How To Increase Your Body Mass

August 12 2014

How To Increase Your Body Mass

Still struggling to pack on the pounds? Most people have the opposite program: they struggle to lose weight. We all know that a strict dieting and exercise plan will help you lose weight, but gaining weight is a bit more complicated. It required an extensive overhaul of your daily eating habits as well as a focus on strength/resistance training exercises. With hard work, dedication and persistence, though, you can successfully increase your body mass.

Cut Back On The Cardio

Small amounts of cardiovascular exercise is perfectly fine, but you should cut back on it if you are trying to gain weight. Take a look marathon runners and you’ll notice that most (if not all) of them are skinny. This is due to the fact that running, and other forms of cardiovascular exercise, burns fat and muscle.

If you’re going to include cardio in your workout routine, try limiting yourself to performing it no more than once every other day. Perhaps you can strength train one day and perform cardio the next.

Lift Heavier Weights at Fewer Reps

In order to really beef up your body, you need to focus on lifting heavier weights. Even if you can only perform 2-3 reps, you should aim to lift the heaviest weights your body can physically handle. A couple reps of a heavy weight is more beneficial in building muscle mass than a dozen reps of a medium weight.

Some of the different muscle-building workouts include the following:

• Bicep curls
• Chest presses
• Shoulder presses
• Tricep dips
• Squats
• Deadlifts

It’s also worth noting that you should not strength train on a daily basis. The body needs a minimum of 48 hours to rest and recover between strength training exercises. Constantly hitting the gym day after day will prevent the body’s normal healing mechanism; thus, restricting your muscle gains.

Eat More Protein

Strength training is only one step in the process of building more muscle mass. Being that protein is the precursor to muscle synthesis (AKA muscle formation), you must consume an adequate amount of it daily.

What’s considered an appropriate amount of protein? Nutritionists and health experts continue to debate this question, but a good rule of thumb is to consume a minimum of 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight. If you weigh 175 pounds, for instance, you should consume 175 grams of protein each day.