Five times a week, two hours each visit. You’ve been more faithful to your gym schedule than you’ve ever been to any girlfriend you’ve had. And for a while it paid off: those muscles started rippling and the girls started paying attention.
But then, like a bad dream you wake up from, your muscles suddenly wasn’t growing like what it used to do. Your muscles stop responding to your heavy workout no matter how intensely you’ve been training. So you said to yourself, now I will train harder. So now you put in three hours a session and but even as you upped your gym dosage, horrors of horrors, your muscles are actually shrinking.
Ahhhhh, the Gym Plateau. It afflicts all of us and few of us ever gotten out of it. In fact, most people don’t even know that they have hit the dreaded plateau and thought that their muscles can only grow so much due to inherent genetic factors. Not to worry though, if you read the following fitness tips, and follow these tips to the latter, I can assure you that your muscles will start growing again and grow bigger they will.
Here are your free fitness tips.
Fitness Tip #1
Take A Break
This tip is easy to comply for most of us but very difficult for some gym rats. Simply take a break from your workout. Do not step into the gym or do any workout for 2 weeks. Its time to let your body recover from the punishments you are dishing out to your muscles. Some bodybuilders may find this difficult to do because working out is addictive. You produce endorphin when you workout and endorphin is also known as happy hormone. The same hormone you produce when having sex.
Professional bodybuilders take a break after every 4-5 months of hard training and when they are back in the gym, they shock their well rested but complacent muscles back into massive muscle gain.
Fitness Tip #2
Are you training too often?
If your exercises are intense enough, you need only to train each muscle group once or twice a week. Your training schedule shouldn’t repeat muscle groups in the same week. Every time you train, you do your muscles damage. Muscles need time to repair and it does so in the after your training when you are resting. This means that if you lift weights on consecutive days, there isn’t sufficient time for the body to recover. Try to have one day rest between each weight lifting day.
If your routine requires intensive weight training, remember not to prolong your gym time longer than an hour. This is because your cortisol, a muscle eating hormone level will be elevated and thus will be counter productive to your efforts. It eats your muscles.
Most of all, you must sleep! Eight hours or even better, go for ten hours. Muscles do not grow in the gym; they grow when you sleep. When you sleep, you are secreting growth hormones for many bodily functions and one of those functions is to build muscles. That is why they called it beauty sleep!
Fitness Tip #3
Are you using the correct weight lifting techniques?
If your technique or form is incorrect, not only is your training retarded, you are also inviting injury. Don’t laugh. But when you exercise you must think and focus, instead of mindlessly repeating the motions, do take note of how you perform each exercise and rep. Do so with deliberation and at the beginning and end of every lift, pause and squeeze the muscles you are exercising. Mind and muscle must connect! Never never use momentum of the swing to lift the weights and let gravity pull the weight down. That is why you must lift slowly and lower slowly feeling the tension in your muscles and resisting the load all the time.
In order for muscles to want to grow, you have to stress them to the maximum, and then further. Do enough repetitions until you feel you cannot go any further using good form. You must then either increase the weight or the number of repetitions at the next session. This is called progressive overload, and progressive overload is what forces your muscles to grow. As a general guide, if you can lift more than 12 reps the weight is probably too light and it is too heavy if your muscles fail you in less than 5 reps. You may wish to consult your physical fitness trainer on the correct form and technique for each exercise.
Fitness Tip #4
Are you using free weights?
Most machines do not involve as much of the synergistic muscles (supporting muscles) as free weights do. And, therefore, do not build as much muscle mass. Synergistic muscles are the smaller muscles that aid the main muscles in balance and strength in each lift. Machines has its uses, but for beginners and for smashing plateaus, use free weights.
Fitness Tip#5
Workout with compound exercises
Compound exercises are exercises that involve 2 or more joint movements and thereby employing bigger muscles and more synergistic muscles . Bench presses, dead lifts, squats, and barbell curls amongst others are fantastic compound exercises . For example, when you squat , all the muscles in your lower body get a workout and that alone is about 60 percent of your overall musculature . Squat also works your back and abs too. Using more muscles at one go means that you get a better overall workout. To add icing to the cake, because of the massive utilization of your muscles , you will pant, huff and sweat more. That means your routine also has a cardio effect and you will burn calories even hours after you stepped out of the gym .
