A good diet and exercise program is essential for bulking up. If you're a professional or a novice bodybuilder or just want to add muscle, having a good off-season diet and exercise program to make improvements to your physique is very important. But every off-season, many will fall short with their diet and exercise goals, losing out on adding much wanted muscle.

Top Diet and Exercise Mistakes

Not eating enough calories. If you restrict too many calories your metabolism will slow down, leaving you without the energy and fuel to make the muscle improvements you want.

Your diet doesn't include enough healthy foods. While you want to have excess calories in your diet while bulking, the majority of those calories should be from clean healthy foods: lean cuts of meat, complex carbohydrates and healthy fats.

Skipping meals. Your body needs protein every 3 hours for your muscles to have a steady stream of available amino acids. When your body doesn't have enough amino acids, it goes to your muscles to find them. Your body will begin to eat away at your hard-earned muscle for fuel. This is referred to as a catabolic state (i.e., muscle wasting).

Staying away from carbohydrates in your diet. Carbohydrates are a very important part of the off-season diet and a great energy source. Simple carbohydrates are great to have post-workout because they spike your insulin level and drive the glycogen into your muscles. Simple carbohydrates also help to drive the amino acids from your protein shake to aid in muscle building. Complex carbohydrates provide a more prolonged energy source and are great for breakfast or later in the day.

Too much cardio. Your body cannot make improvements in muscle size and shape if you are exercising and expending too much energy with cardio. Most people should stick to a moderate cardio exercise program like 3-4 low intensity 20-30 minute sessions a week. This will keep both your metabolism humming and your appetite up.

No cardio exercise. You need three 30 minute cardio exercise sessions a week to help with your bulking phase. By incorporating a cardio routine into your workout program, you will increase your appetite which  makes it a lot easier to eat clean healthy food. You will also improve your cardiovascular system, which is critical when lifting heavy.

Too much machine use. Exercise machines do have benefits, when used properly and are great to supplement your program. But nothing works better than free weight basics with barbells and dumbbells, like squats, deadlifts, rows, bench etc. They recruit the most muscle fiber use which will lead to maximum growth and improvement.

Not enough rest/recovery time. In the off-season, the major goal is to put on lean muscle mass. You break down the muscle tissue in the gym, now you need to give your body time to recover. Without minimum of 72 hours of rest/recovery time before working the same muscle group again, you will break down already broken down muscle tissue caused by overtraining.

Worrying about the scale. Worrying about the scale has caused a lot of men to put on fat in the off-season. Men love stating how much they weigh, so in their pursuit to put on as much weight as possible, they end up putting on a substantial amount of body fat. Your body cannot continue to add pounds of lean muscle each week. If your weight continues to increase every week, you are probably putting on too much body fat. Women are the complete opposite once they see their weight go up; they either stop eating as much or do a lot of cardio.

Lacking a diet and exercise goal. In the beginning of the off-season, make some short and long term goals for yourself; this will help keep you focused on the improvements that you need to make. If you have a personal trainer, sit down with him or her and discuss how you are going to approach the off-season and make improvements to your physique.

Diet and Exercise Bottom Line

The off-season is a time to make improvements to your physique. Use this time as productively as possible by avoiding these diet and exercise mistakes. If you find yourself falling into any of these diet and exercise pitfalls, then make a quick correction in your diet and/or workout programs. If you can do this, you will be well on your way to adding well earned inches to your physique.

About the Author 

Lynn Glenn is a 61 year old natural athlete from Southern California who started training at the ripe young age of 48. After catching the "bodybuilding bug", Lynn Glenn became interested in living a healthy lifestyle and started writing about hot topics in the areas of health, fitness, weightlifting, and nutrition. Lynn is a feature writer for several health and fitness websites including MuscleMagFitness.com, and MyBestHealthPortal.com