Many people want to lose weight, but there are also those who actually want to gain weight. Common reasons for that include looking more muscular, enhancing athleticism and improving daily functioning. Usually, it’s much healthier to gain weight as muscle rather than fat. While food and exercise are vital for gaining muscle, mass gainer supplements can also help you by providing calories and protein as well as helping you to train harder.
Mass gainers are a weight gain supplement that contains about 80% carbohydrates and only 10-20% protein. The high amount of sugars over proteins makes these supplements a good source of energy for some individuals. Studies have shown that mass gainers are best for those with low body weight. This is because, in addition to muscle growth, gainers also increase fat mass. This is beneficial for ectomorphs, which are people who are naturally slim, with a poor body structure, and who also have difficulty gaining weight. By including gainers in their diet, these individuals can easily increase their daily calorie intake.
Being a calorie-rich powder that you can mix with water or milk, these supplements work exactly as they sound – they help you pack on muscle and make your strength training workouts more effective. A weight gain supplement can help you sculpt the physique you want in the timeframe that fits your schedule. If you’re having a hard time seeing gains regardless of how hard you work out, weight gainers can help you get there quicker by boosting your caloric intake.
In aerobic activities, muscles are constantly being provided with oxygen which helps you burn more calories and fat than weightlifting. But this happens only to an extent. Contrary to aerobic exercises, weightlifting requires the muscles to work out without oxygen. Without the help of oxygen, your muscles call upon your stores of sugar and glycogen to power them through.
What does this have to do with mass gainers, you may ask? With weightlifting, exercise doesn’t end when you stop moving. Recovery is crucial, and maximizing your recovery efforts can make a great difference in how quickly you will see results. With aerobic exercises, you burn calories while you’re doing them and your heart rate returns to normal a couple of minutes after. When you engage in a session of strength training, your muscles get fatigued and can require a few hours to recover. This means you burn more calories and fat with strength training than with aerobic activity. By consuming a mass gainer after your workout, you’ll be jump-starting the muscle-building process by replenishing all the calories, fat and carbohydrates you’ve just lost. You’ll be also adding lots of healthy protein, such as I-glutamine, which has been scientifically proven to speed up muscle recovery.
It’s no secret: to gain weight you have to take in more calories per day than that you burn. However, when you’re focused on working out routinely, it can be hard to keep the scales tipped in your favour. Did you know that in just 30 minutes of body-weight exercises performed at a vigorous pace, an 80 kilos male can burn up to 350 calories? Mass gainers can help you replenish and restore the calories you lose during your strength training workout. With up to 1,000 calories or so per serving, these supplements are ideal for making sure all nutrients lost in your sweat session are returned to your body.
The main purpose of a mass gainer is to increase calories and promote growth. This means it is better taken in the morning to fuel you for the day and instantly boost your calorie intake. This will prevent you from having to constantly worry about getting enough calories. But it can also be taken post-workout after you’ve expended a high amount of calories working out. A mass gainer will deliver a high protein content, which will contribute to muscle repair and growth, along with carbohydrate which acts as your body’s main energy source to help fuel recovery.
When shopping for mass gainers, pay attention to the type and quality of the ingredients used. There many cheap supplements available on the market. Beware of buying cheap products that promise to do a lot – they will often have no effect whatsoever.
When it comes to side effects, mass gainers are generally safe and doesn’t cause side effects. Only mild cases of gastrointestinal disturbances may be observed and these usually involve bloating caused by the intake of gluten-rich gainers. Individuals with acne may have more skin problems when using gainers.