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There are so many places people can go and tips to try when they want to find natural ways to bulk up. Whether on YouTube, the gym, or the internet in general, there are a multitude of different ways people can go about this. However, these traditional methods all have one thing in common: the results and source reliability vary greatly.
That’s why we put together this list of natural ways to bulk up that will provide results in a much shorter amount of time without you having to sacrifice your health or sanity at the same time. These natural ways don’t require crazy diets, 8-hour workdays at the gym, or any other things that may be difficult for you with your busy lifestyle!
Natural Bodybuilder Bulk Up Challenges
For the natural bodybuilder, bulking up presents a special challenge. Without steroids to aid in muscle gain, the natural bodybuilder must make the most of training, diet and recovery to be able to progress. With the right natural techniques, even the drug-free bodybuilder can add impressive muscular bulk.
A clean bulk up is always the last thing on most gym-goes mind too. I’ve spoken to a few fellow Personal Trainers on the past who have found potential and new clients stuffing as much food (regardless of its macro properties) into them. Just as long as they stick with the correct calorie intake…
Here are a few ways I bulk and I advise my clients to add muscle mass naturally.
Diet
The most important factor and the best way to bulk up naturally is modifying your diet. To gain muscular bulk you need to ensure you are eating sufficient calories and fueling with the right kind of nutrients. Gaining muscle weight requires eating more calories than you burn, resulting in a caloric surplus. To ensure a consistent progress I add 500 calories of PROTEIN and COMPLEX CARBOHYDRATES to my daily caloric intake. If I do not notice muscle gain after a few weeks I will raise my daily caloric intake by another 500 calories. You can see our list of foods for muscle building for some ideas of foods high in protein and complex carbs.
Fueling Up With A Good Breakfast
In addition to the increase of muscle building protein and complex carbohydrates added to you diet, also focus on when you eat along with how often. Making sure to eat breakfast is one of the best things you can do in your quest for an all natural way to bulk up. As a result of eating a fueled breakfast, you get a quick boost of energy and can eat less between meals. It also sets the standard: if you begin your day with a nutritious and filling meal, you’re more likely to continue that trend throughout the day. omelettes, smoothies, and cottage cheese are your best bets if you want to gain muscle mass.
Eating At Regular Intervals
Increasing your muscle mass requires that you eat the proper foods at the right times. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner should be eaten as usual with two snacks in between; this method is the simplest. As a result, you will be fueling your body around once every three hours.
Eating frequently and in smaller portions will keep your stomach smaller than skipping a few large meals, so you won’t feel as hungry as you otherwise would. You’ll eat less, lose weight, and have less cravings as a result of this strategy. When you don’t eat for an extended length of time, you may wind up overeating during your next meal or stocking up on junk food from the vending machine. For this reason, it is best to eat at regular intervals throughout the day, so that your body will get hungry at these intervals.
Post-Workout Shake
I take mine Immediately following training, muscles are primed to absorb more nutrients than normal. My shake contains whey protein and simple carbohydrates, this counteracts the muscle breakdown that normally occurs during training. By minimizing muscle breakdown, muscles recover and grow at a faster rate allowing you to gain bulk naturally.
Add Resistance Training
The absence of resistance training is one of the primary causes of your inability to gain weight and, more specifically, muscular mass. Muscle growth can only be stimulated if you train your muscles often.
“The findings indicate a graded dose-response relationship whereby increases in resistance training volume induce higher gains in muscle hypertrophy,” meaning, quite simply, that the more you work out, the more muscular you will become according to a recent study.
This may sound obvious to some, but it contradicts some of the most fundamental ideas of bodybuilding, such as that resting is just as vital as training. Resting muscles is crucial, but it doesn’t mean abandoning your workout routine.
It’s critical to strike a balance between training as frequently as feasible and avoiding injury. It’s up to you what kind of weight training you perform, but don’t limit yourself to counting calories. It’s impossible to quantify muscle activation with even the greatest running watches and heart rate monitors, so you may wind up focusing just on calorie burning.
The contrary is what you want to do: you want to get the most out of your workouts by doing workouts that build strength while not expending a lot of calories. If you want to keep your heart healthy and enhance your cardiovascular system, you should still perform some cardio, but try to keep it to a minimum and focus more on anaerobic exercises.
Slow Down the Cardio
A good cardio workout, like running or cycling, can help you stay healthy while also boosting your heart health. Improved endurance, general health, and regular exercise can also have a favorable impact on mood. As well as burning a lot of calories, aerobic workouts can also aid in the movement of your bowels if done for a lengthy period of time.
In the same way, overdoing cardio while aiming to gain weight is discouraged. No matter how hard you try to acquire weight, it’s great to do some cardio. Go for a jog every now and then vs doing a HIIT Treadmill workout though. Before or after your resistance training workouts, you should avoid performing a lot of cardio to exhaust the muscles and prevent bulking up.
Consider Supplements
If your goal is to bulk up and grow functional muscle mass, you may want to consider taking mass gainer and creatine supplements in addition to your regular protein shakes.
There are a lot of calories in top bulk gainers, but they’re in powder form, making it easier to ingest one or two servings a day. To make matters even better, most weight gainers have a relatively modest quantity of fat and sugar compared to their caloric content.
However, creatine is one of the best kept secrets in the bodybuilding industry. It has been found that creatine can increase muscular mass, strength, and endurance during physical activity. Healthline cites a second 12-week study in the same article that found that “Creatine supplementation boosted muscle fiber growth in weightlifters by 2–3 times over exercise alone. One-rep max bench press, a common strength exercise, boosted total body mass by two pounds.”
In addition to being inexpensive, creatine doesn’t require a large dosage to be effective. Creatine monohydrate should be taken in the form of 3-5 grams per day for most persons. Other supplements to consider are amino acids and fish oil.
Lifting Heavy
Body builders on ‘performing enhancing drugs’ can get away with lighter workouts because steroids speed muscle growth through increased protein synthesis. For me I turn my attention to the heavy weights.
These are an important tool for bulking. Multi-joint exercises, such as the squat and bench press, performed with heavy weights, increase the amount of muscle fibers recruited. By fatiguing more muscle fibers, workouts are more effective. Use weights that only allow you to perform three to five repetitions. I tend to aim for 6-8 sets.
Water Intake:
I have to admit, I didn’t know this until I started competing, but muscles are composed of about 75% water. To keep them growing and healthy, I drink enough water each day. I aim for at least 4 litres: 3 litres in ‘water’ and the the rest made up from my liquid amino’s and my post workout shake.
Conclusion
With the right ingredients and a lot of hard work (it does take time) you can bulk up naturally. I am a huge believer in natural bodybuilding. And I will be the first to tell you that there isn’t much science behind a lot of the things people claim to do. For some reason, it seems as if most people think that the only way to gain weight is by consuming thousands of calories and eating a ton of food. As with everything in fitness, the key for natural ways to bulk up comes back to finding the right balance.
