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Simple Workouts to Help You Gain Lean Muscle

October 10, 2020 by Monica Nelson Leave a Comment

Gaining lean muscles is not as complicated as you might think. If you want to become bigger and stronger, you only have to do three things; lift heavy weights, stick to a set diet that mirrors your goals, and get enough rest.

Image via Shutterstock by I T A L O

However, executing the three steps may be easier said than done. It is common to find yourself trying to fulfill your food cravings only to break your dieting requirements. While you may love a good burger and BBQ, you can quite easily add up plenty of calories derailing your training diet.

Still, it does not mean that you shouldn’t get one of the best offset smokers and enjoy a weekend barbeque party if you want to gain lean muscles.

Apart from maintaining a healthy diet, you should also ensure that your workout routine focuses on building up your cardio strength and weight lifting. Incorporating both exercises in your routine helps you burn more fat while ensuring that you build muscles without beefing up too much.

But how do you balance both cardio and weightlifting without giving much preference to either of them? Here are some exercises that you can include in your routine if you want to balance the two categories to gain lean muscles.

Workout Using a Stationary Bike

You can start your workout with a stationary bike workout while in a low-resistance setting for about 4 to 5 minutes. You can then ride for 40 more seconds as fast as you can and slow down to recover for about 20 seconds. You should repeat the sequence for about six times.

Build Arm Muscles Using a Rowing Machine

An essential part of building lean muscles is building your arm muscles while reducing the size of your gut. Just like any other workout, it is best to start by warming up your body. Set the band’s resistance to level 5 for a few minutes before elevating it to level 10 and rowing as fast you can for about 30 seconds.

Afterward, you can change your positioning and grip the handle pulling it at a moderate pace for about 60 seconds. You can use this chance to catch your breath then repeat the whole process seven times while alternating between fast and slow rowing.

Lifting Weights

If you want your body to perform and look like an athlete, you should add strength training to your workout routine. One of the best strength training exercises to incorporate in your program is lifting weights.

Lifting weights helps boost your metabolism rate since you can burn more calories by building lean muscles. When you do it the right way, you can improve your body posture and help with your joints’ alignment and the development of core strength.

Workout with Resistance bands

Resistance bands are an inexpensive and practical way to work every muscle in your body. They are great tools for working your upper and lower bodies as well as your core muscles. An excellent way to work the upper body is by performing the alternating chest punches exercise. It entails tying the ban in a loop behind you and standing with your feet width apart. Place one foot forward, while the other remains at the back. Pull the resistance band forward from both the right and left side 100 times on each side.

Exercise Using A Treadmill

A treadmill is a great instrument to help you burn more calories while still maintaining some lean muscle mass. It also helps in exercising your glutes, hamstring, and calves. Before using a treadmill, warm up for about three minutes. You can then start exercising by first walking then increasing the pace till it becomes challenging for your legs, glutes, and heart.

You can make it more challenging by increasing the working out at an incline and alternating from the low inclines to the high inclines as you continue the workout.

 You may think that you need to use fancy gym equipment to build lean muscle, but that is not always true. You can still get the same results by only utilizing your body weight. How so?

Running /walking

As simple as it sounds, running with a good pair of shoes is enough cardio exercise to transform your body. You can observe such results from runners, swimmers, and athletes since almost all have lean bodies. Although they may also observe a good diet, they burn tremendous amounts of calories as they work out through running. 

If you decide to start running and walking exercises, consider pulling in your navel into the core. It will help you gain much more strength. You can start running a slow jog for about 30 minutes, and then you can continue to add the time every week.

Perform Squats

Squats are an incredible way to exercise if you want to develop strength and power. If you perform them correctly, they can help you burn up more calories, strengthen your core, prevent injuries, and improve your balance and posture.

