If you're one of those just starting out at the gym and your goals are to put on some muscle - PLEASE read on.

The NUMBER ONE thing you need to get RIGHT is your protein intake. Forget about all the advanced training techniques, killer workouts, the best creatine, and the best multivitamins you are consuming - they all mean NOTHING if you've not got your protein intake right. Protein is what our muscles are made up of.

Picture yourself treating your car with the best polishes and waxes, the best engine oil, luxury leather seats, xenon lights, the best tyres, everything, but you dont bother filling up your fuel tank. Makes it pretty useless doesnt it? Or imagine trying to build a brick wall with just cement + water, without any bricks. Can you imagine what the wall is gonna look like? The same applies here. You need to consume sufficient protein (the building blocks of your muscle) if you wish to grow more muscle.

Unfortunately, most people dont (even those who have been working out for many years) and then they wonder why they aren't growing like the guy next to them in the gym, and eventually give up.

Perhaps it would help you understand if you realise how your muscles grow in the first place. Did you know, that your muscles don't grow in the gym when you're working out - but when your body is at rest? It's true. That 'pumped' and enlarged muscle feeling you get during your workout isnt growth taking place - it's the feeling of your muscles getting engorged/filled with more blood - thus, the pumped effect. During your weightlifting and strength training workout, your muscles are getting broken down. This is basically stimulating growth. Then, in order to rebuild and repair your muscles after that (growth), your body needs protein - and it needs enough! So, we go to the gym not to grow muscle, but to stimulate/trigger muscle growth. :)

So, how much protein does your body need if you wish to grow muscle? This depends entirely on body size, including the amount of bodybuilding training done. A universally accepted formula, however, is to take about 1 gram of protein per pound of lean body weight.

So, if you weigh 60kg, multiply that by 2.2 to get your weight in pounds. 60 x 2.2 = 132lbs. Which means, you need 132g of protein a day. (If you weigh 60kg but are overweight - you may want to estimate your lean bodyweight lesser than 60kg).

So, for the example above, whether or not consuming any more than this would bring you any benefits is another issue altogether, but any lesser won't give you good and fast gains and thats for sure. Dont mistake this for a protein diet - it's not. It's just a diet rich in protein which will help your body recover efficiently and sufficiently from your workouts. Get your protein intake right before you even consider supplementing with creatine.