The Post Workout Window Of opportunity

November 25, 2008

Many folks new to working out and weight lifting routines are not aware that your muscles do not grow while you're in the gym. Still not growing like you want to? Spend as much time focusing on your nutrition as you do working out in the gym. Bigger and fuller muscles could be yours if you just take the advice in this article.

First things first you have to realize that your muscles do not grow in the gym. What you're actually doing when you push and pull weights is stratching and tearing the muscles underneath your skin. That's why you get a pump when you're really hitting your muscles hard... This is how your body reacts to the "damaged" area... by sending blood to the affected area. So if you don't grow while you're working out in the gym when do you grow?

After you put down the last weight and you finish your last rep... that's when your muscles start growing! Matter of fact your muscles have an opportunity to start growing right after you leave the gym if you supply them with some crucial nutrients that they're in desperate need of.

Protein and carbohydrates are the two critical nutrients you need to consume immediately following a workout. If you're going to consume sugar this is the best time of the day to do it. Immediately following a workout your body is literally looking for something to burn as fuel because if you worked out the way you're supposed to then you should have burned all the food you've consumed throughout the day and now your body is runing on empty and your muscles desperately need to start repairing themselves.There are three nutrients you can take to not only give your body fuel to burn but also give your muscles what they need to start growing!

The three nutrients you need to take are a simple carbohydrate or any kind of sugar really. Protein because your muscles are made up of protein and that's what they need to grow. And finally you also want to take some kind of complex carbohydrate to give your body something to burn beyond the first half hour because sugar is normally broken down or stored within 30 minutes of consumption. The post work out opportunity doesn't last forever and since that's the case most gym goers usually drink their protein and carbohydrates through a protein shake. There are many brands on the market that make protein shakes specifically for post workout.

If you really want to start growing you'll also consume a solid meal consisting of a source of protein and some complex carbohydrates within a couple of hours of your workout. For complex carbohydrates I usually recommend rice or potatoes and for protein I typically recommend any red meat, chicken or fish. Once you realize that growing bigger muscles is more then just working out in the gym and going through your current bodybuilding workout program, you'll be on the fast track to getting huge and reaping the full benefits of your workouts. This is probably the single biggest change you can make today that will have the biggest impact on your growth.

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Natural Bodybuilding Routines: In For the Long Haul

November 24, 2008

Each person who is interested in their physical fitness has a slightly different way of getting to their goals. Some people bicycle, others do yoga or Pilates. Still others choose bodybuilding. There is more to getting fit than exercise alone however as body builders and yoga enthusiasts know, it involves a complete change of ifestyle.

Natural bodybuilding routines – which don’t use hormones or steroids or the latest gizmo – are not for the weekend exerciser. They are for those people who are seriously committed to making the best body they can with what they have, much as in the way a sculptor chisels a work of art from a block of marble.

Remember The Tortoise

You may be in a hurry to build your muscles to their limit, but it is going to take time. Steer clear of any program which says it will give you instant results. Bodybuilding is a process and it can take some time to reach your goals. You are changing your habits and adopting an entirely new lifestyle.

It may be the case that a few years are needed to build up your muscles to the point you’d like. Even once you have reached your initial goals, you may still not be prepared for the world of competitive bodybuilding. Remember what Aesop said about the tortoise and the hare: “slow and steady wins the race”.

Safety First

Before you begin your new natural bodybuilding regimen, consult with your doctor to make sure that you are in good health if you are not in good enough condition to take up bodybuilding, you could be doing more harm than good. Once you get the all clear from your doctor, you’re ready to begin.

Don’t lift weights every day. Your body needs a chance to rest and adjust to the strain of weightlifting by making muscle. Do other exercises instead. You could join a gym, hire a personal trainer or follow DVD’s and books of natural bodybuilding routines.

Also check out community college course catalogues and YMCA classes, which can offer fun and supervised classes which are usually cheaper than hiring a personal trainer.

A natural bodybuilding routine should include ample stretching an aerobic exercise to warm up for the weight lifting itself. Don’t over exercise – this will cause your body to use your new muscle mass to get the energy it needs to do the extra exercise.

At the beginning, keep your natural bodybuilding routines very short – a few minutes as most. As you become stronger, you can extend the length of your weightlifting routine as your body adjusts.

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Simple Guide to Building Body Mass

November 20, 2008

There are countless people that regularly attend a gym in order to build lean muscle mass. They struggle for a much improved physique but all too seldom they do not achieve their goals.

As the months pass by they become progressively discouraged with their absence of muscle mass increase.

This can be a regular occurrence for anyone having a strong desire to improve their body shape, which is why many body builder's stop, thinking that they are somehow unable to increase muscle size.

So why does this occur to so many of us and what can you do to resolve it?

From my knowledge, those of us who do not make extremely good muscle increases in the gym make similar errors over and over again. Read on below to see if you are making these common errors, with explanations for every problem.

1. Beginners opt for the wrong body building program to reach their aims, often following professional bodybuilding programs from bodybuilding books.

