Posts Tagged ‘bodybuilding’
Maybe you have experienced this before whereby you have decided to improve your health and fitness and in the first instance you feel really motivated. Maybe you sat and watched an inspiring film that prompted you to do something, perhaps a friend of yours you hadn’t seen for a while turned up having lost a lot of weight or having gained a good deal of muscle mass or perhaps you were simply fed up of feeling unhealthy. Whatever the initial stimulus was, you began exercising and then continued to exercise for a while.
However after a while your motivation decreased, you got busy at work, you got tired of making the effort or the results weren’t as good as you’d hoped for and you unconsciously quit your healthy exercise lifestyle. If that all sounds familiar then here are a few easy ways to help regain and sustain your motivation for a healthier lifestyle:
Try setting an enjoyable goal. For example, consider planning out a mountain biking/kayaking/hiking trip in an exotic tough area of the globe like the Himalayas,The Andes or The Alps. With this trip in mind you really have a goal to aim for. In order to enjoy your trip to the fullest you really need to be in good physical shape. If you plan your trip for say 5 months in advance then straight away you have a sensible goal to hang your fitness plans around.
Join in with a local event. Get online and seek out a local fun run, marathon or other similar such event, I bet there is plenty. Choose one of these events as a target to shoot for. consider telling a friend of yours so they can come and support you on the actual day and support you in the mean time.
Take up a sport or hobby, this doesn’t have to be an ultra serious thing just a light hearted game of soccer or hockey at the weekends but it gives you an easy and enjoyable way to monitor your fitness levels. The first few sessions you will feel the strain but over the course of a few weeks you will get noticeably better.
Visualise. Although this may sound a little strange at first, find a few minutes every day to draw a picture in your imagination of exactly how you want your life to be. Carrying this out trigger powerful signals to be sent to your sub conscious mind that are about your everyday decisions and day to day actions. Keep doing this and your behaviour will automatically alter to reflect your goals and lead you towards your visualised goals. Used by many top sportsmen this technique is proven to work.
Involve family, friends and even your pet dog. Getting more people involved makes it less likely for you to get bored and lose motivation. If your friends is calling you on that particular day when you really don’t feel like doing anything you are much less likely not to go and exercise.
Learn more. Be curious find out about how to build muscle up, find out how to get a 6 pack, find out how to shed pounds, find out what muscle building nutrition you need for no nonsense muscle building and so on. By increasing your knowledge you are more likely to succeed and more likely to reach your goal quicker aswell and therefore more likely to stay motivated.
Ensure that you don’t compare yourself with anybody else. It matters little who you there is aways going to be someone fitter, sexier, more muscular or whatever than you. Acknowledge this fact and realise that we all travel through this life process each from our own different perspectives. Only make comparisons with your self and your own progress by taking measurements such as bodyfat percentage but the most important thing is that you feel good about what your doing and yourself this is a much better indicator of your improvement in health.
So, with those tips in mind go hit the gym and do whatever it is that you enjoy doing to keep fit, build lean muscle mass or whatever else you want to do, you can do it, just keep it fun. The following is highly recommended for lean muslc growth burn the fat build the muscle book.
Starting off as a body builder basically revolves around learning compound exercises and its proper forms while eating the right foods for sustenance. 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.
Starting off bodybuilders usually over-train or perhaps are disappointed by slow results, however the true secret in successful body building is to be persistent and disciplined to perfect the project.
The compound exercises strengthen and build muscle (which are two different things), and then as you gain the strength that you’re looking for you can then start working in the 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.
After determining the scheme of your workouts, you would then need to plan how many repetitions and sets are required for the whole program.
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. You can do the more exotic exercises once you have the mass and definition that you want. 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. According to some of the best trainers, lifting weight should only be done after mastering bodyweight exercises.
For that reason, you may want to start out doing bodyweight exercises.
