The following strategies will help you to get lean muscle and look better.

Time your carbs

It is very important to know when to eat carbs and what not to eat. You need more carbohydrates at breakfast. You will also need more carbohydrates immediately after your workout so that you can maximise your muscle recovery. If you can get a liquid carbohydrate immediately after your workout, it will help you to gain more muscles. Also add a protein drink so that the body can replenish the glycogen stores immediately. If you do that, it will help you by restoring your muscle recovery and will increase your lean muscle gains. This is also useful because it will increase growth hormone levels in your body. When you perform exercises, in between the rest periods, you can sip on a carb rich or calorie rich drink to increase your gains.

Tailor your workout

If you want to increase your lean muscle gain, you will need to create programs specially tailored for you. It is very important to create programs physically mean for women. Testosterone and growth hormone will decide your muscle building success. These hormones are available in lesser quantity in women. When you perform weight training exercises, such exercises will stimulate your body to produce high amounts of these two hormones. That's why, it is very important to ensure that you are doing the right exercises and you are doing it the right way. So, if necessary you will have to modify the exercises especially for you.

Sleep

Sleep is very important for anyone trying to gain more muscle. If you are trying to get more lean muscle to improve your body appearance, you will need to understand that rest is very important for your body. When you are sleeping, your body will start to build and grow your muscles with the help of the nutrients and water you take after your workout and during the day. So, do not cut short your sleeping time if you want to get more lean muscles and improve your body appearance.

Get benefit from myofibrillar hypertrophy

Myofibrillar hypertrophy is one type of exercise that can help you to build more muscles. With the right use of this, you can get more lean muscles. Here, you use heavy weights and perform sets of 2 to 8 repetitions. When you use heavy weights for less number of repetitions, it will increase the quantity and size of your muscle fibres. It will give you more lean body mass. How do you know the weight is heavy for you? When you reach the seventh or eighth repetition in a set, the weight should be too heavy for you to lift easily. When you push your muscles to the exhaustion limit, it will stimulate testosterone release and at the same time it will also increase micro trauma of the muscle fibres. The micro trauma will help your body to replace the damaged fibres with larger and stronger tissues.

Use low impact light cardio

If you want to gain more lean muscles, you will need to focus on low impact and light cardio. You should not do too much of cardio even though many people suggest you to go for lots of cardio. Cardio can help your blood flow and as a result your muscles will get more oxygen which will help in muscle growth but doing it too much won't help you. For increasing your lean muscle mass, you will need to lift weights after you perform cardio. You need to do three days of strength training in a week and just one day of light and low impact cardio.

References
1. The Bigness Project
2. Increased protein intake reduces lean body mass loss during weight loss in athletes
3. Increasing Lean Mass and Strength