Use your winter kilo's to build muscle

With the holidays behind us, you may have gained a little weight when you step on the scale. Or you may have already noticed it by the fact that your pants were a little tighter than usual. If you didn't want to gain weight, you're probably not happy about it, but is muscle gain your goal? Then these December kilos aren't so bad.

If you've ever sought advice from a trainer or looked up information about gaining muscle mass you've probably found the same answer: eat more. Makes sense, because without enough nutrition it will be difficult for your muscles to grow (mass makes mass). Of course you have to train hard too, but nutrition is an important part. So eating more is good advice. While this is normally preferably done in a healthy and balanced way (check out the Fitlyzen Ebooks), you can partly use your winter belly for that as well.

If your goal is to convert those extra calories you've consumed into muscle mass, you can train for this. While it may be tempting to get on the treadmill primarily to burn fat, when building muscle you want to focus on hypertrophy: the increase (in size and diameter) of muscle fibers. In the gym, this translates to training with heavy weights that allow you to do up to three sets of 6-10 reps. Make sure the weight for your exercises is heavy enough so that the workout is not easy to perform and you can really max out at 10 reps per set. For the best effect, change your routine every 8 weeks so you keep stimulating your muscles with new exercises.

By the way, if you are purely looking to lose those winter pounds and those muscles don't matter to you, then it is important to make your calorie intake smaller than what you burn on a daily basis. We go deeper into this in our Ebooks

At Fitlyzen, in our Ebooks we also provide tips on nutrition, training schedules and all sorts of other fitness and health advice!