Your body craves for a constant supply of blood to thrive in life. This blood gives your body’s tissues the oxygen and nutrients they need.
You might be hitting the gym hard every week but all this hard work can go to waste if your muscles are not getting the blood and nutrients they need.
Here’s the deal.
If you want your muscles to get bigger and you want to boost your stamina then you need to directly increase the supply of blood to your muscles.
That’s what this article is all about. In this article, we will walk you through the top 5 ways you can improve vascularity and the supply of blood to your muscles to achieve superior gains.
Let’s get to it.
#1: Lose Some Body Fat
The first thing you need to do before trying anything else is to lose some body fat.
Here is why this is important.
The blood vessels that run to your muscles pass through something called connective tissue. This connective tissue is like padding and is largely made of fat.
If you have more fat around your muscles, the blood vessels will not get enough space to expand. So losing your body fat should be your top priority as doing so will open up more space for your blood vessels to expand.
Here is what you can do to lose body fat.
- Eat the Right Foods: You need to focus on a high-protein and low-carb diet. Here is how this diet will help you.
Your body needs a quick supply of energy coming from carbs. When you’re not eating enough carbs, your body will turn to your stored glycogen as a source of energy.
However, once you run out of your glycogen stores, your body turns to your fat stores and starts to burn them.
- Timing is Important Too: Eating the food at the right time is just as important as eating the right foods. What you need to try is to combine fasting with periods of eating.
Here is what this means.
With intermittent Fasting you need to NOT eat anything for 16 hours a day. You can eat all your calories just as normal in the remaining 8 hours.
This is called the 16/8 regimen of intermittent fasting. Research proves that it’s a superior method to lose body fat and to gain muscle.
- Exercise, Of Course: Of course, if you want bigger muscles and less fat, you will have to exercise as well. What kind of exercise? We’ll get to that next.
#2: Do Cardio
That’s the answer to the question above.
While you need to do resistance training, without any doubt; but cardio is also still just as important.
What cardio does is that it helps your body lose body fat. As well as this it also helps cause a consistent improvement in your vascularity by increasing capillarization (the dilation of capillaries)
# 3: Avoid Retention of Water in The Body
Water retention can make your muscles swell but this is only temporary. In fact, it can have deleterious effects on your muscle growth in the longer run. Here is how this happens.
As explained earlier, your muscles are surrounded by connective tissue which hold fat and your blood vessels. But water makes up a huge component of this connective tissue.
When your body retains water, this connective tissue swells up giving you a muscular look. But on the downside, this excess water compresses your blood vessels as well.
So what you need to do is to get rid of the extra water. Here are a few things that you can try.
- Limit Your Salt Intake: The best thing you can do to prevent water retention is to limit your salt intake. When your diet contains an excessive amount of salt your body starts to conserve more water to dilute it. But when you restrict your salt intake your body will have to conserve less water as well.
- Try Some Diuretic Foods: Alternatively, you can try some diuretic foods and herbs like black cumin, dandelion, ginger, and parsley.
But you should also observe some caution as well. These herbs and foods make your body lose its salts and water. So if you don’t use them with caution, you can end up losing a lot of essential salts and water.
- Try Potassium-Rich Foods: Another option is to eat potassium-rich foods. These foods can increase the amount of potassium in your body and can lower the levels of sodium. This transition can help your body lose water as well.
Some potassium-rich foods include coconut water, banana, avocado, pomegranate, spinach, and sweet potato. Again, you should observe caution while consuming these foods. Do not eat these foods in excess as to avoid the abnormal rise in the levels of potassium.
#4: Boost Your Nitric Oxide Levels
When it comes to boosting the supply of blood to your muscles, nitric oxide works like magic. Nitric oxide acts on the walls of your blood vessels and causes them to dilate, thereby, increasing the supply of blood to your body tissues.
Here are some ways you can increase the amount of nitric oxide in your body.
- Eat foods that cause a dilation of your blood vessels like celery, spinach, parsley, cabbage, and carrots.
- Supplements like grape seed extract, garlic, vitamin C, and L-Arginine can also help increase nitric oxide levels in the body.
- Regular exercise and strength training helps improve nitric oxide levels as well.
- Try consuming some powerful natural pde5 inhibitors which are proven to significantly boost nitric oxide levels.
- Additional herbs and supplement that might help include ginseng, niacin, Coenzyme Q10, niacin, and capsaicin.
#5: Some Positive Lifestyle Changes Can Help Too
In addition, the following lifestyle changes can help as well.
- Try reducing stress in your life by involving yourself in yoga and meditation.
- Do not forget to smile.
- Get adequate sunlight to boost your vitamin E levels.
- Avoid eating junk and processed foods.
- Avoid a sedentary lifestyle.
- Get proper sleep.
- Stay hydrated.
To sum-up, boosting your vascularity is a proven way to improve your muscle mass. Just follow the advice given in this guide and you’re good to go!
By Sean Ward, Founder of Naturally Boost Testosterone, a men’s health blog dedicated to providing natural ways for men to boost hormone levels. Check out www.naturally-boost-testosterone.com to learn more about Sean and his work.