When performing a squat, you need to observe some safety precautions to prevent any dangers from occurring. Some of these precautions include:

  • Ensure that you only go as far down as your body allows you and stop immediately you feel discomfort around your knees or hips.
  • It would be best if you placed your eyes forward when exercising. It ensures that your neck remains in a neutral position.
  • Maintain a solid base by ensuring your feet are wide apart. You can use a narrow stance if you want to target your outer thighs. However, it decreases your stability and places more pressure on your knees.
  • Maintain an upright posture by keeping your spine straight and in a neutral position.
  • Avoid lifting what you cannot handle since it can cause strains to your lower back, knees, and hips.
  • Ensure that your core muscles are activated through the entire process.
  • Perform Push Ups

Pushups provide your upper body with enough strength. The exercise works your shoulders, chest, and triceps. When performed correctly, it can also help you build strength on your lower back and core. They are handy when done regularly and consistently.

Moreover, you can perform them from anywhere, including your home, provided there is space. To achieve the best results, continually challenge yourself by increasing the number of pushups you can perform each week and incorporating various types of pushups.

When you continually perform only one type of push up every day, you will eventually not benefit from your workouts. Your muscles tend to adapt to the stress you expose them to. Therefore, you should try to continually improve the type of exercises you perform if you want to improve in physical and fitness levels.

Perform Crunches

Crunches are essential for the development of your core strength and toning your midsection. It strengthens your core muscles and improves your posture, mobility, and flexibility of your muscles. Be careful for pregnancy however.

Crunches are not effective when it comes to burning abdominal fat. However, they can help you build muscle mass and increase your body’s ability to burn fat.

You can perform an abdominal crunch by lying on the floor on your back with your knees bent and hands over your chest or behind your head. Your back should be flat down to the ground with your belly pupped towards the spine. Slowly lift your shoulders from the floor while maintaining your neck and chin straight. As you lift your upper body from the floor, you should exhale. Then hold your new position for a few seconds before lowering your lower body. Repeat the process a few more times.

Are the Exercises Above Always Practical?

Including the above exercises in your workout routine is a sure step towards gaining lean muscles. Each component can have significant effects on your muscle-building goals. However, to ensure that they are effective, you should consider increasing your training frequency. You can reduce the timeframe for the sessions for recovery purposes, but by continuously exposing yourself to a training stimulus will increase the speed at which you gain mass.

Moreover, you should avoid sticking to one rep range if you want to gain lean muscle effectively. Since your body continually adapts to every situation, you need to continually challenge it by switching the rep scheme frequently from lower-rep sets to higher-reps.

Summing up

Even though the time you spend working out is significant, it is also equally important to always ensure that you get enough rest and good nutrition. By avoiding stress and sleeping for about 8 to 9 hours every day, you can achieve tremendous results that may be surprising.Continually changing your training techniques is also crucial if you want to avoid plateaus and stimulate continuous growth. However, it is still essential to follow a training program until you reap all benefits from it. Your body will increase in strength and efficiency when you expose it to similar training patterns for a set of time. If you want to lose weight or attain a leaner physique, you should burn more fat by following the steps above.

This is a collaborative post.


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Hi! I'm Monica Nelson and I'm thrilled that you're here. As a healthy chef, personal trainer & fitness expert, I love helping people look & feel great! That's why I've developed more than 350 recipes from diet-conscious to decadent - but all delicious - so you can experiment with healthy foods that taste great. Take a look around and try a recipe or two and head over for a quick workout at monicanelsonwellness.com

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Let’s fire up the grill and here is a healthy ye Let’s fire up the grill and here is a healthy yet super tasty and fun treat for the 4th!
You can also use this same coconut cream again and just serve with your favorite fresh berries all season long! Enjoy. 

GRILLED PINEAPPLE WITH COCONUT CREAM
🍍🍍🍍

INGREDIENTS

For the Marinade:
• 1 tbs coconut oil (can also use olive)
• 1 tsp  ground cinnamon
• 2 1/2 tbs dark honey
• 1 vanilla bean (can be optional – but I love it here)
• 1 tbs of fresh lime juice
• 1 firm yet ripe pineapple, can buy already cut
For Garnish (Optional):
• 1 tbs dark rum
• 1 tbs grated lime zest from the lime
My Coconut Cream:
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 cup cream of coconut (such as Coco Lopez)

DIRECTIONS

Marinade:
1. In a large bowl – combine the oil, cinnamon, honey, vanilla bean (if using), and lime juice; whisk to well to blend together. Set aside.
2. Place each pineapple half cut-side down and cut it lengthwise into four long wedges; slice away the core. NOTE: Or you can slice it in rings too, which I do often. 
3. Place the pineapple in the bowl with the marinade and stir to coat the pineapple. Heat up the grill.
4. Place on the grill and cook about 3 to 4 mins. You can baste once or twice with the remaining marinade. Turn the fruit and move it to a cooler part of the grill or reduce the heat. Baste again with the marinade. Grill until the pineapple is tender and golden, about 3 more mins.
5. Remove the pineapple from the grill and place on a platter. Next, brush with the rum – if using. Last, sprinkle with the lime zest. Serve hot or warm!

