How To Increase Strength: Ultimate Guide To Getting Big And Strong Part 9

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Nutrition and Supplementation​

The importance of food and a solid eating plan or approach can’t be understated. Hard training much be backed by quality nutrition and proper intake. Without the proper nutrients or calories, you will limit your body’s ability to repair and strength muscle and connection tissue.

Weak eating creates a weak athlete. Strong, structure eating helps to maximize strength gains.

Strength Building Nutritional Basics​

To maximize performance you need to monitor your food intake just as much, if not more so, than your training. It is not good enough to “just eat healthy.” While healthy eating is a good thing, a muscle building eating plan has specific requirements that must be met:

1. Calories. You must be eating a consistent amount of daily calories. This intake should be substantial enough to allow the body to build muscle. Undereating is one of the major contributors to lack of gains.
2. Protein. You must be monitoring your protein intake. Increasing your daily protein intake while on a resistance training program helps to increase lean muscle mass. The human body is in a constant state of “protein turnover.” Muscle tissue is continuously being repaired and replaced. To maximize this repair, you must maintain a protein positive nitrogen balance.
3. Carbohydrates. Carbohydrates play two key roles in muscle building. The first is energy. Your body needs maximum energy to perform at maximum level. Second, insulin spike post workout. Insulin is the most anabolic hormone in the human body and drives nutrients from the bloodstream into muscle cells. When you finish your workout your muscles are desperately trying to repair and rebuild and are crying out for energy and nutrients. This is the only time when simple carbohydrates will benefit you for muscle building.
4. Healthy Fats. A low fat diet is not a healthy diet. The body requires healthy fats for a myriad of reasons. Undereating healthy fats can compromise sleep, lower cardiovascular function, slow recovery and increase the likelihood of overtraining. You must be monitoring your fat intake to some degree so that you are certain it is at a productive level.

How Many Calories do You Need?​

To help you determine your daily calorie requirement, you will first need to calculate your BMR, or basal metabolic rate. The basal metabolic rate (BMR) is a excellent tool for working out how many calories your body needs on a daily basis depending on the amount and intensity of the exercise you do. This tool works on a proven formula and is very accurate. The calculator uses two formulas to calculate your body's daily calorie requirements.

• To figure out your BMR: Online BMR Calculator.

Understand that your BMR is merely a guideline. You will need to make adjustments if you are losing weight, gaining weight too rapidly, or if you find you are not recovery quickly or adding strength.

Strength training is not the same as muscle building. While you will need to add some muscle over time to maximize your efforts, especially if you begin with less than perfect genetics, there is no off season and bulking cycles.

How much you eat is up to you and your goals. If you are trying to gain strength for a sport but not gain much weight, it is best to eat using what bodybuilders refer to as a “lean bulk” method. If you need to rapidly gain strength and size, there are several aggressive eating places notated below.

When it comes to raw strength, size is an important variable. Heavier athletes lift more than lighter athletes. If you doubt this, research reputable natural powerlifting records.

As a beginner rapid size gain can help maximize strength gains...IF you are training hard. If your training isn’t 100%, then extra calories are just a fast track to fat gains.

Experienced lifters will rarely benefit from radio weight gain. Building strength is an extended process. If you are an experienced athlete attempting to add 20 pounds of bodyweight, do so in a controlled manner.

Clean Bulk. A tight bulk is generally recommended for individuals who consider themselves to be at an average, or healthy weight. Use the following formula to determine your daily calorie needs for a tight bulk:

• BMR + 300 calories.

Aggressive Eating. If you consider yourself underweight, or a hardgainer, it will be beneficial to eat more aggressively. Use the following formula to determine your daily calorie needs for an aggressive bulk:

• BMR + 500 calories

Underweight individuals may need to add more than 500 calories to their BMR calculation if they find they are not gaining weight. If this is the case, add an additional 300 calories per day and monitor your weight for the next month.

Remember that all calculations are only starting points. If you are training hard and aren’t seeing results, add more calories to your daily eating plan. It is best to bump caloric intake by no more than 300 calories at a time.

