Build Muscle and size
You want to support muscle growth.
You want to recover well from training.
You want to power intense training sessions.
Training and diet go hand in hand
So you have carefully planned your training, you put in the effort in the gym but have you been as rigorous with your diet and nutrition? Training is just the stimulus for muscle growth and this adaptation that you trigger must be supported by proper diet and rest. Without these things results will either be poor or non existent.
With today's fast paced lifestyles your diet can sometimes suffer, giving way to the pressures of everyday life. If you don't consume the nutrients your body needs in the recovery phase you won't be making the most of your time in the gym and will only get poor results, instead of gaining muscle you may actually even lose it!
Our products are designed to help you meet your goals, supplementing your whole food based diet to make sure that you hit your nutritional targets every time.
"Your body can only build muscle through exercise if sufficient energy and muscle-building nutrients in the form of carbs and protein are absorbed."
Mirco Schöning
Eat for success
Proteins and carbs — the foundation for muscle-building!
Protein is the basic structural component of all cells in the body and is needed for the repair processes after intensive training sessions. Protein has been proven to promote muscle gain if you exercise properly.
Carbs are needed in order to resupply the body with energy needed for training and cellular growth. When you eat carbs the release of muscle building hormones is also stimulated. Together these factors enable the body to convert the exercise stress into muscle.
To achieve this, you should ideally have a meal every two to three hours with a large portion of both your protein and carbohydrate intake following training to support recovery and muscle growth.
To support your muscle gain, you should consume the right amount of high quality protein. The main sources of protein are foods of animal origin such as meat, dairy products and fish. Ideally you should add some plant-based protein that is found, for example, in beans and pulses. A combination of plant and animal sources of proteins will ensure you're eating the high quality proteins found in animal foods but also getting additional amino acids — the building blocks of protein — along with fibre, vitamins and minerals found in the plant foods.
According to the national nutrition survey II conducted in 2008 by the Max-Rubner-Institut and Federal Research Institute of Nutrition and Food (BfEL), protein intake averages between 1.0–1.2 grams per kilogram of body weight per day.
To support recovery and muscle growth, we recommend a protein intake of 2.0 grams per kilogram of body weight per day. This extra protein is to support recovery, the additional requirement at cellular level as a result of the intensive training. For a person weighing 80 kilograms, this equates to around 160g of protein per day so the average person would need to consume an additional 64 to 80g of protein per day.
After training is one of the best and most important times to provide the body with the nutrients it needs to recover and grow. At this time the body's ability to absorb and utilise protein and carbohydrate for growth and recovery is increased. Due to the ease of use and speed of digestion, this is time when protein supplements like whey can be especially useful. They can then be followed up with whole food meals that reflect your post workout needs, including high quality proteins and carbohydrate containing foods such as rice, pasta or potatoes.
It is important to plan your meals. This way, you avoid the temptation to eat fast food and ready meals which generally contain a lot of calories but not in the form of the nutrients that will help you recover and put on lean muscle. Food supplements can help you here. They are low in fat, without any additional sugar and contain high-quality protein as well as energy-providing carbohydrates. Added to their nutritional benefits they're easy to carry and prepare, supplying what you need at the right time, starting the recovery processes and carrying you over until you can get a nutritious whole food meal.
Exercise efficiently
A good method: pyramid training
There are many different ways to build muscle, many different workout routines and training philosophies and the one that suits you at this time will depend upon your goals, needs and experience.
Though workouts may differ the basics remain the same — focusing on selection the right exercises, the amount of training and the progression of weights and repetitions.
Full Body Training is popular method that works especially well when the trainer is new or intermediate level or training around other sports or activities. Popular with the old school body builders, its effective routines have recently be rediscovered.
The basic layout is to aim for 2 to 3 workouts a week with each session comprised of 3 to 4 'compound' exercises (ones where you're using more than one joint at a time). Compound exercises include the squat, deadlift, lunge, chest and shoulder presses, rows, pull ups and dips. For each exercise you should do 3 to 5 sets of 7 to 12 reps. This means the total count of reps will be in the region of 25 to 35.
These full body sessions should be short, about 45-60 minutes in total and cover the whole body so the emphasis should be to balance pushing and pulling movements and including leg based movements.
Regardless of the weight you can lift you must schedule in sufficient recovery time and don't overdo exercise frequency of the training session — muscle growth and strength increases happen between sessions and not in the gym! The body is a clever machine and will get more efficient as you progress meaning that to carry on growing effectively you have to surprise it every so often. To encourage muscle growth, arrange your workouts with plenty of variety and change your exercise variations every six to eight weeks.
