Being healthy and having strong, lean muscles are choices that you make. But, what must you do in order to get started? The following tips will offer you great advice on weight training and how it can benefit your life and body. Read through them all and find out ways to build the muscle you want.

Make sure to research the best exercises for increasing muscle mass. There are many different exercises that work on varied parts of muscle building, including toning and conditioning. Therefore, your exercise plan should include a variety of exercises in order to work different parts of the body.

Building muscles requires an increase of food to fuel your body and feed your muscles. Ideally, you should build a pound of muscle per week. Research different methods to increase you caloric intake. If you don’t see any changes in your weight within two weeks, you may want to think about ingesting even more calories.

Proper warm-up exercises are essential when you are trying to increase your muscle mass. As your muscle work, heal and expand, they become more prone to injuries. Warming up helps counteract this increased risk of injury. Exercise lightly for about 5 to 10 minutes and do about 3 or 4 warm-up sets of light to intermediate intensity before starting serious lifting.

Do not neglect carbohydrates in your muscle-building diet. Carbohydrates give your body the energy it needs to get you through your muscle building program. Without a sufficient amount of carbohydrates, your body breaks down protein, and those proteins are needed to build muscle mass. Eat the correct amount of carbohydrates to get your body through its workout.

Set short term goals and give rewards to yourself when they’re achieved. Motivation is key to getting muscles, since it can be a long process. You can even come up with rewards that will help you in your weight training journey. As an example, get a massage, which will help increase your blood flow and benefits muscle growth.

Build Muscle

You must consume enough protein to build muscle. A wonderful way to get protein is by consuming protein supplements and shakes. The time immediately following a workout is a good time for a protein shake, and so is bedtime. If you would like to drop fat and build muscle at the same time, you should just consume one per day. Try having three a day when you want to get bigger while building muscle.

Ensure that your diet is very good on days you are going to workout. Fuel up for your exercise session by taking in some calories an hour before heading to the gym. While working out doesn’t give you a free pass to overeat, your body will need and burn more calories on days that you exercise.

Don’t allow your workouts to exceed one hour in duration. Once passing the 60 minute mark, the body starts making more cortisol, which is the stress hormone. Cortisol blocks testosterone–a hormone that promotes muscle growth–and undermines all of the work you are putting into building muscle. Keeping your workouts under an hour will allow you to gain the most from your fitness routine.

Stretch for a few minutes after working out in order to facilitate muscle repair. Someone who is under forty should hold each stretch at least thirty seconds. If you are past 40, you should hold it for twice as long. A good stretch helps to protect your muscle against injury during your workout.

It requires commitment and dedication to increase your muscle mass. If that is the case with you, everything you need to succeed will follow. Use the tips in this article for building your muscles and you will soon start to see the results you want to see when you look in the mirror.