How do I build muscle?

MissMe2morrow

I'm very close to my goal weight (about 5 lbs to go) but I want to have more muscle than I do now. I've seen it written all over MFP that a person can't really build muscle while functioning on a calorie deficit, so now I'm unsure about how to go about gaining some muscle-- my only guess would be to actually lose more than my proposed 5 lbs (say 8 or 10?) and then try to eat above my maintenance calories with lots of protein to gain back some weight and cross my fingers that it's muscle...? :huh:
Advice please! :flowerforyou:

Galathea

nope, won't work.
Only with eating protein you won't gain muscle weight. Muscles only get built, when your body needs them, which means ... work out.

Read this, a friend of mine posted it. I hope it helps you a bit.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/Kasper1274/view/answered-a-question-80890

I'm sure others here can also explain a lot of things to you much better than me. Just adding my two cents here. LOL

bstamps12

You can build muscle while at a calorie deficit, you will just take longer to lose your 5 lbs. That said, you will lose inches as you build muscle, but the pounds will come off slower. I am training for a triathlon and I have MFP set to lose 1 lb per week which gives me 1510 cals/day before exercise. I eat back a lot of my exercise calories but I definitely do not lose 1 lb per week although I lose inches every single week. It's because I am building muscle doing things like uphill cycling, running, swimming, and strength training.

How you go about building muscle depends on your ultimate goal. If you really want to be X lbs by X date, then put off building muscle until after you have lost your 5 lbs. If your goal is just to fit into a smaller size pants or look good in a bikini or something, then I think you would be okay to start doing exercises now that build muscle...remember that the more muscle you have, the more calories you burn doing everyday activities, so after you have built some muscle, it will be easier to lose inches and pounds.

Hope that made sense? lol

pyro13g

You can add muscle on a deficit, millions upon millions have done it.

jbug100

I started strength training about 3 months ago while using mfp. 1200 cal target. Ate all exercise cals. Guess what...plenty of muscle started showing up. I wasn't crazy about the idea of weights and strength training when I started. It takes extra time and energy and soreness, but it has really paid off. I also added some kettlebell workouts so I wouldn't get bored with the same old exercises. I also would like to lose another (last) 5 lbs, but I am making that a secondary goal. Building lean muscle mass and maintaining and being healthy is my primary goal. Good luck to you.

rileysowner

What Pyro said on building muscle on a calorie deficit. It is slower that way, but very possible as long as your diet is providing the nutrients like protein that a needed. Your body fat is used to make up the energy deficit, not to build muscle.

How do you build muscle? You use weight training that overloads the muscles so they need to get stronger, and thus get bigger. The easiest way to do this is use weights, although it is possible to do it using body weight exercises. It will take a lot longer using body weight as far as I know, but I am only getting into studying body weight exercise in the last few days.

The exercises you should focus on are the ones that use lots of muscles like squats, deadlifts, military presses, bench presses and the like. They all work several muscles. Once you have selected the exercises put them together into a workout where you do each exercise for 8-10 repetition. The last repetition should be the last one you could do without a rest. If you can do more than ten you should increase the weight. This 8-10 repetition is called a set and you should probably do about 3-5 sets. Then go on to the next exercise and repeat the same pattern. Just as a warning, if you starting out doing 5 sets of 8-10 repetitions of all your exercises the first day you worked out, you would be very VERY sore. Start slow and ramp it up. Do something like this every other day, and you can build muscle. If you want more information you would be well served to do some googling as there are lots of sites that will not only tell you the basics but give you free beginner workouts.

With muscle building, more workouts are not always better. Your muscles need time to rest and rebuild after a weight training workout because in progressively overloading them, you are stressing them and they need time to fix that. If you overtrain you will not see any progress, and risk injury. For a beginner, if you push yourself, 2-3 times a week is probably plenty.

MissMe2morrow

Thanks for all the great responses! I know that I need to do weight training in order to build muscle (I normally do but have been slacking lately!), I was just second-guessing myself from all the posts saying that calorie deficit and muscle building don't mix.
Regarding my actual goals-- I don't really care what the scale says as much as I care about the way my clothes fit and how I look (as bstamps says) in a bikini. I figure the scale, like everything else, is just a tool to help tell me whether or not I'm on the right track.

I've adjusted my carbs:protein:fat ratio in my food diary to 50:30:20 and will start back to some weight training this week. My current BMI is 20.8 and I'd like to get down to about 18. I'm currently set to a calorie deficit of 400 daily. Do you think I need to adjust anything? Thanks so much for all the help!

koosdel

What Pyro said on building muscle on a calorie deficit. It is slower that way, but very possible as long as your diet is providing the nutrients like protein that a needed. Your body fat is used to make up the energy deficit, not to build muscle.

How do you build muscle? You use weight training that overloads the muscles so they need to get stronger, and thus get bigger. The easiest way to do this is use weights, although it is possible to do it using body weight exercises. It will take a lot longer using body weight as far as I know, but I am only getting into studying body weight exercise in the last few days.

The exercises you should focus on are the ones that use lots of muscles like squats, deadlifts, military presses, bench presses and the like. They all work several muscles. Once you have selected the exercises put them together into a workout where you do each exercise for 8-10 repetition. The last repetition should be the last one you could do without a rest. If you can do more than ten you should increase the weight. This 8-10 repetition is called a set and you should probably do about 3-5 sets. Then go on to the next exercise and repeat the same pattern. Just as a warning, if you starting out doing 5 sets of 8-10 repetitions of all your exercises the first day you worked out, you would be very VERY sore. Start slow and ramp it up. Do something like this every other day, and you can build muscle. If you want more information you would be well served to do some googling as there are lots of sites that will not only tell you the basics but give you free beginner workouts.

