While everyone else is doing everything to shed off the pounds, some women struggle with keeping them on.
Some of us are wanting to transform from skinny to strong but do not know where and how to start building lean muscle.
Here are 5 tips to help you become stronger and build lean muscle:
Work out your workout plan
Any workout plan can help you build muscle. However, experts recommend slanting your workouts towards the muscle groups you have trouble building. For some women, it could be the quads, for some the glutes. Target those areas at least twice a week for best results.
Set realistic expectations
Most women who start the muscle-building phase go one of two ways: Gain as little body fat as possible while sacrificing muscle development, or eat everything they want and just roll with the fat gain that comes with it.
Neither of these strategies is encouraged. Most women tend to lose fat while they are building muscle, which is a near impossible task. It’s better to strive to gain a little body fat while maximizing your lean muscle gain.
Bodybuilding experts recommend setting a goal of gaining 10-15 pounds of muscle per year.
Ditch the dieting
The most important key to successful muscle-building for women is increasing your caloric intake.
To put it simply: no calories, no growth. To generate new muscles, your body needs additional energy, more than what you generally need to maintain your current body weight.
Increase caloric intake carefully
First determine your maintenance calories by tracking your caloric intake in a mobile food log app for 3 straight days then take the average number. From there, increase your calories by 500, and in increments of 80 every week.
This reverse dieting helps increase your metabolism without upping your caloric intake all at once, which would then just be stored by your body as fat.
Track your macros
Tracking your macros allows you to gain more control over your nutrition and elicit better results.
The expert recommended meal plan consists of 40% carbohydrate, 30% protein, and 30% fat.
Read the full article on Bodybuilding.com where IFBB Bikini Pro Athlete Taylor Chamberlain shares her own tips for women wanting to start muscle-building.
lie says
thanks for the tips. Will surely follow them