Best Way To Build Muscle

Posts Tagged ‘how to build muscle’

There are numerous articles, websites, blogs, magazine columns and such like that all give information and advice about the easiest ways to stimulate muscle growth. so, if there are all these varied methods to stimulate muscle growth then how come it is so such a difficult task for certain people? Well, the answer is partly supplied by the question itself. With so much conflicting and individualistic advice about, both on the net and in bookstores and magazines, how on earth is someone new to bodybuilding supposed to know what to do?

The new bodybuilder really needs to merely have knowledge of the essential basics in order to start growing therefore much of this information will be irrelevant. So with that in mind here are three sure fire steps to help anyone build muscle easily.

1) Train hard. Make use of the all time classic muscle mass building exercises such as: deadlifts, rows, squats, benchpresses and pull ups. These time proven exercises will help you build muscle mass easily. Try to veer away from exercises that promote isolation of individual muscles, these are really for muscle carving and defining and not for building mass. Get in the gym, workout vigorously for 45 minutes, stay focused and then get out.

2) Pay attention to muscle building nutrition. For decades now experienced trainers have been saying that at least 80% of muscle growth success is down to good muscle building nutrition. This is still true today! As a rule of thumb 50% of your food should be from carbohydrates, 30% from protein and the rest made of fats.

The following foods are recommended, for carbohydrates: potatoes, rice, pasta, brown breads. For protein: chicken, turkey, beef and fish, especially mackerel and tuna. fats will come naturally in all of these foods. If you have a few spare dollars to spend then try supplementing with: whey protein, essential fatty, acids, creatine and a good multi-vitamin product.

3) Rest. Muscle grow whilst you are asleep and at rest so it therefore comes as know surprise that you need to spend quality time resting. Many people new to bodybuilding overtrain and do no give their body adequate time to rest and recuperate. Two workouts per muscle group a week will be sufficient for most people.

Yes, I did indeed say it was simple and it is. If you just stick to those basics you too can build muscle easy. Of course you can go into as much detail as you like within any one of those subject areas but in essence that is all you need to know to grow. With those points in mind, go out there, train intensely in the gym, follow a good muscle building diet and give yourself time to grow!

Muscle building is a phrase that conjures a thousand pictures in people minds, but what exactly is it? This activity is defined as body building. Both professional bodybuilders and amateurs who are just starting out will soon develop those solid, toned muscles that everyone longs for. How do you achieve the standards needed and what would be the criteria that you can use to get the best possible result?There are basically two steps to an effective body building program, the first is weight training and second through the use of proper nutrition.

No Nonsense Muscle Building Review

Weight lifting is the first element of a successful body building program. It is important to possess physical strength and endurance to perform weight lifting exercises, which often involve the use of machines and equipments that are specially designed to stimulate the necessary body parts. While weight lifting is often linked to athletic purposes, it is good to note that they do include those that are using it for other purposes as well. It is very helpful in assisting the body to recover after a serious injury while building an attractive physique at the same time. Due to its miraculous health benefits, it is a good idea to incorporate it into a health and recuperation program.

Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle Review

A good diet and nutrition is essential to ensure that you get the best out of your body building program. Those who do train for body building competitions will need a lot of protein introduced into their daily diet. Keep in mind that carbohydrates are the main energy source of the body and they are mainly taken from complex sources. Remember to include foods that are rich in carbohydrates such as brown rice, sweet potato and oatmeal. Fiber is very important in your diet as it helps facilitate the easy digestion of consumed food and helps expel toxins from the body.

Muscle Gaining Secrets Review

Remember to consume enough water to avoid the reduction in your muscle mass because of dehydration. One good habit you can develop is to drink water before and after every session at the gym. Drinking water anytime you feel like it, especially between exercises to help replenish the water lost through sweating. To prevent the risk of injury to tendons and ligaments, you could hire a training instructor to help you develop the right lifting habits necessary for long term success of your body building efforts.

There is much advice floating around both on and offline about how to build muscle fast. As a personal trainer myself here are a few little known facts and secrets that I personally consider worth your while contemplating on your quest to build muscle mass:

I often hear that you should train each muscle group just once a week. Whilst this may be provide optimal progress for extremely hardgainers it is not true for the vast majority of people. You only improve at something if you practice a lot, once a week in my opinion is not enough, twice a week is more like it for each muscle group. Muscle groups should be hit at least twice a week, no less. In a perfect world you should try to go a month or two where you push your body hard and near overtraining and then a month or two where you near undertraining. This provides times when there is a lot of stress for the body to handle and other times when the body has more time to recover and build momentum for another push. This technique will help you avoid training plateaus.

