How To Build A Champion’s Body

Every athlete’s vision of a champion’s body is different. If you are a gymnast you are going to want a toned strong performing body, whereas if you are a powerlifter you are going to be less focused on a toned body and more focused on developing as much strength as possible. Nevertheless, there are 4 key factors to developing your vision of a champion’s body.

1. Understanding Your Situation & Goal

Most of us reading this are already motivated to exercise, that’s great, but before you jump into a mixture of weight training and cardio, take a second to plan your journey. Not only can a plan help you avoid common mistakes and stop you wasting time, but it can also give you direction and help you quickly reach your goal of developing a champion body.

First, start by assessing your current situation in comparison to your goal and decide which type of diet and training program best suits you. For example: if you’re a 300 pound man looking to become a gymnast, you are going to want to lose weight and tone muscle instead of gaining strength and building muscle. Alternatively if you weighed 120 pounds you would do the opposite. Once you find your bearings and direction, you can optimise your diet and exercise to get the most out of the time you put in.

2. Nutrition

It doesn’t matter if you are trying to lose weight or put on muscle, consuming enough protein is important to successfully building your body. Essentially, it is the one macro nutrient out of both carbohydrate and fat that is responsible for supplying the body with vital amino acids which are needed to build not only muscle and strength but also performance.

It has been proven in studies that a high consumption of protein coupled with performing resistance exercises produces lean muscle mass. In fact, research has also shown that its high consumption can additionally help reduce hunger, increase the amount of calories you burn each day and assist in preserving the strength and muscle that is often lost while on a weight loss diet.

According to Mark McManus an authority on nutrition, to tone or build muscle you should roughly “consume 1g of protein per pound of body weight”. Alternatively, a more precise way of calculating your ideal daily protein intake is by finding your amount of lean muscle (in kg) and multiplying that amount by 2.75. The total is the amount of protein (in grams) that you should eat each day.

3. Diet

Experts say that the key to looking fit is 80% diet and 20% exercise. In fact, dieting is so important to your fitness goals that experts have even shown how difficult it can be to out train a bad diet. While these findings mostly pertain to people losing weight and toning muscle, other research suggests that a poor diet can also hinder your progress when building strength and muscle.

To successfully diet, an almost guaranteed way is to plan and count the amount of calories you eat each day. For people looking to lose weight, finding the total amount of calories you burnt each day (maintenance calories + calories burnt in exercises) and subtracting that number by 300 to 500, will result in weight loss. Whereas people looking to gain strength and muscle would instead eat 300 to 500 more calories each day while performing resistance exercises.

4. Exercises

Thorin Klosowski from Life Hack says that “depending on your goals, certain workouts are better than others. Since your muscles and body react differently to different workouts, it’s important to come up with your goal first, and then chose the workout”. By this point in the article you should already know your goal, so it’s time to find an effective way to achieve it.

Best Type Of Exercises For Weight Loss & Toning Muscle

Based on research the best way to lose weight and tone muscle is by performing strengthening exercises in a High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) program. In fact, studies have shown HIIT to not only raise the body’s metabolism significantly more than traditional cardio but also HIIT keeps the metabolism running high for a greater amount of time (over the next 24 hours after the exercise).

Experts believe the best way to tone your body with HIIT is by performing strengthening exercises with a high amount of reps and a low amount of weight. Exercises like deadlifts, pull-ups and squats are just some of the best strengthening exercises that can help you tone muscle and lose weight.

Best Type Of Exercises For Building Strength & Muscle

It doesn’t matter what your vision of a champion’s body is, your workout routine should mostly be made up of compound exercises along with a smaller amount of isolated exercises. The science behind this statement is simple, not only does compound exercises help develop more muscles and optimize the amount of time spent in the gym for results, it has also been shown to be the best type of exercise to stimulate the natural release of anabolic hormones. To build strength experts recommend a low amount of repetitions coupled with a high amount of weight. Any workout routine that uses 5 reps / 5 sets to 8 reps / 3 sets are seen to be beneficial.

Putting It All Together

First, you need to find out where you currently stand in reference to your goal of achieving a champion’s body. Next, plan your diet around your goal, make sure to keep track of the calories you eat while allocating enough calories for protein to help repair, maintain and develop muscle. Lastly organise your workout routine ahead of time, allocate HIIT exercises comprised of strengthening exercises for losing weight and toning muscle. Alternatively to build and strengthen muscle, plan your exercises with a high amount of weight and low amount of repetitions. While the research and theory behind these 4 key areas have been proven to be effective, the real challenge to building your ideal champion of a body is actually found in going out there, executing your plan and staying motivated. Good luck and start taking action today!