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Posts Tagged ‘bodybuilding’

Maybe you have experienced this before whereby you have decided to improve your health and fitness and in the first instance you feel really motivated. Perhaps you saw an inspirational movie that caused you to take action, maybe a friend of yours you hadn’t seen for a long time showed up having lost a heap of weight or having piled on muscle mass or maybe you are just sick of feeling lethargic and overweight. Whatever the initial stimulus was, you began exercising and then continued to exercise for a while.

However after a while your motivation decreased, you got busy at work, you got tired of making the effort or the results weren’t as good as you’d hoped for and you unconsciously quit your healthy exercise lifestyle. If that all sounds familiar then here are a few easy ways to help regain and sustain your motivation for a healthier lifestyle: 

Try setting an enjoyable goal. For example,what about planning out a mountain biking/kayaking/hiking holiday in an exotic tough part of the world such as the Himalayas,The Alps or The Candadian Rockies. With this trip in mind you really have a goal to aim for. You will need to be in good physical health in order to enjoy your trip to the fullest. If your trip is in 5 montsh time then you can plan a realistic schedule with your fitness goals in mind.

Optin to take part in a local area event. I bet there are plenty of local events that you can get involved with simply have a look on line. Choose one of these events as a target to shoot for. Inform a close friend of yours about your future intentions so they can act as a buddy and provide encouragement to you and come to support you on the day. 

Take up a sport or hobby, this doesn’t have to be an ultra serious thing just a light hearted game of soccer or hockey at the weekends but it gives you an easy and enjoyable way to monitor your fitness levels. Of course the initial couple of sessions may be very taxing but you will soon notice an improvement and start to look and feel better.

Visualise. Ok this might sound a bit odd at first but try and find a bit of time each day to sit and visualise in your minds eye exactly how you wish to feel and look. Carrying this out trigger powerful signals to be sent to your sub conscious mind that are about your everyday decisions and day to day actions. Repeat this daily and continuously and your behaviour will naturally alter itself and begin to take you towards your goals automatically. This works by the way, nearly all top sportsmen use this in some form or other.

Try to involve both your friends family and even your pet dog if you like. You are much less likely to lose interest and quit the more people that are involved. You are much less likely to not go and exercise if your friend is on the other end of the phone asking where you are.

Educate yourself. Be curious find out about how to build muscle up, find out how to get a 6 pack, find out how to shed pounds, find out what muscle building nutrition you need for no nonsense muscle building and so on. By improvingyour knowledge you are more than likely to increase the rate of your improvement and therefore maintain motivation levels.

Don’t compare yourself to others. I don’t care who exactly you are there is aways going to be people fitter, sexier, more muscular or whatever than you are. Accept this fact and realise that you all go through this process of life from your own differing perspectives. Pay more attention to how you feel than to anything else, if you feel good then you are likely getting healthier.

So, with those tips in mind go hit the gym and do whatever it is that you enjoy doing to keep fit, build lean muscle mass or whatever else you want to do, you can do it, just keep it fun. The following is highly recommended for lean muslc growth burn the fat build the muscle book.

The key to body building for beginners is to perform Compound Exercises with perfect form and get your diet right. I can’t stress this enough, and to work up in weight incrementally.

You can probably lift more than the weight you should begin with, but the key is to do the exercises consistently.

Beginners tend to over-train and get disappointed by slow results, however, remember that body building also requires perseverance and the capability to stick to the plan regardless.

Compound exercises are just the start, wherein you will develop and reinforce the muscles, afterward comes the isolation exercises which you will perform after acquiring substantial strength.

Compound exercises are ones in which at least two joints are used to do the exercise movement, so for chest & triceps, you’ll want to do DIPS or BENCH PRESS, for lats and biceps you’ll want to do PULLUPS or LAT BAR PULL DOWN, for legs… it’s SQUATS and then DEADLIFT (which also hits your lower back).

For your shoulder & triceps, you’ll wan to do MILITARY PRESS, CLEAN & JERKS or SQUAT PRESSES.

CALF WORK, because of the unique nature of that muscle group, requires the intensity of CALF RAISES & DONKEY PRESSES which only work one joint, so they tend to be an isolation exercise.

Repetitions and sets must also be considered after laying down the plans for the structure of the exercises.

It’s suggested that beginning bodybuilders, for the first two weeks do light weights and high reps to get your muscles primed for the growth phase, so you want to start with 1 or 2 sets and work your way up to 4 or 5 sets of 12 to 15 reps (this includes your warm-up sets).