Ensure that your training sessions don’t exceed 45 minutes. If you deem that time limit to short then possibly your routine is too lengthy or you are not remaining focused and intense in your workout efforts. Focussing on intensity and quality should ensure that 45 mins is more than enough time. If your workouts last longer then this then testosterone levels drop dramatically due to the increased production of cortisol which actually causes the body to eat muscle tissue and store fat. precisely the reverse of what we need.

In an ideal world you should put your training sessions in to cycles. after a while your body adapts to a routine so that it no longer stimulates growth. Vary your routine before your gains start to diminsh. You should also avoid switching your routine too often. Doing so could confuse your bodies muscles overly so and stop it working its way into a nice groove.

If you use the wrong exercises you are unlikely ever to make big gains. The classic time proven muscle building exercises are the multi-joint exercises otherwise known as compound exercises. The number one exercises being: bench presses, rows, squats, pull ups, shoulder presses plus any exercise that moves your entire body through air ie, not just moving individual limbs. If you use these exercises, with a few of their variations and correct muscle building nutrition then you can’t help but stimulate muscle mass growth. With those guidelines in mind, go pump some iron, eat correctly and get huge.

Normally bodybuilding articles talk about how to build muscle, diet, training workouts, muscle building nutrition and so on, however whilst these are all really important there is one things slightly different I would like to introduce to you and your muscle building armoury. It is the reticular activating system (RAV).

The RAV works alongside the visual parts of our brain and directs our attention to certain things that our sub conscious has programmed into it, to be important to achieve our goals. The day to day actions, sights, sounds, preferences and so on that we get daily are all because of our sub conscious thought process that is continually operating.

Neuroscientists now have evidence to prove this and therefore even skeptics should belive now that positive thinking and the law of attraction work. If you do not know what the law of attraction is it is basically the premise that ‘what you think about, you bring about’ or ‘thoughts become things’. Now previously this was considered a bit to new agey for most people however there is a growing acceptance of this approach worldwide.

Now it doesn’t matter if you take the neuro-scientists approach about it or the metaphysical approach to it because it will work either way. So by reprogramming the software of our mind like this it is then possible for us to identify an pick out more clearly the paththat we need to take to reach our goals faster. Some people will come across strange co-incidences that will help there progress which is not uncommon and often gives this ‘law of attraction’ an unearthly feel whereas the truth is those things were probably there waiting to be found all along!

So how can a bodybuilder make use of this? Well think now about your present ongoing thought patterns. What do you say to yourself on a daily basis in your mind. Are they thoughts like ‘losing weight is too difficult’ or ‘I never grow muscle fast’ for if they are then that is exactly what your RAV system is choosing for you to notice and act upon on a daily basis. It is therefore your everyday sub conscious thought process that you need to alter to positive muscle building thought processes such as: ‘muscle mass come quickly and easily’ or ‘I am getting huge fast’ and so on.

How can you go about changing these thought patterns? Here are a couple of things to try:

1)       Visualisation: first you need to set aside 5 minutes or so each day to do this. Simply shut your eyes and visualise in your minds eye exactly how you want your physiques to be. Huge guns, ripped 6 pack and so on, be as clear as possible and hold that vision with belief that you look like that already.’

2)       Speak out aloud clearly and confidently simple statements like: I am extremely fit and healthy, I am huge and muscular, I am growing more and more each day and so on.

Everyday try to do these things. Normally it takes up to 30 days for this new way of thinking to bed in. Following that, keep doing them in order to continually reaffirm your new thought patterns.

If you don’t believe that this stuff works then I suggest that you browse through a few sportsmens autobiographies or sports studies books, I gaurantee that you will find these discussed in great depth, particularly visualisation which is a riculously effective technique that should get daily usage!

Ok with these positive thoughts and feelings in mind, go build muscle mass!

As we are all aware a good muscle building diet is critical to build muscle mass. 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 provide plenty of time for digestion so that you don’t start your session when you are feeling bloated or full and lethargic.

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 becoming tired if you eat your carbohydrate before your protein. This occurs as both the protein and carbohydrate cause the body to release specific chemicals that have differing affects. Protein releases tyrosine which signals your brain to be alert and energetic whereas the carbohydrate triggers the release of tryptophan that tells the brain to become sleepy. Therefore always consume the carbohydrate last.

If you really want to know how to build muscle fast then great advice is to drink a protein and carbohydrate shake about half an hour before you workout. This will really enhance your energy levels for your training session. Ingredients ought to 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 stifle the amount of cortisol that is made by your body which has a very bad 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.

