Oleh Unknown

Sunday, February 24, 2013

How To Build Muscle Fast: Nutrition

In order to build muscle there needs to be an excess of calories (energy). Without an energy/ calorie excess it is impossible to build muscle, plain and simple.

As a very broad guideline, most bodybuilders should have around 30 calories per kilogram of bodyweight per day. As an example, this means an 80-kilogram bodybuilder should have around 2,400 calories per day. However, after 2 weeks this figure can be adjusted up or down depending on the results.

The next step is to spread these calories over 6 or 7 meals. This tends to be a more frequent meal intake compared to the standard 5 or 6 small meals a day because the overall calorie intake is greater. Therefore, in order to keep the meals at a reasonable size it is necessary to increase the meal frequency.

Reducing the meal size means that there will be a reduced insulin response because larger meals tend to induce a greater insulin response after a meal.

Carbohydrate intake is also an issue because it will also have an impact on insulin response, i.e. more carbohydrate, greater insulin response. Therefore, it is best to keep the overall carbohydrate intake to around 30% of overall calorie intake. This equates to around 30 grams of carbohydrates per meal, which is certainly not excessive for a hard-training bodybuilder.

To take this one step further, it is best to have around 25-30% of your carbohydrate intake in your post-exercise meal. Therefore, if your overall carbohydrate intake for a day is 180 grams, you may want to have 45-55 grams of carbohydrates in the post-exercise meal.

This means you will need to reduce your overall carbohydrate intake in the other 5 meals during the day, which will also reduce your insulin spike from these meals, making your body more inclined to burn fat throughout the day.

The post-exercise meal is possibly the most important meal of the day from a muscle-building point of view. Since the weight training session has put your body under a certain amount of stress, the body will then make an effort to adapt to that stress. One way it does that is by storing more nutrients within the muscle cells. This is called a cell volumising effect.

The post-exercise meal should also contain a substantial amount of protein as well as other nutrients that can assist with the cell-volumising/ muscle-building process. Creatine and l-glutamine are good examples.

Here's the best post-exercise protein shake to help you build muscle fast:

75-100 grams of fast-acting protein, i.e. whey protein isolate and/ or hydrolysed whey protein.
A fast-acting protein source can help to start the repair and rebuilding processes straight away.

45-55 grams of simple carbohydrates, i.e. dextrose (glucose) or maltose.
This, along with the fast-acting protein will help to promote a maximum insulin spike, which will then drive the nutrients into the muscle cells.

10-15 grams of creatine.
Creatine has a powerful cell-volumising effect.

10 grams of l-glutamine.
L-glutamine also has cell-volumising and muscle-building effects.

The shake should be made with water (not milk) to improve the absorption rate. It may also be worthwhile taking it with a glucose disposal agent supplement like, BCN's MultiSpice because it contains a good dose of cinnamon. This will help drive the nutrients into the muscles cells even more effectively.

It is important to note that the post-exercise shake should be consumed no sooner than 20 minutes post-exercise. Even though most bodybuilders will consume a post-exercise shake immediately after finishing training, since we want to burn fat as well as build muscle fast it is important to wait 20-30 minutes post-exercise before having the shake.

It is also important to minimse the fat in the shake because slows the passage of food from the stomach and will also reduce the insulin response.

Having a high insulin level post-exercise is a good thing because insulin is also an anabolic hormone (as well as being a fat-storing hormone) and it will therefore promote muscle building, especially when the body is in a depleted state as it is post-exercise.

The only time you want to have high insulin if you want to build muscle fast without putting on fat, is post-exercise. At all other times throughout the day you want to keep insulin as low as possible. The reason why it is okay to have high insulin post-exercise is simply because it will promote greater muscle growth through cell volumisation and because it won't store nutrients as fat because the body is in a depleted state. It when the body is already saturated with nutrients that it will stores nutrients as fat.

This is the same reason why it is okay to have more carbs in the morning with breakfast. Since your body has gone without food for many hours it is possible to have slightly more carbs with your breakfast without putting on fat.