4 Characteristics of Muscular Men
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Want to be that guy in the gym?
You know the one; the guy who picks up a weight and seems to effortlessly grow muscle. If so, there are some adjustments you should make in your everyday life. These adjustments are in line with the four characteristics of muscular men, and following them will help you be the one that gym-goers aspire to be.
Here are four characteristics of muscular men and what they mean to you.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}1. Muscular Men Don’t Skip Meals
When it comes to building and maintaining a large volume of muscle mass, total calories and total carbs are important. While there are many men who can successfully build muscle mass without a problem, the number of them who manage to keep this muscle mass on their frame is far smaller.
Maintaining a lean body weight means that you’re dedicating a significant portion of your day to eating. You simply cannot get by eating the usual three squares a day.Muscular men typically do some meal planning, so they know when their next meal is coming, at the very least. Many will plan out all their meals beforehand, ensuring their calorie intake is where it needs to be. Eating is important for muscle gains and maintenance, which is why it’s among the four characteristics of muscular men.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Further, muscular men understand that their meals are best made up of a combination of macronutrients: proteins, carbohydrates and moderate amounts of dietary fat. It’s hard to maintain such large volumes of muscle glycogen stores when you’re on a low-carbohydrate diet, even with weekend carb-ups. For this reason, muscular men usually aren’t using low-carb nutrition plans.
A smarter idea is to create a diet plan that contains a more moderate carbohydrate intake (30 percent to 40 percent of total calories), combined with enough protein to meet your requirements and healthy dietary fats to round out the diet.
2. Muscular Men Spend Less Time in the Gym
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}You might think that maintaining large volumes of muscle mass equates to hours spent in the gym, but in fact quite the opposite is true.Muscular men know that muscle is built when they are out of the gym; therefore, they design their workouts to allow for enough rest. If muscular men are spending more time in the gym per workout (one hour plus training sessions), they’re taking full days off in between sessions to allow for complete recovery. Now, that’s one of the four characteristics of muscular men that’s easy to adopt.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}3. Muscular Men Sleep a Lot
If you survey professional bodybuilders, you’ll find that many of them take naps on a regular basis. Not only do they make sure to get a solid seven or eight hours of sleep at night, but they also take naps after their training sessions.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}While taking midday naps may not be a practical solution for you if you’re busy at work, the point here is that you must give value to your sleep time. If it’s one of the four characteristics of muscular men, why can’t it be one for you too?
Cutting yourself short on nightly rest to stay up and watch late-night TV is going to seriously impact your ability to grow muscle over time. One or two nights isn’t something to get too worked up over, but if you’re regularly getting fewer than seven hours of sleep, something needs to change. Sleep time is the body’s prime time to repair the muscle tissue that’s been destroyed during your weight-lifting session and it is also when growth hormone levels tend to peak. Since growth hormones play a big role in the muscle-building process, maximizing the time when they are at their peak is definitely to your advantage.
4. Muscular Men Do a Variety of Workouts
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}While there are certainly some types of workouts that tend to be most conducive to putting on the muscle mass, muscular men get into the habit of applying different workout principles on a regular basis. In doing so, they are constantly challenging their muscles from different angles, applying different varieties of stimuli and shocking their muscles into growing. Once you hit a certain size and strength level, it can be hard to keep adding pounds to the bar every few weeks, which is why trying new techniques using the same weights becomes important.
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So, if you want to be very muscular, start adopting the characteristics of muscular men. As the saying goes, if you want to be 200 pounds, eat like you are 200 pounds. Once you start walking in the steps of someone this size, you’ll find you are getting much closer to your goals.