Gaining lean muscle mass.

The question that plagues most people who train in the gym is how to gain lean muscle mass. Is it as simple as it might seem at first glance? Let's look into this.

Only a few can gain lean muscle mass even with an ideally selected diet. In most cases, it is almost impossible to gain muscle mass while remaining lean.

It is quite natural that most newcomers to the gym want to gain muscle mass, while looking ripped and lean. It would seem that everything is simple, you need to choose a training program, for example - this program for gaining muscle mass, regularly visit the gym and you will be happy, but not everything is so simple.

The easiest way to gain more or less lean muscle mass is for a naturally thin person, who already looks lean before going to the gym, but with a small amount of muscle. Once he starts training, he will be able to slightly increase muscle size without gaining excess fat. However, this will not last long, and for further progress you will have to increase your caloric intake, creating conditions for muscle growth.

All excess calories that are not used to build muscle will naturally go into body fat. The question arises, what if you eat exactly enough to grow muscle tissue?

In theory, this is possible, but in practice, it becomes very difficult to determine and calculate the exact amount of food. If we take into account the fact that athletes have different bodies and people react differently to certain foods. For example, some people digest milk well, while others swell a lot, and this applies to many products.

In people who initially have excess subcutaneous fat deposits, in order to show off lean muscles, you first need to get rid of excess fat. It will not be possible to gain muscle mass and at the same time get rid of subcutaneous fat.

1. In order to get rid of subcutaneous fat, there must be a calorie deficit.
2. In order to gain muscle mass, you need a surplus of calories.

Do you feel the difference? Two completely opposite processes. Of course, if we consider professionals, then by resorting to additional hormonal support, in the form of growth hormone, these two processes, opposite to each other, become possible. But amateurs cannot afford this, so we will use the set of genes that is given to us by nature.

Surely many people have a question: what about all the competing athletes and just guys with a sculpted figure? They look lean and have good muscle volume, but the point is this:

1. To begin with, we gain muscle mass, for example, according to the training program, the link to which is at the beginning of the article, but we don’t worry about excess fat, it will inevitably gain. But we shouldn’t relax, we try to choose a diet and food products that will allow us to gain a minimum of excess fat.
2. Then, having gained muscle volumes that suit us, we move on to the so-called drying stage. This is where we form a sculpted figure by removing excess subcutaneous fat. I note that at this stage, there is no need to try to gain muscle mass! After all, we cut calories in order to dry out our muscles. Our task is to maintain the gained muscles while removing excess subcutaneous fat.

This is roughly how a beautiful aesthetic body is built. I would like to note that you should not strive for extreme relief. The shape of the relief athletes, which can be seen in photos in magazines, is made for a short period of time for photo shoots or competitions. Maintaining it constantly is very difficult and, moreover, harmful to health.