Cedar (He/Him)

(Part 1) Diet. Talking about food, their molecules and how the body responds.

An aspect of bodybuilding/exercizing that is just as important as the weights and workouts themselves. Generally, the more a human does, the more nutrition they need in every sense.

Protein is needed to survive as a human, 0.8 grams per kilogram of weight MINIMUM. (source) To gain muscle you need to consume more protein than that. 1 gram per pound of body is a good goal.

There are additional ingredients, Amino Acids, you can ingest to give your body more of what it needs to build muscle. The most common is creatine, and it can be found naturally in foods or bought alone. 14mg per pound is a good dose, (source) but you could do as low as you like.

Carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, minerals, and water are other things essential to keep you running, but aren’t the building block of muscle.

For vitamins, minerals, and water be sure to get the daily recommended dose. It’s worth considering a little more than recommend water, potassium, magnesium, and sodium in your diet for adequate muscle usage before and during working out. Also, a bit more calcium in general for muscle movement and the strength your bones must gain to support stronger muscles and weight loads.

For carbohydrates and fats, it’s important to have adequate levels of these. The body uses carbohydrates for energy first and mainly, then uses fats, then proteins. How much? Well it depends on how much you care about the image of your body, and what your goals are.

The Bulk is for people who want to gain muscle and mass a bit quicker. There is clean bulking and dirty bulking. Dirty bulking is eating a lot without much regard to amounts. Clean bulking is to gain muscle mass while keeping your body fat percentage at relatively the same level.

The Cut is for people who want to reduce their body fat percentage. Eating at a slight/moderate deficit to force the body to consume fat cells as energy. High protein is still consumed.

Before working out, you should consume something 30-40 minutes before starting. Preworkout, a caffeinated substance, or complex carbohydrates to give you the energy needed to begin and not crash.

After working out, you should consume a good portion of your daily proteins 30 minutes to four hours later.

(Part 2)Working out. Utilizing and ripping the telomeres of your muscles and forming neural pathways.

To build muscle, you need to utilize the muscles. To get bigger muscles, your body needs to move with more resistance than what it normally does. Weight acts as the resistance.

Warming up is an important first step to working out, as you need to prime your body’s systems and cells. Heart rate is the primary thing to warm up, because using muscles requires your heart pump harder and faster. 5-10 minutes of warmup minimum of cardio is best. The intensity of this cardio is your choice. Dancing, fast walking, jogging/running, jump rope, cycling, etc. are good. Stretching is also a good precursor to the warmup as the warmup uses your muscles also. It’s a process, but its important to warm up properly to avoid tightness, cramps, or even things snapping.

The weightlifting a complicated and highly discussed thing. There are hundreds of motions across gym machines, tools, and muscles for you to chose from. Which ones you do depend on what is available, and the muscles you want to work. Write stuff down if you must. Here is an exercise dictionary.

Muscle names are good to know to decide which motions to do. Look at this diagram to learn, and build your own encyclopedia and routine.

Frequency of working out is important. If your body does not use muscles, they deteriorate. You can work certain muscles more frequently than others. Just keep adequate rest. You may see things like push/pull day, arm day. This is the type of motions and muscles focused. Dedicating a workout session/day to one muscle group helps keep track of avoiding overuse. See Rest for more. Once a week at minimum you should work a muscle group to keep it from deteriorating. Here’s an example: Sunday rest. Monday arms&core. Tuesday whole back. Wednesday rest. Thursday whole arms. Friday rest. Saturday whole legs.

Duration of working the muscle during a session/day impacts its growth. A rep is one time going through a motion. Sets is how many times you do a group of reps. 3x15 pushups is I’m doing 15 pushups. Rest. 15 more. Rest. 15 more. Three sets of fifteen. To build endourance, lower weight at higher reps. To build mass and strength, higher weight at lower reps.

Finally, the weight heaviness. You should slightly push your muscles to start, then base your weight patterns off of what is a good amount of strain for you. The more you challenge/strain yourself, the more it will hurt and build muscle mass. Also, the faster you increase the weight your muscles fight against, the higher the risk of injury. However, if you stick to a weight that is not challenging, your muscles will not grow. There must always be some element of challenge your muscles must always be chasing to keep up with. Thats what growing is. For example: I’ve been bicep curling single dumbbells of 10 pounds for months. 12 pounds is a comfortable challenge, and I can do 15 also but not the whole set. So, I may warm up with 1 set of 10lbs. Two sets of 12lbs, then finish with one set of 15 at lower reps. The number of reps per set could be 15,12,10,6. Decreasing reps while increasing weight to prep the body, but not injure too much.

(Part 3) Rest. Your body building new muscle, and preparing to work again.

In between sets of exercise, you need to rest your muscles for enough time for them to become reloaded with their energy, ATP. ~1 minute for heavily lifting. Ensure you’re breathing well also to give your blood oxygen. Deeper, healthy breaths during rest is good.

After training it’s recommended to give a muscle group ~48 hours of rest to rebuild the fibers. Rest means not training it, but of course if you need to use them, use them. Additionally, you can still be active and rest, doing a thing called active rest. Doing nothing at all, which has its benefits, is called passive rest.

Sleep is your body’s way of storing information and taking out the cerebral trash. During sleep your body produces growth hormone, your brain works to retain all of the information you and your body learned during the day, and generally refreshes itself. Napping can be beneficial also if it doesn't interfere with getting the minimum 8-10 hours depending on your age group.