How To Optimize Your Diet To Build Lean Muscle

By Arnold Sylvester

Do you neglect your diet? Are you one of the many gym users guilty of eating junk food under the guise of trying to bulk up? Today you'll learn how to build muscle the right way with a solid diet and why it's just as important as learning how to deadlift or squat.

Given that the majority of the hypertrophy process occurs while your body recovers at home, it really makes sense to learn how to structure your food intake to match your fitness goals.

But even though it makes sense to watch what you eat, many men fall into the deadly trap of presuming they can gorge on whatever food they like then justify it by claiming they are trying to bulk up. A dirty bulk results in dirty weight being added.

The fact is your diet represents the toughest challenge to your fitness goals. After a while, even the most gruelling of training programs becomes fun. It becomes a challenge you'll enjoy. The diet part, however, remains a constant test to most people.

Many people simply neglect their diet because they just don't know where to start with it all. They get lost in the mountains of different opinions on what you should eat, what you should avoid, what you need and what you don't need.

But there is a simple system you can use to get your gains on the right track. It is as follows:

1. 1.5 grams of protein per lb of your current body weight.

2. Consume around 2g carbohydrates per pound of body weight

3. 0.5 grams of fat per lb of your current body weight.

But before you look at this like a set of rules, remember the most important factor here is that no diet fits everyone. This merely gives you a starting point, from which you can experiment by raising or lowering certain nutrients until you find an optimal intake to give your body results. I:8:T

In a shocking twist to what you may expect, most men do not actually eat enough protein to build muscle. That may sound very strange, given that every man and his dog seems to buy the latest whey protein drinks. But apart from those drinks, they often don't eat any other sources of lean protein.

Another area of misunderstanding is fat intake. Just because it's called fat, doesn't mean you will get fat from eating it. A tank is a military vehicle as well as an item of clothing - fat refers to both food and body fat. They are totally different things and shouldn't be confused together.

Now comes the interesting part. When you have your protein and fat intake set correctly, carbohydrates will determine what type of physique your body can achieve. Start with the recommended amount and note your results, before increasing the amount if you want to add more size or decreasing it if you feel you are adding body fat.

The importance of diet is just one of the five rules touched upon in the video guide on how to build muscle accompanying today's article.

To teach somebody how to build muscle which creates a noticeably different physique, you must first start in the kitchen. Sure, learning your biggest lifts and the correct rep range certainly plays a very important role in your progress, but if you neglect your diet you run the very real danger of kissing goodbye to your hard toil on the gym floor.

About the Author:

Next step: You can see the exact technique demonstrating how to deadlift alongside crucial, simple tips showing you how to build muscle straight from Russ Howe PTI, the UK's most watched source of personal training information online.

The Foundations Of A Building Muscle Routine

If you walk into any gym and ask somebody how to build muscle the chances are you will hear a different answer for every person you ask. There is such confusion surrounding the muscle building process. As any trainer will know, there are three fundamental rules to building a more powerful physique.

Make no mistakes about it, though, you will not be able to get results if you don't have any kind of structure to you workout routine. The three principles laid out below will teach you this.

If you don't know how to build muscle today's interview will assist you a lot.

* Learn how to focus your workouts on compound exercises.

* Neglecting to rest your body is like flushing results down the toilet.

* Your eating habits will be just as important to your goals being achieved.

If you are due to hit the gym tomorrow, we want you to do it with a new-found confidence in your ability. You're going to learn exactly how to get the results you want to achieve with these three basic rules. The first of which discusses how to focus your workouts around the exercises which will encourage your body to grow.

The main issue with people who want to get bigger in the gym is that they tend to spend too much time doing isolation exercises and not enough time on compound movements. Your compounds are your key to success, so use them as the basis of your session. You may enjoy the bench press, which is a great compound exercise, but the other lifts tend to be neglected in favor of small isolated movements such as bicep curls. Squats, pull ups and shoulder press need more attention here.

Of course, the smaller movements are also good for building you up and they will round out each session quite nicely but make no mistake about it, the main focus of your entire session needs to be on the exercises which are going to get you to where you want to be. You're not going to hit a new max on the bench press if you have already exhausted your chest on a series of isolation exercises.