Weightlifting has it’s own equipments for exercise likewise various sports and activities. One of it is the weightlifting belt…
Opinions are shared about the efficiency of weightlifting belts and the capacity of these devices to enhance the safety level. One main problem is that weightlifting belts allow athletes to lift more than they should. Another criticism against belts is that they back muscles responsible for body stability and the gripping muscles of the forearms don’t get the same stimulation and lose during training. According to positive opinions, weightlifting belts prevent health problems associated with training and increase the body stability. Normally, weightlifting belts have been designed to support the back effort and reduce the risk of damaging the spinal cord while exercising.
Although amateurs imitate the trend and use belts too, they could be pretty efficient in competition. By the support provided to the back, the spine remains in a good posture and no damage occurs at the level of the soft tissues; there is however a problem. The long term and short term impact of wearing weightlifting belts is pretty serious. You should not exaggerate with the use of weightlifting belts because they increase the intra-abdominal pressure too much. Yes, the intestinal muscles are indeed protected against injuries, but you could develop hypertension because of the tightness of the belt.
The weightlifting belts are available in various designs, allowing adjustments to the pressure level and the body height. The weightlifting belts designed for power lifting are more special than the rest as they have to provide a superior kind of protection. Usually made of leather, such belts are braced by neoprene. You may find out which belt fits you best by talking to a fitness expert who can recommend an item to match your physiognomy and your training objectives. Besides leather and neoprene, weightlifting belts are also made of nylon or cotton, and may be padded or not padded. As for the sizes available, they range from XS and S to XL and XXL.
Besides safety, weightlifting belts do very little to improve the athletes’ performance. And despite the common belief that they help one train better, studies debunk this myth. Studies conducted at the Albany Medical Center, N.Y., reported almost no difference between the group of weightlifters who wore belts and the group who didn’t. Even without the much emphasized back protection provided by the belt, the back muscles have better chances of developing and increasing in strength. Even so, wearing weightlifting belts helps amateurs a lot, on the one condition that they not be worn extensively.
When it comes to training bodybuilding and gaining muscle, there are a lot of different theories. If you are a beginner, it is hard to know what the best way to gain muscle mass to your body is. We will discuss some good starting points.
Compound Exercises – Your focus should be with compound exercises. These are exercises that hit more than one muscle group at a time. For example, the squat, dead lift, bench press are all compound lifts. These exercises give you the ability to lift the most weight and thereby stimulate more muscle fibers.
Track your Progress – Write everything down. You want to lift heavier weights as the weeks go by. You need to keep track of your progress and focus on increasing your strength. Sounds simple but not recording your workouts can cause you to forget from week to week how much you were lifting and how many reps you did.
Do not over train – Many people think that performing more reps and more sets is the way to go in their bodybuilding workouts. They believe that if they train more often and longer they will get better results. Your muscles do not grow while you are training them. They grow when they are resting. You need to allow the proper recovery for you body as a whole as well as the individual muscles.
Eat often – Professional body builders have been known to eat up to 10 times per day. They space out their meals, eat small amounts and eat often. You should shoot for 5-7 meals per day. You want to keep your muscles in an anabolic state and eating once every 2-3 hours that you are awake will help you with this. When you do not eat often your body goes into a catabolic state and breaks down the muscles you have.
Why would your muscles stop growing when you are still doing muscle building workouts. Let’s look at some reasons that your muscles do not continue to grow and what you can do to reverse this.
Intense body building training breaks down your muscles. You might be training harder than you should be or more often than you should be. Train each body part once or twice per week only.
You need proper rest in order to have your muscles grow. Sleep is when your muscles grow bigger. Lack of sleep can negate your hard workouts and make them useless.
The same applies to how long you are training. Don’t spend more than 1 hour in the gym working out. That is one hour total for the day, not per body part. Your level of Cortisol will increase after 45 minutes. This is a hormone that has been known to kill muscle cells.
Besides being unhealthy, drinking can cause your muscles to break down.
By not changing your bodybuilding schedule, your body can get used to your workouts and stop growing. Change up the order of the exercises or change to different exercises every couple of months.
When you want to gain muscle fast, your goal is to increase the weight gradually that you lift. Or increase the reps you do. Not doing this could have a negative affect on your results.
Eating enough protein is important to your muscle growth. There are those that state that 1 gram of protein is sufficient per bodyweight when trying to pack on size. Protein shakes and bars will help if you can not eat enough.
