Bodybuilding: Muscle Gain and Body Fat
If you're anything at all like most bodybuilders, your ultimate desire is a simple one: To have an impressive, muscular physique with razor-sharp definition and the envy of everyone around you. You want to be huge, and you want to be shredded.
You want to be huge, and you want to be shredded as well. Because of the strong desire for this "ideal body", most people eagerly dive into their programs headfirst. Everyone is motivated to bulk up, but at the same time are afraid of putting on excess body fat.
To significantly gain muscle - and to add as much of it to your frame in as swift a period of time as possible - there is always the fact that you'll inevitably gain some extra body fat to go with it.
This is just one of the realities of the bodybuilding process. If you're truly committed to bulking up, there's no other way around it: It's a fact you'll have to accept.
In order to gain muscle size, you must consume a surplus of calories in order to support protein synthesis. However, there is no way to divert 100% of this caloric surplus towards muscle growth. A certain amount of it will always end up as stored body fat.
As all bodybuilders know, in order to make dramatically change your appearance in the quickest amount of time, the most effective way to do so is to focus on gaining size. For a set period of time, gaining size will be your goal. Only then can your priority shift to focus on losing body fat.
Based on what we've covered so far, the goal of a bulking phase is simple: build as much muscle size as possible while minimizing body fat gains. Your goal during a bulking phase is never to LOSE body fat; it's only to gain as little as possible.
There are three main tips to accomplish this:
1) Use a precise caloric surplus. A caloric surplus is required to fuel muscle growth, but haphazardly cramming more food down your throat beyond what is necessary to build muscle tissue will simply cause you to gain more fat.
The general rule of thumb for muscle gain is to take 15-20% more calories than you need to keep your weight. If you are already within this range, there's no need for you to add more.
2) Watch what you eat. You should be concentrating your diet on lean, high quality proteins, high fiber carbohydrates, and unsaturated, healthy fats.
Instead of thoughtlessly eating every food item at hand, be sure that you're primarily keeping to lean protein sources. It's also important to keep your blood sugar levels stable by choosing the right kinds of carbohydrates and avoiding large amounts of saturated fats.
3) Implement cardio sessions. While you don't have to push yourself too hard, having a few cardio sessions during the week is a good way to minimize fat gains during a bulking cycle.
Keep these sessions no more than 10-20 minutes long, sticking to high intensity/low duration forms, as these kinds of session have the advantage of not causing the same amount of muscle loss as longer duration forms.
Once you've achieved the amount of muscle size that you want, a goal which is completely up to you as an individual, it's time to move into a fat loss cycle. In this way, you can focus on stripping off the excess body fat gained during the bulking cycle, while still maintaining muscle size.
However, just keep in mind that while bulking up, gaining some body fat is inevitable and the trick is simply to minimize it rather than totally avoid it.
Don't waste your time, effort and cash on B.S. "Miracle Programs" that don't deliver results! Learn the honest truth revealed by a genuine Body Building expert and at last start noticing the gains you want. Visit us if you want to read more Bodybuilding Articles