How to Get Bigger Muscles

At one time it seemed that only a few men were interested in building muscles and flattening their stomachs so that they looked like “Charles Atlas” or some Mr. America. But in the last few years more and more people have started exercise and muscle-building programs. These plans include exercise machines, free weights, special diets and all sorts of supplements that are meant to get people “ripped” or “cut,” to use the most recent slang terms.

There are a couple of approaches to the muscle-building idea. One involves a person who believes himself or herself to be skinny and the other applies to a person who is overweight and “soft.” The objective is the same – to build up those muscles. The key is to avoid fat or eliminate fat while producing lean, dense muscle. It’s not easy, but it is possible.

Many of the muscle-producing plans focus on the need to provide the body with the right amount of calories. A thin person has to have plenty of calories in the daily diet so the body has enough basic material to work with for muscle development. The overweight person, one with too much weight in fat, should take in fewer calories while following the muscle building program.

It’s necessary to do certain things to lose fat, with changes in diet and with particular types of exercise. But then it is also necessary to produce more muscle tissue. The progress can be very slow if the body has to do both at the same time. If you are a person who is trying to shape up and build muscle for the first time, keep in mind that losing fat might be the first priority. Let a small amount of muscle build up as you go along.

One key element in the muscle-building program is exercise – actually, two types of exercise – resistance and endurance. You must be willing to commit several months to the process, so this will take patience as well. In addition, you will probably gain a small amount of fat weight while building muscle, but this can be addressed in a second phase.

First of all, do some research and find a suitable weight-training plan – perhaps three days per week, starting slowly with lighter weights. On the days you don’t lift weights, concentrate on exercise and activity that will burn fat. In combination with this regimen, do a little homework and find a diet that puts the correct amounts of protein and carbohydrates into the body. This is key to giving your body the right base material to work with. The calorie intake should be slightly higher on weight-training days – calories from the right foods, of course.
It’s also essential to focus on particular parts of the body on weight-training days. Several excellent programs are designed to focus on upper body, arms and shoulders, then on lower body. With the right program you can lose several pounds of fat weight while gaining a much smaller amount muscle weight. In fact, that’s how the best programs work. Given a couple of months of consistent effort, your body will start to show muscle definition as you build muscle in small increments while losing larger amounts of fat.