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It's Never too Late to Get Muscles
Most people want to lose weight. For proof, just look at the cover stories hyped
by fitness magazines. But a surprising number of people seek to gain weight, not
lose it. They want more muscle for a number of reasons: better athletic performance,
increased strength, a honed appearance and more energy for the demands of daily
living.
And as the population ages, we’re becoming aware of another scary word—sarcopenia,
meaning the wasting away of muscle as we get older. After our mid-thirties, muscle
volume and strength begin a steady decline. But the good news is that a sound
nutrition and resistance training program can slow and even reverse this trend.
Age is no barrier—even people in their nineties can gain strength and reclaim
significant muscle mass.
How to Do It
Of course gaining weight is easy for most folks. If it weren’t, diet books
wouldn’t top the best seller lists. Merely increase your calories while keeping
activity levels steady, and you’re guaranteed to pack on the pounds. The only
problem—most of it will be around your waist. The trick is gaining useful and
aesthetic weight—not fat but muscle. Here’s how:
- Talk to your muscles. Your muscles won’t grow unless you tell them,
loudly, that you want them to grow. And you communicate with your muscles by
making them perform. But not any kind of muscular work stimulates muscles to
get bigger. Aerobic exercise, because it uses primarily slow twitch or
endurance-oriented muscle fibers, doesn’t make you bigger. That’s where weight
training comes in because it targets fast-twitch fibers that grow easily. You
need to stimulate your muscles’ need to store protein, and resistance training
is the best way to do so.
- The overload principle. A haphazard resistance program won’t achieve
the desired effect. You need to stress the muscles, give them time to recover
and grow stronger, then stress them again. Modern resistance training is built
on this overload principle. At first, body weight exercises like push-ups and
pull-ups will be enough to create a significant load on your muscles. But as
you get stronger, you’ll need to add weight, either by purchasing weights for
your home or getting a membership at a good gym.
The best workout for weight gain targets the big muscles of the legs, hips,
back and chest. Look at it this way—if you double the size of a big muscle
group like your quads, you’ll gain a lot more weight than if you double the size
of a small muscle like your biceps. So it makes sense to spend your exercise
time on large muscle groups rather than small individual muscles. Good exercises
include squats, leg presses, lunges, deadlifts, power cleans, bench presses,
rows and core exercises for your abdominals and low back. (For instructions
on how to do these and other resistance exercises, consult a coach certified
by the National Strength and Conditioning Association.)
- Calories—at the right time. Endurance athletes know they need to consume
carbohydrate before, during and after exercise, so their bodies have enough
fuel to perform at high levels. When strength training, chowing before and
during a weight-lifting session isn’t as crucial, but the post-workout meal
is vital. Strength training is hard work and depletes the glycogen in your
muscles. If you don’t replace it immediately by consuming carbohydrate, your
body will synthesize it from protein stores. That means that the protein that
could have gone to making your muscles bigger was used instead to fuel normal
body and brain functions. That’s exactly what you don’t want if you’re trying
to gain muscular weight!
- Carbohydrate as a supplement; protein as a complement. Many strength
trainers think that they need massive amounts of protein to gain weight. But
studies show that the body can synthesize no more than 1.9 grams of protein
per kilogram of body weight. Any excess gets stored as fat. So the centerpiece
of your diet should be the same as the diet for endurance athletes—carbohydrate.
Protein is important but in moderate amounts. How much protein is 1.9 grams
per kilogram? A 154-pound (70 kg) person would need 133 grams per day—roughly
the amount in six ounces of lean beef, one cup of cottage cheese and three cups
of non-fat milk.
- The creatine advantage. One way to jumpstart your weight gain program
is to use a dietary supplement called creatine for a month or more. Creatine
is a legal and safe supplement, and using it according to directions, along with
a good resistance training program as outlined above, usually leads to a weight
gain of five to eight pounds in four weeks. The increased weight is accompanied
by increased strength, too.
- Be a sprinter. Many strength athletes, especially power lifters (who
compete in the bench press, dead lift and squat), eschew aerobic activity. They
think it saps energy needed for weight-room workouts. But you’ll be a healthier
and more well-rounded athlete if you include some endurance work in your program.
Here’s a tip—try intervals, sprints and fast games like basketball to get
your endurance workout and boost your quickness and power at the same
time.
- The fridge skulker. You may find this last tip a bit weird, but it
works for many people who want to gain weight but fail due to very high metabolisms.
Set your alarm clock for 2 a.m. and when it rings, consume a large snack of
about 500 to 800 calories containing mostly carbohydrate and a little protein,
like a turkey sandwich on wheat bread with a glass of milk or a bowl of cereal
with skim milk, or a banana and a bagel with low-fat cream cheese. Remember
that from dinner to breakfast is the longest time period your body goes without
food. Beat the resulting calorie deficit with a snack in the wee hours.
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