Bodybuilders who are older do not have the luxury of eating a lot of calories in the off-season.
It is more difficult to add muscle while staying
lean because adding muscle requires a certain amount of calories;
however, as you have said, your metabolism changes as you get older. If
you eat too many calories in order to add more muscle, you’ll most
likely add more fat than muscle.
One of the best methods for adding muscle mass for natural
bodybuilders is to bulk up. In other words, eat a lot of calories—from
bodybuilding foods such as complete proteins and complex
carbohydrates—and train very heavy using the basic exercises to add
bodyweight and initiate muscle growth.
That’s the method I used to get bigger in my bodybuilding career.
When I was only 21 years old, I bulked up to 230 pounds. For the next 15
to 20 years I maintained a bodyweight of 230 to 240 pounds in the
off-season in order to increase my muscle mass gradually from year to
year. I was 198 pounds when I won the Natural Mr. Universe at 29 years
old in 1992. By 1995, I was competing at 204 pounds, and the following
year I stepped onstage at 208.
I would never have been able to add that much muscle by staying lean
in the off-season. I had to force the growth by eating a lot of calories
from protein and complex carbs in the off-season, especially during my
20s and 30s, when I had a fast metabolism.
Bodybuilders who are older do not have the luxury of eating a lot of
calories in the off-season. The metabolism becomes slower as we get
older, and our natural production of growth hormone also declines.
Growth hormone regulates bodyfat deposition, so less growth hormone
output means that it’s much easier to add fat.
If you want to look good as you get older, it’s important to eat less
and keep your bodyfat down. If you try eating as much as you did when
you were younger, you will add too much bodyfat. Whether you decide to
compete in the future, you will still have a difficult time reducing the
bodyfat when you want to be ripped.
As an over-40 bodybuilder, although you need to eat less, you still
need to eat enough of the right nutrients in order to support muscle
growth. Protein is a key to growth. You don’t need to go overboard, but
you do need to get enough high-quality complete-protein foods for muscle
recuperation and growth. I recommend 1.25 grams of protein per pound of
bodyweight. At 190 pounds, you would need approximately 237 grams of
protein a day.
I like to eat a variety of protein foods throughout the day. For
breakfast I’ll have one whole egg and eight egg whites. For lunch I’ll
have four ounces of either chicken breast or lean ground turkey. Dinner
usually includes six ounces of salmon or three to four ounces of sirloin
or round steak. I’ll also have a protein drink for one meal and another
six to seven egg whites for my last meal of the day.
It’s important to eat enough complex carbohydrates as well—for muscle
recuperation and energy for intense workouts. I could never build any
muscle on a low-carb diet. My body responds much better to a diet that
contains plenty of complex carbohydrates to restore the muscle glycogen
and provide the fuel for my training sessions.
When I was getting in shape for my recent IRON MAN cover
shoot, I followed a diet that was higher in carbohydrates than the
typical fat-loss plan. I started my diet by eating 200 grams of carbs a
day, and I was able to increase it to 350 grams before the shoot. Eating
more carbs allowed me to maintain high energy, display more vascularity
and keep my muscles full.
I stuck with complex carbs that are digested slowly because of their
high fiber content—oatmeal, oat bran, sweet potatoes, Ezekiel bread and
quinoa became staples. They also helped to keep me full and prevented me
from feeling hungry while on my diet.
Your diet will provide you with the nutrition you need to grow muscle
while staying lean, but it’s the training that will stimulate the
muscles to grow. There are many training methods that you can use to
build muscle and add size. One of the most basic is to train heavier.
The more weight you can lift for six to eight repetitions, the more
muscle you will build. The problem for older lifters, however, is that
getting stronger and lifting more weight are not always possible. The
natural testosterone declines as we get older, so our strength goes down
with it. Even for those who consistently weight train, it’s hard to
maintain the level of strength we had in our 20s and 30s.
Another consideration is the wear and tear of the joints. If you have
been a bodybuilder for several decades and have been lifting heavy
weights during that time, your elbows, knees, shoulders and lower back
may not be capable of lifting lots of weight anymore without injury or
discomfort. For older trainees, lifting heavier may not be the answer.
There are other high-intensity methods that can build muscle without
your having to lift more resistance. I have written about Hell-Raiser
Training, or HRT, the method that I used earlier in the year. It
consisted of performing eight normal repetitions followed by four forced
negatives—my training partner would apply pressure on the negative
portion of the rep for a four-second count.
HRT enabled me to train very hard without increasing the resistance. I
was pushing the muscles past the point of failure via the forced
repetitions performed after normal reps. It allowed me to develop the
muscle fibers as well as increase the sacroplasm portion of the muscle
cell by forcing more glycogen and blood flow into the muscles.
For the upcoming year, my plan is to use Hell-Raiser Training in
conjunction with some power cycles to keep my strength up. The one
drawback to HRT is that you have to use much less resistance on each
movement in order to complete the forced repetitions on top of the
regular reps. By using a six-week power cycle before the HRT cycles, I
hope to become stronger from each successive cycle so I make
improvements gradually throughout the year.
Editor’s note: John Hansen has won the Mr. Natural
Olympia and is a two-time Natural Mr. Universe winner. Check out his Web
site at www.NaturalOlympia.com for more information NaturalBodybuildingRadio.com.
Train with Wayne and LEARN FROM THE PRO'S
No comments:
Post a Comment