For more great information on strength and muscle building nutrition check out the following articles:

• How to Create a Bodybuilding Diet
• Next Level Nutrition: How to Supercharge Muscle Growth with Workout Nutrition
• Post-Workout Nutrition: The Window of Opportunity
• Get Big, Not Fat: A Better Approach to Bulk and Build Muscle
• Meal Timing: Set Your watch to More Growth!
• Your Go-To-Guide to Gaining Muscle while Minimizing Fat Gains

How Much Protein do You Need?​

There are many other protein recommendations and formulas used in the weight training realm. Instead of relying on ratios or on grams per pound of bodyweight, it is easier to use this simple guideline:

• Men - Eat 35 to 40 grams of protein every 2.5 to 3 hours.
• Women - Eat 20 to 25 grams of protein every 2.5 to 3 hours.

Using this method, the least amount of protein men would eat on a daily basis would be 175 grams, and the most 240 grams. In general, 180 to 200 grams is sufficient for most natural lifters – unless you are 6’6″ and pencil thin.

Please don’t panic at the site of 240 grams of protein. It is at the high end of the spectrum, and may only be required by hardgainers with a fast metabolism. But it is surely not needed for most of us.

Determining Fat Intake​

Fat intake should comprise about 20-30% of your daily calories. The more daily calories you need, the closer this percentage should be to 30. Again, fat contains 9 calories per gram, compared to protein and carbohydrates which contain 4 calories per gram, making fats more calorie dense.

If you need more calories, the easiest way to eat more is by increasing your daily fat intake.

Determining Carbohydrate Intake​

Determining daily carbohydrate intake is rather simple. Since you have already calculated your BMR, you only need to subtract the calories derived from fat and protein intake to arrive at how many calories you need from carbohydrates.

Divide this number by 4 to arrive at the number of carbohydrate grams you need per day. For example:

• Step 1 – BMR. You calculate that your daily calorie requirement to build muscle is 3000 calories.
• Step 2 – Protein. You structure an eating plan based around 180 grams of protein, which works out to a total of 720 calories.
• Step 3 – Fat. You structure an eating plan with 25% of your daily calories coming from healthy fats. This is 750 calories, or 83.33 grams of fat.
• Step 4 – Carbohydrates – Subtract the 750 calories from fat and 720 calories from protein to arrive at 1530 calories needed from carbohydrates. This works out to 382.5 grams per day.

How to Structure a Meal Plan​

A strength training meal plan does not have to be complicated. The easiest way to approach eating is to structure your eating around breakfast, lunch and dinner. In between meals, or later in the evening, you will add snacks. These snacks will allow you to intake more protein and nutrients, helping you to recover and grow.

An effective meal plan will look something like this:

• Breakfast
• Snack
• Lunch
• Snack
• Dinner
• Snack

Here are some “rules” to better help you structure your meal plan:

• Frequent Protein – You want to eat a minimum of 30 grams of protein every 2.5 to 3 hours. For snack meals, protein feedings can be as simple as a whey shake, string cheese, eggs or a tin of tuna.
• Carbohydrate Timing – While it is ok to have carbs at every meal, focus on eating a larger amount of carbohydrates for breakfast, and during your post-workout meal.
• Healthy Fats – Don’t forget your healthy fats. Milk, cheese, nuts, almonds, butter and olive oil are great choices.
• Fruits & Veggies - Eat your fruits and veggies. A banana or apple along with a protein shake makes for a very convenient snack. You can also increase your veggie intake with a nice spinach salad, adding in veggies of choice (peppers, onions and more!)
• Variety - Eat a variety of protein foods, grain-based carbs, fruits, veggies and foods containing healthy fats. Everything you eat has a different amino acid and vitamin and mineral profile, and eating a variety of foods helps you to cover all bases.

Post-Workout Nutrition. You could argue that post-workout nutrition is the most important meal of the day. After a heavy and intense weight training session, your body is depleted of many vital nutrients including protein, glycogen (sugars used for energy), amino acids, and important vitamins and minerals. It’s absolutely essential that replace these nutrients as soon as possible to prevent catabolism (muscle breakdown) and promote anabolism (muscle repair and regrowth) and protein synthesis.

Additionally, to replace lost muscle glycogen and spike insulin, you can add fast digesting carbohydrates. Good examples of these are dextrose and waxy maize starch. Around 70g of carbohydrates is need for an adequate insulin spike.