Even those who have spent years struggling to put on size find that the task becomes easier when you have a well structured workout laid out ahead of you which allows you to hit the big moves while at full strength and rack up some new personal best records. Be sure not to get carried away with your success though, you don't want to train every single day otherwise you'll only make it more difficult for yourself.

Your efforts in the gym deserve physical results and those results happen during periods of rest. If you go to the gym every day you'll notice it becomes more difficult to see any results because your body isn't being given the recuperation time that it needs. This is easily the most overlooked aspect of training for those looking to get bigger.

Last but not least we want to talk about your eating habits. Have you ever heard people say that abs are made in the kitchen, not in the gym? Well, it is true. If you are eating junk food you will be adding the wrong type of size to your frame.

Working out the number of calories per day you need is simple, for those who don't know simply multiply your weight in kilograms by 25 and then add another 50% to the total answer.

Getting enough calories is one thing, of course, but it's another thing entirely to get them from the best possible places. All calories are not created equal and you need to pay a little attention to your intake of the three macro nutrients to get the most from your daily eating plan. Try to obtain 30% of your calorie intake from protein, 20% from fat and 50% from carbohydrates.

You now know how to build muscle effectively in the gym. There is also an awful lot of confusion surrounding how to lose weight, the misinformation in that area is just as bad so don't worry if you have felt a little lost, most folks are. In the meantime, though, it's time for you to pack your training bag and head off for a productive session.

About the Author:By Russ Howe

About the author: Russ Howe PTI is the UK's most followed fitness instructor. If you need to learn how to build muscle or how to lose weight our free video guides will help you achieve more from your training.

How To Build Muscle The Facts Explained

By Russ Howe

Most guys in the gym are lost. Lost in a world where it's seemingly impossible to figure out how to build muscle and how to create the type of physique the opposite sex find attractive. Stop guys. The truth is you're probably overlooking to proven basics and it's costing you.

Building a more muscular body is not rocket science.

To get the best results we often find that we need to go back to basics and that's exactly where so many gym members go totally wrong. They look for over complicated, often expensive, products and exercise plans when the truth is they could be getting superior results on their own.

Better still, you can workout without doubting yourself or your techniques because you know that everything you're doing is scientifically proven to work.

If you don't know how to build muscle today's interview will assist you a lot.

* Your diet should be tailored to building muscle.

* Learn the basics of Whey Protein and Creatine supplements.

* Workout to hit your hypertrophy zone.

* Do not neglect to have rest days.

* Sleeping is great for muscle building results so don't sell yourself short here.

The 5 simple rules above reveal the proven facts on how to take your present physique and develop it into a leaner, stronger version. There are further tips to add in at a later date, which we will show you in the future, but for now the original five are the best to get started with as they set the tone for a quality lifestyle change.

So let's look at some of the principles in a bit more depth to enable you to get the most from them all...

In order to get a muscle building diet you must be able to work out how many calories per day your body requires. Too many people get lost at this stage because they believe it has to be an exact science, when it doesn't. To get this ball park figure simply multiply your desired weight, in pounds, by fifteen.

The second area where folks find it easy to get themselves lost is supplements. It's easy to see why, too, with every company out there telling potential customers that their products are better than everybody else's. In truth you only really need to start off with the basics. The foundation of your nutrition should always come from your diet, hence the word 'supplement'. Use whey protein and creatine monohydrate supplements, everything else is unnecessary expenditure.

The third rule is an important one, because too many guys in the gym say things like, "I want to lose fat but I want to build muscle, too" and it leads them to having no structure in your workouts. To lose fat you should operate at a deficit, but to build size you should operate at a calorie surplus, so it's decision time guys. If you want to go for size and have built your diet for that goal you need to now structure your rep range specifically for building size, not just toning up. This means an 8-12 rep range, with a focus on big compound exercises.

In the articles following on from this we will look at some more of the principles as well as introducing you to some new ones to keep your results coming along. No more will you have to wonder how to build muscle because, with a little help, you will know.

About the Author:

About the Publisher: Russ Howe PTI is the UK's most subscribed Personal Trainer. Discover how to build muscle with our free video walkthrough showing the five rules to a more muscular body.