What is the best way to build muscle?

Your muscle requires strength. Yes! strength is the size. The heavier the weights you lift, the bigger your muscles grow, the stronger your body becomes.

Your muscle mass will increase in order to lift heavier weights. Lift heavy weights and you’ll gain muscle mass naturally.

Here are the best tips to gain more muscle mass quickly:

• get stronger

As I said, more strength is more muscle. Increase the weight you lift on the deadlift, squat, bench press, and your overall muscle mass will increase because strength is the size.

Try to lift more than last time. If you don’t lift more than last month or year, you are not building muscle.

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• train smart

You should train for muscle gain not for fat loss. Focus on lifting heavy weights for 6–8 reps and avoid using light weight for high reps.

Do exercises that work several muscles at the same time, integrate compound movements like squat, bench press, rows, and deadlift. This kind of movements increases the release of testosterone.

Here is an example of a Full body workout plan :

1 – Dumbbell Split Squat (Leg)

Alternatives:

• Single-leg press
• The Bulgarian Split Squat
• Squat

2 – Deadlift (Back)

Alternatives:

• Dumbbell deadlift
• One-armed dumbbell deadlift
• Bent-over rows

3 – One-Arm Dumbbell Row (Upper Back)

Alternatives:

• Bent over barbell row
• Hammer strength pulldowns
• Cable row

4 – Bench Press (Chest)

Alternatives:

• Dips
• Push-Ups
• Hammer Strength Chest Press

5 – Dumbbell Overhead Press (Shoulders)

Alternatives:

• Standing Overhead Barbell Press
• Behind-The-Neck Press
• The Partial Overhead Press

6 – One-arm overhead dumbbell triceps extension (Triceps)

Alternatives:

• Tricep Pushdowns
• Close Grip Bench Press
• Lying Dumbbell Tricep Extensions

7 – Dumbbell Curl (biceps)

Alternatives:

• EZ-Bar Curl
• Wide-grip standing barbell curl
• Hammer Curl

8 – Seated Calf Raise (calves)

Alternatives:

• Dumbbell jump squat
• Standing calf raise
• Jump rope

9 – Plank (Abs/Core)

Alternatives:

• Dip/Leg Raise Combo
• Barbell Russian Twist
• Barbell Rollout

To avoid injuries, start lifting weights and increase the weight frequently, and don’t forget to use a proper form.

• Go on a caloric surplus

Your body needs calories to fuel workouts and feed the muscles. You can follow the best training plan in the world, but without getting enough nutrients, your muscles won’t grow and recover. Some guys need 3000 calories to bulk, I need 3600 calories.

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• Calculate your calorie needs

To gain muscle, you have to consume calories more than your body needs to maintain weight.

First, calculate your basal metabolic rate (BMR) then calculate your total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) by multiplying your BMR and your average activity level.

BMR for men: (12.7 * height in inches) + (6.23 * weight in pounds) - (4.7 * age) + 66

BMR for women: (4.7 * height in inches) + (4.35 * weight in pounds) - (4.7 * age) + 655

Activity level:

• Sedentary (little to no exercise): 1.2
• Lightly active ( exercise for 1–3 times per week): 1.375
• Moderately active (exercise 3–5 times per week): 1.55
• Very active (exercise 5–7 times per week): 1.725
• Extremely active (exercise twice a day): 1.9

Example:

A very active man (age: 22 years old | height: 72 inches | weight: 173 pounds)

BMR = (12.7*72)+(6.23*173)-(22*4.7)+66 = 1954 calories

TDEE = 1954 * 1.725 = 3372 calories

Conclusion:

This very active man needs a lot of calories to maintain his body weight (3372 calories), to gain muscle with a minimum of body fat, he should increase 300–500 calories. So he should now consume 3372 + 300 = 3672 calories each day.

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• Consume more healthy fat

People think that consuming healthy fats will make them gain more body fat. The truth is high-fat foods are high in calories (1g gives you 9 calories) and may help you to regulate your hormones.

You must include fat in your diet, take 0.5 grams per pound of your body weight. It will help you for maintaining optimal cell structure and hormone levels.

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• Eat more protein

Consuming more protein may help you repair and rebuild muscle tissues and recovery after a hard weight lifting session.

Increase your daily protein intake, 0.8 to 1.4 grams per pound of your body weight. A guy with 180 pounds of body weight should consume 200 grams of protein per day.

The best protein sources are beef, eggs, chicken breasts, salmon, lentils, shrimp.

