A key component of fitness is increasing lean body mass. Increased lean body mass offers aesthetic, metabolic and fitness benefits. Although exercise is the cornerstone for increasing lean body mass, there are five simple steps one can take to increase lean body mass faster.
You often find that whilst building lean muscle mass you need to:
- Consume a lot of protein and small amounts of carbs
- Perform cardio
- Use special supplements
These are just recommended as they may help some people but may be useless to you. The best thing you can do is to try what is useful by yourself, this way you will reach your goal that is comfortable and works for you.
1. Compound Exercises
Compound exercises are great when it comes to engaging multiple muscles at the same time. You incorporate many muscles while doing these exercises and you can perform them whilst using heavier weights.
This is important to trigger muscle growth. If you train too easily, your body won’t think that it needs more muscle mass to achieve more intense training conditions.
Compound exercises like:
- Deadlifts
- Squats
- Lunges
- Bench presses
- Shoulder press
Similar movements such as the exercises listed above should make the biggest part of your training. You should leave some time to isolation exercises, but you shouldn’t spend too much time on them if you are building muscle mass.
Related article:
The Beneficial Bench Press Guide To Build Your Chest And Increase Your Press!
2. Eat More
To build lean muscle mass, you need to eat enough food to engage muscle growth. If you eat too much, you will grow not only muscle mass but body fat too.
Even if you build lean muscle mass, you will still gain at least a little body fat. Body fat gains can be decreased if you eat enough to engage muscle growth without encouraging your body to store calories coming from the food you eat as body fat.
3. Experiment
People want to find the best way to do something and then just continue repeating the same thing.
The greatest results are often achieved by those who aren’t afraid of trying something new, or even to learn the best way to achieve their success. Trying something new will help you find new and effective exercises, healthy foods, or any other things that can benefit your overall goal.
4. Motivate
If you aim to build at least 15 pounds of lean muscle mass, then it can take longer than half a year. This is because without using anything that could enhance muscle growth, people are able to grow two pounds of lean muscle mass per month.
If you grow muscle mass for the first time or after more than six months of not building muscle mass, you could see faster muscle mass gains. Be careful as most of it can be extra body fat. To avoid this, try measuring your body fat levels after one month of bulking.
