Building muscle, especially that nice lean muscle mass that looks good on the beach does not come in a bottle.  The supplement companies know this, but they still keep trying to sell you all of those pills.  Why you may ask, is it just to make a quick buck?  In a word yes.

I promise you if there was some sort of magic pill that would do half of what the supplement companies advertisements would claim, you would have heard about it.

The reality is that anyone who has ever built an athletic physique has adhered to four basic core principles:

• Aerobic Training
• Resistance Training
• Nutrition
  
• Rest and Recovery

No pill or magic pixie dust is ever going to be able to take the place of these.  There are plenty of people that you have known that could concentrate on only one or two of them and achieve results, but I promise you it is for a short time.  The fall is usually rather rapid.

Of course we have all gotten by with only three hours sleep before.  Maybe when you were younger you did not have to watch the desserts so much.  Unfortunately that is temporary.

If you are going to get to that looking good, feeling good stage, you are going to have to drive on all four wheels.  If you do this your journey will be quicker and you will look fantastic!

Don’t believe me about the supplement companies.  Look closely at any of their advertiserments, especially those on T.V. or magazines and you will notice some very, very tiney print on the bottom.  Usually it takes the form of ‘these statements have not been verified by th F.D.A’ or my other favorite ‘Results not typical’.  And there is always the faithful stand-by ‘when combined with a proper workout and nutrition program.’

Don’t be fooled, you can get fantastic results, you just don’t have to have your wallet systematically plendered by pharmacutical compaines in the process.

To Your Health!!

Building lean muscle mass does not have to be a chore.  Most people fail because they are going to the gym without a clear idea of what they are doing.  What you need is a plan of attack and knowing why it is going to work.  Plenty of people tell you to do this or that, but they do not tell you why you are doing it.  I firmly believe that if you know know the reasoning behind the method it will be easier to stay on track.  Too many people feel like they are walking down a dark alley.  In this article we are going to switch the light on.

When building muscle there are basically two types of exercises that you are going to be doing and each are equally important.  Aerobic and Anaerobic.  Aerobic is basically anything that does not require resistance, but gets your heart and lungs worker harder.  Good examples of this are jumping rope and cycling.  The purpose is that we are building up our heart and lungs, getting more oxygen into our system.  Believe it or not aerobic exercise is one of our key components for building lean muscle.

Before you start to resistance workout (lift weights) do five minutes of an aerobic exercise.  This is going to warm up the muscles and reduce the chances of you getting an injury.  Keep in mind that anaerobic exercise is suppose to be done in short intense bursts without requiring a vast amount of oxygen.  This is why you need both types of exercise.  The aerobic is going to build up your endurance so that you will be able to get your muscles to the fatigue stage.  Without aerobic to complement your weight lifting you are going to hit a plateau rather quickly.

If you have been working out and struggling for significant gains I am willing to bet that the weight you are working out with is to light.  We want to workout with a weight that we can only lift 8-12 times maximum.  This is our optimum range for muscle growth.

Also we want to keep our workouts short, absolutely no longer than 45 minutes, 30 is actually better.  Remember anaerobic is suppose to be done in short intense bursts.  We basically want to shock our muscles into growth.

As you read more about muscle building you are going to find plenty of opinions, people are going to be talking about super sets, pyramid sets, etc..  Do yourself a favour and keep it simple.  One set per exercise, that is it.  If you have proper form and don’t cheat you will see some amazing results.

Each workout session which you should only be doing twice a week.  Your body is going to need time to recover from those short intense bursts we talked about earlier.  If you do this correctly, you should only be investing an hour a week!!  The goal is to work smarter not harder.

Also keep in mind that each workout session is going to involve you working the entire body.  I know everyone wants to build the chest and guns (the biceps), but in order to do that we need to work the entire body.  When we work the entire body we are actually forcing the body to produce more testerone and this is key to building that good muscle mass that we want.  Please keep in mind that the actual lifting and lowering of the weight is to be done rather slowly.  Our goal is to put as much stress on the muscles as possible, but for a short period of time.  A cadence of 5 up 5 down is perfect.

In the beginning you will be amazed at how much harder that is to do than just lifting in a rapid fashion.  When you are lifting and lowering fast you are actually cheating yourself because you are using momentum to get that weight up.  We want a nice even controlled motion.