Try and substitte your caffeine intake with green tea rather than a cup of coffee this is loaded with lots of anti oxidants aswell as having many other valuable health benefits. Lastly, remember to keep taking on 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.

Everyone knows to build muscle mass one of the best exercises for the upper body is the bench press. One of the first questions you are likely to be asked by another bodybuilder is ‘how much can you bench press?’. Of course i ti probably not the best measure of total body strength it does naturally have a very macho feel to it and of course is very impressive. So lets cut to the chase and find out how to build muscle fast and get a bigger bench press:

Grow your triceps. Up to two thirds of the muscle mass on your arms is made up the tricep muscle alone. it is more than likely that weak tris are restricting your bench press progress. The best exercises to build muscle mass on your triceps are using barbells and dumbells: close grip bench-presses and skull crushers. Less effective are isolation type exercises such as tricep press downs. They will definetely help add weit to your bench press.

Why not try training your triceps individually by themselves. More often than not muscle building programs will suggest that you train the triceps along with the chest. Try training them on their own for a change. Doing this allows you to attack them when they are fresh and really concentrate and focus on hammering them to stimulate growth. Do this for a number of weeks and see how much more poundage you can press.

Variety. have you been repeating the same old workout for months? time to switch things around a bit. After your muscles have done the same workout a few times, they have already adapted to it and therefore the need to grow has been removed. Keep changing things, they can be subtle changes like altering the grip width or reversing the order of your routine or they can be larger changes like doing super sets, compound sets and so on, these will give you a real pump by the way.

Make sure you are not doing too much! While with most things in life more is better, in muscle building this is not quite true. Overtraining your chest muscles means it takes longer for them to recover and develop. Always focus on technique and intensity above quantity. A short intense workout is much more effective than a long drawn out one.

Quality rest. Your muscles don’t grow in the fitnes centre! Their growing time is when they are resting. You won’t grow if you don’t allow enough time to grow. Of course do not workout again when your muscles are still, a fair rule of thumb is to limit yourself to 6-9 sets each session for each muscle group, any more and you risk overtraining.

Take a rest from training. if you have hit a chest muscle mass building plateau then have a break. let your body fully recover, get rid of all the niggles aches and pains and then comeback fresh a week or two later with renewed energy and motivation.

Give your chest a more intense workout by doing negatives. Negatives are when you get the help from two spotters to intially aid you to press the weight upwards but who then let you take the full weight and lower it by yourself under control. This is done because people are able to lower more than they can lift. Therefore if we are able to make the body lower more weight it is probable that this will aid us for the lifting phase too. The lowering portion of the lift is know to trigger more muscle growth than the positive effort phase.

Do a diet review. Are you consuming around 6 meals a day with at least 1 gram of protein for each pound of bodyweight that you have? If you are not then it is quite possible that you are restricting your gains by not adopting fully a muscle building diet. In each meal try to get the proportions of them to be 50% carbohydrate, 30% protein and the rest can be made up of fats. Take supplements if you have the money to, things like: whey protein, essential fatty acids and multi-vitamins.

Focus on your technique. Are you pressing correctly. Faulty technique can push the focus away from the chest muscles group and put you at a heightened risk of getting injured. Check that you are not constantly moving your feet up off the floor and that your grip is not too narrow or too broad, these are two mistakes that are easy to make.

By following the guidelines above you will be giving yourself the best chance to build muscle mass on your chest fast. Go do it!

‘Why am I not growing?’ is one of the most common question from bodybuilders around the world. After all you are training hard, with good muscle building nutrition in your diet, yet your gains are still minimal. The frustration can be a huge blow to your motivation after so many months of hardwork. So, what precisely is the answer? Well, there are a few likely causes, see if any of these ring a bell with you, together they show you how to build muscle:

1) Is your calorie intake high enough? Under eaters could be the real name for many hardgainers. As this really is a massive cause of lack of muscle mass. The key to building muscle mass is frequent high calorie meals! Eating every two hours is a good guideline and will enable you to take on board as many calories as possible. Make sure you snack lots on food such as: dried fruit and nuts, yoghurt, cottage cheese,  cereal and milk, protein bars, fresh fruit, and protein shakes, etc

2) Are you getting enough protein? To build muscle mass fast you should aim for 1.Every day you should consume per pound of body weight 5 grams of protein. Awesome sources of protein are: chicken, fish, turkey as well as dairy products. As you want to bulk up do not by the low fat variety for every product you need the excess calories. Sure you need quality calories but make your life easier and eat everything, remember you can go through a cutting up stage in a few months time. A further great way to take on board quality protein is to get your hands on the large tubs of whey protein.