Then you’ll want to swap out exercises, so if you’ve been doing WEIGHTED DIPS it’s time for BENCH PRESS, and you’ll want to raise the weight maybe 15 or 20% and do less sets and less reps (say 2 or 3 sets of 6 to 8 reps), stay on this course for two weeks, then it’s it time to bring the weight back down and do 4 or 5 sets of 10 to 12 reps for one week, then you can jump up in weight from the heavy phase, but do less reps and sets.

The key element here is to a) switch up the routine so your body has to constantly adapt b) build strength and mass by alternating what intensity of weights you pump. What it adds up to is better calorie burns, stamina and strength through one heavy set of exercises per week partnered with light yet repetitive exercises for the remaining days of the week.
Once you’ve been on the compound exercise cycle for about 6 weeks, you can start to slowly work in isolation exercises, these are exercises that use one joint to move the weight.

For example, do the barbell or PREACHER CURL, instead DUMBBELL CURLS. You want to do the FRENCH PRESS instead of ONE-ARM TRICEP PRESSES, LEG EXTENSIONS instead of LEG PRESSES, and so on. If you want to move on to more interesting workouts, then you can do so right after acquiring the physique you were aiming for. Although it’s nearly impossible to do “spot work,” you can eke out specific gains by alternating your routine and the reps/sets combinations.

For instance, when doing EZ-BAR BICEP CURLS, instead of doing 4 or 5 sets of 12 to 15 reps, do two sets of 21s; 21s for BICEP CURLS are when you do 7 reps of vertical to 90 degrees, then 7 reps of 90 degrees to the full contraction, and then finally 7 reps of the full motion… all without a break. That’s a burn that you won’t forget, and it’s a great way to shock you muscles if you’ve reach a plateau.

To achieve the progress that you were aiming for, relentlessly stick to the right course, not minding the hard work required at the beginning.

Also, getting more than enough rest and eating right, actually eating more than ever have before.

Your diet is the most important thing whether you’re first starting out or a seasoned pro. With the right diet, improvements knows no bounds, on the other hand, unhealthy food consumption will detract from whatever improvement you have achieved.

Let me leave you with one more thought. Top trainers have often said that until you can perform bodyweight exercises, you have no business lifting weights.

For that reason, you may want to start out doing bodyweight exercises.

Weightlifting has it’s own equipments for exercise as other activities and sports. What we can see mostly is the weightlifting belt…
The efficiency of weightlifting belts is definitely subject to controversies, and opinions about safety remain very divided. The main criticism against weightlifting belts is that they allow athletes to lift more than they should thus reducing the safety of the exercises. Another criticism against belts is that they back muscles responsible for body stability and the gripping muscles of the forearms don’t get the same stimulation and lose during training. In some other people’s opinion, weightlifting belts promote better stability and protection against various training risks. Normally, weightlifting belts have been designed to support the back effort and reduce the risk of damaging the spinal cord while exercising.

Although amateurs imitate the trend and use belts too, they could be pretty efficient in competition. By the support provided to the back, the spine remains in a good posture and no damage occurs at the level of the soft tissues; there is however a problem. The long term and short term impact of wearing weightlifting belts is pretty serious. These equipment items can increase the intra-abdominal pressure beyond accepted levels. While the intestinal muscles are protected against injury, hypertension may appear due to belt tightness.

The weightlifting belts are available in various designs, allowing adjustments to the pressure level and the body height. When manufactured for power training, weightlifting belts incorporate special features for superior protection. Usually made of leather, such belts are braced by neoprene. You may find out which belt fits you best by talking to a fitness expert who can recommend an item to match your physiognomy and your training objectives. Padded or non-padded cotton and nylon items are also widely available. The sizes on the other hand range from XS and S to XL and XXL.

Other than back protection, weightlifting belts have no other contribution to the athletic performance. And contrary to the common belief of improved training, studies bring evidence against such opinions. Research conducted at the Albany Medical Center, N.Y., reported almost no difference between the group of weightlifters who wore belts and the group who didn’t. It seems that in the absence of the belts, the strength of the back and abdomen muscles is higher, and this study seems to support criticism and destroy false claims and opinions. Even so, wearing weightlifting belts is very frequent among amateurs, and there is no harm to this tendency as long as they are not used in excess.

As stated in my previous article, there are different ways to build muscle fast. You have to ask yourself some questions. How often do you want to go to the gym? How hard (intense) do you want to train when you are there. If you do not want to go to failure, then you might not want to follow a high intensity routine. In this routine you would lift the weight until you can not do any more reps. it’s not easy and requires a great deal of will power.

When training with high intensity, you will need a lot of time to recover. Maybe a few days to a week or more per body part. If you enjoy going to the gym a lot and do not want to push yourself and train high intensity, you might want to try another routine,. One where you can not go to failure and save a little bit for the next workout which might be a few days later.

