The phase in which athletes want to build new muscle is also known as the “mass phase”. To build muscle, the following building blocks are important:
- On the one hand, the muscle always needs a new stimulus to grow progressively. To be precise, the muscle has to be given a certain amount of overload by a specific training stimulus to grow in the regeneration phase.
- If you want to build up a lot of muscle fast, you should work out with additional weights or on suitable equipment in the gym.
- However, your training should be organized and planned so that you can reach your limits in each session. You can find this and other Workout Plans in our shop.
What role does nutrition play in building muscle?
An individual muscle-building diet helps you to ensure the necessary intake of sufficient micro and macronutrients and to achieve your necessary daily calorie balance. Especially in the mass phase, you should be careful to eat enough of the right calories, because a calorie surplus is essential for muscle growth. This excess of calories will be invested by your body into building new muscles.
It’s also very important that you get your calories from healthy foods so you do not gain body fat instead of muscle. Your body needs a balanced intake of healthy carbohydrates, good fats, and high quality proteins. In men, the calorie count in the muscle building phase can be very high, so that the intake of enough calories with healthy food can be more difficult than some think. supplements, such as protein shakes, can help boost your daily protein intake, but this is not necessary with an individual nutrition Plan from Upfit.
Should you lose weight first and then build muscle or do it the other way round? For more information, check out our article on building muscle and reducing fat at the same time. Your process would roughly be structured as follows:
- If you are clearly overweight, we advise you to lose a few pounds first. Get supported with an Upfit Plan for Weight Loss
- After the weight loss phase, you can start building muscle
- After the muscle building phasem you can define your body further by losing more body fat.
Sounds like a long and elaborate process, but it can actually be quite uncomplicated with the right nutrition and exercise Plans. The good thing is that you can always change your goal with Upfit – even several times. This means that you can, for example, choose the 12-month Plan and first achieve weight loss over a period of 4 months, then switch to Muscle Building for 4 months, then to Definition or Clean Eating.
In summary, you should focus on following a progressive exercise Plan and a generally healthy lifestyle with enough regeneration during your muscle building phase. Have a look at our Coach area – there you will find many more helpful tips and information about the muscle mass phase. Are your muscles not as defined as you’d like them to be? Then take a look at our free Body Definition Guide. There you will find everything about nutrition and training during the definition phase.