Follow these steps and I am confident that you will build that impressive physique that looks good on the beach.

To Your Health

I know it sounds completely contrary to what everyone else is saying, but it is true aerobic training helps build muscle.  It is important I assure you.  Why you ask?  A good question that deserves further examination.

The number one reason is that without aerobic training you will lack the adequate stamina to push your muscles to failure so they can grow.  Like any other endeavour you need stamina!  It does you no good to go into the gym huffing and puffing and only reaching 50% of you maximum effort.

Without sufficient aerobic exercise you will be counting calories like a mad mathematician.  It is far easier and saner to just incorporate some aerobic training into your workout.

Aerobic training might be the most efficient way to flush out the toxins that working out leaves in your body.  After resistence training your body builds up quite a bit of toxins, most notably is lactic acid, yes lactic acid, that toxin that is responsible for that painful burning sensation that that you experience during and after your workouts.

If this were not enough add in the cardivascular benefits of regular aerobic exercise.  It strenghtens your heart allowing more oxygen into your body, making your heart stronger so that it can work better.

All of a sudden aerobic exercise does not sound so bad does it.  It has also been proven to reduce the risk of just about everything such as high blood pressure, stroke, diabetes and colon cancer.

One of the immediate pay offs for us however is the fact thataerobic training vastly improves your quality of sleep.  If you have read my other article on how to build muscle fast you will realize that we get quite a bit of benefit from aerobic activity just from the mere fact that you will be sleeping better.

Also as a side note many studies have reported that people who partake in a regular aerobic activity have a reduced rick of depression and anxiety.  This can only help us not only in our goals towards fitness, but in all areas of our life.

Of course aerobic training alone is not going to build our muscles.  Aerobic training is going to provide some immediate benefits to our program however.  Building stamina so that we can get the most from our resistence training.  Improving our quality of sleep so that our recovery stage will be far superior to what we would have without aerobic training.  Providing more oxygen into our system to making our bodies more efficient and stregthning our heart.  I stress that aerobic training alone will not get us to our goals it is just an important spoke in the wheel.  You are still going to need a workout program to follow.

To Your Health

Building lean mass muscle is easy if you know what you are doing, but first let us agree on the definition of easy.  It is easy to build that body that looks good at the pool, there are definite steps you need to follow.  It does however require tenacity.  You must be able to stick with it.

Remember, Rome was not built in a day and neither will your new body.  Do not fall for claims that you can achieve massive results in a week.  Perseverance is the key to your success when beginning to build muscle.  Think of your body as a building and exercise is the architect.

When you first start working out your body goes through what can best be described as an adaptive period.  It is learning how to control the weight you are lifting.  It is for this reason that you must really concentrate on correct form and posture, do not be too concerned about how much you are lifting but rather how you are lifting.  The adaptive period can last anywhere between 2 – 4 weeks.  This is why many work out programs change your routine less often than more advanced ones.

The more you train the quicker you will leap over the hurdle of adapting.  Many programs follow a 3 week on and one week off approach to give your body time to adapt and time to heal.

The good news is that once you are through the adaptive period your body will experience explosive growth.  These are the results that will keep your morale high.  Once your body feels like it is getting all of the movements down it will be time to change and you will experience another adaptive period.  Of course the good news is that after that adaptive period you will experience that muscle growth!

Keep this in mind when it seems as if you are struggling with a workout, it is not only natural but a good thing.  You are laying a good foundation to build that lean muscle mass.  Everyone who has experienced muscle growth went through the same thing so you are in good company!

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When you embark on your odyssey to build lean muscle, and that it was it will feel like, because it can be quite an arduous journey. You must keep some basic aspects in mind. This is by no means meant to cover everything there is to know about building lean muscle, but more as a guideline.