Fitness Tip#6
Are you working out your legs?
Your body is programmed to grow proportionately with only slight variations. If you do not train your legs, your upper body mass will stop growing before it becomes large. Surely, you’ve heard of chicken legs! Just because leg training can be brutal, it doesn’t give you reason to hide your legs in your pants. To get that super hero X-frame, pepper your routine with squats . A word of caution though: compound exercises such as dead lifts, squats, and bench presses must be done in excellent form and a spotter is highly recommended. This is where your physical fitness trainer will come in handy as your spotter. If not, injuries are bound to happen and that may put you permanently out of the gym.
Fitness Tip#7
What are you eating?
Muscle building requires protein – the more, the better. Meat, especially red meats and fish, are the best source. It is in your food that your body will draw nutrients from, for strength and necessary fats for joint and organ protection.
To have massive muscle gain and help in muscle preservation , you need about 2-3 grams of good protein per kilogram of your body weight . If you want to get serious about muscles , you may need to supplement them with protein shakes . Eating a meal and having a protein shake immediately after your workout also maximizes the window for rapid absorption of nutrients. This is important as you need to feed the muscles now that you have damaged them. You should also 6 small meals a day so your muscles are constantly fed throughout the day. This will help rev up your metabolism to burn fat too. This will tremendously help you in your build muscle lose weight program. Remember to take your protein shake half an hour before you workout too.
Fitness Tip#8
How about Carbs?
Glycogen is the main energy source for any muscle-building exercise. The body stores whatever carbohydrates you eat as glycogen and muscles use it to give you energy during your workout. After an intense workout, do consume carbohydrates immediately to replace the used glycogen. You can even indulge in high glycemic carbs such as ice creams and white bread as these will turn into insulin and shuttles nutrients such as protein to your muscle cells quickly.
Fitness Tip #9
And Fats?
Yes, your body do need do need fats . But try to avoid saturated fats such as animal fats or worse, trans fats which are artificial fats found in pastries, confectionaries and preserved food. Consume healthy unsaturated fats such as olive oil, canola oil, fish oils, flax seed oil.
Fitness Tip#10
Water Water is essential.
Water is essential. It is the most underrated macronutrient. You need at least eight glasses of water every day but when you exercise , you lose even more water because of the sweating. So drink before, during and after your workout. Weigh yourself before and after the workout, and compensate for the loss by drinking at least 16 ounces of fluid for every pound or half a kg lost.
Fitness Tip#11
Creatine
While meats are the best source for creatine, which is a nutrient that helps speed up muscle gain and power you up during workouts, those who do not get enough from their regular diet must be supplemented. Creatine puts volume into your muscle cells and gives you that muscle pump thus your muscles feels tighter, look bigger and overall illusion of superb muscularity . It also helps to prevent muscle breakdown.
Fitness Tip#12
Glutamine
When supplemented, it may help bodybuilders reduce the amount of muscle wasting away or used up as energy. It also helps in muscle recovery.
Fitness Tip #13
Do you change your routine?
The human body is fantastic at adaptation. So whatever routine you are on, your body will get used to it. So do change your routine every 6-8 weeks. For example, instead of working out your chest muscles at the start of your workout, work your back muscles instead. You can reverse your whole routine or change the variations of your exercises or add new ones and take away some old ones. By changing your routines, you not only shock your muscles to new growth, it will also prevent boredom by doing the same thing all the time.
Showing posts with label gym. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gym. Show all posts
8 Proven Strategies For Maximum Muscle Gains
There is so much conflicting information out there when it comes to the topic of building muscle, and sometimes it can be very difficult to know where to start. If you’re an average beginner looking for some basic guidelines to follow in the gym, the following 8 points will start you off on the right track.
1) Train With Weights and Focus On Compound, Free Weight Movements.