These reason listed above can be responsible for your lack of muscle weight gain. In the right circumstances, your body will grow but you need to make sure you are training properly, eating properly and getting enough rest.
You don’t have to be a fanatic about this unless this is your full time job. Living to eat enough protein and training hard every workout regardless of how you feel may not be something you want to do but follow this as best you can to get bigger in the fastest possible time.
Nitric Oxide is a gas produced in the body. It is a signaling molecule used to communicate with other cells of the body. This gas is produced in the body when amino acid L-arginine is broken down by enzymes in the body. L-arginine from the food enters into the blood passing through the stomach. This then enters the endothelial cells found between the blood and lymph, where it is used to produce Nitric Oxide. L-arginine is found in grains, fish, meats, poultry and dairy products. Nitric acid is useful to treat cardiovascular disorders, inflammations, insomnia, digestive problems, pain, diabetes and injury, interstitial cystitis, sexual function, weight loss and female sexual dysfunction.
Extreme fatigue and physical weakness are symptoms that could indicate nitric oxide deficiency. Nitric Oxide is also an aid to supplement bodybuilding and sports activities. It is to be taken before and after workouts. There are Nitric Oxide supplements in the market to enhance the oxygen and nutrient delivery with blood flow. Nitric Oxide is a vasodilator enabling the muscle to receive more blood along with the muscle building agents, nutrients and creatine, and oxygen. The blood vessels are forced open for a longer period throughout the day. The result is a fast recovery after workouts, higher muscle gains, more endurance due to the prolonged pumping of the blood and increased strength. The nitric oxide supplement is also to increase the natural production of Nitric Oxide in the body.
Dramatic increase in the growth of muscles to bodybuilders is promised by Nitric oxide products. But these claims are still debated. Some Nitric Oxide supplements available in the market include NO-xplode by BSN, Nitrix by BSN, Mid-Cycle by Fizogen, A-AKG by Pro-line, Cold Fusion by Legal Gear and SuperPump250 from Gaspari. These products can be bought from the supplement and health nutrition stores. Consumers and reviewers assessment about these products can be found in the Internet, for instance, by searching SuperPump250 review for SuperPump250.
Nitric Oxide can prevent heart disease and stroke. Dangerous constriction of blood vessels can be prevented. It may be able to assist in controlling platelet function, lower cholesterol and reduce artery plaque. However, in large concentrations it is toxic to cells and can induce dangerously low blood pressure. People with heart conditions are advised not to take any nitric oxide supplements.
Creatine is a widely used performance enhancing supplement. It turns into creatine phosphate providing an extra phosphorus molecule for regenerating ATP that provides more energy. Creatine supplies energy to the muscle cells which are important for the short bursts of energy that may be required in lifting weights, sports and other exercises. It is a naturally occurring organic acid. The energy boost occurs when creatine phosphate reloads ATP. Creatine intake is found to reduce fatigue, reduce recovery time after workouts and increase muscle mass and energy. It also improves brain function and mental fatigue. Creatine is found naturally in salmon, tuna, herring and beef. Creatine in diet includes kidney meat, red meat and offal.
Muscle hypertrophy is the process of building muscles. Drugs like anabolic steroids and precursor substances such as prohormones increases muscles. Human growth hormone (HGH) also builds up muscles. Medical prescription is mandatory to obtain most of these drugs. Serious side effects are associated with these drugs.
Exercises including weight lifting stimulate the muscles. The muscles grow when the body rests after exercises. Muscle growth requires sufficient rest and sleep to recover from the workouts and build upon. An average of eight hours sleep is suggested. The capability of building muscles in the body increases with additional frequent naps during the day time.