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• Get enough sleep

The lack of sleep causes a lot of health issues, including hormonal distributions, obesity… It decreases human growth hormone and increases cortisol (stress hormone) levels.

Try to sleep for 6–8 hours per night, recovery is important for muscle growth as well as diet and training. And there is no better way to recover than sleeping.

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Metabolism and body type (Something you may consider)

Some people burn energy more than others do, some of them turn energy into muscles, others turn it into fuel for exercise energy.

There 3 body types:

• Ectomorph: Short upper body, long legs, long arms, with little fat storage. An endomorph has a fast metabolism, which makes gaining muscle a bit harder, he needs more time to reach the goal.
• Endomorph: The opposite of the endomorph, he is naturally fat with a slow metabolism, he has low carbohydrate tolerance. An endomorph needs to avoid sugary foods to get the minimum of body fat during the bulking.
• Mesomorph: Large chest, well-defined muscle, and strong body. He is naturally muscular with high testosterone and growth hormone levels.

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Something you should know:

If you follow an effective training program, clean diet, and recover, you can gain 1 kg of lean muscle mass per month or 12 kg in a year.

You may gain more than 1kg per month when you start lifting, your muscles store glycogen to fuel your workouts and glycogen binds water, and this water increases your body weight.

4 Proven Ways to Build Muscle

Just so you know I am not a dinggleberry blowing smoke up your bunghole via the internet, here is my own transformation (no this photo is not photoshopped and no I’ve never used any illegal substances)…

My Internal Shift:

1. Define Your “Why”

Here is the kicker though, in order for your “why” to power your vehicle it must have enough horsepower.

For example, 4 a cylinder 100 horsepower “Why” = “I want to get in shape to look sexy”

Pretty generic why….

Our job is to take another step further and unearth your deepest desire and motivation for wanting to get fit.

On the flipside a supercharged V12 “Why” = “I want to get in shape so I can show up in my life authentically. I want to build a body which awakens my inner confidence and allows my greatness to shine through to the world. I am tired of hiding and feel uncomfortable in my body, I am ready to level up and become the best me”

See the difference?

Here is the deal, even with a successful training/nutrition plan and a clearly defined “why”

Sh*t is still going to be hard along your path.

You’ll have ups.

And you’ll most definitely have downs.

The key is to have a “why” so powerful and inspiring that it will propel you through the natural undulations.

2. Have a plan

Cliche I know, but this is ground zero along your fitness journey.

After coaching over 112 clients in the last 12 months, I have learned that nearly every single one of my clients struggled immensely before joining Thrive Coaching for one reason...

They were lost in the gym.

They felt as though their workouts weren’t bringing them closer to their goals.

And on top of all that, they felt blindfolded in the kitchen.

In the majority of cases, they knew exactly the results they desired for themselves

but they simply didn’t know how to obtain them.

They would dabble with some random workout they found from scrolling through instagram...only to leave the gym feeling hopeless and confused.

Feeling as though their efforts did little to bring them closer to their dream body.

Same was true in the kitchen.

The all to common pattern was to jump from one fad diet to the next, in hopes that one of these silver bullet diets would give them the results they were looking for.

Keto one week followed by Whole30 a month later.

They were on the figurative fitness hamster wheel.

Trying hard, but getting nowhere.

Sound familiar to you?

The central issue here is that their efforts were hodge podged and lacked any clear direction.

Pretty difficult to have consistency and motivation when you don’t have a clear plan of attack, huh?

3) Honest Assessment

Once you have clarified your “why” and have a plan which will drive you towards your vision, you need to take an honest inventory of yourself and your efforts.

Are you training with proper form/executing your exercises conciously or letting your ego get in the way?

Good form and execution is grossly underrated IMO.

Are you listening to your body or aggressively training through injuries?

Nothing will put the brakes on your progress faster than a long term neglected injury.

Are you truly bringing your A game to your workouts or half heartedly putting in effort?

Effort…most don’t go it. Do you?

Are you stay consistent and trusting the process or constantly getting sucked into new fads and trends like an caffeine infused ADD chimpanzee?

In an age of social media influencers spreading information which is equivalent to a steaming pilling of horse dung, you must be careful who you listen to and how often you change things up.

Side note: most times, changing things simply for the sake of “changing things” is a horrible idea. Please avoid this rookie mistake of program hopping frequently.

My Practical Shifts:

1. Train Progressively

Without a shadow of doubt, mechanical tension based training should occupy 40–60% of your time in the gym.

The reality is, your body wants to stay in homeostasis.

It does not want to change.

For a natural lifter, simply getting a “sick pump” in the gym with your bros is not enough to kick your body out of this state of wanting to be unchanged.

