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A typical dilemma for any active sportsmen who lifts weights and wants to gain muscle mass is that they know there goal to build muscle up conflicts with the fact that they do a lot of cardio-vascular work. How can someone like this doing a muscle building routine build muscle fastest whilst still doing cardio, indeed is it even possible?

Quite often it is recommended that to build muscles fastest you ought to keep aerobic training down to as little as possible. This is often stated due to the fact that aerobic training sessions do two particular things that may restrict muscle building, namely: 1) burn an abundance of calories 2) speed up your metabolism. Both of these two things contribute to the same problem, namely, not getting enough calories on board. This takes us to the question of exactly what amount of calories should I therefore be taking on?

Well, to maintain weight each day you must eat enough calories to cover the energy expenditures of your body as if it were at rest (this is known as the basal metabolic rate), then consume enough extra calories to cover the exercise that you will do. If you want to add muscle mass on top of this then you have to add an extra 500 calories every day.

Is it possible to work this number out?

Yes, there most definitely is and one way of figuring this out is by using the Katch-McArdle formula (BMR based on lean body weight). Here it is:

Men: BMR = 66 + (13.7 X wght in kg) + (5 X hght in cm) – (6.8 X age in years)

Women: BMR = 655 + (9.6 X wght in kgs) + (1.8 X ht in cm) – (4.7 X age in years)

Once you have gotten this figure you should then multiply it by one of the following to allow for your daily activity levels:

Sedentary = BMR X 1.2 (desk job, little or no exercise)
Lightly active = BMR X 1.375 (1-3 days/wk sports/light exercise )
Mod. active equals BMR X 1.55 (sports 3-5 days/wk/moderate exercise)
Very active equals BMR X 1.725 (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days/wk)
Extr. active equals BMR X 1.{9 (hard daily exercise/sports & physical job or 2X day training, i}.e marathon, competition etc).

So, should you be doing cardio and weights frequently then you should multiply this by at least 1.725. This will cover the amount of energy for your daily needs. To suit your specific goals you should then adjust this total. Assuming your goal is muscle building a further 500 calories each day need to be added to this amount.

So, for arguments sake lets say the number you figure out is 3000 calories then that would mean 6 meals everyday which each contain 500 calories. To follow this strategy one snack or meal would be based around 11 gram coming from fat, 62 grams coming from carbohydrate and 37 grams coming from protein. This is figured out as so due to the fact that one gram of protein or carbohydrate is worth 4 gram whereas one gram of fat equals 9 calories.

Correct muscle building nutrition and working out your calorie needs like this is what is going to ensure you build muscles fastest, not any miracle new exercise!