How to build your muscles?

No doubt the muscle building phase of your training program is one of its most exciting, satisfying and confidence building aspects. How to build muscle is certainly a hot topic in the fitness world today. There is so much controversial information on "the right way to build muscle" that it can be overwhelming. The reason is that it takes effort, time and devotion to achieve results and you don't want to waste your time, energy and money on something less than the best, right?

Rather than just giving you top three tips on how to get bigger muscles, will give you several tips under each of the three areas we call the foundations of muscle building. They are nutrition, training and rest.

Nutrition.

If you want to grow muscle you will have to commit to eating a proper "gain weight diet". Eating when you're not hungry, eating when you don't feel like making food, and eating when it is even terribly inconvenient to do so. Here are some simple guidelines.

16 x your body weight in calories per day. Adjust this by 200 - 250 calories per day up or down to stay within gains of 1 - 2 lbs per week. More than 2 lbs and your you'll gain weight in fat too. Less than 1 lb and your not maximizing your bodies ability to produce muscle.

3 - 4 grams of carbs per pound of body weight per day. They are necessary for energy to train, as well as recovery benefits and speed.

1 gram of protein per day per pound of body weight. Proteins get broken down into amino acids which the building blocks of muscle.

Eat plenty of essential fats every day. This will boost testosterone levels to maximize growth potential.

Finally eat a big breakfast very shortly after getting up and then never go more than 3 hours before your next meal right up to bedtime. Try a carb/protein shake 20 minutes before a workout and then eat a meal immediately after a workout.

Training.

People's biggest mistake here is usually putting all of their focus on training which leads to overdoing it in the gym and not putting their attention on the diet. This produces less than the best results and that leads to giving up.Here are some good tips:

You only need to train 3 times per week for approximately 30 - 45 minutes at a time to build massive amounts of muscle. Be sure to have at least one day of rest between training days to allow for recovery.

Use exercises that require multiple muscles to complete the lift or movement (eg. squats, deadlifts, chin-ups, rows ). This will help you get your training session done quicker, and it also better trains your muscles for strength and function outside of the gym.

Use supersets. This will get you done faster too and will also keep your heart rate higher which will force more blood into your muscles increasing growth rate.

Use high weight and lower reps. You should use approximately 80% of your maximum ability for each exercise. That should leave you capable of 4 - 6 reps per set. Do three sets of each exercise remembering to combine two exercises together into one superset.

Rest.

You don't grow when you train.Your muscles become swollen with blood during training but there is not more muscle there than you had before you started your routine. Growth comes during recovery which primarily happens during rest. If you compromise your sleep schedule you will compromise your growth benefits. Be sure to get a good nights sleep and leave days off in between training days.

I'm 25 years old. I am a copywriter for 5 years.