With muscle building, more workouts are not always better. Your muscles need time to rest and rebuild after a weight training workout because in progressively overloading them, you are stressing them and they need time to fix that. If you overtrain you will not see any progress, and risk injury. For a beginner, if you push yourself, 2-3 times a week is probably plenty.

Best answer above.
Also, the most neglected part of muscle building is recovery time and the biggest mistake is over working.
Stay with the basic compound exercises that work the largest muscle groups.

I have a four day routine with three exercises per day. That's it. These huge 15 different exercise routines that take five hours are for people much much bigger than your and me.

The exercises I recommend for a beginner are; dead lifts, Squats, chin up/pull ups, and military presses.

As far as building muscle on a calorie deficit, its not impossible just slow. I do think you would be happier with your results if you upper to maintenance calories.

Good luck!

TrainingWithTonya

The ability to build muscle is a cause of a lot of confusion on here. Can you build muscle on a calorie deficit? Yes, but you have to have adequate intake of carbs and protein to do it. Yes, I said the evil C word, Carbs. The primary fuel for the muscles during anaerobic activity like weight training is carbohydrate. If there isn't adequate carbs stored in the muscle, then the body has to break down protein to convert it to carbs to fuel the activity. If the body is breaking down protein for fuel, then it doesn't have it to build muscle. The number one saying in our program at school is "Carbs spare Protein" because eating carbs allows the body to use the protein for muscle growth and repair. So, before you even think of starting a weight training program to build muscle, make sure you are getting a balance of carbs, protein, and fat. Our head strength and conditioning coach for the football team actually recommends a 60/20/20 split of carbs, protein, and fat for his players. The reason for that is because of how the body actually builds muscle. When you first start weight training, the strength gains you see are from neural adaptations. Basically, the nervous system starts working better and recruits more muscle fibers. After a couple of weeks, you will start seeing size increases. Those size increases aren't actually muscle fibers. It's glycogen (carbs) and water. While you will hear how bad that water weight is on the boards, it's actually what you want from strength training. Glycogen can only be stored in water and technically, your muscles are 75% water, so this water is necessary to have the extra glycogen in the muscles to fuel the workouts. Having that extra glycogen storage allows the carbs you are ingesting to be stored in the muscles and not as fat and the protein you are ingesting to be used for building and repairing the actual muscle fibers. It also allows you to do more intense workouts because of the extra fuel available. Those more intense workouts are what then starts to stimulate the increases in muscle fiber size. Increased muscle fiber size is what is actually increasing the metabolism and burning extra calories just to maintain itself even when you aren't working out. The number one substrate that is used to maintain muscle fibers and to fuel the metabolism at rest is fat. Thats why people say muscle burns fat. While you are lifting weights you aren't burning much fat, but the maintenance of the muscle you build does burn a little fat all day long. Unfortunately, the increases in glycogen and water and eventual increases in muscle fiber size means an increase in scale weight. This is why I tell my clients to not look at the scale as their goal because increasing muscle mass will help decrease body fat but it may not show up on the scale. So, if you are focused on losing that last 5 pounds, I wouldn't recommend building muscle. If you are focused on losing body fat and fitting in smaller clothes, then building muscle is the way to go. The best way to build muscle is to lift heavy. I'm not talking tiny little dumbbells like you see too many people doing in the gym. I'm talking 85-90% of your one rep max weight for no more then 5 reps per set and 3 to 5 sets per exercise.

rileysowner

I would work with your current deficit at first, but you might want to increase your calories a bit depending on how you feel. Weight training takes a lot of energy, and it is not just burned during the workout. If you find you are feeling run down and tired up your calories a couple of hundred and see how you feel on that after a week or so. If you are happy with your results are 2-3 weeks at the higher calories, stay there, if not, decide if you want to raise them a bit more. It will be about taking the time to listen to your body and let it adjust and show you where it is going. One of the things I find from resistance training is how it makes me much more aware of the messages my body is giving me, assuming I listen.

MissMe2morrow

Thank you all for taking the time to write such detailed answers-- I'm taking all this information and running with it! I'll up my calories just a bit and start weight training in earnest. My scale measures body fat so I will quit looking at how much I weigh and only pay attention to my BMI.

Tonya-- I've never been on board with the "carbs are bad" campaign. Carbs are the building blocks for everything in the body!

Jim-- I'm with you on the "pay attention" to my body. I don't expect super quick results--I want to be healthy first and look good second. Thanks for reaffirming those priorities.

rileysowner

I hope things go well for you. Weight training can be some of the most difficult exercise a person can do, if it is done right, but the pay off is well worth it.

mideon_696

best answer is rileys.
most of tonya's is good. except the rep part...that sort of rep range will focus on mostly strength with a very small size gain.

rileys reps are spot on IMO. 8-10. if you can do more then 10, not heavy enough. less than 8, slightly heavy, but work with it until you hit 9 or 10. then go up next session.

There really are a million online references to this stuff. including some really good ones on MFP, and some really bad haha.

I'll try and remember the best threads on here and get a link in here for the.
If only the MOD's on this site would make some of them sticky like we have asked so many times....

pyro13g

You don't need carbs to build muscle. If your glycogen is spent any exercise would be tough. 25 grams of fast carbs(glucose) 10 minutes before you start should be plenty for a brief intense lifting session.

mideon_696

sure you do mate. cars are an intergral part of the process. I usually mix in 30gms' glucose with my protein for post workout...
aids in protein synthesis and muscle glycogen replenishment. I train hard most days...if i didnt get my carbs in every day, this would be impossible...for me anyway (tried it)