How to Increase Muscle Pump

When training at the gym, it is important to go hard and train to the best of your ability to achieve your health and fitness goals. Alongside a personalised weight training program and appropriate nutrition, ingredients in pump products can help you maximise your training to help you achieve your desired results.

Pump products or non-stimulant pre-workouts contain no caffeine. They use a blend of ingredients that increase nitric oxide production in the body and promote a muscle pump to increase gains. They also have a combination of mental focus ingredients to give you laser focus.

What Is a Muscle Pump?

In the cult-hit documentary "Pumping Iron", Arnold Schwarzenegger describes a pump as:

A muscle pump refers to a short-term increase in muscle size during lifting weights. A muscle pump is more likely to occur when there are shorter rest times and higher reps.

How does a muscle pump occur?

To understand how a muscle pump works, it is essential to understand what happens in the body during a lifting session.

When muscle contraction occurs, a metabolite called lactic acid will build up around the cells. The heart will pump more blood into the muscle so the excess lactic acid can be removed, which will enlarge the muscle.

Lactic acid and other metabolites created by muscle contraction will also draw water to the cell, increasing its size.

As cells increase in size, blood's ability to leave the muscle decreases. The rate of blood being pumped into the muscle creates an excess of blood which results in blood pooling, further expanding the muscle.

Apart from only temporarily making your muscles look jacked, what is the purpose of a muscle pump?

Research suggests achieving a pump can boost muscle growth. This is achieved due to the increased pressure created by the expansion of cells in the muscle, which promotes an increase in protein synthesis by stimulating muscle fibres to strengthen muscle walls. A pump can also reduce muscle breakdown.

So what is the best way to maximise a pump? Supporting blood flow is one of the main ways of supporting this. Nitric oxide is extremely important to help achieve this, so let's find out why.

What is Nitric Oxide?

Nitric oxide is a compound that is naturally produced in your body. Nitric oxide's primary function in the body is vasodilation. Vasodilation involves widening blood vessels by relaxing the muscles of the inner muscles of blood vessels, which improves blood circulation and nutrient delivery.

A reduction of nitric oxide production is connected to conditions such as cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and erectile dysfunction.

There is an abundance of nitric oxide-rich producing foods and ingredients which can increase levels.

• Beetroot:

Ever heard of someone taking a beetroot shot before working out? It isn't complete nonsense, as beetroot is one of food's richest sources of nitric oxide. This nitrate-rich food has been found to increase nitric oxide by 21% in just 45 minutes.

• Garlic:

Garlic isn't just used to ward off vampires. Garlic helps activate nitric oxide synthase, an enzyme used in the nitric oxide pathway to convert the amino acid L-arginine to nitric oxide.

• Watermelon:

Watermelon is an abundant source of citrulline, which converts into arginine in the body, which will then increase levels of nitric oxide production.

Pump Pre-workouts

So how do pump products work to support the almighty muscle swell? Pump pre-workouts blend a potent mix of nitric oxide-rich, pump-enhancing and sharp-focusing ingredients, which we will be discussed below. This combination will help you to take your training to the next level.

• L-Citrulline:

Citrulline is a non-essential amino acid. Citrulline is incredibly useful in improving athletic performance by improving blood flow.

Citrulline increases blood flow by increasing the body's arginine levels. Arginine plays a major role in the synthesis of nitric oxide. Thereby citrulline supplementation increases levels of nitric oxide in the body. In turn, during your performance, you may experience less muscle fatigue and increased pump and maintenance of power.

• Glycerol:

Glycerol is a colourless and odourless liquid or powder that tastes sweet. Glycerol is commonly used to improve aerobic and anaerobic exercise.

Glycerol works by increasing and retaining levels of fluid in blood and tissues resulting in hyperhydration. Hydration is critical to athletic performance, as dehydration can result in decreased physical performance.

Hyperhydration reduces the risk of dehydration, promotes increased blood flow, and improves endurance and athletic ability.

• Beta-Alanine:

Beta-alanine is an amino acid that increases intra-muscular levels of Carnosine. Carnosine is an amino acid that removes lactic acid. Lactic acid is the cause of muscle burn during a workout. Therefore, decreasing lactic acid levels can help improve endurance and reduce muscle fatigue.

• L-Tyrosine:

Tyrosine is a non-essential amino acid. Its main function is to support the production of epinephrine and dopamine neurotransmitters. These two neurotransmitters help to regulate stress and improve mood. Tyrosine also supports noradrenaline's production, which can help improve cognitive brain function, especially during high-intensity training.

Why Take a Pump Supplements?

If you want to maximise your performance at the gym and achieve those enormous muscle pumps coupled with intense focus without the hard-hitting crash from caffeine to allow you to sleep like a baby to optimise recovery, then a pump product might just be the perfect product for you.

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