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Showing posts with label build. Show all posts
Showing posts with label build. Show all posts

Creating An Anabolic State That Supports Muscle Growth

You can only build muscle if your body is in the correct anabolic balance to allow growth to take place. Intensive exercise is clearly an important part of the muscle building process but achieving the maximum muscle mass depends on putting the building blocks in place. This is achieved through sound nutritional practices so you need to be aware of the following anabolic enhancing principles:

1. Protein is the basic raw material needed to build muscle. Protein supplies the amino acids that the body uses to repair and build muscle following intensive exercise. Aim to consume 1 to 1.5 grams of protein per pound of body weight each day from food like beef, fish, poultry, eggs, milk and whey. Spread the load over at least six meals to derive the optimum benefit and avoid overloading the liver.

2. Carbohydrates are needed to energize the muscle building process. Carbohydrates stimulate the release of insulin which pushes the amino acids into muscle cells to begin the process of repair. The body uses carbohydrates as a source of energy – consume too little and the body will steal protein that would otherwise be used for repairing and building muscle. Aim to consume 1.5 to 2 grams of carbohydrate per pound of body weight each day from foods like potatoes, pasta, rice, vegetables and whole wheat bread.

3. Boost your calories. Unless your main aim is to reduce fat you need a positive caloric balance if you want to build muscle. Make sure that your daily calorie intake is 10% higher than your energy expenditure for daily maintenance and that the calories are acquired from a diet characterized by a ratio of 50% carbohydrates, 40% proteins and 10% fat.

4. Get plenty of rest both in terms of adequate rest days between training sessions and sufficient sleep. Your muscles won’t grow if you don’t build adequate recovery time into your training program. Similarly, you can only optimize your body’s levels of testosterone and growth hormone if you spend enough time sleeping.

5. Consume quality supplements to support a sound nutritious diet. For most people it should be enough to add whey protein, creatine and l-glutamine to your daily diet.

6. Don’t overdo the aerobic exercise. Your aim is to increase muscle mass therefore you don’t want to burn excessive calories that could be utilized for bulking up.

7. Drink plenty of water. Failure to drink sufficient quantities of water will lead to dehydration and adversely affect your muscle mass. Don’t forget that muscle is 70% water so a generous intake will maintain muscle volume and help growth.

15 Muscle Building Rules For Skinny Guys And Gals Part 2

In part 1, I touched on general weight gain rules and reasons why you can’t gain weight. Now it’s time to get into workout specifics…

WORKOUT RULES

4. Stop listening to every ridiculous piece of advice you hear in the gym or read on a message board.

Recently a client of mine informed me that someone in the gym stated that he was training all wrong and he needed to train 5-6 days a week, and aim for more reps during his workout. Somewhere in the range of 15-20 reps per set.

The person giving the advice was quite confident about his recommendations, and he had an impressive physique that typically elevates him to the elusive “listen to me if you want to look like me” level in the gym. He was bigger than my client, so even though my client’s “intellectual” mind knows that advice is absurd; his “unrealistic dreamer” mind took this information very seriously. So seriously that he changed his program and didn’t inform me until a week or so later. This particular person had been making great progress on his current program, yet he allowed this one person’s comment to overshadow that progress and convince him that his program was inadequate. This is a mistake and it showed in his lack of further progress.

In addition, don’t judge the validity of what a person says by how they look. Just because the guy is huge doesn’t mean he is spewing pertinent advice for you. Many people that have big physiques are big despite of their training, not because of it. I know some huge guys that know very little about training and dieting correctly. They can do whatever and still gain muscle; unfortunately we are not that way, so we much approach things in a more intelligent way.

5. Workout Infrequently

This is the most difficult concept for many to grasp simply because it involves less action, instead of more. When we get motivated and start a new program, it’s natural to want to do something. We want to train and train and train. Thinking all along that the more you train, the more muscle you will build. Unfortunately, this could not be farther from the truth.

More training does not equal more muscle growth. Understand that the purpose of weight training is to stimulate muscle growth. That takes very little time. Once that has been done, the muscle needs to be repaired and new muscle needs to be built. That only happens when you are resting. You do not build muscle in the gym, you build muscle when resting! If you never give your body any essential “non active” time, when will it have a chance to build muscle? Think about that.

