Developing an athletic look takes time, energy, and mostly undivided commitment and dedication. However, many of us focus on the fitness goal alone, forgetting or overlooking the necessity to maintain them- only to have regrets later.
As much as building your athletic look takes effort, maintaining it takes certain efforts as well– but not as intense or hard as the developing stage.
Sometimes, your personal fitness trainer will guide you on maintaining your build to suit your body type more. But for a quick look-up, here are 4 major steps you should follow to maintain your athletic look.
Don’t train hard on empty stomach and refuel after exercise
Your muscle or build stores available glucose in the body. When you work out on an empty stomach, you run out of glucose in your muscle, blood, and liver. During this time, your body will naturally redirect to get more glucose from the muscle protein to maintain your body, brain, and organs.
For this, the hormone cortisol breaks down your muscle or builds into amino acids to convert it into glucose, thereby ensuring a steady supply of glucose within the body. This, for obvious reasons, will affect your athletic look when continued. So it’s always a good practice to avoid working out on an empty stomach.
Besides this, refueling your body after a workout is also equally important for muscle maintenance and growth as you get an insulin spike. So, make sure to take some protein and carbs, at least within 1-2 hours of your workout.
Eat Well And Exercise Accordingly
Eating sufficient protein, in general, is important for good health. However, those looking to maintain a build or an athletic look will need more protein than the average required. If you don’t eat enough to support the body weight compared to the energy you spend for a day, you will lose your muscle and the overall athletic look.
While maintaining a good diet, it’s equally important to engage in regular exercises to maintain the build. Generally, your weight and diet should be considered to match a post-build exercise accordingly. But, again, your personal trainer can guide you more on this post-build diet and exercise regime.
Relax And Sleep Enough
Relaxing and sleeping are crucial factors to good mental health. And if you’re looking to maintain your build, relaxing and getting enough sleep is very important.
Sleeping is seen as a time for rebuilding or maintaining. When you sleep, hormones like testosterone and human growth hormones are released, supporting your body to rebuild and repair your body- which helps you maintain your build and athletic look.
Relaxing, on the other hand, will limit emotional stress. When you’re emotionally stressed, the release of stress hormones increases, which messes with your metabolism and makes you crave junk food often. This can easily break down your build and make it harder to rebuild muscles altogether.
Limit Alcohol Intake
This doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t have drinks at all. But consuming too much alcohol can raise the estrogen levels in your body, which easily knock around your testosterone, leading to more muscle loss.
And if you’re an athlete looking to maintain your build and athletic look, consuming too much alcohol can increase your risk for injuries. Besides, consuming too much alcohol can depress your immune system, which in turn can slow down the healing process of sports-related injuries.
Our team of professionals includes female personal trainers at Be Fit, so depending on your preference, we can offer you a tailor-made training session to better suit your fitness goals.