If you want to make solid, noteworthy gains in muscle size and strength, you absolutely must train with free weights and focus on basic, compound exercises. A compound exercise is any lift that stimulates more than one muscle group at a time. Examples of these lifts are the squat, deadlift, bench press, chin up, barbell row, overhead press, dip and lunge. Compound movements allow you to handle the most weight and will stimulate the greatest amount of total muscle fibers.
2) Be Prepared To Train Hard.
One of the biggest factors that separates those who make modest gains from those who make serious gains is their level of training intensity. In order to stimulate your muscle fibers to their utmost potential, you must be willing to take every set you perform in the gym to the point of muscular failure.
Muscular Failure: The point at which no further repetitions can be completed using proper form.
Sub-maximal training intensity will leave you with sub-maximal results, plain and simple.
3) Track Your Progress In The Gym From Week To Week.
Our bodies build muscle because of an adaptive response to the environment. When you go to the gym, you break down your muscle fibers by training with weights. Your body senses this as a potential threat to its survival and will react accordingly by rebuilding the damaged fibers larger and stronger in order to protect against any possible future threat. Therefore, in order to make continual gains in muscle size and strength, you must always focus on progressing in the gym from week to week. This could mean performing 1 or 2 more reps for each exercise or adding more weight to the bar. Keep a detailed training log to track your progress as your strength increases over time.
4) Avoid Overtraining.
Overtraining is your number one enemy when it comes to building muscle size and strength. When most people begin a workout program, they are stuck with the misguided notion that more is better. They naturally assume that the more time they spend in the gym, the better results they will achieve. When it comes to building muscle, nothing could be farther from the truth! If you spend too much time in the gym, you will actually take yourself farther away from your goals rather than closer to them. Remember, your muscles do not grow in the gym; they grow out of the gym, while you are resting and eating. Recovery is absolutely vital to the muscle growth process. If you don’t provide your body with the proper recovery time in between workouts, your muscles will never have a chance to grow.
5) Eat More Frequently.
The main area where most people fail miserably on their muscle-building mission is on the all-too important task of proper nutrition. Training with weights is only half of the equation! You break down your muscle fibers in the gym, but if you don’t provide your body with the proper nutrients at the proper times, the muscle growth process will be next to impossible. You should be eating anywhere from 5-7 meals per day, spaced every 2-3 hours in order to keep your body in an anabolic, muscle-building state at all times. Each meal should consist of high quality protein and complex carbohydrates.
6) Increase Your Protein Intake.
Of the 3 major nutrients (protein, carbohydrates and fats) protein is without a doubt the most important for those who are looking to gain muscle size and strength. Protein is found in literally every single one of the 30 trillion cells that your body is made up of and its main role is to build and repair body tissues. Without sufficient protein intake, it will be physically impossible for your body to synthesize a significant amount of lean muscle mass. If your body were a house, think of protein as the bricks. A general guideline is to consume 1-1.5 grams of protein per pound of body weight each day from high quality sources such as fish, poultry, eggs, beef, milk, peanut butter and cottage cheese.
7) Increase Your Water Intake.
If you want a simple, easy and highly effective way to maximize your muscle gains, drinking more water is it. Water plays so many vital roles in the body and its importance cannot be overstated. In fact, your muscles alone are made up of 70% water! Not only will drinking more water cause your muscles to appear fuller and more vascular, but it will also increase your strength as well. Research has shown that merely a 3-4% drop in your body’s water levels can impact muscle contractions by 10-20%! Aim to consume 0.6 ounces for every pound of bodyweight each day for optimal gains.
8) Be Consistent!
Consistency is everything. Those who make the greatest gains in muscular size and strength are the ones who are able to implement the proper techniques on a highly consistent basis. Simply knowing is not enough, you must apply!
Building muscle is a result of the cumulative effect of small steps. Sure, performing 1 extra rep on your bench press will not make a huge difference to your overall results, and neither will consuming a single meal. However, over the long haul, all of those extra reps you perform and all of those small meals you consume will decide your overall success. If you work hard and complete all of your muscle-building tasks in a consistent fashion, all of those individual steps will equate to massive gains in overall size and strength.
1) Train With Weights and Focus On Compound, Free Weight Movements.
