Muscle Growth

Neuropath
Neuropath Posts: 6
edited September 20 in Fitness and Exercise
I have been reading all kinds of somewhat conflicting information lately, and would like to see what the popular opinion is here. On the one hand, all of the information I read says that if you eat more calories than you burn in a day, you will store them as fat; on the other hand, many (but not all) of the articles I read claim that in order to build muscle, one must consume more calories than one expends. This leads me to believe that muscle growth and fat growth are linked, i.e. you cannot gain muscle without putting on a little fat too. Has anyone else considered this? Is it true that muscle can only be developed by eating more calories than you are burning? The most logical approach to this dichotomy is phase training. Train cardio hard for a few months to burn fat, then strength training hard for a few months to build muscle. The cardio phase apparently results in a little muscle loss, but this should be less than what was gained during the strength training phase. An example I read recently was : if you strength train for 4 months and gain 15 pounds of mass, mostly lean muscle, then cardio for 4 months and lose 7 pounds, you are still up roughly 8 pounds of lean, mean muscle. Any thoughts are appreciated.

Replies

  • chrisdavey
    chrisdavey Posts: 9,834 Member
    That is the theory behind bulking and cutting. They say it is VERY hard to build muscle without some fat gained so it is up to the individuals goals as to where they want to be. If you want to build muscle you need a good balanced diet and I aim for 1g/lb of body weight of protein. Low GI carbs are good as they take longer to digest however higher GI carbs can be good post workout when your muscles need them.

    Just remember that if gaining muscle is the goal then when you go the gym you have to work hard enough to stimulate the muscle growth, that is damaging the muscle fibres a little so they can rebuild themselves. (This cannot really be measured by DOMS though unfortunately)

    From what I have seen, if you want to build muscle, work hard in the gym, try eating about 250-500cals above maintenance and the best sort of cardio is HIIT not medium intensity steady state stuff like long runs.

    That's my 2c anyway :)
This discussion has been closed.

Categories