Bodybuilding requires the loss of fat and simultaneously building up muscles. This requires the consumption of a wide variety of supplements. There are nutritional supplements to prevent nutritional deficiencies, increase muscle size and improve joint health while at the same time increase the rate of fat loss. There are many fat burners in the market such as Xenadrine, Hydroxycut, Zantrex, Stacker 2, Nutrex LIPO-6 and Chitosan. A search for Nutrex LIPO-6 reviews in the Internet, for instance, gives details of what people think of the product. 90
There should be a balance between workouts and the recovery process. The recovery process after the workout could be inadequate for a number of reasons. This could include insufficient nutrition, insufficient sleep, too long high intensity workout and inadequate recovery time between workouts. It is quite important and vital to have proteins, carbohydrates, nutrients such as minerals, phytochemicals, vitamins, and nutritional supplements. This has to be taken in time. Bodybuilders can over train themselves provided they undertake additional rest.
As stated in my previous article, there are different ways to build muscle fast. You have to ask yourself some questions. How often do you want to go to the gym? How hard (intense) do you want to train when you are there. If you do not want to go to failure or close to failure, then you might not want to follow a high intensity routine. In this routine you would lift the weight until you can not do any more reps. it’s not easy and requires a great deal of will power.
When training with high intensity, you will need a lot of time to recover. Maybe a few days to a week or more per body part. If you really enjoy going to the gym and do not want to push yourself with high intensity training, you might want to try another routine,. One where you can not go to failure and save a little bit for the next workout which might be a few days later.
I prefer high intensity and I believe it is the fastest way to gain muscle but not the only way. And there are so many hours in the day. Why spend too long in the gym and too long training each body part. Hit each body part once a week and hit them hard. Then rest and eat. Go to failure on each set or close to failure and do not do more than a couple of sets per exercise and a couple of sets per body part.
So remember, if you train with high intensity, train only for a short period of time and not too often. Get the rest and nutrition you need to recover and grow. Train, eat, rest, and grow is the formula to build bigger muscle.
We will discuss some common mistakes in bodybuilding concerning diet. We will discuss what to do about these mistakes.
Not giving one diet enough time – Don’t expect to change your diet and then make great gains in a matter of a week. It can take 3 weeks for your body to get used to your new diet. Think of your diet as helping your bodybuilding workouts, not a means to an end in itself. Meaning, if you have a perfect diet, that alone won’t do it. The laws of muscle building still apply. You will have to lift weight and recover before your muscles will grow. And this takes time. So don’t keep changing your diet because you are not getting fast results.
Not counting calories – This applies most to those competing in bodybuilding. If this is your real job or you just want to be the best you can be when competing, then you must track everything. This includes tracking your food intake. Carbs, fats and proteins. You might not be meeting your bodybuilding goals because you are not eating the right amount of carbs, fat or protein.
Relying on supplements too much – Supplements are just that. They supplement your diet and it is your diet and training with rest, that will give you your success for packing on muscle.
Inconsistent eating – You need to be consistent in how often and how much you eat. Stick to your plan and don’t alter it. Missing meals is going to hurt your goal of muscle growth. You made the plan for a reason, now stick with it.
Judging success by your Scale – If you are trying to trim down your fat, don’t just rely on the scale. Scales are deceiving as you can lose muscle and think you are on the right track or gain muscle mass and think you did not lose fat.
When starting out in your muscle building workouts, you will want to find a good routine fit for you. So what will work best for you? Lets look at ways you can tell if a routine will work and work for you.
First, you want to make sure that whatever routine you might follow, it has gotten results for those that have subscribed to its teachings.
You need a routine that is progressive in its training advice. Meaning, you want to keep progressively overloading your muscles with heavier weight as you get stronger.
Recovering between workouts is something that is very important and should not be pushed aside. Your body needs to recover so it can be ready to lift heavy for the next workout. The routine you are looking at should mention rest as a necessary factor of gaining muscle. Your muscles actually grow when they are resting.
Is the routine right for you specifically? Maybe because of health reasons a routine that is considered high intensity might be too much for you to handle. If you are someone that does not want to go to the max in your training, then high intensity training might not be for you.
Although high intensity training is the fastest way for muscle mass building, you might not be willing to take your mind to the limit and go to failure at each workout. It might be too much stress for you. The good thing though, is that you can go to the gym less often with high intensity training.
There are routines that call for more volume in their training program. These routines have you lifting lighter weights for more sets and reps. Now someone else might find this taxing on them as they have to concentrate for longer periods of time in their training. So find what works best for you, not only physically but mentally.