Building Lean Muscle: What Starters Should Know

• Building lean muscle mass is important for weight loss because it increases your metabolism
• Eating specific portions of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats is key to building lean muscle
• Combining multi-joint weight training and aerobic exercise is good for your lean muscle workout

Building lean muscle is an important part of improving overall health and fitness. Lean muscle speeds up metabolism so you burn more calories and store less fat. Plus, the extra muscle helps give you the ability to do more exercises so you keep getting healthier. However, to reach that point you need to know how to get started.

Diet Requirements

When you are building lean muscle, the worst thing you can do is cut back what you are eating drastically. Your body needs energy to create the muscle mass. If you cut back, your body will start consuming the lean muscle you do have and will slow its metabolism down so that you cannot lose weight.

Instead, you should follow specific guidelines on what types of foods to eat. In terms of calories, you should reduce those slowly and always keep in mind that you need a couple of hundred extra for the muscle building. That means if you should be consuming 1,500 calories a day, you might need to consume 300 to 500 more calories per day to achieve your goals.

Building lean muscle requires eating a balanced diet, including muscle building goods. That means you need healthy sources of lean protein. No more than 20% of your diet should be protein, however. And that protein should come from low-fat sources, such as fish and poultry. Do not fry anything because this leads to higher levels of saturated fat which are bad for you in other ways.

No more than 70% of your diet should be devoted to carbohydrates. Remember to avoid simple sugars, such as that found in candy and sweets. Instead, look for complex carbohydrates, such as whole wheat items and vegetables. Look for sources that are high in fiber which is important for overall good health, too.

The remaining 10 to 15% of your diet should be for fats. Try to use healthy fats, including olive oil and omega-3 fatty acids, whenever possible.

Lean Muscle Workout

Just eating the right foods isn’t going to be sufficient for building lean muscle. You also need to have a workout routine. Although you may assume weight lifting is all it takes to add muscle, that’s not the case. Your workout should include some weight training but also aerobic activities that improve the functioning of your lungs and heart.

When you do weight lifting, avoid the isolation activities which are designed to increase muscle mass in certain areas of the body, such as the biceps. Instead, you want to use compound areas that are going to require the use of multiple joints in the body. Squats, chin ups, and bench presses are a couple of the most common of these training exercises.

Remember to know your limits. You don’t want to push yourself so hard you injure your body. That could set back all of your building lean muscle efforts. Instead, do about 20 repetitions of each exercise a couple of times a week and give your body a chance to heal afterward. Without allowing for healing time, you increase your risk of injury dramatically.

The information supplied in this article is not to be considered as medical advice and is for educational purposes only.