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Posts Tagged ‘bodybuilding’

Perhaps you have been through this type of thing before where by you have decided to improve your health and fitness and in the beginning you felt really motivated. Perhaps you saw an inspirational movie that caused you to take action, maybe a friend of yours you hadn’t seen for a long time showed up having lost a heap of weight or having piled on muscle mass or maybe you are just sick of feeling lethargic and overweight. Whatever the initial stimulus was, you began exercising and then continued to exercise for a while.

However after sometime your motivation dropped off, you allowed your work to takeover, you got frustrated at your perceived lack of progress and gradually bit by bit you quit your healthy 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 amazing area of the earth like the the Canadian Rockies, The Andes or The Alps. You really do have an exciting motivating thing to aim for now with this trip. You should try to be in the best physical shape possible so that you may enjoy your trip as much as possible. If your trip is in 5 montsh time then you can plan a realistic schedule with your fitness goals in mind.

Participate In a local event. Is there a local fun run, half marathon or something else similar, I’ll bet there is, gte online and find out. Target one of these events as a goal to aim for. Inform a close friend of yours about your future intentions so they can act as a buddy and provide encouragement to you and come to support you on the day. 

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. Performing this projects strong messages to your sub conscious mind as regards what decisions you ought to be making throughout your day. Repeat this daily and continuously and your behaviour will naturally alter itself and begin to take you towards your goals automatically. This technique is proven to work and used by many top athletes.

Try to involve your family, friends and pet dog too. You are much less likely to lose interest and quit the more people that are involved. You are far less likely to be lazy and stay at home if your friends are calling and texting you to get you to join them.

Educate yourself. 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 doesn’t matter who you are there will aways be someone fitter, sexier, stronger or whatever than you. Acknowledge this fact and realise that we all travel through this life process each from our own different perspectives. Only compare yourself to yourself using accirate statistics such as percentage body fat and so on but remember the crucial thing here is not the numbers it is do you feel good, if you do the chances are you are fitter and will kepp exercising.

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.

Weightlifting has it’s own equipments for exercise like different activities and sports. One is the weightlifting belt…
The efficiency of weightlifting belts is definitely subject to controversies, and opinions about safety remain very divided. 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 promote better stability and protection against various training risks. 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. These equipment items can increase the intra-abdominal pressure beyond accepted levels. Yes, the intestinal muscles are indeed protected against injuries, but you could develop hypertension because of the tightness of the belt.

Multiple belt designs are available, and adjustments are possible to the corresponding pressure level. When manufactured for power training, weightlifting belts incorporate special features for superior 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 contrary to the common belief of improved training, studies bring evidence against such opinions. Research conducted at the Albany Medical Center, N.Y., revealed 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 time 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 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.

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 quick results.

Not counting calories – This applies most to those competing in bodybuilding. If this is your 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.

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, then you probably do 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 enjoy going to the gym a lot 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 bodybuilding myths. While it is good to take advice from others, you should be careful where you get your advice from. There are new sites coming online related to building muscle all the time and you need to understand that some of the advice is flat out wrong. We will go over four myths so that you will stay on track with your goals of how to build muscle fast.

Myth – Bodybuilding will make you slow. Years ago bodybuilders were looked at as muscle bound. Packing on muscle can cause you to be quicker. When you are moving your body and running and jumping, your muscles are involved. Your muscles will supply more force, the stronger they are.

Myth – Getting a pump is what builds muscle. This feeling of pumped up is when the muscles get filled with blood. You actually feel and look bigger. This feeling and the way you appear after a workout does not mean that you stimulated your muscles to grow. Lifting more weight or more reps than you did in your previous workout is how to gain muscle mass.

Myth – Perfect form is always important. Good technique is important but not to the point of going crazy about it. Don’t be a machine and think you have to move exactly like you saw in a body building book. Don’t be afraid to use a little momentum. For example, if you are doing barbell curls, some books will have you stand so straight it is ridiculous. It is not natural. Think of what is natural for your body. It is not natural to stand straight and look ahead while curling a weight. I little body momentum is fine and actually helpful to not injuring yourself.

Myth – You must feel the burn. This lactic acid inside your muscles causes this burning sensation. Higher reps will give you this burn as opposed to lower reps. Keep your reps in the range from 5-7 for best muscle gains. Forget the pump and concentrate on lifting heavier when doing your bodybuilding workouts.

One of the most frequent questions I often get asked is, do the ab cruncher machines you often see on television actually work? Yes and no is the answer to that question. I know this is not especially useful but let me explain further. This is the key on how to get ripped. These appliances exercise and work the layers of abdominal muscles. With these machines you are able to work the various parts of the ab muscles. The result is that the abs will become more toned and will get bigger in size. It is very unlikely, however, that you will produce a set of lean, rippling abs from working out with these machines alone. The reason is that the abdominal muscles are hidden from view by a layer of fat tissue. This needs to be removed in order to see those lovely abs. Programs such as truth about abs work on these ideas.

It is not normally possible to remove this layer of fat focally over the abs with the machines alone. This is the same reasoning behind why doing hundreds and thousands of sit ups will not remove abdo fat tissue. The only way to do this is by lowering calorie intake and burning excess calories, thereby losing fat globally all over the body.

