Posts Tagged ‘build muscle’

Building Muscle Faster With The Day Off Diet Program

You will probably be shocked to learn that The Day Off Diet Program is among the best ways to build muscle. After all what does dieting have to do with building muscle? Well actually what you eat does have a good deal to do with your muscle building but it goes farther than that. The top reason I recommend The Day Off Diet for strength training is that it includes a free muscle building guide that is better than any other guide out there (even those that charge over 0!)

Even if you don’t follow the diet itself, the program is definitely worth your money just for the muscle building guide that comes free with it’s purchase. What makes this strength training guide so special? These methods will help you build more muscle even though you will be working out less often with shorter sessions. If you enjoy spending hours in the gym working out then you can go ahead and stop reading now. But if you are like me and you want to get biggest results you can from the least amount of time in the gym then this approach is perfect.

Most strength training regimens have people lifting too often with too many reps with weights that are not heavy enough. The biggest key to strength training is not exhausting your body by doing 25 reps, it’s by lifting the largest amount of weight that you can. Muscle only grows when it’s stretched to this point. Otherwise you are just wasting your time.

If you don’t want to go with this diet system then you should try The Musclehead’s Guide and/or No Nonsense Muscle Building. While I highly recommend The Day Off Diet both for fat loss and for muscle building, it is important that you find the right system for you.

Body Building For Beginners

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.

Patience and self control are very important aspects to get results even though you are just starting with the program; don’t lose hope when you don’t see immediate results.

Compound workouts are done for muscle strength and build up, when you have reached the desired level for this, the following workouts would be isolation exercises.

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. Basically, this means that you should perform a heavy set once a week and keep the remaining ones light but with more repetitions to shed off more calories, develop strength and stamina.
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. After getting the form and structure that you want, adapting more unusual exercises won’t be a problem. 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.

The discipline required to stay on the right course, even though it might not be “sexy” in the beginning is the key to making the progressive gains that you want.

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. Eating the right foods will help speed up the positive results the same way a wrong diet will only ruin the total effect of the program.

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.

Exercises for burning fat

Long duration low intensity cardio exercises burn fat while doing them. I recommend you not do these because they do not promote building muscle or burning fat after the exercise is over.

Long duration low intensity cardio exercises, burn fat calories while doing them and not much else afterwards. The better fat burning exercises to do would be interval training, where you have short bursts of moderate to maximum effort followed by longer active rest periods. For example you could sprint for 30 seconds and then walk for 90 seconds and repeat this 2 minute interval 10 times for 20 minutes.

Among other advantages, you will shorten your workout time and increase the calories that you burn both during the workout and after the workout. You get to use fat calories to replace the carbs you burned during the workout, for the next day or so. Like a V8 compared to a 4 banger you will burn more calories at rest with increased muscle mass.

If you want to look like a sprinter then train like one. If you want that marathoner look then go for the long duration low intensity cardio.

You can’t beat the clean & jerk, for recruiting a maximum amount of muscles, to burn fat, in the weight room. If you only have time to do one exercise in the gym, this is it. Think about it. Your moving a weight from the floor to overhead, 7 or 8 feet. Other lifts you’re moving the weight one third or half that distance. Plus you are using about every push and pull muscle in your body.

Try 3 sets of a weight you can do about 10 reps with, or go for time and try three 60 second rounds and see how many reps you can get in each round. Either way this is one killer workout.

If you don’t know what a clean & jerk is then imagine combining a deadlift, upright row and a squat press together, in that order, all in one movement. There is a technique to doing olympic clean & jerks, and I’ll leave that to those guys. I tend to do them in a way that they can be done for reps, so an olympic lifter might not like my form, but I’m not doing it for competition either.

To burn fat, stick with the big compound exercises that work the whole body. Clean & Jerks, squats, deadlifts, and to a lesser degree, pullups, dips and benches. For instructions on these exercises, and others, check out, the No Nonsense Muscle Building program by Vince Delmonte.

I think that body weight exercises are your best bang for the buck, and the best program for them is Turbulence Training. The only equipment that you have to have for body weight exercises is your body, so you don’t even need to belong to a gym. Craig Ballantyne will set you up with workout plans that focus mainly, but not entirely, on bodyweight exercises to get you moving, and burning calories and building muscle, without having to join a gym or buying a lot of equipment. Turbulence Training will show you that bodyweight exercises can be the best fat burning exercises.

If you’re not eating a healthy diet with a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, lean protein and healthy fats, none of your exercise will ever show on your body. You can put down a thousand calories in a few minutes, but you’ll never burn them off that fast. Don’t try to out train a bad diet, you’ll lose every time.