3) Have your routines gone stale? If you can dictate out loud your session off the cuff then that likely means you have been using the same workout for a decent length of time already. Your body is not going to grow if you are not providing stimulating workouts with lots of variety. What about really mixing things up with aided lifts, negatives, partials, super sets and so on. You could try 10 sets of 10 reps for any major exercise like squats, simply reverse your workout order, do more supersets (get ready to be sore!) or even allow yourself a week off from working out and let your body totally recover. As you can see there are endless variations, make sure you use them.

4) Are getting enough rest? Have you ever witnessed someone go to the gym and then come out with more muscle than when they entered? Never. Clearly then your muscle do their growing at home after you have pumped out. You will certainly be limiting your muscle growth if you are not getting enough rest time. If anything over compensate and give your body more than enough time to grow. Try decreasing your session to just one workout per muscle group per week. Also decreasing the amount of sets done for each body part, try just 3-5 intense sets per bodypart per workout. Think that is not enough, try it and watch the results!

5) Is your water consumption high enough? You will limit your progress if you don’t get an adequate supply of water. Your muscles need copious amounts of water in order to grow. Take a bottle of water with you, leave it in the car and always sip on it.

So the initial question: ‘Why am I not getting bigger?’ as you can see, has more than one answer. Answer the list of question in this article and if you need to adjust something then start doing it today. The problem for your limited growth may well be the one point above that you do not meet. Some alterations are needed if any of these points are not being properly dealt with. Of course there may well be other reasons why you might aren’t growing but they are are the usual suspects. Now go pump some iron and start growing!

Every muscle builder wants to grow faster. No-one wants to wait for results, we all want results now or if not then yesterday. So it is very frustrating that it takes months or years to build muscle mass. However we can significantly decreas the amount of time it takes to build muscle mass. So here are 10 hot tips that show you how to build muscles fast. Here they are:

1. The Principle of Overload. This basically means that you have to increase or improve the workload you do every workout. You must constantly strive for improvements in order to keep pushing your muscle to the limits to stimulate growth. Repeatedly changing the stress placed on the muscle will keep the muscle being stimulated for growth.

2. Keep your reps between 8-12. This range of reps is proven to stimulate the most muscle growth for size. Although the 3-6 rep range is good for increasing strength it is not the best for increasing size. In the rep range over 15 you will stimulate muscle growth for endurance which will not increase the muscle size greatly as it activates a different type of muscle fibre.

3. Each body part or muscle group should be trained for a maximum of 6-9 sets in any given workout. More than that and you risk overtraining. This will make your sessions more intense and ensure that the body does not secrete catabolic hormones which are harmful to muscle growth. Ideally limit your workout to 45 mins so that you can keep it intense.

4. Consume enough calories. Muscle growth has to be supported by an intake of excess calories. An excess supply of quality calories are required in order to grow muscles. You need to consume plenty of rice, pasta, breads, fish, and lean whit meat ast these are sources of quality calories.

5. Increase your protein intake. Muscles require protein to be repaired and to build more. Fast muscle growth is not possible without the presence of protein. You can get an approximate calculation of the protein you need by:
Lean Mass Body Weight in kg times 2.75 = Your protein requirement per day

To calculate your lean mass weight you need to first workout your percentage of bodyfat. This can be done at many gyms or an easier method is to simply take one gram of protein for each pound of bodyweight that you have, this is also a suitable guideline.

6. Take on fat! This is good advice because it increases the muscle building anabolic hormone in your body. Some weight trainers adopt the use of powerful steroids to do this however a good bodybuilding diet can do this also to some extent.

7. Liquids. Muscle building requires water as many of the chemical reactions that need to take place require water. it is therefore much better to increase the amount of water that you take on. This should not be overlooked if you really want to build muscle fast.

8. Limit the number of aerobic workouts you do. This is due to the fact that aerobic workouts release the catabolic hormone that may lead to the breakdown of muscle tissue. it will at the same time decrease the number of calories that your body has that you wish to conserve so that you can build muscle as you are resting.

9. My personal favourite is sleep. during periods of rest is the only time that your body can actually grow and sleep is clearly an essential part of that time. Ensure you drink a protein chake before you sleep. Starving your body overnight is the last thing you should be doing if you want muscle growth. During sleep growth hormones are released, your muscles experience increased blood flow and your metabolic rate slows down. These are all perfect combinations for fast muscle growth.

