While much of the bodybuilding press seems obsessed with drug-fueled, over-sized monsters, the natural bodybuilder has often been overlooked.
Thankfully, a recent resurgence in an uber-health conscious society has meant natural bodybuilding is seeing a growth in popularity, thanks in part to the Internet.
As a skinny guy who wants to build muscle naturally without resorting to drugs or thousands of dollars worth of supplements, the 3 natural bodybuilding strategies that i outline below will help you in your quest.
Use An Intelligent Training Cycle
For most skinny guys, they think that the way to put on a lot of muscle quickly is to spend every waking hour down the gym.
Don’t fall into this trap!
This really is a case where less is more. Training every day like the pros do before a big contest is only going to get you injured, overtrained, and completely fed up with the whole thing that you feel like quitting.
You should aim to follow a training cycle that is suited to your particular needs. As a beginner and skinny guy, you can be safe in the knowledge that the fastest muscle gains occur in the first few weeks of a training routine, and can be accomplished in 3 workouts per week.
That provides your body with at least one full day’s rest in between each session to allow the muscles to repair and regrow. Stick to full-body workouts instead of split routines at the beginning, as this ensures that all muscle groups are worked equally and have equal rest time. It also makes planning your bodybuilding routines a lot easier.
High Calorie Intake During Your Bulking Phase
The bulking phase is critical to helping you pack on pounds of muscle mass, and to do this you’ll need to get serious about upping your daily calorie intake. Most skinny guys stumble at this hurdle and think it’s all about protein shakes and supplements.
A good quality high calorie diet should consist of as much WHOLE food as possible – lean meat, fish, oatmeal, eggs, and plenty of fruit and veg. There are plenty of calorie calculators available online that will tell you how many calories you should be aiming for, but a rough estimate can be gained by multiplying your current bodyweight in pounds by 24. So if you weigh 160 pounds, your calorie requirement is 3,840 per day (160 x 24).
To be a successful natural bodybuilder you don’t actually need to use ANY supplements at all, since they don’t contain any magic ingredients (despite what the big supplement companies would have you believe).
All your nutrient needs can be met with a good all-round balanced diet. It’s just that supplements can make it more convenient for you to achieve your daily calorie goals.
More Anabolic Hormones WITHOUT Drugs
While most of the big-name pro bodybuilders seem to use anabolic steroids as a matter of course, the natural bodybuilder can utilize their body’s own natural growth hormones without having to resort to such health-compromising junk.
Here are a few tips:
Training heavy on low reps can stimulate an increase in testosterone which will build muscle faster.
Likewise having a disciplined sleeping pattern which involves 8 hours of quality sleep per night will increase the levels of natural anabolic growth hormone in your body, as this rises when you enter deep sleep.
Sleep also helps to reduce stress – stress can cause higher than normal levels of catabolic hormones in your body which will reduce muscle growth and cause more body fat gain.
Eating plenty of veg like broccoli which contains powerful antioxidants and can combat the effects of the female hormone oestrogen which is an unfortunate side effect of much of the pollution and cosmetic use in modern society.