Now, add in the fact that you have a difficult time gaining weight and the importance of rest increases. Individuals who are naturally thin and have difficulty building muscle tend to require less training and more rest.

6. Focus on Multi-Jointed Lifts

Multi-jointed exercises are those that stimulate the most amounts of muscle fibers. Unlike isolation exercises which only work individual muscles, multi-jointed lifts work many different muscle groups simultaneously. For those needing to gain weight, this is ideal because these lifts put your body under the most amount of stress. This is the stress that will shock your nervous system and cause the greatest release of muscle building hormones. This results in increased muscle gain all over the body.

You can still do some isolation work; however it should not be the focus of your workouts, and should only come after your multi-jointed lifting is complete.

7. Focus on Using Free Weights

Free weights are preferred over machines for many reasons, but most importantly because they allow the stimulation of certain supporting muscle groups when training. Stimulating these stabilizer and synergistic muscles will allow you go get stronger, and ultimately build more muscle faster. Yes, some can most likely still build large amounts of muscle using machines, but why make it more difficult if you already have a difficult time gaining weight?

8. Lift a weight that is challenging for you

Building mass involves lifting relatively heavy weight. This is necessary because the muscle fibers that cause the most amount of muscle size growth (called Type IIB) are best stimulated by the lifting of heavy weight. A heavy weight as one that only allows you to perform 4-8 reps before your muscles fail.

Using a lighter weight and doing more reps can stimulate some Type IIB fibers, but again if you have a difficult time gaining weight, why make it more difficult? You need to try and stimulate as many as you can with the use of heavy weights.

9. Focus more on the eccentric portion of the exercise.

When you lift a weight, it can be divided into three distinct periods. The positive, the negative and midpoint. The concentric or “positive” motion usually involves the initial push or effort when you begin the rep. The midpoint is signaled by a short pause before reversing and returning to the starting position. The eccentric, or “negative” portion of each lift is characterized by your resistance against then natural pull of the weight.

For example, when doing push-ups, the positive motion is the actual pushing up motion. Once you have pushed all the way up, you hit the mid point. The negative motion begins when you start to lower yourself back down. Most would simply lower themselves as fast as they pushed up, but I recommend extending and slowing down this portion. Slowing down the eccentric part of the lift will help to stimulate more muscle growth. It actually activates more of the Type IIB fibers mentioned about in Rule 7.

10. Keep your workout short but intense.

Your goal should be to get in, stimulate your muscles and then get out as quickly as possible. It is not necessary to do large amounts of exercisers per body part trying to target every muscle and hit every “angle”. This should only be a concern of someone with an already developed, mature physique who is trying to improve weak areas.

If you have no pec, don’t concern yourself with trying to target inner, outer, upper, lower or whatever. Just work your chest. You should do no more than 2-3 exercises per body part. That’s it. Doing more than that won’t build more muscle, faster. In fact it could possibly lead to muscle loss. Long training sessions cause catabolic hormone levels to rise dramatically. Catabolic hormones are responsible for breaking down muscle tissue resulting in MUSCLE LOSS. While at the same time, long training sessions suppress the hormones that actually build muscle.

If you don’t want to lose muscle during your workouts, I suggest limiting your sessions to no more than 60-75 minutes MAXIMUM. Less if you can.

11. Limit your aerobic activity and training

Honestly, I do not do any aerobic activity when I am trying to gain weight. This is mainly because it interferes with the important “non-active” time my body needs for muscle building and recovery. I do understand that people have lives and other activities that they don’t want to give up, so it must be kept to a minimum. It won’t hurt your progress as long as you don’t over do it. If you find that you are doing more aerobic activity weight training, that’s overdoing it.

I also don’t recommend it because people tend do it for the wrong reasons. Many start aerobic activity because they believe it will help them to lose fat. While that is true, it won’t do so on a high calorie mass diet. To lose fat, you need to be eating fewer calories.

12. Don’t program hop

Here’s how it usually happens. You’ve just read about a new exercise or workout that is supposed to pack on the mass. Now, even though you had already started another training program a few weeks ago, you are tired of it and really want to start this routine instead because it sounds better.

I call these people, “program hoppers”. They are very enthusiastic when starting a new program, but they never follow it long enough to actually see any results. They are easily distracted and love to drop whatever they may be doing to follow the latest “hot” workout or exercise.

