When it comes to keeping up with the Jones’s of the athletic world, you’re going to have to do more than just push harder and work longer. Although this is excellent practice to build up your muscles, if you’re not feeding your muscles properly, you’re going to miss out on your growing potential.

1. Feeding Your Muscles Properly for Maximum Growth
When it comes to keeping up with the Jones’s of the athletic
world, you’re going to have to do more than just push harder
and work longer. Although this is excellent practice to build
up your muscles, if you’re not feeding your muscles properly,
you’re going to miss out on your growing potential.
Muscle tearing
As you exercise, you tear down your muscles a little at a time, until you are utterly spent. Your muscles
feel like lead and you can hardly move another step without sending jolts of pain throughout your entire
body.
You feel like this because you’ve literally broken your muscles down to the point that they can’t sustain
much more exercise without some rest. Despite how much damage this seems to be doing to your
muscles, the process is absolutely necessary to build them up.
In fact, your body expects it. The amount of damage to the muscles tells the body to (1) build back that
muscle, and (2) make it proportionally stronger so it can better handle the stress the next time it
happens.
So your body gets back to work fixing your muscles in preparation for the next time they’ll be needed.
The body pulls from a store of minerals and nutrients to rebuild the muscles.
These minerals include things like protein, amino acids, fat, magnesium, zinc, vitamin D, and calories.
Each mineral serves its own purpose in assisting muscle recovery and growth, and each is necessary to
help you maximize your muscle growth potential.
Nutrients
When athletes limit their diet of the essential nutrients, they minimize their bodies’ ability to make
themselves better than they were before. That speaks to the importance of filling your diet with foods
that provide these minerals and nutrients to maximize your growth potential.
The following are a few great ideas to fill an athlete’s diet with if you want them to take advantage of
their body’s maintenance cycle. Start with fish.
On top of providing a healthier form of cholesterol and fat, fish contains great amounts of protein, and
vitamin D. Athletes can benefit greatly from a diet rich in consistent fish supplements.

2. In a close second is chicken. The first white meat, chicken is also an excellent source of protein and
minimizes fat.
To minimize fat intake, avoid eating the skin. The white meat is where the helpful nutrients are.
Eat chicken often to increase your muscle strength. Third, Gaston from Beauty and the Beast had it right
when he ate four dozen eggs every morning to help him get large.
Eggs are another excellent source of protein while costing you very little in calories. More than just
providing generic protein to the body, Eggs eggs offer a more readily usable protein for your body to
utilize immediately.
Although Disney was being a bit ironic when it suggested that he ate 48 eggs every morning, they were
touching on a deeper truth that you can use them to build back your muscles quickly. Eat them often.
Fourth is the inclusion of soy products. Soy offers you a source of amino acids, on top of a number of
other useful vitamins and minerals. Soybeans are an excellent addition to your diet.
Carbohydrates
Fifth, include carbohydrate foods. Rice, potatoes, and beans are
excellent additions to the diet.
The reason for this is that your body needs carbohydrates to make
usable energy. With enough energy the body can (1) power the
processes to recover the muscles, and (2) power the body to keep up
a healthy posture and form.
When the body lacks the necessary energy, it is opened up to a misstep or overexerted motion that
could cause an injury requiring electro surgery to fix. The last thing these athletes want is an indication
that they can’t work out for a while due to electro surgery.
That speaks to the importance of a proper energy level to sustain them through their work out and
recovery. When you’re working as hard as these athletes do, your body can handle the increase in
calories, even if the fads of dieting scream no.
So feed your body right when pushing your body to the limits. Not only will you avoid injuries that
require electro surgery, but you will also recovery better so you can work harder.
Photo Credit: gazzat, Ramberg Medial Images