You must apply a stimulus which is truly challenging.

There are many ways to implement progressive overload, but far and away the most “scalable” long gains producing strategy is to consistently get stronger on your compound lifts overtime.

Our bodies have mechanosensors which sensitive to the magnitude and temporal aspect of load (weight on the bar).

These magical internal little gains producing gremlins spark anabolic and anti-catabolic signaling pathways through mechanotransduction.

In layman terms….

Lift heavy things.

Eventually lift heavier things.

Do this with enough volume, and you will get bigger.

2. Periodize your training

Your training program should not be binary.

It must be dynamic.

It must account for changes in volume, intensity, and rest overtime.

Training is stressful…like really stressful.

In order for your body to adapt your must periodize your training.

This can be done via deloading, or simply having periods of high volume training followed by lower volume training.

3. Focus on your shadow

Let’s be honest….

Most peoples only metric for success in the gym is simply how “good” you look.

If you fall into this category (myself included at times), you want to maximize your shadow.

What the heck do I mean by this?

This means prioritizing development in the illusory muscle groups.

This includes your: deltoids, lats, calves, and the like.

These are the muscles which when trained properly can give you the illusion of having a supernatural physique.

4. Protein is actually important

This is perhaps the only point which the “bro scientists” have gotten right.

No, you do not need to be slamming protein shakes immediately post workout or eating 300g of it daily…

but you must be conscious of your macronutrient balance (carbs, fats, and protein).

For my first two years of training, my post workout meal was peanut butter and a bowl of cereal.

Yikes…

(FYI In a perfect world this post workout meal would have been 20–40g of easily absorbed protein , 40g o f starchy carbs, and little fat. )

As a blanket statement, I recommend .6–1g of protein per pound of bodyweight daily.

While it is hard to quantify the exact benefits I saw after I began tracking my macros two years into my fitness journey, what I do is that my results began to skyrocket around the exact same time.

Food for thought (literally).

Hope that helped:)

vegan muscle diet

How to Finally Lose Those Annoying Last Pounds On a Raw Vegan Diet While Feeling Full and Satisfied for Hours After Every Meal!

How can I increase my fitness?

Once we know what physical conditions we have, the next step is to improve them. For this I give you 5 practical tips that will help you a lot on your way to a healthier life

1-Take care of your diet

The way you feed yourself will depend on your progress. To eat in a healthy way, I recommend two aspects. First, learn to prepare your food, because knowing what you eat and the way it was prepared will help you to have control over your diet. Eating healthy does not have to be boring; Be creative in the kitchen and this will help you both achieve your goals and save money. Second, avoid processed foods , as they contain sugars and preservatives that harm your health and therefore affect your physical condition. Buy more vegetables, vegetables, fruits, eggs and meats (red and white).

2-Create your training ruin and follow it

Organize a training plan according to your physical abilities and establish the time you will spend. Thirty minutes a day 4 times a week is a good start. Find the activity that best suits you, whether it is running, walking, swimming or doing functional exercises. The important thing is that you work your body as a unit, that is, doing exercises where as many muscles are involved as possible.

3-Train by circuits

When doing aerobic activities (running, walking or swimming) train by circuits, doing short repetitions at your maximum capacity. This type of training is very effective because it is a high intensity work that will help you burn more fat, develop and improve your cardio respiratory capabilities in a short time. I give you an example:

Trot 5 to 10 minutes at a gentle pace to warm up, then do 10 repetitions of 20 seconds at full speed and rest 40 seconds. You can also do this by bicycle, swimming or jumping rope.

4-Work your flexibility

Muscle flexibility is very important to avoid injuries. We must understand that, as we get older, we lose it and that is why it is essential that we work it. At the end of your workout spend at least 8 minutes to stretch all the muscles, to relax and to avoid pain after training. In addition to maintaining our muscular health, flexibility improves circulation, balance and coordination, which is very important in older people to avoid falls. It also improves posture and helps fight stress.

5-Train or play in a group

If you do not like to train just join a training group or invite your friends to exercise with you. This will make you feel challenged and motivated to achieve your goals. One way to exercise and have fun is to play with your friends or your family sports such as football, basketball, volleyball or any activity that helps you stay active outside the routine, in addition to sharing good times will help to substantially improve your physical condition .

Here is an example of a routine you can do from the comfort of your home:

Heating

-2 rounds rest 1 minute between series.

-50 jumping jacks or marine jump as fast as you can.

training

-2 to 3 rounds without rest (depends on your physical capacity).

