One common goal is to bulk and build as muscle and strength as possible. If you are looking to get stronger in the gym over the coming months, this blog will give you some guidance to make help you get to your goal.
Calorie Surplus
A calorie surplus is where you eating more calories than your body is burning in a day. To build strength and muscle mass, it is important that you eat in a calorie surplus to fuel your body with the required energy to perform in the gym. You should notice if you are training hard and your scale weight is increasing, you will also be getting stronger.
Training Programme
Following a training plan that allows you to be consistent and progress week on week is going to be key for improving your strength. Try and follow a training split where you are lifting heavy and change the rep ranges to keep applying progressive overload week on week. On your compound lifts you can aim for 3-8 reps if you are trying to increase the amount of weight that you are lifting.
Prioritising compound exercises are going to be a key factor when it comes to improving strength. Compound exercises are movements that use more than one muscle group to perform the exercise. For example, Squat, Bench Press and Deadlifts are all compound exercises.
Recovery
Recovery is another major factor when it comes to progressing in the gym. Having all the best recovery methods in place will mean that you go into your training sessions with less fatigue and training performance is likely to be of a higher quality.
The most important factor for recovery is sleep and by getting 7-9 hours of high quality sleep per night you should fine you feel more energised and recovered. If you are someone who struggles with sleep, using some supplements such as Warrior Sleep maybe be beneficial for you. Another supplement that you could consider for recovery is aminos. Try Warrior Amino Blast in one of the many flavours available today.
Supplements for strength
Along with a good training and nutrition plan, supplements can help to execute this plan. Warrior Cyclic is an intra-workout carb powder that can help with training performance. Carbohydrates are your main source of energy when training and Warrior Cyclic is a rapidly digestive carb source to give you that boost of energy. Another supplement that you can use for an energy boost is a pre-workout. Warrior Rage is a high caffeine pre-workout that can give you the energy boost needed to help you progress in the gym. Creatine is another supplement that can be used to help increase strength in the gym. Creatine is used to increase power output and this is key for strength gains.
Since a calorie surplus is key to adding muscle and making strength progress. Mass Gainers could be a useful supplement for some individuals. If you are someone who struggles to hit your calorie goal and needs a boost in protein, adding Warrior Mass to your diet can be an easy way to increase your daily intake.
Use Carbohydrates Effectively
As mentioned earlier, carbohydrates are your body's main source of energy and can have a positive impact on your training performance. By planning in some carbohydrates pre-workout, you can fuel your body to smash your sessions. Adding some fast releasing carbs before a workout can give you that energy spike needed to make strength progress. Some example of carbohydrates that are fast release are:
- Cereal
- Breakfast / snack bars
- Fruit
If you are fuelling up with slow releasing carbohydrates, try to push these further back to give them time to digest before training. Some example of slow releasing carbs are:
- Oats
- Potato's
- Pasta
- Rice
In conclusion, a training plan that you can progress on over the weeks and a nutrition plan that provides you with enough calories to fuel your body, along with consistency is the key to building muscle and progressing in the gym.
