an exact goal of what you want to do in Life.
After all an Alpha always has a clear goal in his life.
Stay Alpha Stay Fit
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