Muscle Building Tips

Diet

The best way to build muscle is to check your diet. A bodybuilder needs good sources of high protein and complex carbohydrates to give energy to the body and enable it to build muscle.

A muscle building diet will differ from a normal diet firstly by an increase in protein and secondly by eating more regularly. The average person eats about 1 gram of protein per kilo of body weight where as a bodybuilder can go to 1.5 to 2.5 grams per lb of body weight, which is quite a big difference.

Protein is the key in muscle building.

When people don’t eat regularly they start to break down muscle. Part of a muscle building routine is to eat up to 2 hours every day, not massive meals but snacks containing protein and small amounts of carbohydrates.

Whey Protein

After training whey protein is ideal because it is absorbed quickly in to the muscles, opposed to the more natural proteins (which come from foods like your chicken and fish) which take longer.

Casein

Another good protein to take last thing at night is Casein protein which is slower to digest, so, Casein is ideal at night when you are sleeping. Some body builders may even get up in the middle of the night to take more Casein.

Training

Training regularly is another way to building lean muscle. In the long term start splitting up your muscle groups so that if you are training 5 times a week do a different muscle group each day. If you have only just started that may be a little too painful, so, you are better off doing your groups together.

It takes time to build muscle, the key is to gradually increase it and to change your program so that your body doesn’t get used to it.

Karen Norris is a personal trainer, nutritionist and a top Body Fitness competitor at National level. In 2007 and 2008 Karen won the North East Championships. Later in each year Karen achieved third place at the British Championship Finals. For more information visit Karen's website.