A beginner’s guide to weight training
Whether you want to pack more muscle or achieve the figure you desire, weight lifting is always the right way to go. Weight training, also
November 17, 2021
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Body building is pretty much one of the most common goals for most of the people that work out on a regular basis. Whether recreational or competitive, it’s often a part of a healthy lifestyle as it requires you to take care of your body, both inside and outside the gym.
For maximizing the results of any kind of workout, focusing on the diet is essential, as eating the wrong foods can practically come in between you and your goals.
Bodybuilding is pretty different from powerlifting. Maintaining a well-balanced and muscular physique is very essential.
To achieve this, a lot of bodybuilders start off with an off-season that’s followed by an in-season of eating, also known as bulking and cutting phase. The goal of the bulking phase is to build muscle, whereas the cutting phase is dedicated to preserving muscle while losing body fat.
In the bulking phase, the bodybuilders eat a very high-calorie, protein-rich diet which is complemented by lifting weights intensively with a goal of building as much muscle as possible.
The cutting phase focuses on losing the fat as much as possible while maintaining the muscles developed during the bulking phase at the same time. The cutting phase is significantly affected by the changes in diet and a little change in exercise as well.
Bodybuilding is associated with a variety of benefits. To maintain and build muscles, bodybuilders exercise frequently where they work with resistance and aerobic training as well.
Resistance training increases the muscle strength as well as size. It’s highly correlated with a lower risk of many chronic diseases as well as other illnesses.
In aerobic exercises, bodybuilders can implement it to reduce body fat and improve heart health to protect themselves from many heart diseases.
As bodybuilders aim to increase the muscle size in bulking and gain physique while cutting, there needs to be a specific calorie intake for them to achieve these goals. This means that more calories need to be consumed in the bulking phase than in the cutting phase.
One of the most ideal ways to determine how many calories need to be taken is to weigh yourself at least three times a week and record what you’re eating.
If the weight stays the same, the daily number of calories eaten is your maintenance calories where you are just maintaining the weight, not gaining or losing it.
During the bulking phase, increasing your calorie intake by 15% is the most ideal method to gain results. And when it comes to the cutting phase, you should decrease your calories by 15% to gain the maximum results.
As you start achieving these goals, you need to adjust your calorie intake at least monthly to adjust to the weight changes.
During the entire phase, it’s always recommended not to lose or gain more than 1% of your body weight per week, allowing you not to lose much muscle during the cutting phase or gain a lot of fat during the bulking phase.
Your diet constitutes 70% towards your bodybuilding goals, the gym is just 30%. Focusing on your diet plays a very important role in reaching your goals.
Eating the right foods in the right amount allows your muscles to gain the maximum nutrients from the food and recover faster from the workouts to grow bigger and stronger.
On the contrary, wrong foods can leave you with negative implications more than positive ones.
And here’s what you can start with:
Even though cutting and bulking are different goals, the food remains the same. It’s just the quantity that’s different.
While most of the foods are fine, there are some foods that you should limit.
Alcohol – Alcohol negatively affects your ability to lose fat, especially when consumed in excess.
Sugars – Sugars have excess calories yet just a few nutrients. From candies to cookies and ice creams, everything is harmful.
Processed foods – When consumed in excess, deep fried and processed food can cause diseases. Stay away from fried fish, onion rings, cheese curds etc.
In addition to the aforementioned foods, you may also want to limit yourself in terms of buttery foods, creams, sodas, beverages, etc.
Bodybuilding is judged on masculinity or leanness rather than athletic performance. Achieving that body goal requires regular exercise and special attention to diet.
The dieting involved is typically divided into cutting and bulking phases and during which your calorie intake changes.
Eating a nutrient-rich diet and 20-30 gms of protein with every meal is very ideal for a healthy body.
This allows you to get all the important nutrients that your body needs for building muscle and improving your lifestyle.
Whether you want to pack more muscle or achieve the figure you desire, weight lifting is always the right way to go. Weight training, also
If you have been putting all that effort into your overall health improvement, you’d already have a pretty good idea about strength training. In fact,