If you want to make solid, noteworthy gains in muscle size and strength, you absolutely must train with free weights and focus on basic, compound exercises. A compound exercise is any lift that stimulates more than one muscle group at a time. Examples of these lifts are the squat, deadlift, bench press, chin up, barbell row, overhead press, dip and lunge. Compound movements allow you to handle the most weight and will stimulate the greatest amount of total muscle fibers.
2) Be Prepared To Train Hard.
One of the biggest factors that separates those who make modest gains from those who make serious gains is their level of training intensity. In order to stimulate your muscle fibers to their utmost potential, you must be willing to take every set you perform in the gym to the point of muscular failure.
Muscular Failure: The point at which no further repetitions can be completed using proper form.
Sub-maximal training intensity will leave you with sub-maximal results, plain and simple.
3) Track Your Progress In The Gym From Week To Week.
Our bodies build muscle because of an adaptive response to the environment. When you go to the gym, you break down your muscle fibers by training with weights. Your body senses this as a potential threat to its survival and will react accordingly by rebuilding the damaged fibers larger and stronger in order to protect against any possible future threat. Therefore, in order to make continual gains in muscle size and strength, you must always focus on progressing in the gym from week to week. This could mean performing 1 or 2 more reps for each exercise or adding more weight to the bar. Keep a detailed training log to track your progress as your strength increases over time.
4) Avoid Overtraining.
Overtraining is your number one enemy when it comes to building muscle size and strength. When most people begin a workout program, they are stuck with the misguided notion that more is better. They naturally assume that the more time they spend in the gym, the better results they will achieve. When it comes to building muscle, nothing could be farther from the truth! If you spend too much time in the gym, you will actually take yourself farther away from your goals rather than closer to them. Remember, your muscles do not grow in the gym; they grow out of the gym, while you are resting and eating. Recovery is absolutely vital to the muscle growth process. If you don’t provide your body with the proper recovery time in between workouts, your muscles will never have a chance to grow.
5) Eat More Frequently.
The main area where most people fail miserably on their muscle-building mission is on the all-too important task of proper nutrition. Training with weights is only half of the equation! You break down your muscle fibers in the gym, but if you don’t provide your body with the proper nutrients at the proper times, the muscle growth process will be next to impossible. You should be eating anywhere from 5-7 meals per day, spaced every 2-3 hours in order to keep your body in an anabolic, muscle-building state at all times. Each meal should consist of high quality protein and complex carbohydrates.
6) Increase Your Protein Intake.
Of the 3 major nutrients (protein, carbohydrates and fats) protein is without a doubt the most important for those who are looking to gain muscle size and strength. Protein is found in literally every single one of the 30 trillion cells that your body is made up of and its main role is to build and repair body tissues. Without sufficient protein intake, it will be physically impossible for your body to synthesize a significant amount of lean muscle mass. If your body were a house, think of protein as the bricks. A general guideline is to consume 1-1.5 grams of protein per pound of body weight each day from high quality sources such as fish, poultry, eggs, beef, milk, peanut butter and cottage cheese.
7) Increase Your Water Intake.
If you want a simple, easy and highly effective way to maximize your muscle gains, drinking more water is it. Water plays so many vital roles in the body and its importance cannot be overstated. In fact, your muscles alone are made up of 70% water! Not only will drinking more water cause your muscles to appear fuller and more vascular, but it will also increase your strength as well. Research has shown that merely a 3-4% drop in your body’s water levels can impact muscle contractions by 10-20%! Aim to consume 0.6 ounces for every pound of bodyweight each day for optimal gains.
8) Be Consistent!
Consistency is everything. Those who make the greatest gains in muscular size and strength are the ones who are able to implement the proper techniques on a highly consistent basis. Simply knowing is not enough, you must apply!
Building muscle is a result of the cumulative effect of small steps. Sure, performing 1 extra rep on your bench press will not make a huge difference to your overall results, and neither will consuming a single meal. However, over the long haul, all of those extra reps you perform and all of those small meals you consume will decide your overall success. If you work hard and complete all of your muscle-building tasks in a consistent fashion, all of those individual steps will equate to massive gains in overall size and strength.