Meals Per Day. How many meals per day is optimal for muscle strength and growth? This can be a hotly debated topic. Here are some points to remember when structuring your meal plan:

• Frequent feeding works. While eating more infrequently might work for you, eating every 2.5 to 3 hours has been a staple in lifting for decades, and for a good reason…it works and works well.
• Less frequent feeding. If you are only able to eat 3 to 4 meals per day, space these meals apart as much as possible, and make sure you are reaching a calorie and macronutrient intake level that can help you add strength and muscle. It may also be beneficial to supplement with BCAAs in between meals.

Is Paleo Eating a Viable option?​

Paleo eating focuses on the consumption of foods that were prevalent prior to the first agricultural revolution - the Neolithic Revolution. It was during this time (approx. 10,000 years ago) that man moved from a hunter gatherer lifestyle to a settlement-based agricultural lifestyle. The Paleo Diet emphasizes that for most of human history, man did not consume foods such as refined sugars and grains and high glycemic carbohydrates.

Paleo is a very viable option for the strength training athlete. It allows you to eat freely and to satiety without much fear of excessive fat gain, while encouraging only the consumption of non/lightly processed foods.

Common Bulking Approaches for the Underweight and "Weak" Trainee​

This section will look at several fairly common strength training bulking approaches. Each of these are meant to assist a small and weak athlete with putting on weight and strength as quickly as possible.

GOMAD. Gomad stands for a “gallon of milk a day.” This is usually whole milk, and it consumed in addition to an athletes 3 square meals per day.

Plus 1000. Coach John Christy has this advice when it comes to building rapid strength and size:

“It takes a lot of effort to eat enough to gain, which is one main reason, most trainees' fail - they won't work at it. Eat 1000 more calories per day than you eat now and you will gain muscle (as long as the training is stimulating).”

Mark Rippetoe. Mark Rippetoe is a respected strength coach and the author of Starting Strength. Here are some of his quotes regarding strength building and food intake:

“Milk is quite literally better than steroids for a novice lifter to grow on, and no supplement produces the same effect.”

“It is because over thirty years of direct observation has demonstrated to me that when trainees drink one gallon of milk added to their regular diet and train in a progressive linear fashion, they gain significant muscular bodyweight, and those that do not drink their milk, even in the presence of progressive linear training, fail to do this. They also fail to continue progressive linear training for the same length of time, because this is facilitated by the steady weight gain. I understand that you're asking me if I have controlled for other factors such as failure to do the program correctly, and the answer is yes, of course I have, because I am not a complete idiot. Those that will not do the program are not being considered when I make these remarks, because that would be too …obvious a hole in my analysis. The difference in the milk drinkers is that THEY GET BIGGER THAN THE ONES WHO WON'T DRINK THE …MILK. Please tell me that you understand this now."

“You guys that worry about eating clean are actually merely bodybuilders looking for justification for your obsession with abs. You cannot get big and strong on 3000 kcal/day. And you cannot eat 7000/day and eat perfectly "clean".”

Supplement Basics​

It's easy to get overwhelmed with all the different products on the market. This section will cover the different types of muscle building supplements, what they do, and how you can use them to help you reach your goals faster.

While supplements are not essential to build muscle, they can help you achieve your goals faster. Intense training needs to be backed up with solid nutrition, and it's often just not practical to get the nutrition you need, when you need it, from food alone. To realize your full muscle building potential you need a good diet and supplement plan.

Top Selling Supplements​

Protein. Protein is essential for building muscle. Without it, you simply will not grow. Protein is made up of amino acids, which are the basic building blocks of muscle tissue. Protein powders and protein bars are convenient and provide high quality protein.

There are two different types of protein powders available, whey protein and casein protein. Whey protein and casein protein should be used in different ways:

• Whey protein. Whey protein is perfect for those looking to build muscle. It's very fast ingesting, has an awesome amino acid profile, is low in fat and has a very high boiavailability (BV) score. Whey protein is ideal for whenever you need to get quality protein into your body fast, like straight after your workout or when you wake up in the morning.
• Casein protein. Casein protein is digested very slowly, between 2 and 7 hours. This means casein protein is used when you don't need protein right away. Casein is great to use before bed because the longest time your body goes without protein is during the night while you are sleeping. Casein is also an ingredient in many meal replacement products.

