Posts Tagged ‘gym routines’

Bodybuilding At 40 And Beyond

Today is a great day to get in shape! People think that only twenty-somethings can have those perfect, muscular bodies, but that’s not true in the least; more and more people are discovering the fun of bodybuilding over 40. No matter what your age, there are going to be precautions to take to protect yourself.

When looking to get into bodybuilding over 40, you should look at how other people your age are doing it. Look at men and women with your same basic body type and whose fitness goals are similar to your own and use them as your role models. Consider taking a page from their training schedules and workouts. Notice that they start with a gradual workout.

When bodybuilding beyond 40, you need a longer cycle that will give your body the rest it needs. Because it’s not accustomed to this sudden exercise, your body needs time to recover.

A sample program many people have found useful is: target a muscle group for day 1, rest on days 2-3, target a second muscle group on day 4, rest on days 5-6. On day 7 exercise the rest of your body, and take two more days to recover. As your body gets into better shape you’ll find yourself able to cut back on your rest days.

Never begin with too much weight. It is common for younger people to mistakenly begin too high. This is not because they can start with more weight than you, it is because their bodies can endure and repair damage they cause much faster. Begin at a very low weight, the amount may vary per person. Start low enough so that you can maintain control while you perform proper movements and techniques.

Begin your bodybuilding over 40 with more repetitions of small weights. 15 is a good number to start with. You could consider a periodized style where, every other cycle, you begin to add more weight but do fewer reps. It’s really up to you and your body to determine how fast it can recover from these workouts, and when it’s ready for the next one. Eventually, though, you will be able to increase the weight.

In order to prevent getting injuries, you should warm up before you work out. First, stretch, followed by a 5-10 minute cardio routine. Following that you should target the muscle group you intend to concentrate on that day by lifting roughly half your target weight for 10 reps. Perhaps you want to lift 200 pounds this afternoon, so you should lift 100 pounds or less a few times to get those muscles ready.

If you’ve been injured in the past, remember to protect it. It doesn’t matter if it’s ten or twenty years old, you should still be careful so you don’t re-injure yourself. Talking to your doctor before you begin any exercise regime is a good idea, especially when it concerns those old injuries. He might be able to give you advice on what exercises to avoid, or supply you with a brace.

These are simple tips to help people who are bodybuilding over 40. And if you have more questions or concerns, don’t be afraid to ask a certified trainer. They’re there to show you how to get the best out of your body. You can also visit my website if you want to find more tips and workouts. Using caution, common sense, and asking questions are the best tools you have to prepare yourself for bodybuilding over 40, and getting you started on the road to fitness.

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Five Bodybuilding Tips To Maximize Your Muscle Gain

If you want to maximize your muscle gain when you lift weights then you need to lift the weights correctly. Good form gets good results. Be sure to allow your body plenty of time to make progress before becoming discouraged. Give yourself four months of dedicated commitment and you will see the results you are after. Set your goals and stick to them. The following five weight training tips may help.

Learn the proper form for each exercise before you attempt it. Using the wrong form will slow your progress and may even cause you injury. If you aren’t sure, ask a staff member for some weight training tips that cover proper technique and routines that will help you meet your goals.

Keeping records of your progress is a good idea too. After each session, write down the weights you used, the exercises, and the weights. This will help you track your progress and tweak your weight training plan.

1. Set Your Goals: Having goals keeps you focused and helps you stay motivated. Be realistic in your goals so they are achievable. Set several short-term goals that you can easily achieve on your path to your end goal of maxed out muscles.

Congratulate yourself when you reach one of your first short term goals then get back down to the gym, and keep training. The short phase goals will keep you afire and ready to train harder than have done before.

Break down your long-term goal into smaller increments. For example, if you want to gain 50 pounds of muscle over the next year, then you could make your first short term goal to gain five pounds during your first month of weight training.

2. Vow To Succeed: Failure is often the result of lack of commitment. It is hard to be enthused and committed to a weight training program if you are not sure you are on the right track. Pick out a weight training program that lays out everything for you systematically and follow it faithfully until you arrive at your goal.

Be sure to select a muscle-add program that is in alignment with your goals. It shouldn’t be difficult to find one. It will save you the work of plotting everything out yourself, plus you can be assured it will work as long as you stick to it and follow the instructions.

3. Learning: For the most effective workout, learn all you can about bodybuilding and how exercises affect your muscles. Knowledge is power when it comes to getting ripped muscles. There is much to learn and most people have no idea how to go about it. Becoming knowledgeable could mean the difference between having a sculpted body at the end of six months and barely being able to see any progress. Sources of information are readily available in books, on the internet, and in weight training courses put together by experts.

4. Proper Form: If you do not use the proper technique while weight training, you will not get results. You could also tear your muscle, which would be unpleasant but even worse; it would delay your muscle building progress. When you lift weights with proper form, you don’t have to worry about injury. Proper technique has a bigger benefit than safety, however, and that is its muscle building power.

Simply lifting a lot of weight is not the answer to building muscle because if the weight is too heavy it causes you to lose your technique. Of course, you always want to progress in the amount of weight you lift, but never do it at the expense of technique.

