Sports Nutrition For Muscle Building
Muscle, the most essential and productive body part for athletes and sports personnel, cannot be maintained without a thorough knowledge of nutrition and muscle building techniques.
Carbohydrate forms the dominant source of energy for building up muscles. Reserved in the form of glycogen, it forms fuel and provides energy for brief, acute outbursts of power. Muscles need more power during workout or training sessions. These energy sources are used up during vigorous activities. Athletes undergoing strength training exercises, with the hope of building lean muscles require decent carbohydrate intake. About five hundred to six hundred grams of carbohydrate intake is essential to keep up the glycogen reserve.
Protein, essential for building up muscle tissues, forms the basic necessity of muscle builders. Sports nourishment remains incomplete if protein intake is not adequate. It is more essential for the ones who regularly exercise as compared to the ones who do not exercise often. There are wrong conceptions among the athletes themselves about the right intake of protein. 90 to 115 grams of protein is sufficient for a sports person weighing about 140 pounds. That is, 0.6 to 0.8 grams of protein is essential for each pound of body mass.
Apart from protein and carbohydrate, a muscular body is also in need of fat. Fat is perhaps the most misunderstood one among foods. Even today, most people in the United States, including children are extremely unhealthy giving rise to a sick nation because of their faulty intake of food. The problem lies in their misconception regarding fat and the inability to differentiate between two types of fat, good and bad. Foods like margarine and almost all kinds of fast food need to be avoided while good fat-containing food like salmon, walnuts, flax seed oil, fish oils, hempseed oil, sunflower oil and olive oil should be incorporated in the diet. Fat is a necessary nutrient required in small amounts to remain healthy. Less than thirty percent of the total calorie count needs to come from unsaturated fat.
Apart from the regular eight glasses of water, the body needs more water to be taken in as water loss through sweating is higher in cases of active individuals like muscle builders. In order to be well hydrated during workout sessions, muscle builders need at least two cups of fluid two hours before they start their daily routine of physical exercise. While undergoing workout sessions, four to eight ounces of water should be taken in, after every fifteen or twenty minutes. After exercising, the fluid loss needs to be replaced with at least sixteen ounces of water.
Health drinks also provide useful nutrients during workouts of more than one hour. In cases of inability to have a meal, carbohydrate supplements are helpful. Meal-replacement drinks also prove helpful in these cases.
Though most supplements available in the market does not help in building up of muscles, supplements made of carbohydrate, electrolyte or liquid meal replacing agents really works the magic for muscle builders, as it provides all the essential nutrients.
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