Bodybuilding Workouts
Bodybuilding workouts are the most important part of your bodybuilding endeavors, but many people have not done enough research to fully understand, and get the best from, their workouts. Here in this article we will show you how to maximise the results from your bodybuilding workouts.
Step 1
Put some real effort into it. Nothing important is ever achieved in this world without some effort, and if you are approaching bodybuilding in a half hearted manner, then you will only get half hearted results. Any results you will see will be far less than you would have seen if you had been dedicated to the task. If you really want the muscles and body you are working for, why not put in a full effort?
Step 2
Maintain your enthusiasm. One of the most important factors in keeping the right level of enthusiasm for your training is to time your gym visits judiciously. All gyms have some competition to use the equipment, and if you cannot get access to it, you may end up not being able to perform some of your most important routines. This is not only frustrating, it can lead to setbacks in your progress. If you can plan your gym visits for quieter times of day, such as morning opening, or early afternoon, that will help.
Step 3
Maintain your energy level.. Someone who is muscular is not necessarily fit, so you should work at being both. If your gym has a treadmill or an exercise bicycle, these provide the ideal opportunity to do some aerobic exercise in the middle of your bodybuilding exercises. Although this will add a bit of time to your overall workout, it will increase your intensity.
Step 4
Make sure each exercise is performed correctly. To maximise the effect of your bodybuilding workouts, they need to be performed as they are written in the textbook. Try to keep your back still while you are doing barbell curls. A large amount of your time will go to waste if you are not maintaining your effectiveness with correct technique. Get this part right, and you will gain far better results for your time.
Bodybuilding workouts need to be tailored to the needs of the individual, but the hints in this article should provide you with something to work on during your next gym visit.
Step 1
Put some real effort into it. Nothing important is ever achieved in this world without some effort, and if you are approaching bodybuilding in a half hearted manner, then you will only get half hearted results. Any results you will see will be far less than you would have seen if you had been dedicated to the task. If you really want the muscles and body you are working for, why not put in a full effort?
Step 2
Maintain your enthusiasm. One of the most important factors in keeping the right level of enthusiasm for your training is to time your gym visits judiciously. All gyms have some competition to use the equipment, and if you cannot get access to it, you may end up not being able to perform some of your most important routines. This is not only frustrating, it can lead to setbacks in your progress. If you can plan your gym visits for quieter times of day, such as morning opening, or early afternoon, that will help.
Step 3
Maintain your energy level.. Someone who is muscular is not necessarily fit, so you should work at being both. If your gym has a treadmill or an exercise bicycle, these provide the ideal opportunity to do some aerobic exercise in the middle of your bodybuilding exercises. Although this will add a bit of time to your overall workout, it will increase your intensity.
Step 4
Make sure each exercise is performed correctly. To maximise the effect of your bodybuilding workouts, they need to be performed as they are written in the textbook. Try to keep your back still while you are doing barbell curls. A large amount of your time will go to waste if you are not maintaining your effectiveness with correct technique. Get this part right, and you will gain far better results for your time.
Bodybuilding workouts need to be tailored to the needs of the individual, but the hints in this article should provide you with something to work on during your next gym visit.
Quick But Effective Workout Exercises
Most people think that for a workout to be successful, it has to be lengthy and tiresome. People often struggle to spend two hours or more in the gym in the notion that the more time spent exercising would translate into more gains (in muscle) or more losses (in fat). While such feats may be worthy of a round of applause, they are often counterproductive. There will always come a point where you would get tired of going to the gym, and even dread the several hours you spend there. Soon, you might stop working out and put all the efforts you exerted to waste.
However such should not be always the case. If you want to be able to keep with your fitness regime for long, you might want to try to make use of quick workout exercises that will allow you to spend less time in the gym, but still motivate you to continue working out in long terms. While quick workout exercises may not give you results as fast as you want, they will allow you to maintain your ideal body type that will remain with you in the long run. It is important to keep things simple so that you would not find things too tiring and dreadful, eventually you can add some more exercises to spice things up and keep you motivated.