My advice is don’t do it. This is a bad habit that never leads to a positive outcome. Understand that it takes time for any program to work. To be successful, you must follow your program consistently. Yes, there are many different training methods and interesting routines out there, but you can’t do them all at the same time and jumping around won’t allow enough time for any of them to actually be effective for you. Pick one that is focused on your current goal and stick with it. There will be plenty of time to try the others later, but NOT NOW.

In Part 3 of this article, I will cover your eating rules and guidelines to MAKE SURE you know how AND what to eat to build muscle mass.

Build Big Muscles Fast Gain Muscle Mass Guide

So you want to build big muscles? Simple isn’t it? Just join a gym and hit those weights regularly and viola, in a couple of months, you will gain so much muscle mass that you are ready to take on any bodybuilding contest. Is it really that simple to build big muscles? Well, to gain muscle mass, there is much more than just hitting the gym regularly. Here are some muscle mass gaining tips :-

a) Eat and Eat – To build muscles, you must eat. Your calorie consumption must be more than your calorie expenditure. If you expand all the calories you have eaten, then where are the calories to build muscles?

2) Protein – Make sure that you eat enough protein. You should eat at least one gram of protein per pound of your body weight everyday if you want to gain muscle mass fast. If you don’t get enough protein, your muscles won’t grow big.

3) Supplement – If you cannot have adequate protein from your normal meals, supplement with protein shakes. If you want more strength so that you can lift heavier weights to grow bigger muscles, take Creatine supplement.

4) Weight Training – You must lift with heavy weights and to add on more weight consistently to progressively build your muscles. But it is very important not to sacrifice correct lifting techniques and form for the sake of lifting heavier.

5) Lift Free Weights – Use free weights like dumbells and barbells to recruit more muscle fibers so that more muscle fibers can be worked on.

6) Compound Exercises – Work with compound exercises like bench presses, squats, barbell rows, chin ups and dead lifts to build big muscle mass. If you concentrate on working your puny muscles like your biceps, then you will only have puny muscle growth.

7) Get Enough Rest – Have rest days in between your workout days and do not work the same muscle group more than twice a week. Your muscles need to recover from your workouts in order to grow big.
8) Get Enough Sleep – Sleep at least 8 hours a day. More even better. Your muscles grow when you sleep.

If you practise the above 8 steps consistently, your muscles will grow fast and big. Of course there are many more things you can do to achieve a competitive bodybuilder’s physique of which I cannot cover in just an article here. So do research for more knowledge.

Quick Tips To Gain Muscle Mass


Packing on size is easy, as long as proper techniques are applied. Keep in mind that everyone has a different body type. Here are some tips to help you gain muscle mass.

#1 Weight Train

Train with heavy weights using less reps. Using appropriate weight, you should only be able to do 4-8 reps. Using heavy weights and low reps puts your muscles and nervous system under much more stress than using lighter weights for many reps. The rest time in between sets should be approximately 2 to 3 minutes.

#2 Eat more Calories

To gain mass, you should strive to eat around 18-20 times you body weight in calories. The extra calories are needed to build new muscles and to repair muscle tissue that is damaged during the heavy workouts. However, do not consume empty calories; go for foods which provide you with correct nutrients essential for gaining muscle.

#3 Eat more Protein

Only diets high in protein help build muscle when incorporated with intense physical training. Without protein, your body will not be able to build new muscle. Carbs serve mainly as energy for the body where as protein provides the necessary amino acids to build and repair muscle. To build muscles get at least 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight.

#4 Eat Fat

Dietary fat has a direct relationship with testosterone production. An increase in dietary fat intake seems to bring on an increase in testosterone levels, which is a must when you are trying to gain mass. Your main focus should be to increase your intake of essential fatty acids and not saturated fats.

#5 Drink more Often

To make sure that your muscles stay hydrated you must drink plenty of water. Dehydration can happen easily if you train hard. A dehydrated muscle takes longer to repair itself than a hydrated one.

#6 Take a Multi Vitamin

If you want to gain muscle, you must make sure that you are not deficient in any vitamin or mineral that your body needs. So it is a good idea to take a good multi vitamin tablet.

#7 Stop all Aerobics

In order to put on serous mass you need to stop all of your aerobics. If you do need to carry with it remember to limit it to once every week or once every two weeks.

