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!

It is important when you first start to build muscle to have an achievable goal.  For instance to not get distracted by numbers that no human being is going to be able achieve in a month.

Building muscle is a mental mindset you must have as well as a physical one.  In the hopes of keeping everyone motivated I have actually found the measurements of Charles Atlas.  You remember the Charles Atlas ads in comic books growing up.  Whatever your feeling of him are you have to admit he is synonymous with muscle gain.  He is the quintessential skinny to muscular success story.

Charles Atlas’ measurements were as follows:
Height – 5’10″
Weight – 180 pounds
Neck – 17″
Chest (normal) – 47″
Biceps (flexed) – 17″
Forearms – 14.5″
Waist – 32″
Thighs – 23.75″
Calves – 16.25″

What actually impresses me the most is that theses results are quite achievable for you average guy.  Atlas won just about every contest there was to win and many sculptors paid him to be the model for their statues.

Just thought this would give everyone an achievable goal.  Sure you may not get this level of success in a week or a month, but it is a good goal to have for the long haul.  Take a real close look at those numbers and compare them to your own and I’ll bet your not as far off as you think.

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.

Our Top Rated Program

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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Program

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.

Our top rated Program

It basically takes 3500 calories to gain one pound of muscle. I know hard to believe, but this will serve as our general guide to putting on the pounds that we want. It is also important to distinguish between simply gaining fat, and actually building muscle. What we want to do is build muscle so that we look good at the beach. After all we are after good health too. If we use our above number of 3500 calories a week, we can easily see that we need to consume an extra 500 calories to what we are currently consuming. I know that this may seem daunting at first, but I promise you that you can do this. The following is my little guide that I started on to incorporate the needed extra calories.

• Eat Often: You need to make a time to have 3 large meals and at least 2 substantial snacks every single day.

• Eat Bigger: Your normal portions are not big enough, you will have to increase the portions of the meals that you are currently eating.

• Higher Calorie Foods: Dried fruit, starchy vegetables, dense whole grain breads,cereals,nuts

• Bring on the Extras: No more eating things just plain
  • Unsaturated Fats: Olive and canola oil,nuts,seeds,peanut butter,avocados
    Healthy Carbs and proteins: Jam, Honey, dried fruit, wheat germ, protein powder

• Every Beverage Counts: No more soda as a main food source. Milk, juice,water and we all know my love for the Smoothie.

• Resistance Training : You are never going to gain any true meaningful weight that is going to translate into muscle without weight training. I know everyone hates going to the gym in the beginning, but you are going to have to if you really want to build an impressive physique. You are also going to have to find a good program to follow. Failing to plan is a plan for failure.

This is just a quick little guide. If you are like me, you want to keep it simple in the beginning. As you learn more you can vary your routine, but in the beginning the shortest distance between two points is a straight simple line.

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE PROGRAM THAT HELPED ME CLICK HERE.

One day when we all live in a perfect world you will be able to go to any convenience store and buy a perfectly balanced meal or snack., good foods can be hard to find on the go. Unfortunately for us that day is not today.  There are so many websites that say you have to eat better, but they don’t ever tell you exactly what is better.  It is frustrating I know, I have been there.

With that in mind I have created a list which is by no means comprehensive, but it will serve as a good starting point for you.  Before you ask, you do not have to eat everything on the list, that is not the idea.  If you pick out a portion of from each list you will have a good balanced meal.  Use your common sense though, some of them are snacks while others are an actual meal.  I am not going to lie to you in the beginning it is going to take a little while to get use too, but to be honest you will succeed if you are sincerely trying.  Without further ado……….the list
THE GOOD FOODS LIST
good lean proteins:

• Chicken Breast
• Turkey Breast
• Lean Ground Beef
• Lean trimmed Beef
• Lean Trimmed lamb
• Ham
• Trimmed Pork
• Trimmed Veal
• Game Birds
• Crab
• Fish of all kinds
• Lobster
• Shrimp
• Shellfish like clams,oysters, and mussels
• Eggs
• Cottage Cheese
• Whey Protein

Good Vegetables

• Artichokes
• Broccoli
• Cabbage
• Vauliflower
• Celery
• Cilantro
• Eggplant
• Garlic
• Ginger
• Green Beans
• Leafy Salad Greens
• Lentils
• Mushrooms
• Okra
• Onions
• Parsley
• Peas
• Peppers
• Spinach
• Squash
• Zucchini

Good Fruits

• Apples
• Apricots
• Avocados
• Berries of all kinds
• Cantaloupes
• Cherries
• Cucumber
• Figs
• Grapes
• Honeydew melon
• Kiwis
• Lemons
• Limes
• Nectarines
• Oranges
• Peaches
• Pears
• Plums
• Strawberries
• Tangerines
• Tomatoes

Good Beans

• Black Beans
• Chick Peas
• Fava Beans
• Kidney Beans
• Lentils
• Lima Beans
• Navy Beans
• Peas
• Pinto Beans
• Soybeans

Good Rice and Grains

• Brown Rice
• Whole Rice
• Wild Rice
• Barley
• Whole Oats
• Whole Wheat
• Whole Grain Pastas

Good Fat Sources

• Canola Oil
• Flaxseed Oil
• Olive oil, extra virgin
• Peanut Oil
• Fats found in all fish
• Seeds
• Pure butter in small amounts

Please keep in mind that I am not saying you have to choke down every single one of these items.  I assure you that I do not like everything on this list.  This is just to serve as a starting point.  If you picked one thing from each category you would have a balanced meal.

Good nutrition is going to be cornerstone of any worthwhile exercise system.  There really is just no way to get around the fact that to get a washboard style ab, a lot of the work is done in the kitchen.  Again I am not recommending that you only eat what is on this list, but if you look it over carefully you might find that you actually like a lot more on this list than you probably thought at first glance.

Enjoy

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!

Although you are not entering into a fashion contest you might want to think about your attire.  Lets face it you can not walk into a gym and work out in a pair of blue jeans.  Proper attire is a must.

Myself I feel the most comfortable in a pair of workout or running pants.  I always pick out a pair that are not going to strangle me, I want them to be loose fitting so that I can get plenty of movement.  I also prefer dark colors like black or blue because when I sweat I don’t want it to look real obvious.  Secondly I prefer the type that have pockets no matter how light I want to travel, there is always something that I have to have, most of the time it is just the key to my locker, but I have to have it.

The next item is a shirt of course.  Here I just pick any comfortable T-Shirt, but for god sake don’t just show up in a plain white T.  Again I want it to be comfortable, I don’t like working out in a shirt that seems to be wrestling me and trying to hide in my armpits.

Shoes, often overlooked but anyone who has had a really good pair of shoes to work out in knows exactly what I am talking about.  A bad pair of shoes can ruin your form and posture and suck the joy out of your work out.  Don’t worry whether they are labeled athletic,cross trainer, running or what ever sub-category the shoe store has filed them under.  You want ones with good support that actually lace up!! Forget velcro or any of that other stuff, you want real laces.

Another thing that I wear, but you don’t have to is a hat.  Any baseball style hat will do.  For me it puts me in the right mindset for a work out and seems to focus me, I am not looking around distracted my eyes are drawn to the task at hand.  This may differ for you, but to me the hat is a must have.

One more thing to keep in mind.  You are going in there to workout so when you go the beach you will look good.  Save all the posturing for the beach, there will be plenty of time for the super snug shirt showing of ‘the guns.’  Also you don’t want to walk in dressed head to toe like your sponsored by Under Armor or Nike.  You are here to workout and achieve your goals, and you will, don’t get distracted by hype.  I promise you that muscles don’t know what brand you are wearing.