Try out those clean and jerks for 3 sets of 10 and see how you feel and know that all that work might have burned 50 – 100 calories. You’ll think twice about what you shove down your gullet.

5 Ways to Build Muscle Quickly

The question of building muscle quickly seems to come up all the time, due in part on our “get it now mentality”. There are ways to help speed up your muscle growth but it will depend on your desire,your genetics and your weightlifting program. Some people are able to get big quickly and then there are some people that are just hard gainers. Regardless of your genetic makeup there are thing you can do to increase your muscle mass and help you to build muscle quickly. A high quality diet must be eaten everyday and has to include a good source of high quality protein. Using free weights versus using machines, and making sure that you get the right amount of rest before you workout the same body part again.

Below is a list of five things that must be included if you are to reach your muscle building goals.

Begin To Increase Muscle Size

1. Nutrition
You must eat high quality meals in small amounts. It would be ideal if you could eat 5 to 6 smaller high quality meals throughout the day. A good balance of fat, carbohydrates and protein should be present in each meal. This is crucial for you to be able to effectively fuel your workouts and maintain the right insulin and blood glucose levels. The amount of protein you consume per day should be one gram of protein for every one pound of lean muscle weight. Your body can only take in about 25 to 35 grams of protein at any one sitting so you must begin to limit your protein consumption for any one sitting to this amount. Any more than that will just be wasted.

2. Protein Supplements
Adding a high quality protein supplement with the correct amount of amino acids that can easily be assimilated is an effective way to get the correct amount of protein. Just because you are eating a diet rich in protein doesn’t mean that you are getting the best muscle building amino acids. You will need to add plenty of fruits and vegetables in your diet also. Vegetables are easily assimilated and provide many of the important amino acids.

3. Use Free Weights
The best way to build muscle quickly is by using free weights. The amount of stress you place on your muscles is directly proportional to the size of your muscles. As you increase the amount of weight you use for each exercise you are training your body to respond by making your muscles stronger and bigger to compensate for the added load. You can build your overall musculature by adding free weights to your program because you are using the smaller muscles that help you to balance the weight you are lifting.

4. Workout without weights
Working out by just using your own body weight is a great addition to any weightlifting program. You are using many of the smaller stabilizing muscles to help with each specific exercise. You can do pull-ups, push ups and leg raises to help jump start your muscular growth. This exercise regime will help give you great definition, endurance and strength.

5. Lots of Rest
Critical to your success is that you must understand that your muscles don’t get bigger and stronger while you are working out. Your muscles grow while you are resting. Get plenty of rest and avoid over training. As lifting weights break down our muscle fibers we must give the body plenty of rest in order to give these fibers a chance to repair themselves and grow bigger and stronger. You must remember this one thing.

Take these into serious consideration and begin applying these in your daily workout routine and you will be able to build muscle quickly.

I hope you enjoyed this article on how to build muscle quickly. I also did a review of a very high quality product you might want to take a look at here: The Truth About Building Muscle And for more great ideas on building muscle and getting ripped you will also want to visit Rocko’s site, you can see it here: Build Muscle Quickly

Build Lean Muscle Mass

As you start lifting weights and begin to add size remember your goal must be to build lean muscle mass. It is one thing to want to get big to look good it is another thing to add lean muscle mass. If you are adding weight and it is mostly fat than you are really defeating the purpose of bodybuilding. What sense does it make to get large if, when you look in the mirror you can’t see your abs or any noticeable definition. You must incorporate cardio and proper nutrition to help insure that the weight you are adding is quality muscle mass and you are losing fat at the same time.

Four things we must understand when you are talking about the fastest way to build muscle

Muscle Confusion
Start using heavy weight and less rest to force your muscles to grow. 30 seconds rest in between each set is enough time to allow your heat rate and lactic acid build up to decrease. The trick is to keep your muscles guessing by shocking them and confusing them by changing the exercises and the rest period in between sets. This type of confusion training will also help to burn unnecessary calories and help you to build more lean muscle mass.

Strength Training
There is no way to truly build lean muscle mass without adding a strength building routine to your existing program. Strength training and fat burning go hand in hand and should be included in your overall weight lifting program. The large muscle groups have to be blasted to build lean muscle mass. Increasing your core strength is the goal of strength training and building lean muscle mass. It is crucial to work out the Legs, Back and Chest muscles by using compound exercises that target a large area and not only an individual muscle group.
Strength training using compound exercises will create an anabolic response and allow you to continue to burn calories and build muscle long after the workout is completed. It really is all about gaining strength and using a great strength training program to take you to the next level.

