April 9, 2009

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Why you should start Bodybuilding

Everyone loves watching bodybuilders in action. Seeing a bodybuilder with ripped muscles in every inch of the body can be a humbling experience. Little does one understand the work that needs to be done to achieve such a physique. Once most of us start weight training, we end up giving up too quickly. We end up never benefiting from bodybuilding.

It is not everyday that you meet someone who is devoted to the sport of bodybuilding. Most of us are attracted to the sport at some point in our lives. However, we are soon out of the sport due to various factors. In the end, we never get to learn all the benefits that we can gain from bodybuilding.

When you meet a single-minded bodybuilder, you know that they have little or no fat in their muscles. Long periods spent lifting weights can lead to a great loss of body fat. When bodybuilding, you tend to burn a lot of fat stored in your body. In each training session, you are likely to burn a significant amount of fat in order to have the energy to continue with training. Do not be surprised with the resulting leaner healthier body. 

A bodybuilder was not born with great abdominals. He probably has long stories of days, months and years spent in they gym. You are likely to find that you need to have discipline in order to get the most out of a bodybuilding workout. Though it looks like fun, you can be assured that few are disciplined enough to walk into a training ground daily to train. 

It may be surprising, but one of the greatest benefits in bodybuilding is increased flexibility. Yes, those bulky muscles are very flexible. A bodybuilding training requires that you warm up and stretch your body to avoid injury. You are also going to be working on most of your body leading to increased strength, endurance and flexibility. 

All in all, weightlifting is of great benefit for the amateur or the professional. Not only will you be training your mind, you will be building a bigger body. It might seem too difficult to be a good weight trainer, but the rewards are exponential.

February 14, 2009

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How To Gain Muscle

Muscle mass and condition is something that many of us train, eat and strive for. For a few lucky individuals, gaining muscle and weight is achieved with relative ease. For others it can be difficult to build the physique they’re aiming for.

Proper Nutrition

If you want to know how to gain muscle, I can tell you now that despite many believing that the work is done primarily in the gym, diet and nutrition are responsible for the vast majority of your success. You need to be eating enough calories and the right type of foods to gain muscle. You must avoid junk foods such as pizzas, burgers and sugary foods and drinks, and instead turning your attention to unprocessed foods like whole grain carbs and lean meats.

A well tailored diet should be comprised foods such as poultry, lean beef, low fat dairy, nuts and vegetables. You should be looking at eating ‘whole’ unprocessed food sources, fuel for muscle growth is not found readily at the pizza parlour or drive thru!

Your meals for the day should be small, yet frequent (6 is ideal), ensure that breakfast, bedtime and around your workout is always accompanied with a meal.

Resistance Training

 

Have you ever seen a big, musclebound marathon runner? It’s extremely unlikely, and that’s because their training burns so many calories they can’t add weight easily. Too much cardio won’t help you to gain muscle. Excessive cardio will burn off too many calories, but some light cardio 2-3 times per week is of benefit when gaining muscle. So if you’re really serious about packing on muscle you need to follow a well structured diet and weight training routine.

You basically have to ‘convince’ your body to develop muscle by forcing it to lift loads that it isn’t used to. So to pack on mass, you need to be performing big compound lifts with heavy weights at least 3 times a week, using a split routine.This means working 2 bodyparts each day, assuming you’re training legs, biceps, triceps, shoulders, back and chest - which you should be. Lifters with a little more experience could increase frequency to maybe 4 days, and train bodyparts for slightly longer.

If you’re looking for more information about building muscle or losing fat, take a look at Bodyactiv.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

November 20, 2008

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Simple Guide to Building Body Mass

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.

November 2, 2008

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Bodybuilding Basics: Three Tips For Growth

Adding muscle to your body requires the implementation of three critical steps. Miss any one of these steps and your ability to build muscle will be greatly compromised. You’re most likely already familiar with the first step which is a good old fashioned bodybuilding workout to stretch and tear your muscles but what about the rest? What else do you need to add huge muscles to your body?

When it comes to building muscle the one step almost everybody is familiar with is weight training. Through some serious weight training you tear your muscles while working out in the gym and what a lot of gym goers don’t realize is that you don’t actually build any muscle in the gym. The only thing you’re doing to your muscles in the gym is breaking them down and tearing them apart. Before we look at how we actually build the muscle, let’s look at what muscles are made of so we have a better idea of how to repair the muscles once we’ve broken them down in the gym.

Protein and water are the two primary components of your muscles. One of the most misunderstood things about bodybuilding nutrition is that the primary ingredient necessary to building or I should say rebuilding your muscles is protein. If all you want to do is maintain your current body weight then all you have to do is consume a gram of protein for every pound you weigh. If you want to add muscle, you should be consuming about 1.5 - 2 grams of protein per pound of body weight. In addition to protein obviously you need water but you also want to consume a fair amount of carbohydrates so that your body has something to burn for fuel other then the protein in your muscles and the calories you consume.

One point about carbohydrates before we move on. Want almost imediate results? Have a carbohydrate and protein shake immediately after your workout and first thing in the morning. During both of these situations your body’s glucose levels are very low, if you have any glucose in your body at all, and you’re at risk of having your body eat away at your muscles for energy. You remember that protein in your muscles? Well given the choice between maintaining your muscles or survival your body wll always choose survival and eat away at your muscles! You wouldn’t want that now would you?

So make sure you consume plenty of protein and enough carbs to maintain your weight and energy levels but not too much more becuase they will pack on more fat then muscle onto your frame.

Last but certainly not least is rest. The majority of muscle growth will occur while you're sleeping and that's because your muscles need plenty of rest to grow. So make sure you’re sleeping at least 7-8 hours every night and if you’re really serious about adding muscle then you won’t expend too much energy during the day either. Those that want explosive muscle growth will drink a glass of milk and a bowl of ottage cheese before they go to bed. the casein protein found in these products is ideal for building muscle at night.

Well there you have it. As you can see adding muscle to your body is as basic as these three steps. Workout to tear the muscle. Make sure you get plenty of carbohydrates to fuel your body and plenty of protein for new muscular growth. And finally rest so you can give your muscles a chance to rebuild. Eat, train, sleep and grow.

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