Unexpected Foods that Build Muscle

Although there are some unexpected foods that build muscle, the basics of building muscle remain the same: increase your quantity of quality protein taken on a daily basis and workout with weights or perform body weight exercises to strengthen and develop your musculature. Avoid bad foods (junk food) that offer no nutrition and spike your insulin and make sure your caloric intake is sufficient to meet your needs without being too high to cause fatty weight gain.

Unexpected Foods that Build Muscle

These fundamental rules override anything else (for natural muscle gain, at least…). That is not to say however that other foods don’t offer benefits at the micronutrient level and for variety and optimization of muscle gains you might want to look at these unexpected foods that build muscle.

1. Apples. Apples provide us with a whole range of health benefits. They can also help in muscle growth because they contain a higher level of ursolic acid than other foods. Ursolic acid can help to concentrate the level of IGF-1 in the blood. IGF-1, or Insulin-like Growth Factor-1, consists of 70 amino acids and is most prevalent during the years of puberty. It promotes protein synthesis and encourages the body to burn fat as a source of energy. Best of all from the point of view of muscle gain is that IGF-1 causes our cells to split (hyperplasia). With a nutritious diet and regular training those extra cells can then be developed in size and strength. Once we reach adulthood our muscle cell number is otherwise fixed.

2. Ginger. Again, like apples, ginger offers a diverse range of health benefits. With regard to building muscle, the first thing to note is that ginger helps to burn calories. Fair enough, this isn’t building your muscle as such, but in order to look ripped you need to lower your body fat percentage and ginger will help you achieve this. It can also help reduce muscle soreness by as much as 25%. This aids in recovery and allows you to hit the gym harder. Best of all, it is a strong anti-estrogen food and tests on lab rats have shown that it increases their testosterone production level by double. You may need to look at a supplement here to get the full benefits (unless you really like eating ginger…).

3. Holy Basil. This herb is great for improving the circulation of testosterone in our bodies. Testosterone is obviously vital in making significant strength gains but unfortunately it can become bound up in times of stress. Holy basil helps to unbind that testosterone and make sure it is circulating in our bodies at a higher rate. Holy basil is therefore also great if you are going through a stressful period.

4. Green Tea. Regular readers will already know that this comes up a lot. I have previously mentioned that green tea is just about the best thing you can put into your body for innumerable health benefits. It can help us in our quest for a better physique by increasing our testosterone level for one to two hours. Taken before a workout therefore a cup of green tea can grant us the ability to lift more for longer while also reducing muscle soreness and promoting a quick recovery (allowing you to lift more for longer…and so the cycle repeats itself).

How to reduce muscle soreness and pain

How to reduce muscle soreness and pain is an important question to answer for the serious athlete. This is because two commonly encountered problems with training sessions that take you beyond your current comfort level are muscle soreness and muscle pain. According to the theory of Progressive Muscle Overload we need to be continually overloading our musculature in order to break it down and have it grow back stronger. There is a fine line though between training at a level of peak performance and being injured (here in this case meaning suffering soreness and/or pain).

One common misconception to get out of the way is any idea you may have that soreness and/or pain is necessary (and hence desirable) for growth and improved levels of fitness. Certainly you want to be pushing yourself to develop but as I noted above, your new goals should not be leading you to injury. There are exceptions to this and as always professional, elite athletes can and do push themselves beyond the limits of most people. But these are people who have and do dedicate their lives to their chosen sport. They are also more likely to suffer (sometimes very serious) injuries in training owing to their gung ho attitude. Pro athletes are also often surrounded by a support network dedicated to their comfort and improvement. This includes things like the availability of ice baths (useful for recovery), a nutritionist, professional massage, adequate periods to rest in and often access to the latest scientific information and devices.

How to reduce muscle soreness and pain

The average person then should not be training with the intention of experiencing soreness/pain in the mistaken belief that that is automatically equated to growth. Training for growth and training for soreness are two different things. There may be some overlap at times but consistently training to make yourself sore is a good indicator that you are over-training and likely to burn out.

There are three broad areas that we can address when determining how to reduce muscle soreness and pain. The first is the use of supplements, followed by a modified diet and finally by living a healthy lifestyle.

Supplements

Beta-Alinine is a non-essential amino acid (meaning the body can produce it naturally, unlike essential amino acids which must be absorbed). Amino acids help with processing protein, meaning they are important for muscle growth and recovery. In particular beta-Alinine buffers our muscles against lactic acid, which builds up as a workout becomes longer and more demanding.

SOD/Glisodin is, amongst other things, great for overcoming muscle fatigue. SOD (Super Oxide Dismutase) protects against cell damage. It is itself prone to damage from stomach acids and therefore a carrier is used: Gliadin. The combination of the two is known as GliSODin.

Omega-3 will help to reduce inflammation while CoQ10 (Coenzyme 10) promotes a healthy heart (as well as liver and kidneys). Vitamin C is useful for innumerable reasons but is also used up quickly when we workout (and indeed through our daily lives in general) and it therefore needs adequate replacement. One of the things it does is to help us relax, as does Magnesium, which is also recommended. It is a vital mineral and needs to be replaced after a workout. It serves among other things to keep our muscles and nervous system relaxed. Finally Creatine Monohydrate helps to keep fatigued muscles energized.

Nutrition

Nutrition is of course vital in deciding how we reduce muscle soreness and pain.

Blueberries are an excellent post-workout snack as they contain important nutrients that need to be replenished after training. Carbs are important in day to day training (as long as they are good carbs...stay away from donuts, pizza and so on) but need to be limited and you may also experience benefit from carb cycling (eating an above average number of carbs every few days).

Lifestyle

Avoid long layoffs between workouts. Lifting lighter, longer and more often will give you greater benefits than lifting heavy once in a while. You definitely need recovery time but left for too long and your gains will disappear. Drink more water, especially in hotter than normal weather and, even moreso, in the colder months when you may not feel as thirsty. Finally make sure that you are getting enough quality rest. You want to make sure that you are having a deep sleep at night and are awakening fully rested.

These are some key points then on how to reduce muscle soreness and pain. Ice baths, massage and stretching will also help as additional activities.