Posts Tagged ‘burn calories’

Here are a few tips to gain muscle.

1) Diet: eat clean. To gain muscle and a minimum amount of fat, you need to eat a good lean quality protein source. About 1 – 2 grams per pound of lean body weight must be divided over 5 – 6 meals per day.

Carbohydrates: Complex fibrous carbs in the form of fresh vegetables are best for gaining lean weight. Potatoes and other starches should be eaten early in the day so they can be burned off while you’re active, preferably as a post workout meal.

Good fats need to be taken in at each meal: olive oil, flax oil, Udos essential oils or fish oils. Eating wild-caught salmon 2 or 3 times a week is a good way to get your fish oils.

Keep in mind that any meal you take must have protein, carbohydrate and fat. Stay away from sugars. If you have to take them, then eat them in the form of whole fruit early in the day.

Liquids are not ideal sources of nutritional calories; instead opt for ones found in foods.

Make water your main drink, and drink enough each day. Here’s a simple rule of thumb to determine your basic water needs. Divide your body weight in half and turn that figure into ounces. That is the figure you need to start with, you may need more if you are really active. Example: you weigh 100 lbs. 100 / 2 = 50 ounces of water.

Protein shakes with fruits and vegetables are some exceptions to those mentioned above.

These can be great snacks, post workout meals or even meal replacements when made with the right ingrediants. Precision nutrition has a whole section on these types of shakes with a lot of recipes and they are categorized as either anytime or post workout shakes.

You will need to determine your caloric needs to maintain your present mass, and then add about 15% – 20% more calories to that to increase your weight and gain muscle.

Muscle gaining tips for exercise:

Go for the big compound lifts to get your body to burn more calories. These would be: Clean and jerks, squats, deadlifts, squat presses, benches; flat and incline, dips and pull-ups. Isolated lifts should be done after performing the big lifts.As far as reps go, vary it. Some days go for strength with heavier weight and lower reps. Other days go for more reps with a lighter weight. Keep the intensity high always, and you need to be flirting with failure on every working set. I like to do one warm up set and 3 – 4 working sets.

Get in get your workout done, if you’re spending more than an hour you are doing too much and/or you are not working intensely enough. Not training enough can equate as much damage as overtraining. Remember that training provides the stimulus to get the muscle to recover and grow. During rest, the muscle actually recovers and grows. So get your 8 hours of sleep in and don’t overtrain.

Basically, the tips to gain muscles are:

1) Make sure to eat clean and consume lean protein.

2) Exercise intensely enough to stimulate the muscle to grow without injuring yourself

3) Allow your muscles to recover and grow by getting enough sleep or rest.

4) Rinse and repeat. KISS (keep it simple, stupid)

Many women believe that the only way to tone flabby arms or any other part of their bodies is to work out for hours in the gym every week. Not only is this not possible for women who are holding down jobs, looking after children and running a home, it is totally unnecessary. It would be great to have toned and sexy arms and bodies, but not if it affects our home and social life.

You will be happy to know that you don't need to work out for hours in order to get a toned and sexy body. Below we will bust apart the most commonly held myths about muscle building and toning.

Mistake Number. 1 – You have to workout for hours to make any difference
Working out for more than an hour can start to negatively effect the body. This is because the body starts releasing hormones that decrease muscle tone, increase fat storage and increase stress on the body. This can lead to exhaustion, anxiety, lethargy and even weight gain.

The solution is to keep your workouts short and sweet. You only need to work hard for 20 minutes for the workout to be effective. Get a good sweat going within the first 5 minutes and keep up the hard work for the entire 20 minutes. It is certainly easier to fit in 20 minutes of intense exercise into your routine than longer sessions.

Mistake Number. 2 - Lifting weights will make you look big and bulky
There are many women who work out with heavy weights and still have a lean, toned and sexy body. They aren't big and bulky and look like a professional bodybuilder! It is absolute nonsense that lifting weights will increase bulk.

It would be a mistake not to use weights in your workout. This is because you won't be able to build muscle, raise your metabolism and burn off calories effectively. The solution is to use weights that are as heavy as you can lift for 6-12 repetitions. It is only by using heavy weights that you can develop sculpted and sexy arms.

Myth Number. 3 – low or medium intensity workouts are better

When you work out with heavy weights at high intensity, you force your body to increase the amount of calories it burns during your workout, which last for the rest of the day. How great is that you could be burning calories whilst sitting in front of the TV. This is called the "after-burn effect". This does not happen with low or medium intensity workouts.

Working out at a high intensity for at least 20 minutes will take advantage of the after-burn effect. Make sure every minute counts. Lift weights that are as heavy as you can manage safely for 6-12 repetitions. After the repetitions try a couple of minutes of skipping in order to increase the burn.

We hope this has busted the most common myths about building muscle. If you want to know more about how to tone flabby arms then visit my tone flabby arms website for a complete program that takes less than 90 minutes per week. Sounds like my kinda workout!