December 22, 2009
You’re getting discouraged, and it’s hardly surprising, because you have worked on those six pack abdominals for so long, and they are still not showing. How many more crunches do i have to do to get them developed enough to show as a perfect set of six pack abs?
First of all, you are not the only one in this state, there are many more people in this position, so don’t give up yet, and with a few changes, your abs and six pack will be defined very soon. Despite our best intentions, which can be seen by the number of crunches we do every day, not every one can get their abdominals to show. You know that your abs are way stronger, nevertheless they still don’t show, so what exactly is happening? Well, what you need to do first is to make absolutely sure that it is your abs that you are targeting in your crunches, an also check that you are not rushing them. For many workout enthusiasts, it is the number they can do in a fixed time that is important, but that lowers the level of the exercise. To benefit more, each muscle contraction should be held for a few seconds, and if you are trying to beat the latest record of number of the crunches in two minutes, then you cannot do this, and the crunches will not be as successful for you. So slow down, and improve the quality of your exercises, and any other workouts you do that target the abdominal muscles.
The next thing you need to do is to find out what your body fat ratio is - if you are a gym member, you can get weighed there and the scales will be able to tell you your body fat ratio if your bathroom scales aren’t able to. This number should be around 12, but if yours is a lot higher than this, then that confirms why your 6 pack abs are not showing. The body fat ratio is a guide to tell you how much body fat you have, and the higher the number, the more layers of fat your body has. The more fat you have, the more layers of fat are covering your abdominal muscles, so if you have been doing your exercises correctly, your abs will be well developed but just covered by too much fat.
Now then, if too much is the cause of your abs to not be defined as great six pack abdominals what can you do? You obviously need to lose some of those layers of fat, and abs exercises alone will not achieve this for you. You need to do some cardio exercises, to lose some weight. Now this doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to workout even longer in the gym each day. You can probably spend less time on your abs crunches, with more time doing cardio. Combine this with eating a little less, you will be able to to losing some body fat. Make sure your diet is healthy for you, and not over doing the alcohol. The occasional drink is fine, but drinking alcohol on a regular basis is just giving your body with too many calories from an unnecessary source.
So, to summarize, do your exercises appropriately, lose some body fat and your 6 pack abs will be defined and showing like those on others you’ve been jealously watching.
December 20, 2009
There is a close connection between exercise workouts and diet, but it all depends on the purpose of the training. Thus, a weightlifting program is completely different from a weight loss one in terms of the exercises you perform and the food you have to eat. However, no matter the aim of the physical stimulation, it is important to keep in mind that there are some rules that govern exercise workouts, and, if followed one by one, the exercises pose no safety or efficiency concern. Both professional programs and free online tips are available for anyone (at websites like www.fitnessreviewcentral.com and www.FastMuscleReport.com) keen on learning more about the challenges of physical training. The thing is that working out involves more than just a set of exercises.
It is important to know how to split the exercise workouts over all the training sessions within a week. If a group of muscles is trained more intensely today, make sure that next time you skip it and work on another group. This makes it possible for the muscles to increase in size and recover, while the fat gets melted away. A slender body therefore cannot be achieved with chaotic exercise workouts, because as a consequence of incorrect training you could develop health problems from physical injury to fatigue and anemia. Therefore, caution, information and careful training are essential!
Many people choose to support their exercise workouts by using nutritional supplements, either to help them lose fat at a more rapid pace or to increase muscle mass easily. There are benefits and risks in supplements that you should be aware of, and experts have warned more than once that a balanced diet is all one needs to cope with the challenges of exercise workouts. A balanced nutrition could thus be the key both for efficient weight loss and successful body building. Plus, you’ll have to face a great deal more challenges in the exercise workouts if you choose to train independently. You can learn more about choosing the right supplements at All Health Reviews site.
Hence, exercise workouts will seem a lot simpler when taught by a professional trainer who helps one integrate new exercises in the routine in the best of ways. Plus, in an organized environment, trainees will also learn something about how muscles work and what the body needs when physically stimulated. All in all, make sure to practice at your level, to keep an eye on body needs and to take things gradually. As eager as you may be as a beginner to achieve great weight loss or impressive muscular mass, keep in mind that over-training does more harm than good. Your body should teach you patience!
December 6, 2009
The question of building muscle quickly seems to come up all the time, based in part by our “I want it now mentality”. There are things you can do to help speed the process of building muscle but the rate of your improvement will depend in part on your genetic make up, your level of desire and the way you are training. Some guys and gals are what we call hard gainers and there are some that can build muscle effortlessly. Regardless of your genetic makeup there are thing you can do to increase your muscle mass and help you to build muscle quickly. It’s necessary to eat good quality foods that are high in protein. Using free weights as opposed to using machines, and you must give your body adequate rest in between your weight lifting sessions.
In order to help reach your goals of building muscle quickly you have to follow the 5 things listed below.
Start To Increase Muscle Size
1. Nutrition
You must eat high quality meals in small amounts. Ideally it would be best to consume at least 5 to 6 small meals throughout the day. It’s important to balance each meal with the right amount of carbohydrates, protein and fat. This is crucial for you to be able to effectively fuel your workouts and maintain the right insulin and blood glucose levels. The protein you take in each day should be roughly equal to one gram per one pound of lean muscle mass. Our bodies will only be able to assimilate a small amount of protein at any given meal so try and keep your protein intake to around 25 to 35 grams per sitting. Any more than that will just be wasted.
2.Protein
The most effective way to get the right amount of protein with the correct amino acid combination is to use a high quality protein supplement. If your diet includes fish and chicken don’t be fooled into believing that they have all the necessary muscle building amino acids. You must supplement your diet to include more fruits and vegetables. Amino acids which are easily used by our bodies can be found in many different types of vegetables.
3. Using free weights
To build muscle quickly there’s no substitute for using free weights. The growth of your muscles is in direct proportion to the amount of stress you place on them. Your muscles will grow stronger and bigger as you increase the weight you are lifting because your body must adapt to the added stimulus. 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. Weight Training Without Using Weights
Body weight exercises is a perfect way to compliment your weight training 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. Don’t neglect these exercises if you want improvement in your endurance, strength and definition.
5. Rest and Plenty of it
It is important to know that your muscles don’t get bigger when you are lifting. Your muscles grow while you are resting. Along with rest be sure to avoid training too much. Our muscles break dawn at the cellular level and can only grow bigger if we give our bodies enough rest to let this happen. If you don’t remember anything else you must remember this one thing.
Building muscles quickly is a distinct possibility if you are willing to take these factors into serious consideration and implement them in your weight lifting program.
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: Muscle Building Secrets
December 4, 2009
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.
For true body building success, you must stick to the program and not over-train; beginners should be disciplined and not be disappointed with the lack of immediate results.
Compound exercises are just the start, wherein you will develop and reinforce the muscles, afterward comes the isolation exercises which you will perform after acquiring substantial strength.
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.
Once you have designed your exercise scheme, you need to figure out the reps and sets.
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. What it adds up to is better calorie burns, stamina and strength through one heavy set of exercises per week partnered with light yet repetitive exercises for the remaining days of the week.
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. By the time you have reached the body form you wanted, you can start trying out some of the more exotic exercise routines. 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. If your diet is right, then you’ll have your biggest gains, if not, it’ll be hard to tell if you’ve worked out at all.
Let me leave you with one more thought. The best trainers say that you must only venture to weight lifting when you have already gone through bodyweight exercises.
For that reason, you may want to start out doing bodyweight exercises.