4 Steps To Building Lean Muscle

Not everybody wants to look super buff when they’re building muscle. For some, the more important thing is that they look lean, healthy, and strong. And, the fact is, you’re likely to get extremely big if you’re putting in a lot of effort to do so.

If you aim to be stronger and leaner, you don’t have to lift weights daily or start lifting hundreds of pounds at once. But you can use a few techniques to get your desired lean and muscled look. Here are some things you should do to build lean muscle.

4 Steps To Building Lean Muscle

1. Eat the Right Foods

Your diet can help you to reach your lean muscle goals. The right diet helps you manage your weight and can make it easier to build muscle. Getting plenty of protein is an ideal way to build muscle mass, and many healthy options are also low in fat or contain healthy fats. You should include eggs, chicken, salmon, and Greek yogurt in your diet.

A balanced diet will help you to be healthier and give your body the fuel it needs to grow muscle. Sports and exercise nutrition can be complex because so many more variants exist to consider.

For instance, are you getting enough protein? What about calories? Did you drink enough water? Did you obtain your nitrates? What about pre and post-workout nutrition?

All these things are intertwined, and you may need adequate nutrition to build lean muscle.

2. Take Supplements

Supplements can help support your goals or fill the gaps of what might be lacking in your diet, whether due to dietary choices or because you find it hard to enjoy a balanced diet.

Some supplements have been backed by science, and certain dietary supplements can give you the things that might be missing from your diet.

As men get older, their natural testosterone levels go down, making it harder to build and maintain muscle. A supplement like Alpha-AF can help to boost testosterone levels and increase the impact of workouts.

3. Create a Diverse Workout Routine

Strength training two to three times a week can help you to achieve your lean muscle goals.

There’s no need to train every day, especially if you’re doing other exercises in between. One thing to remember is that there are other ways to build lean muscle. Aim to target different muscle groups to build muscle all over your body instead of just in one area.

You can also do exercises without any weights or equipment or use lighter weights and still get great results.

To build lean muscle, you must also take advantage of progressive overloading. By progressive overload, you can progress every week by strengthening your muscles faster.

4. Modify Exercises to Suit You

Everyone should create workouts that work for their own needs. If you are doing an exercise safely, you can modify it to work for where you currently are and what you want to do.

If you can’t do something just yet, make it a little easier until you can do the exercise on a higher difficulty setting. Or you can choose to continue what feels more comfortable for you.

One of the best ways to encourage improvements and faster results is by using different weight training sets.

Some great options are listed below:

Straight sets

This is the most common way of training where you perform an exercise for the same number of reps for each set. No variations.

Drop sets

These sets are perfect for burning out at the end of the workout. All you do is drop weight significantly and perform the exercise until exhaustion.

Then, you can drop weights again and perform the exercise to exhaustion. You can continue until you can no longer lift for any more reps.

Supersets

Supersets are great if you want to do different exercises for the same muscle group or train two different muscle groups simultaneously. With these sets, you perform two different exercises (whether for the same muscle group or not) back to back (with no rest).

Compound Set

A compound set is the same as super sets, but you perform two or more exercises using the same muscle groups.

Pyramid Set

Pyramid sets are great for building your strength which will help you lift heavier weights and drive results faster.

With these, you increase the intensity of your workout by raising the weights and decreasing the reps. For example, if you initially performed 3 sets of 12 reps using 30 KG, you can increase the intensity by doing 2 sets of 8 reps using 40 KG.

Rest-pause Set

Rest-pause sets are very fatiguing, so performing them closer to your workout’s end is best. To perform these sets, you break down your reps into smaller ones. For instance, let’s take a look at bicep curls using a barbell.

You could break down that exercise by:

• Performing the bicep curl only halfway (to a 90-degree angle), then without a rest.
• Perform the full bicep curl.

With rest-pause training, you’re breaking your set down into several small sets, allowing you to push past your regular point of failure.

Time Under Tension

Time under tension is a great exhaustive technique where you place the muscle under tension for longer.

You need to slow down on your reps to do these, so the muscles have to work harder for longer.

Some people take this to the extreme and place a band above the muscle they are working out on to cut the circulation, but this is not necessary.

A Tri-set

A tri-set is great for burning out your muscles. These consist of three different exercises for the same muscle group and are performed back to back with no rest between the sets.

You can build lean muscle your way. Mix things up to meet your needs and reach your goals.

Conclusion

By implementing the 4 steps above, you can drive results in no time. Make sure to stay committed and dedicated and trust the process. Your dream body is just around the corner.