Posts Tagged ‘build muscle mass’

Just as a tree cannot grow with out sufficient water, sunlight and soil no matter what else you give it, to build up muscle your body also has several things that you absolutely must provide it with in order to grow. No amount of fancy exercise equipment, supplement or outfit will allow you to grow muscle if you do not take the following essential steps:

1) Eat big. Some people never really grasp this concept! If you do indeed want to build up muscle mass then you will need to give your body a supply of excess calories for it to build up muscle out of. If you are not taking on extra calories then your body has nothing to build up muscleswith. A good way to make sure you do not forget this is to buy a set of over sized crockery. This way at each meal you are always reminded of your increase need for calories. Consuming a high number of calories will be easier if you break your meals down into 5-6 meals.

2) Intense training. If you are not training hard in the gym then your muscles have no reason to increase in size and strength. Give your muscles a reason to grow by training intensely for up to 45 minutes. Stick to the time proven mass building exercises like: bench presses, deadlifts, shoulder presses, squats,. These stimulate more muscle growth than many others.

3) Drink lots of water. Just as your body needs excess calories to grow you r body also requires water for all of the muscle building reactions to take place. Training of course will also increase your fluid intake needs. Try to keep a bottle of water handy through the day.

And of course just as you cannot expect a plant to grow if you throw harmful substances and so on on it there are several things you absolutely must not do in order to build up muscles

1) Do not over-train. Pushing your body too hard and too often can actually decrease your strength. Why? You see, tiny micro-tears appear in the muscle group after an intense weights session. Your muscles will then grow back bigger and more powerful than before over the following days. You are never going to get bigger if you do not allow your muscle to grow back and get bigger. Rest is vital. 

2) Do not stuff your body full of useless calories. Of course your body needs lots of calories for muscle growth but it also needs then to be good quality for maximum benefit. Food such as fish, chicken, eggs, pasta, potatoes, leafy green vegetables, fruit, rice and so on should be the norm. To build muscle up they can’t be beaten.

3) Never ever give up. What works for one person might not work for you. If progress is not apparent then mix things up and experiment with different exercises, a different diet in fact do anything you can but never ever give up. Focus on your goal and you can make it. do not forget to enjoy the process of growing and being healthy, don’t punish yourself for not turning into Arnie overnight it will take time, keep a training log to monitor your progress and for motivation.

So ask yourself honestly and sincerely if you really are adhering to these guidelines as best as you can. If you are not then if you really want to build muscle up then wouldn’t now be a good time to change?

There are hundreds of different exercises you can do with free weights and resistance machines or with just your body weight to build muscle mass. You should include mainly multi-joint compound exercises in your workout as they build muscle fastest. The time proven and most effective are: shoulder presses, bench press, pull ups, dead lifts, squats and rows.

Whilst they are very effective your body needs to be constantly challenged in new and different ways if your goal is building lean muscle mass. For some reason theses following exercises are often overlooked which is surprising as they are real mass builders. From time to time try and include these exercises in your workouts. Variety prevents boredom setting in and provides new reasons for your muscles to grow.

For calf muscles try running on the sand, skipping or donkey raises. Using a jump rope for skipping will create a real burn in your calves as will running on sand. Calf muscles are often stimulated into growth more by more endurance related training as that is what they are primarily used to. Donkey raises are when you place your toes on the edge of a 3-4 inch high block bend over to 90 degrees at the waist and rest your hands on a bard or bench at that height. A training partner or two then jump on to your back and you raise your body up and down by flexing your calf muscles. stabiliser muscles all around the calve have to be used in order to perform these correctly making them more difficult.

When was the last time you hit your chest muscles with dips? Dips are a tremendous mass builder for the entire chest region and also the triceps. Some of the older gyms have parallel bars installed in them for this precise exercise. Often a v shape is formed which provides scope for different grips. This enables you to train a specific part of your chest muscle or tricep muscle really well.

How about using stiff legged deadlifts for your hamstrings. These are an awesome hamstring exercise seen very infrequently. Simply do deadlifts but you legs have to remain straight throughout meaning you bend at the waist and keep a straight back to lift the barbell or dumbbell. Be warned however these reps can make you extremely sore the next day and also whilst lifting the weight ensure it is close in to your legs to maintain control.

Try hammer curls if you want big arms! The only difference between these and normal dumb bell curls is that the palm of your hand is kept facing in towards your body at all times. This directs much stress on to an inner bicep muscle giving it both thickness and size throughout and is named the brachialis muscle, the exercise also hits the main bicep muscle too.Stand with your back against the corner of a wall whilst curling to prevent yourself from swinging the bar.

