It’s well known how important it is to exercise regularly. Staying active is vital for maintaining a healthy weight, staving off harmful medical conditions such as heart disease, and also boosting your mood and general levels of wellbeing.

Most people also have a pretty good idea of how to work out, whether it’s going for a run, playing sports or lifting weights. However, what’s less clear is how to ensure that workouts are as effective and efficient as possible.

Looking for some pointers? Here is a guide for getting more out of your fitness sessions.

Mix it up

It’s very easy to get stuck in a routine when it comes to exercise. While this can save you time spent deciding what to do, it has the unwanted side effect of reducing the effectiveness of your workout. This is partly because your body gets used to what you’re doing and partly because it can lead to boredom, which makes you put in less effort. Try switching up the type of exercise you do in order to recruit different muscles and push yourself to work harder. For example, if you tend to mostly do cardio (such as running), add in some weight training exercises and vice versa to multiply the benefits.

Join a gym

If you normally work out at home, joining a gym could be hugely beneficial. You’ll get access to a wider variety of equipment and facilities, as well as the chance to ask professional personal trainers for advice. By exercising at a gym such as Oak Health Club Ashburn, you’ll also have the chance to boost your recovery by using the sauna or getting a massage after you exercise. This in turn will help you to work out more often and to a higher level – all of which means you’ll see better results.

Try a class

For those who tend to exercise alone, joining a class might be just the boost that you need. Working out in unison with several other people can motivate you to push just that little bit harder, and thereby make your sessions more effective. Not only that, it can be a great way to try different styles of exercising – from pilates and yoga to kickboxing, spin and dance, there’s sure to be a class that suits your interests and fitness levels. On top of which, if you sign up for a class then you’re less likely to bail on your workout!

Eat well and stay hydrated

There are many factors which impact the effectiveness of an exercise session, including your diet. For example, dehydration can have a negative effect on your performance, so it’s important to drink plenty of water before, during and after your workout. Likewise, getting a good night’s sleep will enable you to push harder in the gym.

Finally, carbohydrates are our body’s main source of fuel, so be sure to include some in your pre-workout diet in order to be able to give it your best. Protein is also key, because it can stimulate muscle repair and aid in your post-workout recovery.

We can find countless articles on the internet and in the fitness magazines of men that tell them how to increase their muscle mass. This happens to be a very important part of staying healthy. Ideally, we should progressively make our exercises more difficult by adding more reps or by increasing the amount of weight being used. Changing up the exercise routine is one of the most sure-fire ways to increase muscle mass and also stop the dreaded plateau from taking hold.

We have good and healthy meals and also include an after-workout shake in our diets. This post-workout shake should have a 2:1 ratio of carbohydrates to protein. We should also aim to recover as fast as possible and also as effective as possible. This will mean a maximum of 4 days split when you are trying to gain muscle that is lean. Regular 8 hours of sleep is also needed. Another thing that comes in handy is naps as they can potentially help us by releasing some growth hormones.

Let us now take a look at some of the more unconventional ways of increasing your body’s muscle mass.

1. Push or pull as fast as you possibly can.

It would do you a lot of good if you just forgot about the certain exercises that make use of 2 contractions that are slow or maybe a slow contraction that is concentric and also an eccentric contraction that is fast. Studies have been able to determine that the absolute best way in which you can build muscle is to basically pull or push as fast as you possibly can. This will of course differ according to the dynamics of the lift you are using.

If, for example, you happen to be doing a chin-up, then it will do you more good if you pull as fast as is physically possible for you. Even when you are on the last rep of the exercise, make sure that you do not gain momentum slowly. Rather you should aim to explode actively as fast as possible when you are going up and then come down in a more controlled manner on the phase that is eccentric.

2. Make sure that you pull more than you push

The muscles that have been termed as “mirror muscles” happen to dominate most people’s workouts but the fact of the matter is that they really should not. It is a fact that the muscles that we have on our backs are much more important than the muscles of the chest and shoulders. This is with regards to proper posture, good physique, and also power.

It is true that even when we push we tend to activate the lats that we have. Whenever we make movements such as punching, deadlift, and also throwing, our muscles in the back are also involved.

However, if you want to build a physique that is athletic, make sure that you pull much more than you push. Whatever, the ideal physique is, if you want to build that, make sure that you are pulling more than you are pushing when exercising.

3. Don’t eat whole grains instead go for white flour

This particular point really does have the potential to surprise you. You will have probably heard from a multitude of sources that whole grains are what you should eat as part of your healthy diet. You will have also heard that you need fewer of the “white carbs”. The fact of the matter, however, is that it just is not true if you want to gain a bit more muscle mass. The whiter types of flour and the carbs termed as being “white”, such as bread, rice, etc, are digested much faster than it takes to digest whole grains. The point is, you will get hungrier much more often when you eat these white carbs instead of the brown ones.

4. Lift Heavy.

It is not a fact that if you just lift heavy weights that you will get the body of your dreams. But what is equally true is that not lifting heavy weights will also most definitely not achieve that goal. These types of cadences are not at all suitable for the purposes of gaining more muscle mass. What can achieve this, however, is changing the amount of weight that you are working with.

If you have a highly varied and non-repetitive form of exercise routine that makes use of both eccentric and fast contractions, with a whole host of different schemes of reps and sets, then you are probably on the right track. In any case, you should still opt to lift some of the heavier weights in conjunction with these types of exercises in order to reap the maximum benefit possible.

5. Light Therapy

One of the things that we constantly emphasized in the above few paragraphs is the importance of the recovery time that is required after strenuous physical activity and exertion, such as lifting very heavyweights. One type of therapy that can really help with this aspect, the recovery part, is light therapy. This type of therapy is also known by the names, red light therapy, blue light therapy, infrared light therapy, photobiomodulation, etc. It really does not matter what the name being used is, the takeaways here should be that light therapy can really help us with muscle recovery better and much faster.

Light therapy basically works by mimicking the light of the outdoors, natural light, in a setting that is indoors. The device that emits the light has the ability to produce light that is as brilliant as 10,000 lux units. Light at these wavelengths has been known to produce a lot of beneficial results for the human body. One of the more well-known benefits of light therapy is helping to recover from strenuous exercises.