10. Remain dedicated. Never quit trying to achieve your goals. You won’t turn in to Mr. Olympis overnight however by following the previous guidelines you will notice increase in muscle mass especially over a three month period. The above tips are practiced by many experienced bodybuilders and I assure you they really do show you how to build muscle fast.

“Can I build muscle mass at home or do I need to go to a gym” is a frequently asked question?. ‘No’ is the resounding answer. There are pros and cons to working out at home and in a gym. You can easily build muscle mass at home.

Exercising in a regular gym allows you access to all sorts of new and more sorts of equipment, you can gain professional advice more easily too, plus it is probably going to be much less dangerous. If you have to cue up for equipment then this can be a little annoying also or if the people around you don’t show the same motivation for muscle building as you do.

There a lot of good points out hoe workouts: minimal very low cost, zero travelling time, train without a shirt if that’s what you like to do, you get to play your own tunes, there will never be any waiting for equipment and you can get to scream at the bar and no one will think you are mad.

The downsides are the outlay of money at first to get the equipment although this will probably last a long time and can also be sold again second hand easily enough you may also incur the wrath of your partner if you take up too much room.

Working-out at home allows you to build muscle mass at your convenience and if you go by the following how to build muscles fast at home guidelines you should not have a problem working-out at home:

1)Find a suitably large space, such as a garage, basement or spare room. The floor needs should be firm and strong making a ground floor a better option. A well ventilated area would also be a bonus. Fully water proof your garage, this will stop them your weights from rusting and becoming damaged.

2) Anything easily damaged should be removed. There is a classic clip on youtube of a guy working out at home who whilst doing barbell curls puts the end of the barbell through the side of a fish tank! humourous to view unless it is your tank. Try to get a permanent set training spot, this will prevent any future mistakes like this. Imagine slipping a barbell into the scrren of a plasma tv ot dropping a dumbell on a new laptop, not too much fun.

3) Purchase these pieces of equipment: a normal weights bench, squat stand, a workout mat, a pull up bar and a set of cast iron barbells and dumbells. There are some great innovative pieces of equipment out there so take a look around but make sure you buy very sturdy equipment that will last, don’t skimp on quality as it is going to take a lot of hammer!

4) Plan out a decent routine. The top muscle building exercises can all be done with that equipment. Bench-presses, squats, pull-ups, dead lifts are all must have compound exercises which should be made use of followed by movements such as: barbell curls, upright rows, shrugs, shoulder presses, lunges, lateral raises and bent over rows are also good to use.

5) Consider the dangers. As you are going to be working out solo then get a friend around to help you if you want to perform any heavy one rep maximums as this will help keep you safe. Always ensure weights are securely locked on to the barbell. most weight benches let you insert a pin at the bottom of your lift when the barbell is at the height slightly above your chest, ensure you insert this as if you cannot make the lift it can take the pressure for you, do the same in the squat stand too.

So, by following the above how to build muscle at home guidelines you can have a great workout, build heaps of muscle mass and all in the convenience of your own home.

If you go into any book store, both on the street and online, you are bombarded with hundreds, if not thousands, of “how to” diet books designed to help you lose weight and gain muscle. While some book advise that you eat protein only, others say you should eat less protein. It can all be so confusing! With this Burn the fat feed the muscle review, we’ll cut through all the confusion and hype and give you the straight answer. What is Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle and what can you learn from it, how will this program be any different from the many others you may have tried?

To start with, a natural bodybuilder is the person who wrote the Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle book and you will be shown in a step by step manner, how to eliminate your fat tissue while preserving and gaining more of your muscle mass. As you’ll read in this Burn the fat feed the muscle review, this is the same program that fitness models and body builders use to achieve solid muscle mass and reduce their body fat, but it truly can be used by anyone that wants to get healthy and gain muscle. This program is not based on supplements and protein shakes, it educates the reader on how to make healthy choices that will last a lifetime.

In this book you will find not only how to eat better, gain muscle and be healthier, but it also provides goal setting and motivation aspects that are just as important. Learning how to st goals and work towards then is half the battle in gaining control over your weight. This Burn the fat feed the muscle review shows you just how this book can do that for you. This book contains vital information on how to make healthy choices as well as cardio and weight training exercises and it’s written in a style that’s easy to read and understand.

We live in an era where a “quick fix” is what everyone is looking for and the fitness industry leads the pack with supplements, pills and shakes that are “guaranteed” to help you lose weight. Weight loss cannot be found in a pill and drinking your food does nothing to help you learn how to build muscle mass. If you are just starting off on your weight loss goals, or even if you are a seasoned pro,  take what you have learned from this Burn the fat feed the muscle review, this book should become part of your library, the wealth of knowledge it contains will last a lifetime.