#8 Take ample Rest

Resting the body is just as important as dieting and training. Try to get about six or eight hours of sleep a day. Resting is what actually causes the muscles to grow. Taking days, even weeks off from training will only benefit you.

Be patient and consistent. You may have the best diet, the best training schedule, join the best gym but without consistency it’s all worthless.

Build Chest Muscles In 4 Simple Steps

Build chest muscles as part of your bodybuilding program, and you will be taking an important step towards both looking and becoming stronger. Chest muscles are such a vital factor for a bodybuilder, in creating the right posture, so here we show you how to build chest muscles for yourself.

Step 1

You don’t necessarily have to do a lot of incredibly complicated exercises to build chest muscles, they can even be built using press ups. Although their effect will be barely noticeable if you are already involved in more advanced resistance training, press ups can help give your muscles definition. Press ups are good for people who are just starting to think about building their bodies. An inclined press up is even better.

Step 2

One general piece of advice that you would do well to heed is to build chest muscles using free weights rather than a weight machine. It is sad to note that free weights are losing popularity in many gyms to the weight machines, but using free weights is still the best bet for the serious bodybuilder. Your muscles benefit from a more comprehensive workout the weight is lifted through several different angles, and more muscles are exercised in this way, leading to a more even development.

Step 3

Treat your muscle groups separately. The muscles in your chest belong to diverse groups, and if you can work each in turn, you will gain better results than average bodybuilders who ignore this factor. The chest has an upper and lower part. Inclined dumbbell flys and inclined barbell presses are effective ways of developing the upper chest, while the lower part responds well to declined barbell bench presses and dips on the parallel bars. The chest is also divided into an inner and outer section. The inner section can be worked with standing cable crossovers, and the outer section with flat bench press and flat dumbbell flys.

Step 4

Lift right up to your limit. By far the most effective way of maximizing the effect of your training time when you build chest muscles is to lift until you simply cannot lift any more. This can be a problem if you don’t take care, and you should ONLY attempt this if you can find someone prepared to spot for you. The other person is then able to grab the bar and stop it doing you any harm, or pinning you down.

Your chest muscles are very noticeable, and one of the first parts of the body that people look at when they know you’re bodybuilding. You now know how to build chest muscles for yourself.

The Fastest Way To Build Muscle

The fastest way to build muscle is to be consistent, once you have learned what you need to know about diet and bodybuilding exercise. Provided you are following the right exercises in the right way, you will make faster gains the harder and more consistently you work out. As ever, it pays to learn what you are doing before you start, so here you will discover the fastest way to build muscle.

Step 1

If you are looking for the fastest way to build muscle, look first at your diet. You need to be taking in the right nutrients, and the right number of calories before you can expect your bodybuilding work to succeed. It is a very common error amongst newcomers to bodybuilding to over concentrate on protein. Protein is absolutely necessary, but it needs to be combined with an adequate amount of carbohydrate, or else the muscles will not have the fuel they need to use the protein and grow.

Step 2

Eat twice as much food. Of course this piece of advice presupposes that you have amended your diet to be taking in the correct balance of nutrients. If you are using diet as part of the fastest way to build muscle, eating double the amount of food will ensure that your muscles will be built, and that your hard work will pay off. Just be sure that your hunger is enough to warrant eating that much food.

Step 3

Keep a diary of when you work out. When exercises become habitual, it is easy to forget exactly how many reps you have performed, or how much weight you managed to lift at the time. Keep a record of everything you do, either on paper or by an electronic method, and you will be able to make sure that you are increasing both your number of reps and your weight at the right time. You need to be constantly increasing the demands on your body for the fastest way to build muscle.

Step 4

These four steps of the fastest ways to build muscle would not be complete without mentioning weight training technique. If your exercises are not being performed properly, you could be wasting a lot of the hard effort you are putting in. The lift phase needs to be performed with the weight under control, but as quickly and smoothly as possible, while exhaling your breath. The release is just the opposite, and needs to be executed as slowly as you can, taking at least twice as much time as you need . This may be difficult when you start, but it will soon become second nature – correct weightlifting technique is an essential part of the fastest way to build muscle

The four tips in this guide have given you a good insight into the fastest way to build muscle. Use them, and they will serve you well.