Adding aerobic exercises to your exercise plan is the most effective way to burn off those calories. Also, exercises such as those that require the large muscles in the body like the quads are good at burning calories. The quads are the big muscles that lies at the top, on the front of the thigh. A good exercise to stimulate the quadriceps is squats. As they are large they generate a lot of heat and burn many calories and so are great for weight loss. They also stimulate the body’s natural growth hormone production therefore encouraging an increase in muscle size which is great for building those abdominal muscles. Aerobic exercises would include cycling, running and rowing. A moderate pace over a long duration of time is ideal for fat burning. You will find going on the machines in the gym will help you in keeping an ideal steady pace.

So these ab cruncher machines will help you get a set of abdominal muscles but not by using them in isolation. You will have to combine them with fat busting aerobic exercises. If these measures are used consistently and regularly it is possible to get results in as soon as twelve weeks.

As we are all aware a good muscle building diet is critical to build muscle up. What is also important is the timing of your meals. I recommend that you have a solid meal around 2 hours prior to your workout.This should provide plentyof time to so that you don’t start your workout when you are bloated or still feeling full and sluggish.

In an ideal world this preworkout snack ought to be something that you are used to and that you know won’t make you feel heavy and bloated as you want to be feeling your best to give your all in the gym. Make sure it includes slow burning energy such as from rice or oatmeal and that you eat the protein part first. You are in danger of becoming tired if you eat the protein after the carbohydrate. This happens because both the protein and carbohydrate cause the body to release certain chemicals that affect the brain. Protein stimulates the release of tyrosine which signals your brain to be alert and energetic as opposed to the carbohydrate which stimulates the release of tryptophan and instructs the brain to make you feel tired. Therefore always eat the carbohydrate second.

If you really want to know how to build muscles quickly then great advice is to drink a protein and carbohydrate shake about half an hour before you workout. This will give you a good boost of ebergy for your session. Ingredients ought to include whey protein, maltodextrin, wxymaize or dextrose. The total drink should have around 25 grams of protein and about forty grams of carbs. Doing this will boost your insulin levels which is one of the bodies most powerful muscle building hormones. Furthermore it will also cut down the amount of cortisol that is produced by your body which has a negative impact on muscle building.

Remember that spending time in the gym when you start your session already hungry and lethargic is not likely to make it a productive session. Always try to keep fruit or meal replacement powders or bars to hand should you ever not have time for a proper solid pre-workout meal.

As regards caffeine why not try get your hit from a nice antioxidant loaded green tea it provides less caffeine but is also a good deal better for you in many ways. Lastly, remember to keep taking on water, this is critical too. Ok bear those things in mind and you’ll be hitting the gym in peak mode for an awesome muscle stimulating workout which you will be able to grow from because you will have had the correct muscle building nutrition.

There are many ways to skin a cat as they say. There are also many ways on how to build muscle fast. The issue is which is the fastest and which way develops usable strength while also building muscle.

For those of us who are trying to pack on lean muscle in the fastest way possible, high intensity training is a tried and true form of bodybuilding training.

Our goal is to lift the most weights, while doing relatively low to medium reps, resting and getting the proper nutrition. Don’t do too many sets and exercises. Train each body part about once per week and get plenty of rest and the proper nutrition while lifting heavy on the basics exercises. Exercises like the bench press, dips, squats, dead lifts and bicep curls. 

Train your chest with triceps and shoulders and your back with biceps. Basically, separate your pushing and pulling movements to different days. This is because you do not want to overwork your muscles. If you are bench pressing one day and then you work your triceps a couple of days later, your triceps might get overworked. This is because they were already worked while doing bench presses.

I believe dead lifts are a great upper body exercise that also hits the legs. Some like me, have trouble dead lifting, because of back issues. There is another way. Stand inside a trap bar to do deadlights. It is much easier for my back and it might be on yours as well. I believe more and more lifters are coming back to this bar as it is a more natural feeling. At least for some of us.

Try doing only one or two sets for each exercise and only one or two exercises per body part.  You might be surprised that this abbreviated training works wonders. Learn more about how to build muscle fast .

Do the ab cruncher appliances you see on TV work is a frequently asked question. The answer to that question is a combination of yes and no. Although this may not appear, at first, useful but allow me explain further. This is the key on how to get ripped abs fast. These appliances exercise the layers of ab muscles. Various parts of the ab muscles are worked by these machines. The result being that the abs will become more toned and will increase in size. Working out with these machines alone is unlikely to get you a lovely set of lean, rippling abs. The reason is that the abs are hidden from view by a layer of fat tissue. This needs to be removed in order to see those lovely abs. Programs such as vince delmonte training work on these ideas.

Using these machines alone will not get rid of this layer of fat focally over the abs. Doing hundreds or thousands of sit ups will not get rid of this fat layer for the exact same reason. In order to do this you will need to get rid of fat globally all over the body by a combination of lowering calorie intake and burning calories.

Adding aerobic exercises to your exercise program is the best way to burn off those calories. Also, exercises such as those that use the large muscles in the body like the quads are good at burning calories. The quadriceps are the big thigh muscles located at the upper part of the legs. A great exercise to stimulate the quads is squats. The size of these large muscles means that they burn many calories and generate a lot of heat. They also stimulate the body’s natural growth hormone production therefore encouraging muscle growth which is great for building those abdominal muscles. The most common aerobic exercises areswimming, running and cycling. For fat burning it is better to do these exercises over a long duration of time. If you want to keep a perfect steady, fat burning pace, then using the machines at the gym will help.

So these ab crunchers will help you get a visible set of abdominal muscles but not by using them alone. You will have to combine them with fat busting aerobic exercises. Great ab development can be seen in as soon as 12 weeks if you stick to this advice regularly.