Cardio Training
If you neglect your cardio workout: ie: treadmill, walking, stationary bike etc you are missing out on the added benefits that cardio training will add to your goals of building lean muscle mass. I know cardio can be boring and we usually find a reason why we don’t have to do it but these are excuses that you must eliminate if you are going to meet your goals. What a waste if all that new muscle was hidden under a layer of fat. It’s the cardio training that will let you lose that layer of fat just below the skin. Add the cardio now!

Nutrition And Protein
Nutrition plays a major role in building lean muscle mass and eating the right foods will get you that much closer to reaching your goals. The major source of bodybuilding nutrition is protein and we must eat it everyday and in the right amounts. To build lean muscle mass you must take in one gram of protein for each pound of lean muscle mass. This is different than one gram of protein for each pound of body weight but if you are a beginner weight lifter than it will be ok to calculate your protein intake based on total weight. As you gain experience and are looking to really refine your protein supplement then you can use the newer more precise method of calculating protein intake.

Keeping these four things in mind, muscle confusion, strength training, cardio and nutrition you will be well on your way to building a lean muscular body.

Begin to increase muscle size today or keep complaining about how you look. It is up to you how you look and feel.

Bodybuilding for beginners

Body building or muscle mass building may be daunting as a novice. Supplied beneath are a few points that could assist you get in body building, and into your 1st physical fitness club:

Look for advice. There’s no sense attempting to ascertain everything yourself while beginning in BodyBuilding. Make some time to speak to other people who are more knowledgeable, and find out what you could by them. While utilizing new equipment or a brand-new exercise it’s as well always a fine idea to speak to a person, to assure that you do not become hurt.

Slumber – while exercising for the 1st time it’s crucial to see to it that your body is having the sleep that it demands. This will generally be greater than what you were taking before!
Diet – even as crucial as rest it is crucial to assure that your diet keeps up with your exercising. This does not just mean consuming a lot, it means consuming better food. Look on your body as an car. The more you drive an auto, the more fire you demand to put into it. You need to assure that you are putting the right fire in your car also, to guarantee that it will ride consistently and perform to specification.

Set Goals – Set goals that are possible. Inaccessible goals just prepare yourself up for failure. Look at it one step at a time, and relish your success the whole way up the ladder. Whether it is added 10pounds to your bench press or merely arriving to the gym three days a week, you want to set up goals, otherwise it is simple for your muscle building workouts to get brushed aside once life gets busy.

Envision Success – it is crucial to envision yourself succeeding before you even start exercising. This successful mindset will lead you to new stages in your training and will set up yourself ahead for success!

Be smart about entering bodybuilding to guarantee that you will accomplish success both mentally and physically.

Muscle Mass Building Tips – How to Build Muscle Fast

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

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

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 have trouble dead lifting, due to back issues. There is another way. Stand inside a trap bar to do deadlights. It is easier on 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 .

How to get big biceps Now!

In this article, you will learn how to build massive biceps and your problem will have been solved. To get this result, you will need to learn some of these few elements. For success apply these three easy to use concepts that have been compressed just for you.

Notice: Caution. The correct method must be used when lifting weights. The pace of your muscle growth will be increased and the risk of injury reduced.

The bicep curl using a barbell is the most widely used exercise in trying to build the bicep muscle. In any professional program, this exercise is a central compound exercise that must be applied.

Here is a quick report of this exercise. Pick up the dumbbell and rest it against your legs as you stand with feet apart at shoulder width. Curl the dumbbell up until it rests againsts your chest then slowly lower the bar back down to your legs. Your main focus here is a slow and in control technique.I personally like to have one foot forward but this is my preference.

Method #1 – How to get big biceps – Go Heavy

If you keep your weight heavy, you are pushing your muscle to its almost greatest. In enhancing any muscle group, this is a must and should be done the right way. You will want to get to your maximum effort in the 8th rep so use this as a guide of 4 steps of 6-8 reps.

There is a real challenge to get out to the final rep but still try to hold a good clean practise through the exercise. The final rep of each step is the golden one. This is the rep that is developing the most muscle. If you are losing technique in your last rep, then you should be taking a look at the mass you are lifting.

Method #2 How to get big biceps – Rest between workouts

It is very crucial to take a rest after a work out in all your muscle building program. I am talking about the relax periods between your bicep sets.

From my investigation, there are many opinions on this subjet but we have that anywhere around the minute mark is what we are aiming for. You can test this yourself over a period of time to workout what is giving you the most muscle enhancement.

