Muscle growth is beneficial for well.. EVERYONE! Whether you’re looking to improve your strength and agility, fasten your metabolism, improve your muscle tone, increase size, daily functionality or lose body fat, increasing your muscle mass can help.
What influences muscle growth?
A variety of factors such as age, gender, food intake, exercise regime, health conditions, genetics and sleep can all affect your ability to grow and maintain muscle.
What is the perfect muscle growth recipe?
Typically speaking, a balanced diet high in essential nutrients, regular exercise and adequate sleep is the winning recipe for muscle growth. However as the human body is a complex mechanism, sometimes the ability to increase muscle mass isn’t so simple. In saying this, there are some great natural ingredients that you can add into your muscle growth recipe that can make a big difference!
Ingredients please..
With all the conflicting information readily available at our fingertips, it can be a little overwhelming where to begin, but fear not because here are some great and easy places to start:
- Protein intake: Protein is one of the essential macronutrients that our body requires to build and maintain muscle, and to produce energy. Depending on the amount of physical activity you do daily, will depend on the amount of protein that your body requires. For example:
- A sedentary adult should aim for 1.2-1.8g of protein/kg of body weight
- A healthy and active adult should aim for 1.4-2g/kg of body weight
- An active adult wanting to build muscle should aim for 1.6-2.4g/kg of body weight (Morton, et al. 2018).
- Drink water: Hydration is important for keeping your body alive and running, in relation to muscle growth it helps to transport the nutrients that produce protein and glycogen structures (which builds muscle). As the body loses water during exercise, it is important to replenish this as dehydration hinders muscle contraction, reducing the tone (Lorenzo et al., 2019).
- Carbohydrate intake: Important fuel for muscles as during digestion they are converted to glycogen, the energy stored in muscles. This energy helps to give your body the energy it needs to power through workouts as well as ensure the body doesn’t break down muscle instead for energy (Børsheim et al., 2004).
- Good fats intake: The unsaturated fats in our diet increase the body’s HDL (good cholesterol) levels which increases the production of growth hormone and amino acids. Amino acids are the body’s building blocks of muscle and protein (Moore & Philp, 2020).
- Ginseng: Supplementation of the superfood ginseng has shown to increase muscle recruitment, accelerates muscle recovery after eccentric exercises and reduces exertion rate while increasing activity rate during hypertrophy training (Cristina-Souza et al., 2022).
- Creatine: Creatine is a great supplement to compliment exercise and muscle growth by improving the energy to muscle cells produced during high intensity exercise. By doing this it helps to increase strength, muscle gain and energy production (Cooper et al. 2020).
Which kind of exercise is best?
Weight training (training with the use of body weight and gym weights) is essential for improving muscle growth and mass, there are a few things to consider so you get the most out of your exercises. To achieve hypertrophy (muscle volume growth) during training you should aim for 3-6 sets of 10-20 reps. To keep up with this volume it is important to allow for rests between sets, anywhere from 30-90 seconds break is optimum to promote muscle fatigue and a release of muscle building hormones such as testosterone and human growth hormone. For every movement there is a concentric phase (muscle contracting part of the movement) and eccentric phase (muscle lengthening part of the movement). Focusing on the eccentric movement of the exercise is also a great technique to fully fatigue the muscle (Krzysztofik et al, 2019).
Tone it down a little..
As with anything, consistency is key. There is no need to run yourself into the ground with weight sessions every single day or follow a restrictive diet in order to improve your muscle mass. The best way to begin is by setting realistic and achievable goals tapered to your lifestyle. For example if you work 5 days a week and have kids to parent trying to train 6 days a week may not be achievable on the weekly, begin with 3 sessions a week and after a few months of being able to stick to this then consider adding a day. Remember – you will get better results training consistently 3 times a week then yo-yoing between high and low weeks.
Many small efforts make a big difference
Trying to add even a few tips from the above into your training and food regime can make a significant difference for the little effort put in! For more information on getting the most out of your exercise and energy with some specific endurance foods, read here. If you have any questions relating to this we would love to answer them for you, give us a follow on instagram and DM us your questions today!
References
Børsheim, E. Cree, M. Tipton, K. Elliott, T. Aarsland, A. and Wolfe, R. (2004). Effect of carbohydrate intake on net muscle protein synthesis during recovery from resistance exercise, Journal of Applied Physiology, 01 feb, 2004. https://doi.org/10.1152/japplphysiol.00333.2003
Cooper, R., Naclerio, F., Allgrove, J., & Jimenez, A. (2012). Creatine supplementation with specific view to exercise/sports performance: an update. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, 9(1), 33. https://doi.org/10.1186/1550-2783-9-33
Cristina-Souza, G., Santos-Mariano, A. C., Lima-Silva, A. E., Costa, P. L., Domingos, P. R., Silva, S. F., Abreu, W. C., De-Oliveira, F. R., & Osiecki, R. (2022). Panax ginseng Supplementation Increases Muscle Recruitment, Attenuates Perceived Effort, and Accelerates Muscle Force Recovery After an Eccentric-Based Exercise in Athletes. Journal of strength and conditioning research, 36(4), 991–997. https://doi.org/10.1519/JSC.0000000000003555
Krzysztofik, M., Wilk, M., Wojdała, G., & Gołaś, A. (2019). Maximizing Muscle Hypertrophy: A Systematic Review of Advanced Resistance Training Techniques and Methods. International journal of environmental research and public health, 16(24), 4897. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16244897
Lorenzo, I., Serra-Prat, M., & Yébenes, J. C. (2019). The Role of Water Homeostasis in Muscle Function and Frailty: A Review. Nutrients, 11(8), 1857. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu11081857
Moore, D. Philp, A. (2020). Editorial: Nutritional Strategies to Promote Muscle Mass and Function Across the Health Span, Front. Nutr., 02 October 2020
Sec. Sport and Exercise Nutrition, https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2020.569270
Morton, R.W., et al. (2018). A systematic review, meta-analysis and meta-regression of the effect of protein supplementation on resistance training-induced gains in muscle mass and strength in healthy adults. Br J Sports Med.