10 steps to bigness: rest, recovery and optimal supplementation are the keys to muscle gains

Training, often cited as the cause of muscle growth, actually tears down muscle tissue. It's the recovery from training that leads to growth. So, based on the stresses it encounters during the day, your body builds and breaks down muscle in a rhythmic sequence. Learning how to take control of this sequence can help keep your muscles in a state of net growth by minimizing and reducing muscle breakdown. Implementing the following recovery strategies is the key. Follow these daily guidelines and you'll help your body recover and keep growing.

1 TAKE GLUTAMINE AS SOON AS YOU WAKE UP

Cortisol is a catabolic hormone that peaks in the middle of the night, and although it serves a function, helping shut off its release will increase your ability to grow. To help counteract the effects of cortisol, take glutamine as soon as you get up. Glutamine is an amino acid that supports muscle growth in a variety of ways. First, it's a food source for gut and immune cells. When you're in a catabolic state, muscle is easily broken down, or catabolized. By supplementing with glutamine first thing in the morning, you help satisfy your body's amino acid needs without tapping into muscle stores.

Recovery Rx Take five grams (g) of glutamine as soon as you wake up.

2 EAT A HIGH-PROTEIN BREAKFAST WITH CARBS

You also need to provide your body with nutrition when you rise. In addition to a regular bodybuilding breakfast, consider consuming whey protein isolates (either in a shake or added to oatmeal). Oatmeal provides slow-burning carbs to give you energy, which benefits recovery in the long run. Other protein sources, such as eggs and lean breakfast meats, provide protein with amino acids, the building blocks of muscle tissue.

Recovery Rx Take in up to 60 g of protein and 60 g of carbs, depending on your size, caloric needs and current bodybuilding goals. (Eat fewer carbs if you're trying to shed bodyfat.)

3 DRINK A PREWORKOUT SHAKE

Taking in a preworkout shake is one of the most critical things you can do to enhance growth and recovery. Providing your body with essential amino acids before training reduces muscle loss and helps create an anabolic environment. If your muscles are low in carbs, you'll lose more lean body mass when you train. Carbs also promote the release of insulin, which has both anticatabolic and anabolic effects.

Timing and the type of shake that you take are critical. FLEX recommends taking in a low-glycemic-index carbohydrate, such as oatmeal or banana, before each workout along with whey protein. You can also use a commercially available preworkout drink.

Recovery Rx Drink 20 to 40 g of whey protein isolates with 40 to 80 g of carbs.

4 VOLUMIZE BEFORE YOU WORK OUT

In addition to having a preworkout shake, you should also take glutamine and creatine, and drink water to keep your body hydrated and your muscle cells filled with fluid.

Glutamine and creatine help pump muscle cells full of water. The best part is that these compounds work through different mechanisms, so even when your muscles can't hold any more creatine, they can still hold more glutamine. In theory, that means an even bigger stretch for the outer sheaths of your muscle cells, leading to growth. Drinking plenty of water (at least a liter in the 90 minutes before you train) helps provide fluids to keep your blood volume up for better muscle pumps.

Recovery Rx Take 3 to 5 g of creatine, 5 g of glutamine and drink a liter of water.

5 DRINK A POSTWORKOUT SHAKE

After you train, you should always have a protein and carb drink to help boost recovery. While your pretraining drink serves a similar function, a postworkout shake will help you supply your body with a steady stream of amino acids for muscle. Aminos are more rapidly and efficiently taken up by muscle fibers after they've been trashed by a workout. They will help repair and strengthen your muscles more effectively at this time than at any other time of the day. Fast-digesting carbs such as dextrose, maltodextrin or Vitargo will boost insulin and blunt cortisol release, putting you in an ideal anabolic state.

Recover Rx Drink 20 to 40 g of whey protein isolates with 40 to 80 g of carbs.

6 TAKE CREATINE WITH YOUR POSTWORKOUT SHAKE

In addition to your postworkout shake, you should provide your body with creatine. (Often, you can find a protein product that contains creatine for an all-in-one boost.) Taking creatine with your postworkout shake is advantageous for two reasons. First, exercised muscle takes up creatine better so less is wasted. Second, the blood insulin spike you get from the protein and carbs dramatically improves net creatine uptake into muscle fibers. The upshot is more creatine in each muscle fiber at saturation and a bigger tighter muscle fiber in the final analysis.

Recovery Rx Mix 3 to 5 g of creatine with your postworkout shake for up to a total of 10 g per day.

7 TAKE AN INSULIN MIMICKER WITH YOUR POSTWORKOUT SHAKE

Insulin is an anabolic hormone that drives the synthesis of muscle protein (i.e., it kick-starts growth) from both the outside and inside of your muscles. From the outside, it helps get the important nutrients out of your blood and into your muscle. It opens the doors that let creatine, amino acids and glucose in--all three are essential for muscle growth. From the inside of the muscle, insulin starts the building processes that turn those nutrients into muscle. The more insulin released from your pancreas after a workout, the better for muscle growth. Taking a product with 300 to 600 milligrams (mg) of 4-hydroxyisoleucine (from fenugreek seeds) will do the trick. Another option is to enhance the effectiveness of the insulin at the muscle or to copy insulin's effects on muscle with another molecule altogether. Insulin mimickers do this and then some. In the end, they all favor better uptake of creatine, glucose and amino acids, and they enhance muscle recovery and growth. Warning: Many creatine products include insulin mimickers--such as alpha-lipoic acid (ALA), d-pinitol (3-O-methylchiroinositol) and taurine--so be careful to avoid duplication. Recovery Rx Take 300 to 600 mg of 4-hydroxyisoleucine, 200 to 1,000 mg of ALA, 50 to 100 mg of d-pinitol, or 1 to 3 g of taurine.