-20 squats.

-20 push-ups or push-ups.

-20 kneeling up.

-20 abdominals.

Remember to work your flexibility. Always stretch your muscles.

This routine can be followed for 1 to 2 weeks and you can add more rounds, or if you prefer, more repetitions per exercise. It is a complete body routine that you can do anywhere without much space or much time. A final tip: do it as fast as you can.

What is Origanum majorana and how is it healthy for us?

Origanum majorana is a perennial shrub from the lip family. Moss leaves are used for seasoning and are very common in Mediterranean cuisine in general and Italian in particular.

Para-medical uses:
According to popular medicine moss antiseptic properties, and analgesic and for moss leaves many uses:

-Origanum majorana antiseptic properties so it is very effective in preventing colds, against    mouth infections.
  And throat and cough.
- Tea relaxes nervousness, reduces mental stress
- Relieves toothache and headaches
- Reduces menstrual pain
- Regulates minor digestive disorders, dissipates gases and strengthens stomach and liver   activity
 Effective against sea sickness. Drink before sailing
 According to popular medicine, the leaves are also added as an ingredient in herbal tea mixtures, for example the tea used to boost milk production in lactating women.

According to folk medicine, the essential oil extracted from the moss is effective against joint and muscle pain, rheumatism and healing of wounds and bruises. According to folk medicine, the oil is also used to treat psoriasis on a mental background.

Uses as a spice:
Owners (fresh or dried) use to season meat and fish, salads, soups, sauces, egg and potato foods, cheeses and turkey fillings. It also serves as a spice for pizza and can be added to the bread dough and oil for a gentle aroma. The dried origanum majorana sold as spice also contains thin branches and inflorescences. Origanum majorana is an ingredient in the French spice blend Herb de Provence.

The Top 7 lean Muscle-building Foods

1. Eggs

Eggs have been vilified for years as artery-clogging foods. But further research into the role of dietary cholesterol Opens a New Window. and heart disease shows that for most people, the two are not linked. Eggs have since returned to the spotlight as a health food, especially for building serious muscle. The cholesterol found in eggs yolks serves at the scaffolding for steroid hormones, and the ½ a gram of leucine in each egg is like throwing gasoline on your muscle-building fire.

2. Nuts

Nuts are a must for any guy struggling to put on muscle weight. 1 ounce of cashew or almonds contains 150-170 high quality calories. Nuts are the perfect blend of protein, fats, and fiber, allowing you to get the extra calories you need without having them pad your waistline. Nuts are also extremely portable, making them the perfect thing to snack on during the day if you need to increase your calorie intake.

3. Protein Shake

A protein and carbohydrate recovery shake should be the cornerstone of your muscle-building program. Drinking a shake consisting of protein and carbohydrates before your workout sets the stage for optimal muscle growth and nutrient usage. Research from several universities shows that this power nutrition combination puts the brakes on excess muscle breakdown, jacks up protein synthesis, rapidly refills stores of muscle energy, increases blood flow to your muscles, up-regulates creatine transport, and improves your body’s ability to process and use carbohydrates for hours following your workout.

4. Full-Fat Cottage Cheese

Cottage cheese’s muscle-building powers come from two different components. Cottage cheese contains a high proportion of casein, the slow-digesting dairy protein. When you eat casein, your blood amino acid levels rise slowly and stay elevated for longer than if you would have eaten whey (the other dairy protein). Cottage cheese also contains live cultures—also known as good bacteria—that will help you break down and absorb all the nutrients you need to get bigger and stronger.

5. Chickpeas

Chickpeas should be your anytime carb source of choice. If you are having trouble getting big and staying lean, replace some of the rice and grain in your diet with chickpeas. This versatile bean contains 45 grams of slow-acting carbs per cup along with 12 grams of fiber.

6. Lean Beef

For decades, beef has remained at the top of the list of best muscle-building foods—and for good reason! Beef contains a muscle-building combination of protein like essential amino acids, B-vitamins, and creatine Opens a New Window. . Beef also contains a mixture of saturated fat, which can support healthy testosterone levels, and monounsaturated fat, for heart heath. As an added benefit, people who eat more red meat report feeling lower levels of anxiety and stress, according to research from the University of Melbourne.

7. Rotisserie Chicken

Rotisserie chicken should be your emergency muscle food. Available at almost all supermarkets, rotisserie chickens provide you with readily available ready-to-eat high quality protein in a delicious package. Have one or two breasts, or mix and match light and dark meat—whichever fits your diet.

Hope you like it :-).

If you have more ideas comment below.