10/05/2010 UPDATE: This article has been published in Australian Ironman Volume 17 Number 4.
Plan and Structure Your Training
Have you developed specific, time critical, measurable and realistic goals to accomplish? As the old adage goes, “failing to plan is planning to fail”. Without direction to your training, how do you know if your training is effective? You need to know where you’re headed with your training, so take the time to determine exactly what you want to accomplish.
Knowing your goals clearly will allow you to plan and structure your training accordingly. To obtain optimal results, you need to be able to adhere to a structured training regime rather than lifting whatever weights you feel like at the time. By following a methodical and well thought out approach, this will allow you to assess your progress and determine whether or not your training is effective with respect to your goals.
Measure Your Progress
Have you ever looked in the mirror one day to be impressed with your physique, only to be disappointed the following day? This subjective approach to self-improvement is what can cause you to lose track and fail in your bodybuilding attempts. How do you know if your hard work is paying dividends?
An unbiased approach to your progress is invaluable. If you have objective and quantitative data available, you can assess whether or not your approach to bodybuilding is effective. You can easily collect some basic information including:
- Body mass
- Body composition
- Girth measurements
- Exercise results
Knowledge is power. Why not use it to your advantage?
High Intensity Workouts = High Quality Results
Exercise is a stimulus that you place upon your body. If the stimulus is strong enough, your body will adapt (and overcompensate a little) to handle this overload more effectively next time. If we consider weight lifting, your muscles develop in size and strength as a response to weight lifting that has created an overload.
As you can see, intensity is a key component to your training. Not taking each workout to your full potential may inhibit the physical stress placed on your body, thereby reducing your results. Keep the intensity high and your body will react accordingly.
Recovery is Key
You do not build muscle during your workout. Your workout is a form of physical stress that provides a stimulus only. Upon the conclusion of your high intensity workout, your body will be fatigued to the point where it must recover in order to handle this overload more effectively next time. This period of recovery is when hypertrophy takes place.
Since this is when muscle growth occurs, it is essential that you obtain adequate recovery. Neglecting this period of growth can lead to overtraining, during which time you will hit a plateau that impedes further muscle development. To ensure that you facilitate optimal recovery, ensure that you:
- Sleep 7-8 hours per night
- Follow an appropriate nutritional regime
- Limit your workout duration and frequency to avoid unnecessary fatigue
- Periodise your training, or train in phases rather than continually performing the same programme
- Allow for breaks between training cycles to facilitate recovery of the central nervous system
A Long-Term Mindset is Fundamental
Natural muscle growth does not happen rapidly. For most of us, it takes many years of hard work, dedication and discipline to gain significant lean muscle tissue. It is therefore important that you approach your training with a long-term mindset.
Arguably the most important aspect to developing muscle mass is consistency. You need to be consistent with your training, nutrition and recovery for a long time span. In order to accomplish this, you need to develop a bodybuilding lifestyle that you enjoy. If you do not associate pleasure with good nutrition and regular training, you will not succeed in obtaining optimal and sustainable results. After all, we do what we most enjoy; so make bodybuilding enjoyable!
Practice Healthy Nutritional Habits
Bodybuilders certainly have unique eating requirements. The most obvious necessity is an increased protein intake to provide the body with sufficient amino acid supply for muscle synthesis. Carbohydrates and fats are also required in greater portions.
Whilst an increased macronutrient intake is commonly practiced to enhance gains, an overall healthy approach to nutrition is often overlooked. For instance, plant foods such as grains, vegetables and fruits contain thousands of phytochemical compounds responsible for optimal health. A full array of phytonutrients cannot be found within any supplements available today. Thus, a person consuming a diet heavily reliant on supplements may be malnourished.
In fact, we obtain greater health benefits from the sum of components found within whole foods, as compared to consuming these same compounds in isolation from one another. In other words, whilst a multivitamin may contain an array of nutrients, they will not be as effective in your diet as if these same vitamins and minerals were sourced from food instead. For the mathematically minded, this law of synergy implies that 1+1=3.
It makes sense that looking after your health will allow for all bodily processes to operate in an optimal manner. Hypertrophy is no exception. Although supplements are very important to obtain optimal growth responses, ensure that your diet contains a variety of natural whole foods too.
Carbohydrates are your Friend
With all these low-carb diet’s around, it can be tempting to reduce your carbohydrate intake and bump up your protein consumption instead. This could be a mistake costing you significant muscle growth. Apart from carbs being necessary to replenish muscle glycogen levels and boosting energy levels, carbohydrates are a key component to muscle development.
Muscles require amino acids (the building blocks of protein) to be sourced from the blood stream in order to synthesise new muscle tissue. This is known as protein synthesis. In order for amino acids to be utilised in this process, the presence of insulin is required. Without insulin, amino acids cannot be transported into the cell.
Insulin is a hormone secreted to regulate blood glucose levels. Upon digestion of carbohydrates, your body secretes insulin to counteract the rising sugars in your blood. This is when muscle hypertrophy can peak.
A side note on insulin – in addition to carbohydrates, dairy also has a profound insulin response. You can use this to your advantage by consuming a low-fat dairy product (eg. Skim milk) a little while after your post-workout shake. The insulin response will encourage hypertrophy.
