Bodybuilding cannot be achieved through any one aspect alone. The right amount and selection of training, diet and supplementation, recovery, mindset, and genetics, will determine your ability to achieve the desired physique. It is important to understand that the foods you eat are what will be supplying you with the energy to go hard at the gym and the right foods will help increase your muscle building potential.
For a muscle to perform at its best, the right amount and types of nutrients must be consumed at the appropriate times. The right balance of macronutrients, (protein, carbohydrates, and fats), and micronutrients, (vitamins, minerals, and trace elements) is essential. As a quick summary though, it is important to make use of the training window, a period of time where consumption of certain foods and supplements can prove to help with extra gains in muscular size, strength, and power. For example, a delay of supplementation of more than two hours can significantly reduce protein synthesis and muscle glycogen replenishment. Consumption of a carbohydrate/protein supplement in liquid form after training is effective in enhancing your body’s anabolic processes. Pre-training supplementation is also a factor to consider.
Intense workouts without proper nutrition is a huge waste of time.
However proper nutrition doesn’t simply mean not eating fatty foods, or only eating “Clean” foods or anything much of the sorts. By proper nutrition, I mean getting the optimal amount of protein, carbs, and healthy fats in your diet on a daily basis, and be in a slight calorie surplus (say 200 extra calories a day) and you will put on more muscle.
However, the tricky part is learning what is optimal for your body type, and goals. If you want more of a bulky/meaty type physique you would want more calories, more protein, and substantially more carbs than you would if you were training for more of a lean/ cut up style physique, as this body style is gained by a lower overall body fat % so you would want fewer calories but more protein, more healthy fats, and very closely watch the carbs you eat as opposed to our bulky counterpart.
Both physiques have different nutrition needs as well as somewhat different training methods but not drastically different in that regard. Identify what exactly you want out of training in the first place, look at where your diet is now and where you wanna be 6 months down the road.
Once you have identified all these points everything else becomes much easier to focus on.
My last point I want to make is in regards to “fatty foods”.. What exactly is your definition of fatty foods? Years and years ago it used to be common knowledge that cholesterol and saturated fats were horrible for you due to high cholesterol and or blood pressure. But now we know that our bodies hormones can’t function or regulate properly with a lack of healthy fats or added cholesterol in our bodies.
There are numerous and more emerging studies coming out more than we were wrong about fats back in the day if this was all true than eggs would be one of the worst foods we could possibly have due to the cholesterol content and steak?!
Eliminate unnecessary fat to build muscle is the key to successful bodybuilding and training. The success of your efforts depends on your diet, nutritional supplements, and exercise during the training period. Bodybuilding can be seen as a process in three parts, each part being considered as the foot of a three-legged stool.
These parts are weight training, cardiovascular training, and nutrition. This simply means that bodybuilders (bodybuilders) have to watch their diet and food supplements as much as their physical training. Here is a detailed overview of how a good diet can help you achieve a successful muscle building program and the importance of diet in bodybuilding.
Fatty’ foods aren’t usually a problem in building muscle. You’ll want to make sure you’re eating enough protein and total calories to feed muscle-growth as you continue to lift. Eating fatty foods doesn’t make one fat – eating too many calories does.
On the other hand, if by ‘getting muscles’ you mean visible musculature, you’ll need to tailor your diet to what your needs and goals are at that time.
Most body-builders tend to alternate between bulking phases (eating ABOVE maintenance calories to allow muscles to grow), and cutting phases (eating BELOW maintenance calories to lose fat) in order to develop the physique they desire.
Perception may vary about how much nutrition accounts for in the overall equation. Thus in this writer’s opinion, the importance of the above-interconnected facets of bodybuilding would be ranked: nutrition and supplementation at 65%, training 20%, and recovery 15%. In summary, nutrition and supplementation is the most important aspect of bodybuilding, followed by training and recovery.