I prefer high intensity and I believe it is the fastest way to gain muscle but not the only way.  And there are so many hours in the day. Why spend too long in the gym and too long training each body part. Hit each body part once a week and hit them hard. Then rest and eat. Go to failure on each set or close to failure and do not do more than a couple of sets per exercise and a couple of sets per body part.

So remember, if you train with high intensity, train only for a short period of time and not too often. Get the rest and nutrition you need to recover and grow. Train, eat, rest, and grow is the formula to build bigger muscle.

They say there are many ways to skin a cat. There are also many ways on how to build muscle fast. The key issues is which is the quickest and which way develops usable strength while building muscle.

For those of us who are trying to pack on some muscle in the fastest way possible, high intensity training is a tried and true form of training in bodybuilding.

Our goal is to lift the most weights, while doing relatively low to medium reps, resting and getting the proper nutrition. Don’t do too many sets and exercises. Train each body part about once per week and get plenty of rest and the proper nutrition while lifting heavy on the basics exercises. Exercises like the bench press, dips, squats, dead lifts and bicep curls. 

Train your chest with triceps and shoulders and your back with biceps. Basically, separate your pushing and pulling movements to different days. This is because you do not want to overwork your muscles. If you are bench pressing one day and then you work your triceps a couple of days later, your triceps might get overworked. This is because they were already worked while doing bench presses.

I believe dead lifts are a great upper body exercise that also hits the legs. Some like me, have trouble dead lifting, because of back issues. There is another way. Stand inside a trap bar to do deadlights. It is much easier for my back and it might be on yours as well. I believe more and more lifters are coming back to this bar as it is a more natural feeling. At least for some of us.

Try doing only one or two sets for each exercise and only one or two exercises per body part.  You might be surprised that this abbreviated training works wonders. Learn more about how to build muscle fast .

When starting out in your muscle building workouts, you will want to find a good routine fit for you. So what will work best for you? Lets look at ways you can tell if a routine will work and work for you.

First, you want to make sure that whatever routine you might follow, it has gotten results for those that have subscribed to its teachings.

You need a routine that is progressive in its training advice. Meaning, you want to keep progressively overloading your muscles with heavier weight as you get stronger.

Recovering between workouts is something that is very important and should not be pushed aside. Your body needs to recover in order to be ready to lift heavy for the next workout. The routine you are looking at should mention rest as a necessary factor of gaining muscle. Your muscles actually grow when they are resting.

Is the routine right for you specifically? Maybe because of health reasons a routine that is considered high intensity might be too much for you to handle. If you are someone that does not want to go to the max in your training, then high intensity training might not be for you.

Although high intensity training is the fastest way for muscle mass building, you might not be willing to take your mind to the limit and go to failure at each workout. It might be too much stress for you. The good thing though, is that you can go to the gym less often with high intensity training.

There are routines that call for more volume in their training program. These routines have you lifting lighter weights for more sets and reps. Now someone else might find this taxing on them as they have to concentrate for longer periods of time in their training. So find what works best for you, not only physically but mentally.

As we are all aware a good muscle building diet is critical to build muscle up. What is also important is the timing of your meals. I suggest that you have a good solid meal about two hours before your gym session. This should give enough time to mean that you don’t hit the gym when you are bloated or still feeling full and sluggish.

In an ideal world this preworkout snack ought to be something that you are used to and that you know won’t make you feel heavy and bloated as you want to be feeling your best to give your all in the gym. You should try to include some slow burning energy such as oatmeal but make sure that you have some protein first. You risk making yourself lethargic if you consume the protein after the carbohydrate. This happens because both the protein and carbohydrate cause the body to release certain chemicals that affect the brain. Protein stimulates the release of tyrosine which signals your brain to be alert and energetic as opposed to the carbohydrate which stimulates the release of tryptophan and instructs the brain to make you feel tired. Therefore always eat the protein first.

If you really want to know how to build muscles quickly then great advice is to drink a protein and carbohydrate shake about half an hour before you workout. This will give you a good boost of ebergy for your session. Ingredients should include whey protein, maltodextrin, wxymaize or dextrose. Try to aim for 25 grams of protein and around 40 grams of carbohydrate. Doing this will boost your insulin levels which is one of the bodies most powerful muscle building hormones. Furthermore it will also cut down the amount of cortisol that is produced by your body which has a negative impact on muscle building.

Remember that spending time in the gym when you start your session already hungry and lethargic is not likely to make it a productive session. Always try to keep fruit or meal replacement powders or bars to hand should you ever not have time for a proper solid pre-workout meal.

