Maintaining one's physique or attempting to reduce body fat heavily depends on maintaining hard-earned muscle. It just takes a few weeks of extremely sedentary living and inadequate diet to cause muscle loss. And after all the work you've put into building it, this might be disappointing.
Here are some strategies to help you avoid losing muscle, regardless of whether you're going through a difficult time in your life, travelling for extended periods of time, or simply too busy to pay attention to every aspect of your workout regimen.
Stick to Resistance Training:
Weightlifting and bodyweight workouts are examples of resistance training, which is essential for preserving muscular mass. Including weight training in your regimen may have a big impact, even if you can't maintain your normal gym schedule. According to research, maintaining muscular growth only requires a small amount of resistance exercise. These useful pointers are as follows:
- Easy, Regular Workouts - Make an effort to squeeze quick exercises into your hectic schedule. Maintaining muscle mass may be achieved with just ten to fifteen minutes of training a few days a week. Pull-ups, bench presses, and barbell squats are examples of compound workouts that target many muscular groups at once.
- Training using Bodyweight - Don't worry if you are unable to attend the gym. Bodyweight exercises are a great way to maintain muscular mass and are convenient to perform any place. You can keep on schedule with exercises like planks, push-ups, lunges, and squats that don't require any special equipment.
Reduce the Caloric Shortfall:
Cutting calories considerably may seem like a smart idea while attempting to lose weight. However, this method might cause the body to have less energy and possibly lose muscle. Go for a lower calorie deficit instead, and you could drop 0.5 per cent of your body weight in a week. This slower method preserves muscle mass while enabling more sustained fat reduction.
Make sure you get enough lean protein, healthy fats, and carbs in a balanced diet. Extreme diets that exclude whole food categories should be avoided since they might cause muscle loss and vitamin shortages.
Consume All of Your Required Proteins:
Since protein is what makes up muscle, eating enough of it is essential to preserving muscle mass. Eat a range of protein-rich foods, including fish, poultry, eggs, dairy products, beans, legumes, nuts, and seeds. Additionally, you'll obtain all the important amino acids your body requires thanks to this.
The general population is advised to consume 1g per kilogram of body weight. If you weigh 70 kg, for instance, you need eat 70 grammes of protein per day. If you are an exceptional athlete or more active, try to consume 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight.
Don't Give Up Your Sleep:
A critical component of general health and muscle maintenance, sleep is sometimes disregarded. One study indicated that when on a calorie restriction diet, people who slept less lost more body weight from muscle mass than fat mass than those who slept enough. For your body to maintain muscular mass, try to get around 8 hours of sleep per night.
Every day, go to bed and wake up at the same time to maintain a normal sleep routine. Make sure your resting space is cosy and distraction-free, establish a relaxing evening ritual, and avoid using electronics one hour before bed.
Take Recovery Into Consideration:
If you want to keep your muscular mass, recovery is just as vital as training. Give your muscles time to heal since overtraining might cause them to break down. Incorporate rest days into your exercise regimen and pay attention to your body.
You may improve muscle recovery by stretching before and after your exercises, foam rolling, and even getting a brief massage. These can increase your flexibility and lessen muscular pain, enabling you to stick to a regular workout schedule.
Final Thoughts:
Maintaining your body's muscles is essential to being active, self-sufficient, and healthy as you become older. The more you maintain your muscles, the better your chances are of living a good life and declining painlessly. By concentrating on these five areas, you may prevent muscle loss and improve your prospects of long-term health and vitality accompanied by a higher quality of life.