Here are simple workout exercises you can do in the gym or at home. The workouts can be done in less than 30 minutes, which allows you to enjoy more time for other things.
Strength Exercises
For the shoulders – get two heavy dumbbells or any two equally-weighing objects for each of your hands. Lift the weights suspended in your arms using your shoulders and hold for three to five seconds, then relax again. Repeat this step for 8 to 12 times depending on the weight you are using. Do up to three of this set.
For the chest – lie on your back on a bench press or any similar sturdy flat surface. Before doing the normal bench press, warm up first by doing a set of 8 to 12 repetitions using a third of the weight you normally can lift. After the warm up, do three sets of 8 to 12 repetitions of your normal bench press routine. Just keep in mind to avoid arching your back as you lift the weights.
For the biceps – lie on an inclined bench with both hands carrying dumbbells of equal weights. Lift the right arm for two counts and return for three counts, do the same with the left arm. Repeat for 8 to 12 times. Do three sets of this exercise.
For the thighs and buttocks – with heavy dumbbells on each hand, gently squat until your thighs are parallel to the ground, then stand upright again. Repeat for 8 to 12 times. Do two to three sets of this exercise.
For the calves – stand upright with heavy dumbbells on each hand. Gently tip your toes as high as you can without wobbling or getting imbalanced. Repeat for 8 to 12 times and do up to two sets.
The workout exercises above are indeed quite simple and easy that you might think that they would not work. However such a simple regiment would be easy to maintain, and the results will come in time and last for you to enjoy your body. You may alternate the above exercise with a 30 to 45 minute cardiovascular exercise, so that you would also be able to shed off fat as you gain muscle.
To get fit, you do not need to spend hours in the gym. You just need to maintain a fitness routine and make it a lifestyle. Of course you should have a balanced diet and do everything in moderation. In time you and other people would see the results. Soon you will have the body you would want.
However such should not be always the case. If you want to be able to keep with your fitness regime for long, you might want to try to make use of quick workout exercises that will allow you to spend less time in the gym, but still motivate you to continue working out in long terms. While quick workout exercises may not give you results as fast as you want, they will allow you to maintain your ideal body type that will remain with you in the long run. It is important to keep things simple so that you would not find things too tiring and dreadful, eventually you can add some more exercises to spice things up and keep you motivated.
Here are simple workout exercises you can do in the gym or at home. The workouts can be done in less than 30 minutes, which allows you to enjoy more time for other things.
Strength Exercises
For the shoulders – get two heavy dumbbells or any two equally-weighing objects for each of your hands. Lift the weights suspended in your arms using your shoulders and hold for three to five seconds, then relax again. Repeat this step for 8 to 12 times depending on the weight you are using. Do up to three of this set.
For the chest – lie on your back on a bench press or any similar sturdy flat surface. Before doing the normal bench press, warm up first by doing a set of 8 to 12 repetitions using a third of the weight you normally can lift. After the warm up, do three sets of 8 to 12 repetitions of your normal bench press routine. Just keep in mind to avoid arching your back as you lift the weights.
For the biceps – lie on an inclined bench with both hands carrying dumbbells of equal weights. Lift the right arm for two counts and return for three counts, do the same with the left arm. Repeat for 8 to 12 times. Do three sets of this exercise.
For the thighs and buttocks – with heavy dumbbells on each hand, gently squat until your thighs are parallel to the ground, then stand upright again. Repeat for 8 to 12 times. Do two to three sets of this exercise.
For the calves – stand upright with heavy dumbbells on each hand. Gently tip your toes as high as you can without wobbling or getting imbalanced. Repeat for 8 to 12 times and do up to two sets.
The workout exercises above are indeed quite simple and easy that you might think that they would not work. However such a simple regiment would be easy to maintain, and the results will come in time and last for you to enjoy your body. You may alternate the above exercise with a 30 to 45 minute cardiovascular exercise, so that you would also be able to shed off fat as you gain muscle.
To get fit, you do not need to spend hours in the gym. You just need to maintain a fitness routine and make it a lifestyle. Of course you should have a balanced diet and do everything in moderation. In time you and other people would see the results. Soon you will have the body you would want.
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