Building strength and muscle are not only good for a better body shape, but it also has lots of health benefits. Scroll to read the tips, diet, and exercise to build muscle.
Is muscle really that important?
Building strength and muscle is not only good for a better body shape, but it also has lots of health benefits.
Our muscles are the key to supporting us to walk, run or climb. Our muscles will lose with age, and the bones, ligaments and tendons of the musculoskeletal system become weaker and more fragile. The downside is you’ll have a greater risk of bellow diseases:
- Osteoporosis
- Arthritis
- Chronic back pain
- Frailty
- Fractures
Therefore, NHS recommend that an adult should do 2 sessions or more of muscle-strengthening exercises a week.
By doing so, it will help to:
- build up muscle strength and endurance
- improve body co-ordination for preventing falls when you get older
- reduce joint pain
- regulate the level blood sugar
- decrease the risk of pre-diabetes
How long it takes to build muscle?
Building skeletal muscle is a process of repairing injured muscle fibres when you do resistance weight training.
According to the study “Muscle injuries and strategies for improving their repair”, muscle regeneration takes 3-4 weeks after injury.
If you eat a balanced diet with sufficient training, you can gain 0.25–0.9 kg of muscle per month.
However, there are several factors that will affect the ability to gain muscle mass, such as
- You don’t sleep enough
- The amount of protein is not enough
- You are overtraining or the frequency and volume of strength training are not enough
How can I grow muscles faster?
Here are the tips for growing muscles faster.
- Do 5-10 mins of warm-up exercise
- Start with a lighter amount of weight with a smaller number of repetitions
- Increase the amount of weight gradually
- Include compound movements (multiple large muscle groups) and isolation movements (target specific muscles) exercise
- Avoid overtraining and limited the total sets of workouts
- Incorporate cardio exercises like jogging
What should I eat for muscle gain?
Your protein intake is very important when it comes to building muscle. For adult over 19, the recommended protein intake amount is 0.8 gram (g) x your body weight(kg). For example, A 54kg women need to take in around 43 grams of protein a day( 54 kg X 0.8 g =43.2g).
Here’s the list of food which is rich in protein:
- beef
- pork
- seafood like shrimps
- chicken breast
- fish like tuna, salmon
- eggs
- dairy products, like cheese, Greek yoghurt
- beans
- nuts
- seeds
Apart from that, carbs and fat are also vital for building muscles. The suggested macronutrient ratio between your protein, carbohydrate, and fat intake is listed below:
- Protein: 30-35 % of daily calories
- Carbs: 55–60% of daily calories
- Fat: 15–20% of daily calories
