How To Boost Testosterone Levels Naturally and Speed Weight Gain
After making the decision to enter into a muscle building, chances are you want to know what you can do to build muscle as fast as possible. Unfortunately, it’s not something where you can snap your fingers and gain 10 pounds that month. Muscle building takes time and patience, but when done right, you can ensure that the weight you are gaining is muscle and not fat or water weight.
Individuals who think they have discovered some ‘miracle program’ after seeing the scale shoot up after only a few weeks are mistaking that weight gain for water weight, muscle glycogen, or worse yet, body fat.
The body can only naturally synthesize one to two pounds (in beginners) a month maximum, so it’s vital that you maintain realistic expectations here. For women, the rate is half that (which just again goes to prove all those females out there who believe they will get ‘huge’ after lifting weights are again very wrong).
There are different things you can do to ensure you build muscle at a maximum rate, however. Boosting your testosterone levels naturally is one of them. Here are four tips to get you started.
Lift Heavier Weights
The very first thing you need to get straight right away is the amount of weight you’re lifting during your workouts. Do you think you’ll build muscle faster by using a higher rep range? Somewhere in the range of 8-12 reps?
Sure, you may get a good muscle ‘pump’ (and correspondingly spend a large volume of time starting at yourself in the mirror after a workout) using a higher rep range, but that higher rep range means that you’re not lifting as heavy as you potentially could.
It’s fine to keep a few sets and exercises where you use a higher rep range, but ideally you want to be lifting slightly heavier, using a rep range of 5-8 reps. That’s where you’re going to get pure strength gains which build muscle that sticks around.
With the higher rep range, you’ll notice that your muscles seem huge for about an hour or so after the workout, but after that, they’re back to normal. That’s because your ‘pump’ is gone.
Reduce Your Rest Periods Slightly
The second thing, workout-wise, that you’ll want to start doing is reducing the rest periods that you take during your workout. While you still want to be able to maintain that heavy lifting, if you’re taking 4-5 minute rest periods between sets, chances are you’re wasting time just a tad too much. Ideally you should be resting 60-90 seconds between lifts taken into the higher rep range or lifts that are more isolated in nature, and then resting 90-180 seconds on lifts where you lift hard and heavy.
Doing one workout every once in a while where you do really focus on reducing this rest period even if it does mean you can’t get in as many sets as normal can help spark your body into growth, so that’s something else to consider.
Get Enough Sleep
Most people state that one of their favourite activities to do is sleep – yet, sleep is something most of us do not get enough of. If sleep is a priority for you, start acting on this priority.
Being well rested just puts the body in a better anabolic state and you’ll see far better results in the gym when you’re getting your sleep than when you’re not. Not too mention growth hormone, another anabolic hormone in the body, is released mostly at night, further proving you cannot go without sleep.
Aim for at least 7-8 hours per night.
Eat More Dietary Fat – Specially The Saturated Variety (In Moderation!)
Finally, the last thing you can do is make sure you’re eating a virtually fat free diet. Many people attempt to in order to minimize fat gain, but realize that by doing so you’re severely hindering your progress.
Since testosterone is a sex hormone and sex hormones need dietary fat in order to be synthesized, when you cut dietary fat from your diet, you’re not going to produce testosterone nearly as well as you could. Some saturated fat can even help this process along slightly further, so keep that in mind.
Some dietary fat will be fine to have provided the rest of your diet is healthy and you have no pre-existing health issues.
So, keep these tips in mind. Doing what you can to optimize your testosterone levels will really allow you to see the best results you possibly could from your muscle building workout.
Related posts:
Leave a Comment