Best Ways to Put on muscle

If you’re training for your 500m race and building good muscles at the same time, that probably won’t work out great.

While cardio and weights often make for an excellent fitness combination – stretching them to extremes will prove to be counterproductive because of the contradiction in training physiology and biochemistry. It’s best to give your all to muscle building if that’s your ultimate goal. 

You need about 2,800 calories for building 1 pound of muscle. However, you can’t just eat the right number of calories and be done with it. You need to disperse it across your day. Generally, eating every 3 hours is ideal.

It’s critical that you eat the right foods at the right time to increase your muscle mass. Eating more smaller meals compared to a few large meals decreases the size of your stomach. It will curb your cravings, trim your waist, and keep you full for longer.

Not eating for an extended duration can result in over-eating at your next meal. To stop this, remember to eat at a fixed time every day, and eventually, your body will begin to feel hungry at such fixed times. 

The best bodybuilders who ever lived were strong. They knew that more strength is more muscle. Increase your squat to 140kg / 300lb, the bench press to 100kg / 220lb, and the deadlift to 180kg / 400lb. Your overall muscle mass will increase because strength is size.

Forget about the swelling and pain. Instead, focus on adding weight to the bar. Try to lift more than last time. You will get stronger, which will increase your overall muscle mass. If you are not lifting more weight today than you did last month or year, you are not building muscle.

Your body uses food to fuel workouts and regain muscle. Your muscles cannot recover and grow if there is a shortage of food. Most men need at least 3000 kcal/day to build muscle. Lean guys with a high metabolism need even more to gain weight.

Your body uses protein to build new muscle and restore damaged muscle tissue after training. You need about 1.8 g of protein per kilogram of body weight (0.82 g/lb) to maximize muscle recovery and build muscle. For a 175lb / 80kg man, that's about 135g of protein per day.

If you plan on training long and hard, your body will need a healthy dose of carbohydrates as fuel so it can sustain the constant effort and maintain the glucose stores in your body.

If you don’t, you’ll end up breaking down your muscle for protein, and subsequently carbs. Low-carb diets and intense bodybuilding training is not a good combo. Based on the volume and intensity of your training, for each pound of body weight, your body will need about 2.3 - 4 grams of carbs per day.