If you are a regular coffee drinker then try and switch your coffee for a green tea which contains less caffeine but has lots more health benefits. Finally, don’t forget to keep taking on board the water, this is critical too. Ok bear those things in mind and you’ll be hitting the gym in peak mode for an awesome muscle stimulating workout which you will be able to grow from because you will have had the correct muscle building nutrition.

When it comes to training bodybuilding and gaining muscle, there are a lot of different theories. If you are a beginner, it is hard to know what the best way to gain muscle mass to your body is. We will discuss some good starting points.

Compound Exercises – Your focus should be with compound exercises. These are exercises that hit more than one muscle group at a time. For example, the squat, dead lift, bench press are all compound lifts. These exercises give you the ability to lift the most weight and thereby stimulate more muscle fibers.

Track your Progress – Write everything down. You want to lift heavier weights as time go by. You need to keep track of your progress and focus on increasing your strength. Sounds simple but not recording your workouts can cause you to forget from week to week how much you were lifting and how many reps you did.

Do not over train – Many people think that performing more reps and more sets is the way to go in their bodybuilding workouts. They believe that if they train more often and longer they will get better results. Your muscles do not grow while you are training. They grow when they are resting. You need to allow the proper recovery for you body as a whole as well as the individual muscles.

Eat often – Professional body builders have been known to eat up to 10 times per day. They space out meals, eat small amounts and eat often. You should shoot for 5-7 meals per day. You want to keep your muscles in an anabolic state and eating every 2-3 hours that you are awake will help you with this. When you do not eat often your body goes into a catabolic state and breaks down the muscles you have.

Let us discuss some bodybuilding myths. While it is good to take advice from others, you should be careful where you get your advice from. There are new sites coming online related to building muscle all the time and you need to understand that some of the advice is flat out wrong. We will go over four myths so that you will stay on track with your goals of how to build muscle fast.

Myth – Bodybuilding will make you slow. Years ago bodybuilders were looked at as muscle bound. Packing on some muscle can cause you to be quicker. When you are moving your body and running and jumping, your muscles are involved. Your muscles will supply more force, the stronger they are.

Myth – Getting a pump is what builds muscle. This feeling of pumped up is when the muscles get filled with blood. You actually feel and look bigger. This feeling and the way you appear after you workout does not mean that you stimulated your muscles to grow. Lifting more weight or more reps than you did in your previous workout is how to gain muscle mass.

Myth – Perfect form is always important. Good technique is important but not to the point of going crazy about it. Don’t be a machine and think you have to move exactly like you saw in a body building book. Don’t be afraid to use a bit of momentum. For example, if you are doing barbell curls, some books will have you stand so straight it is ridiculous. It is not natural. Think of what is natural for your body. It is not natural to stand straight and look ahead while curling a weight. I little body momentum is fine and actually helpful to not injuring yourself.

Myth – You must feel the burn. This lactic acid inside your muscles causes this burning sensation. Higher reps will give you this burn as opposed to lower reps. Keep your reps in the range from 5-7 for best muscle gains. Forget the pump and concentrate on lifting heavier when doing your bodybuilding workouts.

Why would your muscles stop growing when you are still doing muscle building workouts. Let’s look at some reasons that your muscles do not continue to grow and what you can do to reverse this.

Intense body building training breaks down your muscles. You might be training harder than you should be or more often than you should be. Train each body part once or twice per week only.

You need proper rest in order to have your muscles grow. Sleep is when your muscles grow bigger. Lack of sleep can negate your hard workouts and make them useless.

The same applies to how long you are training. Don’t spend more than 1 hour in the gym working out. That is one hour total for the day, not per body part. Your level of Cortisol will increase after 45 minutes. This is a hormone that is known to destroy muscle cells.

Besides being unhealthy, drinking can cause your muscles to break down.

By not changing your bodybuilding schedule, your body can get used to your workouts and stop growing. Change up the order of the exercises or change to different exercises every couple of months.

When you want to gain muscle fast, your goal is to increase the weight gradually that you lift. Or increase the reps you do. Not doing this will have a negative affect on your results.

Eating enough protein is important to your muscle growth. There are those that state that 1 gram of protein is sufficient per bodyweight when trying to pack on size. Protein shakes and bars will help if you can not eat enough.

These reason listed above can be responsible for your lack of muscle weight gain. In the right circumstances, your body will grow but you need to make sure you are training properly, eating properly and getting enough rest.

You don’t have to be a fanatic about this unless this is your full time job. Living to eat enough protein and training hard every workout regardless of how you feel may not be something you want to do but follow this as best you can to get bigger in the fastest possible time.