For the Coconut Cream:
1. With an electric mixer, beat the heavy cream and cream of coconut until soft peaks form. TIP: You can also use this same cream again and just serve with your favorite fresh berries all season long.

So perfect for a summer treat with friends. Enjoy!
Let’s make my GREEN ME UP smoothie! I’ve been Let’s make my GREEN ME UP smoothie! I’ve been making this smoothie or a variation of it for the past 13-14 yrs, heck before there was TikTok. 😂 Such a delicious way to pack in some serious nutrition and those GREENS. 

Smoothies are an incredible tool to your wellbeing. They are super easy, versatile, and gosh dang - delicious and healthy. (If made correctly). That’s why I’m all about getting my clients on the smoothie train - if they’re up for it. 😉 

Just love providing clients with dozens of smoothie recipes I’ve created packed with protein and fiber, including healthy fats that keep you full 3-5 hrs easily. No matter what season of life I’ve been in personally: serious training, fitness modeling, both pregnancies/postpartum/nursing, healing, and now being a busy mom feeding our kids smoothies each morning, smoothies have been an essential piece.

This is a loose recipe so you can add anything else you want. Just make sure you have your protein source, your favorite veggies (hello phytonutrients), fiber sources and healthy fat. 

** Tip: put all the ingredients (EXCEPT the liquid) in the blender the night before! This tip has helped for years.

🥬GREEN ME UP SMOOTHIE🥬

• Handful of organic greens
• 1-2 cups organic celery (vitamins A, K, C, hydrating, supports digestion)
• 1/2 cup frozen cauliflower rice (makes it thick, extra fiber)
• 1 Brazil nut (gives daily selenium, which is important for fertility)
• 1/4 of an avocado
• 1/4 cup wild blueberries
• 1 tsp organic spirulina @nowfoodsofficial 
• 1/4-1/2 ceylon cinnamon (helps regulate blood sugar, antioxidant)
• 1 scoop @paleovalley bone broth powder
• 1 scoop whey - I like isolate and @nowfoodsofficial has a good one
• Creatine @nowfoodsofficial (fav supplement for 10+ yrs)
• 6-8 oz of unsweetened almond or coconut milk
• 1 scoop of @beeyawellness for topping, optional 

Other options I rotate in: ginger root, basil & chia seeds, psyllium husk powder, lemon (vitamin C), herbs like cilantro & mint, dandelion greens (great source of vitamin K).

1. Place everything in a HIGH-speed blender (yes this is important. Otherwise you’ll get salad texture). Blend for about 1 min. Enjoy!
Happy 2nd birthday to this special girl who I’m Happy 2nd birthday to this special girl who I’m utterly positive is a true magical fairy princess. We did a purple bday theme to match her cast. We just love watching you shine and embrace your world! 
You bring such joy and laughter to us Aubyn and may your birthday be as extraordinary as you are, sweet one. 💜🎂💜
Your kids are always listening. Always watching. A Your kids are always listening. Always watching. Always paying attention to your every move. They want to be. just. like. you. Healthy habits start young! Glad to see these two at 23 months & 6 yrs old lifting all on their own. 💪🏻

Recently Asher rushed home from school and said “I’m working out for 10 mins to get strong.” Followed by “then I can break free from all the hugs.” We learned that apparently 3 girls at recess hug Asher nonstop and he wants to get strong to “get away from all the girls.” 😳 Never a dull moment.
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About

Hi! I'm Monica Nelson and I'm thrilled that you're here. As a healthy chef, personal trainer & fitness expert, competitive athlete & sports model, I love helping people look & feel great! Try a recipe or read a wellness blog and tell me what you think.

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