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 can think of no greater motivation than this.  Remember how last year you promised yourself when next summer rolls around things were going to be different.  Remember the year before that.  We have all been there and we have all seen the next summer roll around and alas, it was the same old us.

It really is going to be different this time because now you have a plan.  You have an actual concrete plan that will work.  First thing is first though, you need to take a picture of yourself.  I know this is a bit painful and I am not talking about a full nude shot or anything like that, but a picture of yourself without a shirt on.  The reason will become more evident.

When you look at your day one photo, the one that you took when you decided to turn it all around, it will remind you of how far you came.  I know you don’t want to do it, but I am not asking you to post it on the web or anything like that, it is just for your own records.  This will show you how you truly look, the good, the bad and the ugly.  Don’t worry though this is soon to be the old you.

In one month you are going to take another photo of yourself and you will be amazed at the progress you have made.  Actually look at the two photos and how far you have come.  Now you are starting to see some real progress.  Just imagine how you are going to look next month.  Starting to feel better about yourself now.  Next month you won’t be able to wait to take that photo!

If you want to gain weight and build muscle fast, you are going to need the calories to do it.  That being said it sometimes hard to work in every meal, but don’t despair, that is why they invented smoothies.  Smoothies are not only absolutely delicious, they are easy to make.  I do not advise going on an all smoothie diet, but they can really help when you need a meal on the go and they taste better than any meal replacement powder out there.  Here is one of my personal favorites and all I use is a regular blender and I pour it into a shaker bottle.  The one I use is the type that comes with a little wisk shaped like a ball, I believe they call it the blender bottle, you should be able to pick up one at any GNC or supplement store for about $10.

Without further ado here is the recipe:

• 1 cup oranges
• 1/2 cup of bananas
• 1 cup of mangos
• 1 cup of orange sherbet (I use blue bell)
• 1/2 a cup of ice
• 1 scoop of unflavored protein powder (about 64 grams)

I am telling you it tastes awesome it is the best tasting orange smoothie I have ever had!  For those of you out their counting here is the breakdown.

Calories : 620           Calories from fat: 45

total fat 5g 7%

Saturated fat 2.5 g 13%

Cholesterol 10 mg 4%

Sodium 100 mg 4%

Total carbohydrates 135g 45%

Dietary fiber 5g 19%

Sugars 114g

Protein 68g

Vitamin A 130%

Vitamin C 100%

Calcium 15%

Iron 4%

Start blender on low then once you get that good whirlpool going switch to high.  Once all of the ingredients are blended thoroughly pour into shaker bottle.

Enjoy!!

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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