Creatine. Creatine is another awesome supplement for gaining muscle mass. It is naturally occurring in the body, and found in minute quantities in some foods like red meat. It's safe and very effective for anybody, especially if you've never used it before.

Creatine increases ATP (the main energy source muscles use for explosive power) availability so that you can perform more reps and sets and lift more weight, helping you to build muscle more quickly.

Weight Gainers. Weight gain products are great for helping you get the nutritional requirements and calories needed for muscle growth. To build muscle, you need to be consuming more calories that you expend every day. Some people need more calories than others. Some "hard gainers" need a huge amount of calories to grow.

Generally, weight gainers range from about 400 to 1,200 calories per serving. They're made up of whey protein, complex carbohydrates and fats. Many people who lead a busy lifestyle use weight gainers to drink between meals to keep their calorie count up.

Multivitamins. It may not seem like the most obvious muscle building supplement, but a good multi-vitamin play an important role in muscle growth and general health. If you are deficient in even one vitamin or mineral, your gains can really be hampered.

A good multi-vitamin is a must for the best gains in muscle mass, not to mention good health. People who are working out need more vitamins than the average person, so your supermarket brands won't cut it.

Glutamine. L-Glutamine is the most abundant amino acid found in muscle tissue. It helps prevent muscle wasting (catabolism) and improves recovery. The better and quicker you recovery, the sooner and harder you can hit it in the gym! Glutamine is also the primary fuel source for the immune system, so it can help prevent common illness. This means less chance you'll have to take time off your workout.

Glutamine is safe to take year-round. Glutamine should not be taken at the same time as creatine because they compete for receptors to be absorbed. Glutamine is often taken pre-workout and in your before bed protein shake.

Nitric Oxide Enhancer. Nitric Oxide is a free form gas that is produced in the body and is used by the body to communicate with other cells in the body. The fact that nitric oxide increases blood flow should make it of interest to lifters, as increased blood flow will serve to deliver more nutrients to muscles, thus helping muscles become larger when subject to stress. People are noticing huge increases in muscle pumps while using this product.

Many top nitric oxide products are also blended with energy enhancers to form a complete pre-workout drink.

Natural Testosterone Booster. As men age testosterone levels decrease. Raising your testosterone helps you to gain muscle, enhance your mood, maintain a healthy libido, and more. Testosterone boosters often include popular ingredients such as ZMA, Tribulus, and much more.

BCAAs & Amino Acids. Amino acids are the building blocks of protein. Bodybuilders can especially benefit from supplementing amino acids because they aid in repair, growth, and development of muscle tissue. Among the most beneficial and effective supplements in any sports nutrition program are branched chain amino acids. These are the essential aminos leucine, isoleucine, and valine.

Conditioning​

This section contributed by Gabe Wells of Bigger, Faster, Stronger of Texas.

The importance of conditioning within the realm of strength training is very imperative if you are to have a long and satisfying career. What conditioning does for the body; in a nutshell, is allow the body a chance to increase recovery time and work capacity. There are many more benefits to name; just these are the two important ones.

Examples:

• Sled Dragging: Dragging a sled forwards, backwards or sideways.
• Interval Running: Running sprints (20yd-100yds, half speed-full speed).
• Interval Running Uphill: Sprints going uphill, remember to walk back down otherwise you risk injury.
• Prowler Push: The ultimate in conditioning.
• Sledgehammer Swings: Find a sledgehammer and find a tire, swing away. Few hundred reps and your lungs will be screaming.
• Tire Flipping: A staple in strongman and football programs.
• Farmer's Walk: Another Strongman staple. Buy a set of farmer’s handles or grab the heaviest DBs and stroll for about 50-100 foot trips. Unbelievable grip builder and lung burner.

Sandbags, Kettle Bells, Truck/Car pushes are all weapons that you can add to your arsenal. The combinations are endless and you should experiment with all. There are many, many other forms of conditioning so remember to research.

One important rule to remember: allow yourself time for recovery between sets and training days.

Some advocate conditioning everyday. This may not be the best approach. Allow yourself time to recover between trainign sessions or you may risk a slowing of results. Start with 2-3 days per week and work your way from there.