Real talk:
Having your veins pop is one of the coolest and most satisfying things you can experience at the gym.
There are only a few things you can do to instantly make yourself appear more muscular and say, “Yeah, I lift.” without opening your mouth.
So, today, we decided to look at several actionable things you can do to get your veins to pop.
1. Lower Your Body Fat Percentage
The most important consideration for achieving impressive vascularity is to reduce your body fat percentage. Doing so is vital because subcutaneous body fat can cover your veins and prevent them from appearing underneath your skin, even after a good pump session at the gym.
All of the following tactics will work better, so long as you take care of this first. The good news is that you don’t have to get extremely lean to achieve good vascularity. Most people tend to store their fat over the torso, buttocks, and thighs, but their arms and shoulders typically get lean relatively quickly.
If you feel that you’re on the chubby side, put yourself in a moderate calorie deficit (no more than 500 calories), aiming to lose around 0.8 to one pound per week. Also, don’t forget to eat enough protein because the nutrient is essential for maintaining your muscle mass, especially during a diet.
Need help calculating your macros? Check out our macro calculator here.
2. Build Muscle Mass
Like fat loss, building muscle is a simple and effective way to get your veins to pop and remain visible throughout the day. The effect is possible because the more developed a muscle is, the more it presses your veins out against the skin, making them pop.
Having more muscle mass is also beneficial because more blood needs to travel to the area you’re training. As a result, the blood vessels become fuller and appear even larger and more tightly pressed against your skin.
So, aside from keeping your body fat percentage under control, strive to increase your muscle mass with each passing month. The more muscle you have, the more vascularity you will enjoy.
3. Start Training Your Forearms
Like most people, you probably don’t train your forearms, which is a mistake. If you want to appear more vascular, you have to start training your forearms right away. Here are three good reasons for that:
- The forearms tend to hold less fat than other body areas, which makes them a great spot to focus your efforts on and improve vascularity.
- The skin covering the forearms is thinner for some people, making it easier to achieve great vascularity.
- Unlike the thighs, upper arms, and shoulders, the forearms are more visible, so developing them will contribute to a muscular and vascular appearance.
4. Drink More Water
Staying hydrated is essential for numerous reasons, most of which relate to good health, vitality, and well-being. Water is also necessary for our athletic performance, the quality of our workouts, and subjective feelings of fatigue. As little as two percent dehydration can lead to significant drops in athletic performance.
The good news is that drinking more water is also beneficial for vascularity, though it might seem a bit counterintuitive. The more water you drink, the lower the risk of subcutaneous water retention (bloating) is. As a result, your skin is closer to the blood vessels, making their appearance more prominent.
According to most guidelines, men should drink up to 3.7 liters of water daily, and women – around 2.5-2.7 liters.
5. Supplement With Creatine
Creatine monohydrate is one of the most popular and best-studied supplements on the planet. Supplementing with creatine saturates your muscles with the substance, which allows for superior energy production, improved gym performance, and more growth over time.
Taking creatine is also beneficial for vascularity because having more of it in your body leads to more water retention inside the muscles. Don’t confuse the effect with subcutaneous water retention, which erases definition and contributes to a bloated look.
Having more water inside muscles makes them appear larger and allows them to press the blood vessels more tightly against the skin.
The great thing about creatine is that you don’t need to follow a complex supplementing schedule. Simply take three to five grams at the most convenient time of day.
6. Do High-Repetition Training
High-repetition training might seem like some outdated bodybuilding idea, but there is merit to the approach. Among the many benefits of pumping out reps, becoming more vascular is one prominent example.
Consider the scenario for a moment:
You’re doing sets of five reps on the bench press. By the time you’re done, you feel some muscle tiredness and a bit of a pump, but nothing crazy.
Now, let’s switch things up a bit and imagine that those sets of five reps turn into sets of 20. The amount of work (reps and muscle contractions) is four times as much, which means that a lot more blood has to travel to and from your muscles, transporting nutrients and oxygen and exporting metabolic by-products.
For one, a better pump leads to temporary increases in muscle size, pressing your veins harder against the skin. Second, transporting more blood means your veins fill up more and appear more prominent.
7. Take Nitric Oxide
Nitric oxide (NO) is an incredibly beneficial substance that contributes to vasodilation (widening blood vessels). As a result, blood flow improves and occurs more efficiently, leading to a reduction in blood pressure, the prevention of tissue damage due to low blood supply, and the reduction in cardiovascular disease risk.
Nitric oxide also appears beneficial for our training performance as our muscles enjoy more oxygen and nutrient-rich blood. The substance might also improve recovery rates and prevent delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS) because the body’s ability to clear metabolic by-products improves.
One option is to take supplements that contain nutrients your body uses to produce nitric oxide. Citrulline malate is a safe and popular option. Another option is to consume more foods rich in nitrate, including beets, dark chocolate, garlic, meat, and dark leafy green veggies.
Now that you know how to get those veins popping, let’s take the next step and get those abs shredded! The 10 Best Ab Exercises For Strength And Definition
