New year resolution for gaining muscle not looking promising even after spending long hours in gym! Have you not asked yourself, what and how much to eat to gain muscle mass? Or, trainer suggesting supplements for faster muscle growth, but how supplements really can help to build muscle?
If these are your questions and if you’re looking to step your training up a level this year and begin making some serious improvements to your physique, like many of you who are willing to put on body mass.
You must understand muscle building process, diet and different type of supplements to help you.
Consider reading the full article, this article is for you, and you should find answer to your questions on muscle building. In bonus, Top 4 supplements listed for you to realize your body building resolution quicker.
Happy Reading!
Overview
Carrying lean muscle allows to become much more functional and productive individual, besides improving overall aesthetics.
But, building muscle is one of the hardest processes we ever go through. It isn’t something that we can do quickly, nor is it something that we can do halfheartedly.
If you’re serious about adding muscle to your frame, you must be willing to put the hard work in. When you hit the weight room to train, you likely want to get the most out of your workouts. If not, what’s the point?
If your sole purpose for weight training is to build muscles and you are working hard on it, you certainly don’t need us to tell you how difficult it is to gain real muscle mass with weight training alone.
We should definitely consider supplements than just concentrating in workout plans.
Muscle Building Supplements
In order to build muscle, we must also ensure that our diet is on point, and that we are training hard in gym at the same time. Assuming that we’ve got both of those boxes ticked, the next consideration will be supplements.
Supplements, if used correctly, can help to promote muscle growth in different ways. Here’s a more detailed look at how different supplements can help to build muscle mass, improve muscle strength or help with muscular endurance.
Supplements for building muscle
Up first, we’re going to look at how certain supplements are useful for building muscle.
As far as muscle growth goes, protein supplements are certainly considered to be up there among the best. In fact, whey protein is the best selling sports supplement in the world today, and it has held this title for many decades now.
In order to build muscles, our body requires protein. Protein is a macronutrient, which is essential for the growth and repair of muscle tissues. When we lift weights while in training, we aren’t building muscles at all.
We’re in fact doing the opposite. When we do weight trainings and strength exercises, we’re creating tiny rips and tears in our muscle fibres. When we rest, our bodies rebuild and repair the muscle fibres, rebuild them bigger and stronger than they were previously to adjust to the extra load.
Protein synthesis is the name of the process. Without protein, protein synthesis can not occur. Protein supplements provide convenient, rapid absorbing doses of protein, amino acids, vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients needed for the body in order to build muscle mass.
Supplements for performance
As certain supplements assist with muscle growth, there are also other supplements out there that can promote muscle growth by improving your athletic performance.
Creatine for example, is a very popular supplement in the world of bodybuilding. It helps to increase the amount of adenosine triphosphate, also known as ATP, that your body is able to produce.
Adenosine Triphosphate is a key source of energy for the cells in your muscles. The more ATP you produce, the more energy your muscles will have, and the harder they will work. This means that your workouts will become more conducive.
Pre workout supplements enriched with caffeine and amino acids as ingradients, that promotes stamina, mental focus, and endurance, can also improve your athletic performance. The harder you work whilst training, the more muscle mass you are likely to build.
Supplements for endurance
When it comes to post workout muscle growth and recovery, whey protein is of course very useful. But as it turns out, there are so many other pre workout and intra workout supplements with muscular endurance benefits, and not just after training supplements.
BCAAs, or Branch Chain Amino Acids, are very useful for recovery, as these can help to initiate protein synthesis. Other amino acids such as L-Glutamine, and Beta-Alanine are also very useful for intra workout nutrition. These can enhance muscular endurance and ward off fatigue.
Now that you have understood muscle building process, different types of muscle building supplements, and their specific usage such as post workout, pre workout, or even intra workout.
It’s good time for you to look at these nutritional ingredients to attain your muscular body dream.
Top Supplements to Build Muscle
Assuming that you’re following a smart training regime, and eating the right foods at the right time, and taking ample rest, the next consideration you’ll need to make is supplementation.
Here are top 4 supplements to build muscle mass, strength and endurance.
Whey Protein
Whey protein is the king of the mountain when it comes to building muscle mass. In order for our bodies to build muscle in the first place, they require access to protein in good amount. Protein plays a vital role in the growth and repair of muscle tissues, and it does this via protein synthesis.
In order for muscle growth to occur, you need to make sure you’re consuming more protein than your body is breaking down. Otherwise your sole purpose of consuming workout supplements would be defeated.
Whey protein is ideal because it is convenient, fast-absorbing, and provides a large concentration of protein and amino acids per serving.
Creatine
Whereas whey protein is literally the number one best selling bodybuilding supplement on the market today, creatine is at position two.
Creatine is produced naturally in our body, and is also found in red meat. However, increasing the amount in our system can provide athletic performance boosting benefits.
Creatine increases the amount of Adenosine Triphosphate, also known as ATP, that we produce naturally. It is a primary source of energy utilized by our muscles, or specifically, our muscle cells.
In simple words, by taking creatine, we are able to produce more ATP naturally, which means we are able to increase the amount of energy for our muscles to work harder, and for longer, before workout fatigue sets in. Meaning our muscle tissues can get more out of our heavy workout routine.
Beta-Alanine
Beta-Alanine is an amino acid that also improves your athletic performance and energy levels when exercising. This non-essential amino acid works, along with histidine, to produce carnosine.
Carnosine is stored within your skeletal muscles and is very useful while in training because it buffers lactic acid productions and accumulations as we exercise.
Lactic acid is a by product of exercise and it causes muscle cramp and fatigue. As carnosine reduces lactic acid production and accumulation in the muscles, our muscles can work harder, and for longer.
Branch Chain Amino Acids
Branch Chain Amino Acids, or BCAAs, as they are abbreviated to, are made up of three amino acids: Leucine, Valine, and Isoleucine.
BCAAs help to promote muscle growth in a number of ways:
To begin with, leucine in particular, helps to increase protein synthesis rates.
Studies have also found that BCAAs can help to reduce muscle fatigue while in training, and these also help to preserve existing muscle tissue. During exercise, BCAAs have been also found to reduce the breakdown of proteins.
Conclusion
Heavy workouts, and draining all your sweat in gym is not enough, for serious body mass development, you must also consider supplements along with regular healthy diet, and good rest.
Supplements are made with different ingredients and different composition to help in different phases of muscle building process. There are pre workout, post workout and intra workout supplements, and you must consume in appropriate quantity for building muscle mass, strength and endurance.