A stopwatch will be required to test this results. You must stick to the break you decide between sets so you must be stern with yourself.

How to get big biceps quickly. range.

This is a very interesting point. Have you found that you are training away sticking to your dumbbell curls and you add 5%to the bar every week? you have hit the plateau.When you try to add 5%, you lose your technique or only get 5 reps to a set.

This is not uncommom, first off. Your bicep has become accustomed to that particular exercise which is usual.

In every 4 months, change your bicep exercise as the solution to this.What this will do it will shock muscle back into enlargement which is the result we are after.

I really hope this article on how to get big biceps will you to take away some useful lessons which you can try today. To learn more on how to get big biceps read the report on the No Nonsense Muscle Building Program.

Alcohol & Building Muscle – The 5 Ways That Alcohol Affects Muscle Gains

Many people want to know if drinking alcohol can impact muscle growth. The answer is a big yes!

This will not be a speech against alcohol. I’m not anti alcohol at all. I drink myself a few times a month.

If you’re on a muscle building program, consuming too much alcohol will have a bad impact.

Here are 5 ways that excessive drinking can slow your muscle gains…

#1 It Slows Protein Synthesis

Amino acids have to band together to form proteins. This is protein synthesis. Drinking large amounts of alcohol can slow this process down by about 20%.

Your muscles are mostly water and protein, so you see how this might be a problem!

#2 It Lowers Testosterone

If you want to gain muscle, testosterone is your best friend!

#3 It Dehydrates You

To break down the alcohol, your kidneys must filter a lot of water. This can cause major dehydration

Your muscles are about 70% water, so even slight dehydration is a problem.

#4 It Depletes Your Body Of Vitamins And Minerals

Excessive drinking causes vitamins A, C, B, calcium, and other minerals to be drained at fast rates.

This negatively impacts a lot of functions within your body, including processes that help repair and grow muscle tissue.

#5 It Causes Fat Storage

Alcohol can also be fattening. For one thing, the calories are empty and contain no nutritional value. Two, alcohol disrupts your body’s Krebs Cycle. The Krebs Cycle plays a role in fat burning processes. Gaining body fat means your muscle will be covered up.

If you want to build muscle fast, monitor your alcohol intake and drink in moderation.

Drinking alcohol sometimes won’t hurt too much. If you get drunk every weekend, do realize that it’s going to slow down your muscle gaining ability.

Before you start to drink, have lots of water and eat a high protein meal.

Terrence Banks has a site on how to build muscle and tips on the fastest way to build muscle.

Amino Acids for Pumping Up

How do some of those athletes and body builders look so sculpted with defined musculature? Developing a ripped physique relies on numerous different factors and knowledgeable weight lifters rely on amino acid body building as a major component in their muscle development program. Amino acids are often called the building blocks of the human body in layman’s terms but they are really the molecular building blocks that create protein. Many of the most popular hgh releasing vitamins are compounded with entirely amino acids.

Protein is one of the most essential components that create strong healthy muscles which is the reason why many athletes in strength training will indulge in amino acid body building, usually in the form of supplements and pushing weights. Amino acids from extra protein supplementation also fuels the health of your hair, nails, ligaments, tendons, central nervous system and even how your muscles retain fluids for maximum elasticity and muscular strength.

Reasons for Supplements

Many body builders have discovered that without enough amino acids in their system, the body tends to feed on its own muscles when faced with the crisis of not enough energy. This has led to the interest of amino acid body building to ensure that the body has plenty of fuel to build muscle rather than cannibalizing on it.

Serious body builders will take amino acid supplements either in a protein shake, pill form or an hgh stack immediately after hard muscle exercises. This moment in time represents a unique opportunity to introduce amino acids into the body while the muscles still have increased blood flow and is most open to receiving additional nutrients. It takes a very knowledgeable person to understand why proper timing is extremely important to amino acid body building.

Popular Supplements

Glutamine is one of the most popular in amino acid body building because it is plentiful in the muscles and is known for promoting muscle growth. Arginine is another amino acid that is beneficial to your amino acid body building practices. This particular amino acid kicks off the growth hormone in your body and helps regulate the metabolism of the muscles, building bulk. Fatloss accelerates and your tendons, cartilage and bone strengthens under amino acid body building methods.

When people have poor diets or have large protein requirements, supplements become very important to ensure getting enough amino acids for major muscle gain. A progressing sense of weakness and muscle tone would be a signal of a deficiency of these essential body building blocks. So, stick with amino acid body building and you will discover that your muscles will not only get the workout they need but that they are also growing larger, creating the telltale body builder sign of a slamming.ripped physique.