How long is it since you saw someone do lunges at the firness centre? These are particularly good for giving your quads mass and shape. With a pair of dumb belss in your hands take a decent stride forwardsand bend both knees down to 90 degress step backwards and repeat with the other leg. A great alternative to squats.

For creating muscle definition and for a superb aerobic workout why not try boxing padwork it is very effective for the hitting the entire upper body or do uphill sprints to shred your leg muscles or even get on an exercise bike for uphill intervals immediately following a leg workout. That is a real killer of a mass builder!

so go ahead and switch your workout around a little to include some of these great exercises for building lean muscle mass.

A typical dilemma for any active sportsmen who lifts weights and wants to gain muscle mass is that they know there goal to build muscle up conflicts with the fact that they do a lot of cardio-vascular work. How can someone like this build muscle fastest whilst still doing cardio, indeed is it even possible?

Quite often it is recommended that to build muscles fastest you ought to keep aerobic training down to as little as possible. This is regularly stated because of the fact that aerobic training does two particular things that may restrict muscle growth, they are: 1) burn an abundance of calories 2) speed up your metabolism. Both of these two things contribute to the same problem, namely, not getting enough calories on board. This takes us to the question of exactly what amount of calories should I therefore be taking on?

Well, to keep at the same weight every day you would be required to consume enough calories to cover the energy usage of your body as if it were resting (basal metabolic rate), then eat enough extra calories to provide energy for your workouts. Each day you need to eat a further 500 calories if you wish to build muscle mass.

Is there a way to figure out this total?

Yes, one way to do this is using the Katch-McArdle formula (BMR based on lean body weight). Here it is:

Men: BMR = 66 + (13.7 X wght in kg) + (5 X hght in cm) – (6.8 X age in years)

Women: BMR = 655 + (9.6 X wt in kg) + (1.8 X hght in cm) – (4.7 X age in years)

Once you have gotten this figure you should then multiply it by one of the following to allow for your daily activity levels:

Sedentary = BMR X 1.2 (desk job, little or no exercise)
Lightly active equals BMR X 1.375 (sports/light exercise 1-3 days/wk)
Mod. active = BMR X 1.55 (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/wk)
Very active = BMR X 1.725 (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days/wk)
Extr. active = BMR X 1.{9 (hard daily exercise/sports & physical job or 2X day training, i}.e marathon, contest etc

So, should you be doing cardio and weights frequently then you should multiply this by at least 1.725. This will give you the figure that will cover your daily energy needs. To suit your specific goals you should then adjust this total. Presuming it is muscle building, you would need to add at least a further 500 calories per day.

So, let’s say your final number is 3000 calories then you ought to be trying to eat 6 meals/day of 500 calories. To follow this strategy one snack or meal would be based around 11 gram coming from fat, 62 grams coming from carbohydrate and 37 grams coming from protein. This is calculated as so because one gram of fat equals 9 calories as opposed to one gram of protein or carbohydrate which is worth 4 grams.

Correct muscle building nutrition and working out your calorie needs like this is what is going to ensure you build muscles fastest, not any miracle new exercise!

In your quest to build muscles as fast as humanly possible here are a few quick tips to help you on your way. No messing around here seven top build muscles tips:

1) Eat frequently and often. If you are new to trying to bulk up and increase your muscles mass then you may find it difficult to eat enough food to build muscle. To get past this problem you ought to consume 5-7 snacks and meals each day and eat double your usual portions.

2) Rest plentifully. Your muscles need times to rest in order to grow. They do no grow in the gym. So just as you should workout to build muscle mass you should also rest a lot to get big.

3) Restrict your training to less than 45 minutes a workout. A hormone that is detrimental to muscle building is released at around this time marker. Finishing your training after more than 30 to 45 minutes means that your body’s hormones are at the perfect level to support muscle building.

4) Keep a training diary. tracking your improvements provides information on what training routines work well for you. You can make use of them again at a later date. They also mean that you can have purposeful goals for every single workout which enhances your motivation and shows that you are progressing.

5) Make use of supplements. If you have cash spare make use of the following supplements to enhance you progress: essential fatty acids, whey protein, multivitamins and possibly creatine. You can make excellent progress even if you can’t afford supplements so do not lose heart.

6) Train with intensity and purpose. Keep intensity levels as high as possible in your training sessions by using techniques such as: drop sets, negatives, super sets and giant sets.

7) Never ever give up! You are going to be in this for the long haul. Sure you want to get big as soon as possible but remember the journey to get what you want is half the fun. So with those brutally effective building muscle tips in mind go out and get huge.

