A Simple Guide to Diet and Workouts for Women Who Want to Build Muscle
There are many benefits to building muscle – you will generally have a stronger physique and better support for your joints. Having improved muscle tone can also improve your posture and help with aging as your body will be able to support itself for longer. You might also have the wonderful side effect of joining a notoriously friendly group of enthusiasts.
Food to support muscle growth
It goes without saying that a good diet goes hand in hand with a healthy lifestyle, but if you are looking to build muscle you will have to consume plenty of protein in order to help with your muscle’s growth.
Protein can come in a variety of different forms, with the most common mentioned in articles promoting muscle growth are chicken and fish. However, there are many ways to increase your protein intake. In fact, there are plenty of vegetarians and vegans who are successful body builders, so it is not bleak for your dietary requirements should you choose to be either a vegetarian or a vegan. For instance, there is protein found in nuts, tofu, beans and legumes, porridge oats, tempeh, seitan and spirulina.
Of course, you are still going to have to consume the right amount of carbohydrates and fats in order to keep your body healthy and functioning properly.
How to build muscle
Although food does play a big part of muscle growth and you will have to feed your body the correct amounts of protein in order to get your desired results, it is not the only thing you need to think about – there is also the most beneficial exercises that will get you the best results.
With this you are going to have to make sure that you have enough good quality home gym equipment in order to perform the exercises that require additional items (such as dumb bells, for instance).
The best exercises for the best results
Squats
Squats are a particularly good and beneficial exercises not only for your glutes and thighs but also for your core muscles. You can also add in dumb bells and increasing weight as you progress.
Shoulder press
Shoulder press can be applied using either a barbell or two dumb bells depending on what you have to hand. This is a particularly good exercise for building shoulders, which incidentally are generally an area of the body that shows results the quickest.
Bicep curl
The bicep curl with dumb bell weights is a fantastic arm exercise, and it will build your biceps. You do have to keep your elbows close to your sides while you are performing this exercise and take each curl slowly to get maximum benefit and results.
Oblique twists
This is an exercise that works the waistline area by pulling in the obliques, couple this with the use of dumb bell weights and you will definitely feel your obliques pulling in to define your waist and support your core and back.