2.  Breathing. You see it all the time, someone who holds their breath while lifting. We want to breathe freely and evenly at all times. Holding your breath causes your body to tense up an will act as a hindrance to your muscle growth.
3.  Motion Control. We never want to jerk the wight up and down. Lift at slow and even pace smoothly and consistently. Not only will you dramatically decrease your chances for injury, but you will dramatically improve the conditions that are optimal to your success.
4.  Number of Reps. This is vitally important. We only want to do 8-12 reps of an exercise. This is the optimal range that will do the most good.
5.  Correct Weight. This goes hand in hand with rule number 4. We want to choose a weight that we can only lift 8-12 times. A weight that you can only lift within that range is going to build more lean muscle than a weight you can only lift 3 times, or a weight you can lift 20 times.
6.  Keep focus. It is easy to get distracted when you are in the gym. It is natural to have your mind wonder, or want to talk to your friends. If however you can stay focused your results will come much quicker.
7.  Limit the number of workouts. It may seem as if you can go to the gym everyday, and you can, just do not workout everyday! Your body needs times to recover from the workout that you put it through. Over-workout will actually have the opposite effect that you want.
This may not seem like earth shattering advice but when you are first learning how to build muscle you want information that you can immediately put to use. There is so much information available that it could fill volumes. It is easy to suffer from information overload. When that happens most people do nothing because they are more confused than they were when they started.
If you follow these 7 simple rules you will be way ahead of the game. Most importantly you will actually be making progress because you are being proactive. Having the courage to take the first step is often what counts most.

To Your Health!

When everyone begins learning how to build muscle they often find themselves in information overload by slick advertising, latest hyped work out and of course the popular celebrity diet that is all the buzz.

You have no doubt noticed that this article’s title is How to build muscle…….Fast, I do not want to imply or suggest that you are going to build huge muscles in 5 short days. What is absolutely possible however is that you can increase the odds for natural muscle growth. This short guide will certainly lay down the common sense rules to the fastest way to build muscle.

Let us summarize all the fundamental aspects of muscle building. For those of you that are more experienced this can serve as a kind of back to the basics of muscle building. Without further ado I give you…….

How to build Muscle……..Fast

You can do this. Many, many people have gone from skinny to muscular or overweight to in shape and you can to. Just don’t get all caught up in whatever new workout the Hollywood insider is boasting about. Keep in mind when Charles atlas was at his peak he weighed 180 lbs. He was not some 280 pound giant. Maybe next time I will post his measurements. Until then as Charles Atlas would say ‘To your Health’.

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How to build Muscle………anyone can do it! Part 1

When trying to build muscle and gain weight most people make the mistake of trying imitate professional bodybuilders. This is a mistake because most of them are investing huge amounts of money in supplements that could choke a horse. Duplicating their routines will not help you build muscle.

Your everyday man needs a different plan. A plan that will prevent burnout both mentally and physically. Here is how we are going to build muscle and I promise anyone can do it!!

1. Build Strength. If you build up your strength, muscle will follow. No one ever built muscles without building their strength. I personally recommend weight lifting combined with bodyweight exercises. If you are just starting out do bodyweight exercises only for the first two weeks before starting with weights

• Weight Lifting. To begin with start with a light weight that you can manage. Once you get comfortable and learn proper technique then you can start adding more weight
• Body Weight Exercises . There is a reason that people still do push ups, crunches and dips, they work!!

2. Machines vs. Free Weights. If you are going for maximum muscle growth in a shorter period of time I would recommend free weights.

• Safety. Believe it or not free weights are actually safer than machines. In an effort to isolate a specific muscle machines will often force you into not only an uncomfortable position, but sometimes one that puts too much stress on joints.
• Inclusion. Free weights will force all of your muscle groups, not just the primary muscle group you are working on to balance and control the weight
• Reality. The strength that is built using machines does not seem to translate into the real world. We have all seen what looked like strong people until you asked them to help move a couch! Who wants to just look strong?
• More bang for the buck. If you decide to work out at home instead of joining a gym You can do a lot more exercise with limited amount of free weights for a lot less than the purchase price of one machine.

In the next article we are going to discuss which exercise you should be concentrating on to build the muscle you want and what you need to do while training.  While these articles serve as a good starting point for anyone wanting to build muscle it is highly recommended that you follow a system.