5. Development: To this maxim, Inch-by-inch life is a synch, something to think about.Take it on board and store this statement into your mind set. Just take one step at a time, and once you have the end result in mind it won’t seem as daunting. Which aim sounds more accessible? 5 pounds in the next four weeks? or trying to build 50 pounds by the end of the year? The 4 weeks option is what appears to be a little easier, hence inch by inch life is synch. I hope this article and it has given you some concepts to think about.

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Bodybuilding Tips, How To Gain Muscle And Avoid The Fat

For most of the bodybuilding population, the eventual goal is nothing less than a strong, muscular physique with impressive, razor-sharp definition.

You want to be huge, and you want to be shredded as well. Because of the strong desire for this “ideal body”, most people eagerly dive into their programs headfirst. Everyone is motivated to bulk up, but at the same time are afraid of putting on excess body fat.

If you want to add a significant amount of muscle to your frame over as short a period of time as you can, you will always end up gaining some extra body fat along with it.

This is just one of the realities of the bodybuilding process. If you’re truly committed to bulking up, there’s no other way around it: It’s a fact you’ll have to accept.

The reason for this is because in order to gain muscle mass, you have to consume a surplus of calories to support the necessary protein synthesis. The difficulty is that there’s no way to ensure that 100% of all these extra calories go towards muscle growth. Some of it will inevitably end up as stored body fat.

As all bodybuilders know, in order to make dramatically change your appearance in the quickest amount of time, the most effective way to do so is to focus on gaining size. For a set period of time, gaining size will be your goal. Only then can your priority shift to focus on losing body fat.

You never want to lose body fat during the bulking phase. You simply want to gain as little as possible.

This can be accomplished in 3 main ways:

1) Use a precise caloric surplus. A caloric surplus is required to fuel muscle growth, but haphazardly cramming more food down your throat beyond what is necessary to build muscle tissue will simply cause you to gain more fat.

Generally speaking, the caloric surplus necessary for supporting muscle growth is approximately 15-20% more calories than you’d eat to maintain your current weight. If you’re already at that level of consumption, you don’t need to go any higher.

2) Pay attention to your food choices. The vast majority of your food intake should be coming from lean, high quality proteins, natural/high fiber carbohydrates and healthy/unsaturated fats.

Instead of thoughtlessly eating every food item at hand, be sure that you’re primarily keeping to lean protein sources. It’s also important to keep your blood sugar levels stable by choosing the right kinds of carbohydrates and avoiding large amounts of saturated fats.

3) Implement cardio sessions. While you don’t have to push yourself too hard, having a few cardio sessions during the week is a good way to minimize fat gains during a bulking cycle.

Stick to exercises of 10-20 minutes of high intensity, as they have less likelihood of muscle loss compared to the longer forms.

Once you’ve gained an amount of muscle size that you’re happy with (and this is totally up to the individual), you can then shift into a fat loss cycle and focus on stripping off body fat while maintaining muscle size.

However, just keep in mind that while bulking up, gaining some body fat is inevitable and the trick is simply to minimize it rather than totally avoid it.

Stop wasting your time, effort and money on B.S. “Miracle Programs” that don’t deliver results! Learn the honest truth revealed by a genuine Body Building expert and finally start noticing the gains you want. Visit us if you want to read more Fitness Articles

How To Improve Your Fitness

Many of us are trying to find convenient ways to get in enough exercise. There are many reasons for wanting to get moving. Whether you want to drop a few pounds or just feel better all the way around, an exercise program is the best bet. However, it is important to start with a beginner workout when you take on this project.

While many of us are pretty active anyway, it is still very important to start things at the, well, start.  A beginner workout may seem a little behind your ability but it is crucial to begin slowly, no matter how active you already are. You may be surprised to find how challenging a beginner workout really is.

Exercise for beginners isn’t necessarily a breeze. There are many things that factor into a successful beginner workout program. First of all, you are more likely to drop out of a regimen that is too strict, too long and just too inconvenient for you to follow. A good beginner workout will start out slowly.

The exercise program for novices should also be time efficient. If you are spending too much time doing a lax beginner workout, you may find that you can’t fit the program into your busy schedule. You also may discover that you are not seeing the results that you should in enough time.

The ideal is a balance. The beginner workout needs to be short, challenging but not overly demanding. This is a delicate balance that is difficult to achieve. This why you should always start out by doing some simple stretching exercises and light walking. The whole approach is easy and you can fit your routine into any schedule.

The walker’s beginner workout consists of five to ten minutes of stretching. Then the participant walks briskly for about 30 minutes. A brisk walk will be challenging but you should be able to hold a conversation while in motion. If you can’t talk, slow down your walk. After your thirty minutes, simply do 5 to 10 minutes of stretching.

Once you get more comfortable with the routine you can begin making this beginner workout a little more challenging. Just add some intervals of intense exercise into the mix. I like to sprint for 30 seconds every five minutes during my 30 minute beginner workout routine.

This homemade exercise routine is just a personal preference. There are plenty of wonderful beginner workout DVDs on the market that offer the same benefits at a comfortable pace.

You can even do these routines without leaving your home. Once you have a basic fitness you can start to think about trying some gym routines to take your fitness to the next level.