How to gain lean muscle

A new month means a new focus and this month we’ll be looking at how best to gain and add lean muscle onto your frame within your training regime. Gaining lean muscle is many people’s aim when working out and can be achieved over time with patience and commitment with both your training regime and your diet.

When thinking of adding lean muscle there are many things to consider from your diet, to your lifting habits, your regularity of training and your effort levels. Before you begin a quest to add lean muscle we need to think of what we mean by the phrase ‘lean muscle’.

Adding lean muscle means simply adding muscle to your frame without the added fat or storing extra carbohydrates during your dietary intake.

The aim here is to build on an existing frame of your body and add masses of purely protein based muscle. We are not bulking here and the key is to still eat a lot of protein but make sure that we avoid any added or extra carbohydrates that could add unwanted weight. So where do we start?

We begin by looking at your diet and how it affects the way you build muscle over time and the time frame that building lean muscle is expected to be created over.

When we build lean muscle we need to think of consuming around 1.5g of protein per pound of bodyweight. So for example, if you weigh 180lbs in bodyweight then you should aim for an intake of 270g of protein throughout each day. This may seem like an awful lot and like a struggle to achieve but it is the bare minimum you should be aiming for when adding muscle to your frame.

This amount of protein will see you feeding with the vital building blocks of protein to your body and really amplifying the way your body feeds throughout each day. Anything less as a pure protein intake will see you probably burning the calories and the existing muscle you have built. This will be detrimental to your efforts and you won’t see the same results as a consequence.

This can be done with smaller higher in protein meals and also with supplementation of your diet with protein products and vitamins. If you eat three meals a day at the moment them you should up that amount to somewhere between four as a minimum and six as a maximum. This will get your body’s metabolism moving quicker and make you feel hungrier throughout each day, combined with your increased need for protein and your training efforts this is a plan to make sure you are building lean muscle with the appropriate feeding habits.

Try to snack where you can with only high in protein foods and smaller protein filled options if you are struggling with six meals of high in protein foods. Alongside this you’ll maybe need to up the fibre and greens in your diet in order to help the processing of a higher amount of protein in your system as it becomes tougher to break down over time. Think steamed vegetables and stick to only fresh fruits and nuts for that sweeter touch if you like a kick of sugar in your diet. Keeping most things natural and fresh will only add to the improved way your body can break down the higher values of much needed proteins and vitamins.

Hydration is key also to your diet changes and can be just as important to your new lean muscle regime as your food intake is. Make your first drink of the day 500ml-1litre of water to keep yourself hydrated right from the get go and aim for around 3-4 litres on most days, this will also help your kidneys and liver to break down the remaining protein structures which will avoid any potential problems with your vital organs during this increased intake of protein.

You should also, where you can, avoid caffeinated drinks as much as possible as they will only give you a short burst of energy and the downfalls can be much harsher than the brief uplifting effect they may have when you initially take them in. In some cases they can be a cause of dehydration and cause muscles to cramp up during exercise so steer clear where you can and switch to herbal teas for a different kind of uplift in the morning if you need one.

Next week we shall begin to break down what tips there are for foods and supplements you should be thinking of introducing into your diet. We’ll look at how best to supplement a lean muscle development and what food groups to eat more of and what to avoid at all costs.

Meanwhile take these ideas, put them into action as you start your new lean muscle training regime and just ‘Do The Damn Thing!’