This is no good for the typical person, and in particular for hardgainers.

To gain muscle mass you should train for approximately forty five minutes with heavy weights, doing 2 or 3 sets per exercise. Keep your sets at between 8-15 sets per workout visit.

There is no benefit performing 20 plus sets and sacrificing many hours at the gym.

2. Doing the same body building workout month after month, even though they haven't made any obvious increased muscle gains.

To be able to stimulate muscle growth you must completely change your workout every 8-12 weeks. Your body has a kind of muscle memory so it quickly gets used to the same muscle training routine you repeat every week.

You have got to suprise your muscle by changing your bodybuilding training routines regularly.

3. Not taking any time off from weight training.

I routinely take up to 1 week off in the middle of every weight training training program.

This gives my muscles time off to recover and revitalize. I've done this for several years now and I haven't had a serious injury while doing so..

Another benefit is that I always see increased strength after I've taken a week off.

4. Doing your workouts on consecutive days.

Doing bodybuilding workouts that entail lifting heavy weights places a lot of tension on your body. It can even take up to a full day to re-establish your glycogen reserves. Therefore, try to train no more than 2 consecutive days. This allows your body will replenish itself, resulting in optimum energy reserves when you workout at the gym.

5. You rely on body building supplements to make up for a bad diet.

The vast majority of muscle building supplements are not anything more than high priced marketing gimmicks. They empty your bank account of hard earned money and do zilch to build solid body mass. If you spent $50 a week on body building supplements, it would make no more than 10% difference to your muscle gains.

All body building workouts should be structured around a stable dietary plan.

You must ensure that you feed your muscles with the nutrients it needs in order to produce solid body mass.

Summary

In order to build lean muscle quicker than you have ever achieved previously, you must take no notice of the traditional body building methods that you have picked up in the past from well known body builders in muscle books.
Hardgainers in particular can adjust their body building programs and stop repeating the frequent errors I've outlined above. Do this and should see some outstanding results!

Discover how to gain outstanding increases in muscle size at Adding Muscle Mass, the home of great bodybuilding training articles and free workout guides.

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Muscle Weight Gain the Old-Fashioned Way

November 20, 2008

Most people don't realize that you can build muscle without using any fancy gym equipment -- in fact, simple bodyweight exercises like pushups can be effectively used to build muscle up.

It's easy to underestimate how effective pushups can be at building your chest, shoulders, back, and arms. On the surface, pushups are plain and almost boring: up down, up down, up down -- that's it. And that's true to an extent. But most people outside of the fitness circles are only familiar with the standard pushups that they were taught in their high school gym classes.

There is a wide variety of pushups that you can perform to isolate different muscle groups, but we're going to focus on five variations in this article. These might not be the best five for all people, but they will make you aware of the variety available in simple bodyweight exercises.

Wide pushups: traditionally, pushups are performed with your hands being placed at shoulder width. Wide push ups, sometimes called "wide-stance pushups", require you to extend your hands beyond the width of your shoulders. Wide-stance pushups work your chest muscles more heavily than military-style pushups, so if chest definition is what you are looking for -- wide pushups are one exercise that will help you meet your goals.

Diamond pushups: Diamond pushups, also referred to as "heart to heart" pushups, require you to place your index fingers and thumbs together in the shape of a diamond during your push up workout. While diamond push ups tend to work your triceps more than your chest muscles, the benefits of modifying your hand placement during pushups, even if only a tiny bit, are undeniable.

Fly pushups: adding another layer to wide pushups, fly pushups require you to begin the pushup with your hands a normal width apart at the top position. When lowering your body to the ground, you should slide your right hand out roughly 12 inches, and then slide it back to normal width on the up rep. On the next repetition, you would perform this motion with your left hand. Hint: place your hand on a towel, piece of cardboard, or similar item to assist with the slide, or "hop" your hands in and out.

Incline pushups: Incline pushups are the exact opposite of decline pushups -- instead of placing your feet higher than your head, your head should be higher than your feet for this exercise. Any sturdy surface that will allow you to perform the pushups unencumbered can be used. Incline pushups work your lower pectoral muscles.

Stacked pushups: with stacked pushups, one arm is spread wide to the side as in wide pushups, and the other is tucked in tight like military pushups. After 5 repetitions, the hand positions are switched.

Here is a more detailed listing of styles you can consider to achieve muscle weight gain: fly, wide, military, diamond, yogi, fist, decline, incline, deep, stacked, inchworm, and prison cell pushups.

Tips to increase the effectiveness of your pushup workouts: remember to add some weight once the pushups begin to get easy. You don't want to push out 50 easy reps. Rather, struggle with 20 or 30. Also be sure to add variety by varying your hand position for each of the above types of pushups.

Push ups are a great way to strengthen your upper body and exercise, build muscle at the same time. If you keep it interesting by mixing up your hand positions and trying a few different styles of pushups you can increase the effectiveness of your at-home exercising and relieve the boredom!

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