Before you look to overhaul your nutrition, ask yourself what your goals are and how can you eat to meet those goals. In Fuel 101 we talked about basic nutrition for living and operating this machine that is your body at optimum capacity as well as practical information for healthy weight loss. Jet Fuel delved deeper in to the specific science of fueling your body for the best performance possible in both day-to-day living and killing it in the gym. Now, for an even more specified goal of building mass we will look closely at fueling your body to gain healthy, sustainable, appropriate weight.
If your goal is to get strong and then use that strength, you need to give your muscles and every system the proper nutrition to fully recover and grow muscle and not just gain size. You also need to ask yourself if building a house on jacked street is going to mesh well with your goals. Are you training to run a marathon or other endurance style race? Being larger probably won’t help you reach the finish line faster. Are you doing any sort of competitive fighting? Weighing more, muscle or otherwise, might not be to your advantage.
You say your goal is to improve strength and be larger so that you can move more weight, you want to have your muscles turned on so that you can use your size to the greatest advantage–awesome!
Work Hard – Squat, Pick Things Up and Push
Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe is probably the simplest strength program out there. This squat-centric cycle that has proven results in making people stronger. It’s a great resource loaded with information for understanding the basics of getting stronger. I have the book at the box if anyone wants to check it out. Wendler 5-3-1 is another squat, press and deadlift routine that has phenomenal results. Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t include the Westside Barbell conjugate method as another strength building program. These guys wrote the book on strong.
Eat Up
Eating is important. You will have to eat a lot to get bigger. You will often times be uncomfortably full. Start by entering your statistics in the calculator on MacroFit.com to determine how many calories you need to consume to bulk. The website will breakdown your calories for you, showing first, how many calories a day you burn just with basic, daily life, then, how many calories you use with energy expenditure and then how many calories you will need to consume to bulk . For me, I burn 1719 calories just living before I even step in the gym, working out, I expend 2750 calories, so I need to consume 2750 calories merely to maintain my weight, if I want to gain mass, I must consume 3150 calories a day to bulk up. MacroFit will also breakdown by percentages just how much protein, fat, and carbohydrates you will need daily to reach your specific goal. Track your calories daily in an app like My Fitness Pal that will also measure the percentage of fat, carbohydrates, and protein to make sure you are within range of your goal.
Post Workout Nutrition aka the “Window of Gains”
Post workout is the most important time to refuel your muscles and give them exactly what they need to recover well so that they may grow in strength and size. The “window of gains” is open between 30-60 minutes after your workout where you absorb carbohydrates and are the least insulin sensitive. A post workout shake is the best way to give your muscles direct fuel and get a good amount of carbohydrates and protein in in a very short amount of time. In a recovery shake, look for a 1:1 ratio of carbs to protein with at least 40g of each. If it was a heavier strength day, look for a 2:1 carbs to protein ration and if the workout was a long metabolic conditioning workout, a 3:1 carbohydrate to protein ration is perfect for delivering to the muscles exactly what they need. Some good shakes to experiment with are Stronger Faster Healthier Recovery and Stronger Faster Healthier Whey. You can also add dextrose (available on Amazon as well as other retailers) to your recovery shake so that muscles can absorb that very pure and simple carbohydrate even more rapidly. Around 80g of dextrose post workout is good unless you did a very long met con like Murph then bumping the dextrose up to 120g is a good measure for recovering well.
More Food
You still want to eat a meal post workout. The standard rule is if it was a heavier strength training day, lean more in to protein for the post workout meal, and if it was a more focused cardio day, lean more in to carbohydrates at that meal, the meal that is separate from your recovery shake. When experimenting with shakes and additions to your shakes, remember that here too, you are an experiment of one. What works well for me may or may not work great for you so always keep the questions of “How do I feel?” How am I performing?” and “How do I look?” at the forefront and compare you findings against previous days and weeks. When using a recovery shake, use that as often as you workout, but only as often. If you workout twice a day, you need two recovery shakes, if you don’t workout, you don’t need a recovery shake. Rely on real, whole, nutrient dense food for the bulk of your calories.
Break It Down
You aren’t as much what you eat, as what you absorb. To ensure that your body is absorbing all of the great protein and carbohydrate you’re feeding it, you might want to experiment with a food enzyme. Now Foods makes a food enzyme supplement that is good as does Nature’s Sunshine. I take a food enzyme supplement at night on an empty stomach which is a good place to start and you can take it up to every meal. Food enzymes differ from probiotics in that food enzymes help the body break down, absorb and utilize nutrients, especially protein. Probiotics are also good but serve a different function of populating good bacteria in your gastrointestinal track. Probiotics are found in fermented foods like sauerkraut, kimchi, kombucha, and yogurt as well as probiotic supplements. Another place to experiment and see what works best for you, but looking to foods before supplements.
How Often Should I Eat
As far as timing goes, I find that three meals a day are better for me than 6 meals a day. Humans aren’t constantly fed and were never meant to be constantly fed. Going fasted for a bit is perfectly fine. Don’t eat out of a ritual time, eat because you are hungry. Fuel your body with the calories that are needed and see how you feel. Ask yourself the check-in questions. Adjust as needed for you, your body, and your goals. A person looking to gain mass is essentially eating a “Paleo Plus Post Workout” diet or even a “Paleo Plus Pre and Post Workout” bumping up carbs for recovery and what the muscles need.
To add extra mass quickly, you can experiment with milk in your protein shakes (if your body does well with dairy) and see how you respond, asking the look, feel, perform, questions but remembering that fat does slow the absorption of protein and carbs by muscles so use caution and try to avoid impeding the window of gains.
Branch Chain Amino Acids are great for pre and post workout and can be read more about in Jet fuel notes. You’ll want around 5-10g of BCAAs. You can split the doing up as pre and post. Nutriforce is a great brand which has the largest key we are looking for when it comes to any and all supplements- NO ARTIFICIAL SWEETENERS. Be vigilant when it comes to these, your body will thank you and you will reach your goals remarkably sooner.
With all supplements, test and see what works best for you. Keep things really basic, only testing one thing at a time, and look for a discernible, substantial difference, essentially asking- is this worth taking? Check your sleep patterns, your stress level, overall life, and ask yourself if your workouts go better with these supplements in your routine. If not, the supplement is simply not worth taking and can be eliminated.
Rest Hard
Sleep could not be more important. If you are trying to get bigger and stronger you have to recover well and that means minimum 7-9 hours of sleep every night. Anything less and you are cheating yourself out of recovery. Do not get used to living without rest, that is not a deficit you can not afford to continue for your overall health and if your overall health is not supported, you certainly have no hope of making strides towards increasing muscle mass and adding heft to your frame.
Supplements are great and an effective tool, but, it all comes down to recovery. It doesn’t matter how hard you are killing it in the gym, if you aren’t recovering well and fully, you are damaging your body and slowing your road to greatness. Eat well. Get enough sleep to be completely rested. Add supplements as needed. Conquer the world.
Dr. Chris Biles, DC is the head trainer and owner of CrossFit Waxahachie. Established in 2010, CFW is a premier strength and conditioning facility for athletes of all levels- beginner to advanced.