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Every day there are people that are going to the gym to trying to build muscle. Unfortunately there is so much information on how to do it, it is easy to get information overload and end up doing nothing. If the truth be known building muscle is not as hard as most people will lead you to believe. There are basically three aspects that you really need to concentrate on in the beginning.
The first is exercise. You will not build muscle by reading about it. That is the cold hard truth, you are going to have to workout. At first this is going to seem hard, just the logistics of being able to schedule the time to actually do it is the major hurdle that most people face. Once you actually set aside that time for exercise it will be easier as it will become a part of your weekly routine. The second aspect is nutrition. Think of your body like an automobile, the higher quality of fuel you put in the tank, the better the performance. Computer programmers call this GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out) bad fuel = bad results. The third most important aspect is rest and recovery. Every time you work out you are putting your muscles under stress, the ‘rip’ a little bit and heal resulting in a bigger muscle. They need time to repair, that is why every good work out program has a period of rest involved in it, to give your muscles time to repair.
Right now we are going to concentrate on the first aspect exercise. When you walk into a gym it is easy to get overwhelmed by how many machines there are each specializing in a specific body part. For now don’t worry too much about it, we are more concerned with how we are going to work out initially.
You will see people hurling up massive amounts of weight very quickly, do not fall into this trap. They are actually cheating themselves by using momentum and bad form to get all that weight up and are more prone to injury themselves than to do themselves any benefit. Before you start to workout, make sure you have warmed up. There is nothing easier to injure than cold muscles. Stretch, get yourself limber first.
Secondly lift the weight slowly. You will be surprised how much harder it is to lift the weight slowly than fast. Why do we want to lift slowly. To begin with it puts more stress on our muscles. By lifting slowly you are making your muscles work harder in a shorter space of time. Not only are your main muscles lifting the weight, but all of your secondary muscle groups are pitching in also. When you lift fast it is basically your one main muscle group that is doing the lifting. Want some more reasons to go slow.

• Your muscles will get fatigued faster
• Far lesser chance of injury
• A more efficient workout in a shorter period of time
• All of the muscle groups get involved
• You are not subjecting your muscles and tissues to sudden jarring motions

Remember we are trying to build muscle, if we can accomplish that goal in 30 minutes, why spend an hour? Your body does not care if it took you you 2 hours to get your muscles to the point of fatigued or if it took 20 minutes, why should you? Unless lifting weights is your profession, but most of us just want to look good at the beach. So when building muscle, remember go slow.

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Believe it or not gaining weight does not have to be so hard for the skinny guy or gal. I know that there are plenty of thin people out there saying “you are crazy, I eat as much as a horse.” I know because for a long time I was in the same trap myself. I mentioned it before in one of my other articles, but it is worth mentioning again, it takes 3500 calories to gain one pound of muscle. Sounds like a lot, but here comes the good news……That means if you eat an extra 500 calories a day you can gain a pound a week!!!
I know that does not sound earth shattering right now, but realize that if right now today you are 145 pounds bag of bones soaking wet this time next month you could be 150 pounds of good looking muscle. The month after that 155 pounds of even better looking muscle. There is a big difference between a thin out of shape person weighing in at 150 pounds and someone who takes care of themselves weighing in at the same weight.
Now the next trick is to determine exactly how are we going to accomplish this task. Well for starters I am going to make this easy. Take a look at my smoothie recipe. How many calories is that? It is chalk full of the good stuff that is going to help you grow muscles, not just weight. However you should know that this is not some sort of magic bullet, it is merely one of many tools that will help you along your way. Imagine being just 5 pounds more of actual muscle by the end of a month. I know it does not sound real impressive right now, but that is how you eat an elephant, one bite at a time, climb a mountain one step at a time, you get the picture. So one high calorie smoothie a day. Don’t try to worry too much for starters, right now this is just a simple easy to implement immediate step you can take today without much of a hassle. Later we are going to squeeze in another meal,but that is later on, right now just get the blender out.
Next step is that you are going to have to cut down on the soda. I know it is suppose to be fattening, but that is not how it affects our body types. What we need is more water. In the same way you water plants, we are going to be watering muscles. Water is the key all life and we are no exception. The last thing that we want is for our muscles to feel dehydrated before they even get a chance to grow. I know dehydrated conjurers up images of people dying in the desert, that is extreme, we are more afraid of fatiguing muscles to early.
Get to stretching!! I know you are a real tough guy, you don’t need to stretch. You are wrong. Not only will stretching help you avoid injury, it will actually help your muscles grow. What how can this be you may ask, but it is true. When you are working with weights (and you will have to) your muscle fibers actually begin to shorten. You will get bigger without stretching, but you will also get slower, and not look as good. We have all seen some people who obviously workout, but when you look at them, you don’t even think that looks comfortable. Also people who workout and do not stretch are usually the same people that six months later tell you they use to work out until the hurt themselves.
Weights Yes if you thought you were going to be able to git bigger by simply eating and stretching you were wrong. The quickest way to start looking better and getting stronger is through weight training. Yes I know everyone has heard of isometric exercises, and you will look better than you do now if you do them. The only problem is that they take you to a plateau too quickly, but they are an incredible at toning your body and building up raw strength. They would make a superb compliment to any weigh program. With all of that being said, you are still going to have to lift weights. I promise you it gets easier once you get in the groove of going on a regular basis.
Sleep. You read that correctly. Sleep is how we repair our bodies this where mother nature takes all of those good nutrients and proteins that we have been storing and repairs the muscle tissue. Drink another one of those high calorie smoothies before bedtime.
This article is not intended to be the all encompassing health guide, it is here to show you that there are immediate steps you can take today to drastically improve your life. Lets face it the world can be cruel and people can make snap judgements based on your appearance whether you underweight, overweight, short, tall and whatever else. You can make positive changes in your life, but it is always easier to start with a few simple steps.

