MUSCLE GAIN.

Abs are not made in the gym, they are made in the kitchen.

Contrary to popular belief, losing weight and getting ripped abs doesn’t come from the gym. No. It comes from the way you eat. The best way to get the abs you want is to eat right. You have to diet correctly. It’s a lot easier to eat right and work on your abs, than it is to drink a lot of beer, eat Junk food and constantly fight against the treadmill.

Eating right for muscle gain

To gain muscle, you should eat about 15 to 18 times your bodyweight in calories. You should have about 40% protein, 30% carbohydrates and 30% fat, focus on eating a lot of protein. Don’t focus too much on carbohydrates. Carbohydrates quickly turn to fat if you don’t burn it.

Protein

If you are serious about getting stronger and bigger, you should eat at least 1.5 to 2 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight. Minimum is 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight. So if you are 150 pounds, you should look to eat 300 grams of protein each day. Sounds like a lot, right? Don’t worry about it. There’s a lot of sources of protein that will do the job for you. Eat a lot of chicken, fish, meat, cheese and eggs.

Fiber

Eat about 20 to 35 grams of fiber per day. The best sources are vegetables, whole grains and whole oats.

3 meals per day is not enough anymore.

If you’re serious about getting some mass, you have to reduce your meal size and increase your meal frequency. Eat a lot of healthy snacks here and there. Don’t try to eat 3 huge meals on one day. That won’t cut it. Rather, eat a lot of little healthy snacks Through out the day. Eat six meals per day.
Never go longer than three hours between meals.
Do not avoid dietary fats. They are your friend.

The best times to eat

Eat a high protein meal right before you go to sleep.
Eat a high protein meal the moment you wake up.
Eat a high protein meal one hour right before your workout.
Eat a high protein meal one hour right after your workout.
(Your most important time to eat is one hour right after you workout.)

Water

Drink about .66 times your bodyweight in ounces per day. Not soda or juice, but water.
The importance of water cannot be overstated. If you get dehydrated, your ability to Function properly drops like a rock.

The negative effects range from sluggishness and fatigue to headache and mental meltdown. Make sure to drink water, not coffee or soda, through the day, even on non-workout days. Many bodybuilders make a gallon of water a day a good goal, but you probably want to adjust that number to your body size, climate and level of activity.

Carbohydrates

Avoid carbohydrates late at night. Carbohydrates are your primary source of fuel for workouts,
Much like gasoline works for your car. However, unlike a car you can’t fill up the tank and have it stay nicely filled until morning.

Instead, a big load of carbohydrates before bedtime is more likely to be processed and stored away as body fat since there is no immediate need for the surplus energy.

Your diet calculator:

As mentioned before, you need to eat 18 times your weight in calories. So if you weight
150 grams, you need to eat:
150 X 18= 2700 calories per day
Now divide that number by the amount of meals that you eat per day.

So, that’s 2700 divided by 6. And you get 450 calories. You have to eat about 450 calories per meal.

Good sources of food for mass and muscle:

Beef, fish, poultry, whole eggs, pasta, bread, cheese,
Nuts, whey protein, potatoes, rice, canned tuna

Bad sources of food for mass and muscle:

Deli meat, potato chips, alcohol, cakes, tofu, soy
Protein, bean, curd, ham, spam, candy, sweets.

How to read food labels:

1. Total grams of fat X 9= Total fat calories per serving
2. Total fat calories per serving/ (calories per serving)= percentage of fat calories per serving.

The importance of diet

It’s important that you watch what types of food you eat; avoid all bad fats (saturated
And Trans fatty acid) and simple carbohydrates (excluding post workout, where simple
Sugars are good to have), eat foods rich in protein, complex carbohydrates and good sources of fat, (e.g. monounsaturated fats, fish/flax seed oils, olive oil).

And make sure you count your calories.

If you are trying to get rid of body fat (cutting) make sure you are consuming 500 calories less than what you burn during the day, and when you are trying to put on muscle (bulking) make sure you are consuming 500 calories more than you burn during the day.

Whey Protein

In my opinion, the best supplement available. Whey protein if used correctly renders
other forms of protein (food and supplement) obsolete. Whey protein has been shown to contain, the perfect combination of amino acids (building blocks of protein).

Creatine

Creatine assists energy production and, as a result, leads to more intense workouts. It
Also super-hydrates muscle cells with water and causes muscle fibers to grow bigger and
stronger . Creatine is a compound naturally manufactured in our bodies (in the kidneys,
liver and pancreas), which is converted into creatine phosphate upon entering the muscles.

MASS GAIN.

Go for heavy weights and low reps

A lot of people who don’t know any better usually do a workout that they do for 11 to 14
reps. that’s too light. If you want to gain mass and strength, it’s best to do something
Heavy where you can only 4-7 reps. that’s all you need.
If you are serious about gaining mass, go for free weights, and not for Machines.

The best free-weight exercises are the following:

Bench Press (chest, shoulders, triceps)
Overhead presses (shoulders, triceps)
Pull-ups/Rows (back, bicep)
Squats (legs, lower back)
Dead lifts (legs, back, shoulders)
Bar dips (shoulders, chest, and arms)

Look to increase your workload a little bit at a time.

You need to increase your workout load a little bit at a time. Don’t overwhelm yourself by trying to overload all at once. That’s a myth. It’s better to lift a slightly heavier weight each   week. These small increases should be easy to manage, give or take about 5 grams

Don’t over train!

Give your body some time to recover. Contrary to popular belief, you do not grow while
working out, your growth occurs from your rest after a workout.

Group the muscle groups that you work out.

Work out each body part at least once a week. So do biceps and back one day, and then
Focus on another group of muscles.
Something like, this:
Group 1: Chest, shoulders, triceps
Group 2: Back, biceps
Group 3: Legs
Keep your exercises 75 minutes or less. Get in. Work out hard. And get out.
Rest 3 minutes between sets

Don’t focus too much on one muscle.

I’ve seen guys doing six and seven exercises for chest alone. That’s insane! Then they
wonder why they don’t get bigger. You should only do a maximum of 3 exercises per body part.

Don’t work out a muscle part if it’s sore.

When the muscle is sore, it means that it’s in the process of growth. You want to give it time to heal. That’s how you get stronger. Each time a muscle gets sore, it is stretching and growing. Give it time to heal.

Work out the legs

Some don’t think that working out the legs is important. They think to themselves,

"But I only want to work on my upper body.” It doesn’t work that way. You have to work
out your lower body as well. When you work out your legs, it allows you to get stronger all over.

Ends