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Structuring Your Training Focus and Diet
Taken from Variables for Weight Lifting and Exercise © 2001 Anthony Sell - All Rights Reserved
One of the most difficult manners of weight control is weight gain. Though this will seem odd to those who have been focused on losing weight, it is just as difficult to add and maintain lean muscle mass as it is to reconstitute body mass.
The key to gaining weight is to cause your body to enter a growth cycle. The best way to promote this is to change the nature of your caloric intake along with the physical demands that you are placing on your body.
Exercise must be maintained on a regular basis. Furthermore it will be important to utilize and exhaust all of the large muscle groups, i.e., Quadriceps, Hamstrings, Pectorals, Deltoids, Trapezes, Abdominals, Latissimus Dorsai, Biceps, Triceps, Gluteus, Gastrocnemius, and Adductors.
When these muscle groups are taxed and pushed to the point of fatigue, the body will be more capable of growth, as it will be healing and supplying nutrients. This type of exercise will also cause a nutrient deficit which will increase your appetite and boost your metabolism, making you capable for gaining and maintaining weight.
The next step which must coincide with activity is to reconfigure the amount of food that is eaten and the times at which it is eaten. It is strongly recommended that bodybuilders eat between five and six meals a day, for the purposes of gaining lean muscle mass.
Though your body will undergo a nutrient deficit, it will only take out from the food consumed the amount of nutrients necessary at the time of digestion. Furthermore, though the body with nutrients throughout the day in order to allow it to grow.
Third, it is important to have optimal levels of nutrition. This means that we must maintain the types of food content balance as discussed above. It is important to note that Optimal Nutrition is well above and beyond the Recommended Daily Values put forth By the government (these nutritional values and guidelines are meant to prevent malnutrition, not promote growth).
For weight gain, a slightly higher protein intake is best. It is recommended that athletes consume between 0.4g and 1.0g of Protein per pound of body weight, up to 300g/day. It is also important to consume a caloric intake greater than your maintenance level of calories. Your maintenance level is considered to be the normal amount of calories spent each day doing routine activities. If you are to gain weight, you must be sure that you are eating more than you need to.
Weight loss, on the other hand, requires a slightly different strategy. Though the food content balance will be high in protein, it is best to keep it slightly lower in fat content. Second, the level of caloric intake should be below maintenance level. The number of meals will be similar; to stave off hunger and snacking urges, it is best to eat more meals per day, but less per meal.
Thermogenesis is a great way of understanding how the body uses energy. Effectively, thermogenesis is the creation of heat. In order to create heat, the body must use fuel and spend energy, which can be measured in calories. All foods that are consumed can be considered in terms of their caloric value. Calories that are not spent are stored.
As the body releases calories, it causes a loss of fat and other energy stores. The best time to cause thermogenesis is after the largest meal in the day, usually the fourth or fifth meal (of six).
Ultimately, thermogenesis is the production of heat, caused by bodily functions such as respiration, digestion, and exercise. Walking for about half an hour shortly after this meal is a great way to combine convection (transference of heat to air) with exercise and digestion.
Consuming ice cold water is another way of causing the body to use energy to raise the temperature of the water to body heat levels. As mentioned earlier, the body will also begin to store fat if it is not getting enough supply of water. It is recommended that athletes should consume between one and two gallons of water a day, paying special attention to the increased needs on workout days.
It is also important to eat the largest meals during the middle of the day, rather than late at night, as food eaten prior to an evening's rest is more easily stored as fat. As far as aerobic activity, the best time will be early in the morning, before the first meal of the day.
This will have a synergistic effect on your metabolism. Meals sooner than three hours before bedtime should be avoided, as there is very little caloric demand on the body while it sleeps, so food eaten late at night will most likely be stored rather than spent.
As far as weight training with regards to weight lass is concerned, a split routine with several exercises per muscle group and several sets per exercise, with little rest between sets (less than 60 seconds) is a good way to create an aerobic demand while at the same time building muscle. It is the amount of muscle mass that is important, as the greater the percent of muscle mass is in the body, the faster and more efficient the metabolism will be. This in turn will allow for more efficient use of fuels.
During initial phases of any new training program a great deal of change in the body is not entirely noticeable. The muscle tissue will undergo several phases of reconstitution after each workout. Visible gain may take as long as two months to appear, though gains in strength and stamina will be more readily apparent. This phenomenon is especially true for advanced athletes who drastically change their training methods, plateaus are inevitable.