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When you first start trying to put on weight and build muscle you might become a a bit overwhelmed with all the information available.  Gaining weight is like anything else there seems to be plenty of experts and sometimes their advice seems to contradict each other.  Most people get information overload and end up doing nothing.

In the beginning keep it simple.  You do not have to know every single thing about every protein powder and what serving size you should use for this or that.  If you have been struggling to build muscle or put on mass there is a possibility that you neglecting one of these four steps.

STEP 1:  YOU HAVE TO COMMIT. lifting weights is going to be you fastest and most efficient way of building muscle.  You are going to be lifting weight three to four times per week!  I know that sounds like a lot now, but if you actually schedule the time to do it, and not just squeeze it when you can, it will become like second nature.  You want to stimulate your muscles, in other put them under stress, which will result muscles growing bigger to avoid the stress from reoccurring.  The second part of the equation is you then have let the muscle heal and repair itself through rest and nutrition.  Your muscles will grow bigger and you will repeat this process, but you have to commit.

STEP 2: You gotta eat.  You have to eat five to seven times a day.  I know that is a lot, but hardgainers have to eat more than other people if they are going to gain and build muscle.  Sometimes the universe is unfair, but it does not change the fact that you have got to eat more.  You should try to make half of those meals actually solid whole foods.  In a perfect world all of your meals would be solid whole foods, but let’s be honest that is extremely hard to do.  I absolutely love my smoothie that I drink and it has every proportionally balanced out, and that will serve as one of meals.  You could also use the liquid meal replacement powders,  I just like smoothies, their quick and easy and taste much better to me.

STEP 3: STRETCH!! I see a lot of people so focus on the weight training it is unbelievable.  I honestly think this one of the biggest mistakes people make.  When you constantly training, your muscle tissue will shorten.  They will get bg, but begin to perform slower and have higher chance of getting injured.  If you are working out four hours a week you are going to have stretch at least an additional two hours.  This is one of the biggest reasons that people quit.  You hear it all the time “I use to work out put I injured my arm, my neck, my back, my leg.”  Or whatever other body part.  If you are not stretching at least half of the time you are working out, you are an accident just waiting to happen.  So stretch!

STEP 4: BE SUSPICIOUS OF SUPPLEMENTS.  There is no magic pill, powder or pixie dust that is going to cure all you ills.  They are just what the name says supplements.  Personally I do not use anything that has not been around for three years.  Why do ask?  Because if you get to focused on chasing down the latest ‘dream in a bottle’ you will find yourself wrapped up in the hoopla that surrounds them.  What is touted as a miracle in a pill one month maybe proven grossly ineffective six months down the road.  I keep with the basics, powdered creatine, protein powder, the stuff that everyone has heard of before.  I promise it will alleviate some heartache and disappoint for you, and your bank account will thank you too.

Just remember, you can do this.  You can gain the weight and build the muscle that you want.  Don’t to hard on yourself, Rome was not built in a day.  Follow these above steps and get yourself on a workout program that is going to work.  By now you all know my personal favorite, but you have to do it.  Any fitness program you choose is going to be a change in your lifestyle.  They are going to require you to change you eating habits and workout and consistently.  You can do it!