Stressing your muscles in different ways is one of the keys to continuous and uninterrupted growth to build muscles mass. If you do the same session again and again your muscles become very familiar with that particular stress and bit by bit the sessions effectiveness at stimulating muscle growth will decrease. Luckily there are a number of strategies that can be used in order to introduce variety to build your muscles mass and ensure your muscle start growing again.

1) The progressive overload principle. Well actually this should be done as a matter of course. You can either keep increasing the amount you are lifting as often as you can or you can keep the same weight and try and do more reps. A combination of the two is fine also

2) Giant sets. This is when you do one exercise set and then follow this immediately with another exercise for the same muscle group. Such as, leg extensions done straight after squats. You may then break for a couple of minutes and do another a set.

3) A superset is where you do one regular set immediately followed by an exercise for the opposing muscle group. This can create a really good pump in that muscle group. For example, shoulder press followed by pull ups, tricep presses followed by barbell curls.

4) Repititions that are forced. On a regular set, rather than failing on the last rep you basically get a partner to aid you in doing the final repetition and then allow them to continue to assist you in completing a further 2 or 3 repetitions. The assistance should mean that you can still only just do it yourself and should be minimal.

5) Negatives. This is when a regular set is completed to failure and then a friend assists you in doing more reps but they don’t help you lower it, you have to do this yourself.

6) Drop sets. Do a regular set until failure, lower the amount on the bar and do a few more repetitions, decrease the amount of weight lifted once more and continue doing more reps and keep doing this. This is a very intense technique that creates a real burn and can help build muscle mass a great deal.

This is just a start on the different varieties of exercise that can be done to build muscles mass but be warned these can leave you feeling quite sore for the next few days so always ensure that you allow sufficient rest between exercises.

When  a personal trainer first asks a new gym attendee what their goals are, they most often hear replies such as: “Build muscle lose fat”,  “build muscle then lose“, “burn fat build muscle”, ”build muscle and burn fat”. So, it would seem to be that nearly all people would prefer to get bigger muscle s and also simultaneously reduce their percentage body fat. In the next few paragraphs I discuss if it is really possible to do this or is it something that only professional bodybuilders and marketing companies believe is possible?

Is it actually feasible to build muscle mass and lose fat tissue at the same time?

The short answer is ‘yes’ however not without a great deal of difficulty, calculating calories and discipline but it can be done! To build muscle you need to take on excess calories than you work off throughout each leaving enough left to build muscle but not so much that they get stored as fat. If you don’t consume excess calories then you you won’t build muscle for sure, with too many extra calories then you may grow some muscle but you will of course add body fat tissue at the same time. The secret is to consume sufficient calories to build muscle mass but not enough so that fat is built. There are

If you wish to avoid adding fat at the same time as building muscle then you really have to work out your exact calorie requirements and then stick to them. to work out your calorie requirements then use the following simple equation that provides an approximate answer:

Find out your body weight and you percentage body fat e.g. 200 pounds with 10% body fat.

Workout your body’s lean mass.g. 200-10% equals 190.

Times you lean body mass by 19 e.g. 190 multiplied by 19 equals = 3610

This is then the amount of calories you approximately need to eat to gain muscle mass provided you are doing effective workouts too. Whilst this is a rough figure if you consumed 500-1000 more calories then you would certainly increase your muscle gains and put on some body fat. This method provides an approximate figure only and it would be rather difficult to track how many calories you are going to eat.

So I am assuming the you do not relish the prospect of trying to master the tricky process just outlined and are perhaps wandering if there are any easier alternatives. Well most bodybuilders of course opt for the second option which is highly recommended. Firstly you need to build muscle then you lose weight. This is sometimes known as a bulking up phase followed afterwards by a cutting phase. This is much easier as in the first phase you simply need to eat a lot and often. All you need ensure is that you consume more calories than the above figure. This phase normally lasts for a duration of 3-6 months during this time you will probably have packed ona few kilograms in muscle and also a few in body fat too. Now you start to eat less calories and increase the cardio-vascular sessions so that you work off more calories per day than you take on.

Maintaining your muscle mass and burning off excess calories will thus be the main focus of the newxt few months. So in effect looking at the results over a year you will have built muscle and burnt fat but you will have done it in two separate stages and not at the same time. The long term affect is excatly the same only you use to distinct phases and it is a lot easier to do.

So if you do wish to build muscle and burn fat I highly recommend that you build muscle then lose fat in two separate stages. Expert author Tom Venuto has the entire process and more broken down into simple steps for you, read the ‘Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle E-book’ Review here for more information on how to build muscle then lose fat.