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Neglect Your Leg Training And Every Muscle Group Will Suffer By Sean Nalewanyj
Let’s face it; the honest truth is that a good portion of lifters in the gym just don’t seem to care
I mean, a thick pair of quadriceps aren’t exactly what most people would consider a “showy” muscle... and I don’t think there’s anyone out there who can remember the last time a woman asked him to “flex his hamstring” for her.
Everyone is so hell-bent on having a wide, thick upper body that they either neglect or flat-out ignore the other half of their muscles down below.
They’ll come up with just about any excuse to avoid hard and heavy leg training, citing such responses as “I just run to develop my legs”, “squats are hard on my knees”, or some other bogus reason along those lines.
I cannot even begin to stress how costly a mistake this really is...
Not only does it look ridiculous having a ripped and muscular upper body sitting atop a pair of toothpicks-for-legs... but what if I told you that your refusal to place equal muscle building focus on your lower body was actually limiting the amount of muscle you could gain in your chest, back, arms and shoulders?
You might think it was nothing more than a cheap tactic to get you into the squat rack, but it really is true.
See, most people think of weight training as a simple black and white issue of “train muscle X using exercise Y, and muscle X will become bigger and stronger”.
This limited view of muscle growth is one of the primary reasons why most trainees fail to maximize their results in the gym. They end up settling for mediocrity and never achieving the kind of explosive, monster muscle gains that they are truly capable of.
Here’s the truth…
The muscle building mechanism within the body goes far beyond a simple localized event that happens at the level of the muscle tissue itself!
A great deal of muscle growth also results as the entire body as a whole is placed under stress and adapts on a holistic level. This is achieved through the increased secretion of important hormones such as testosterone and growth hormone.
These hormones are considered the “holy grail” of muscle growth, as they are one of the primary limiting factors that determines how much muscle any given individual can ultimately gain. When bodybuilders inject anabolic steroids into their bodies, all they are really doing is increasing the circulation of these important substances.
Now, because you’re a natural trainee and jamming a roid-filled needle into your butt just isn’t your style, you’ve got to find other methods of speeding up the production of these muscle-increasing compounds.
And what is one of the most effective ways to do this?
You guessed it…
Hard and heavy leg training!
Squats, leg presses, lunges, stiff-legged deadlifts…
Did you ever notice how incredibly challenging and downright gut wrenching these exercises can be when performed to a high level of intensity?
After finishing an all out set of these lifts you may find yourself wishing that you hadn’t come to the gym in the first place. This is because they involve the largest muscle groups on your body and allow you to move massive amounts of weight.
The reality, however, is that while these leg exercises require a lot of mental toughness and willpower to stick to, their intense difficulty is one of the key ways to really force your body to rev up its anabolic hormone production.
Greater anabolic hormone levels means greater muscle size and strength, not only for your lower body, but for your entire upper body as well.
What this means is that if leg training is not a regular part of your workout schedule (or if it is part of your schedule but is simply treated as an after-thought), you are missing out on significant total body gains that you could otherwise be achieving.
Really, take me up on this offer…
Incorporate a hard and intense day of leg training into your weekly workout schedule. Include the most basic compound lifts such as squats, leg presses and stiff-legged deadlifts, and focus on pushing yourself to the limit and adding more weight to the bar each week.
Try this out for 4-8 weeks, and then come back and tell me what you notice.
If you’re like 99% of the population, you’ll report that your strength on every single upper body exercise shot through the roof... and that your chest, back, arms and shoulders became noticeably thicker and more muscular as a result.
If you truly don’t care about the size of your legs, then fine, I can’t force you to do so. However, if not for the sake of your lower body, then at least include hard and intense leg training for the sake of those upper body muscles that you care so much about.
It may not seem logical at first glance... but the plain reality is that intense and consistent leg training really is one of the true “secrets” to a massive, ripped and strong upper body!
To learn exactly how to structure an effective leg workout, and to get all the insider tips for training all of your other major muscle groups, make sure to check out www.MuscleGainTruth.com. I lay everything out for you in step-by-step detail, including full training routines, video lessons and more.
Discover the 1 powerful secret to rapid muscle gains by visiting: www.MuscleGainTruth.com.
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Resource by Anonymous at 2010-09-12 13:09:50, Source: (Edit )
You Should NEVER Skip A Workout... Or Should You? By Sean Nalewanyj
You’ve got to be willing to work hard week in and week out, and put forth the effort even on those days when you’d rather stay at home, lie on the couch and relax.
The saying says that “80% of success is showing up”, and for the most part I’d say that’s true.
Building muscle is no different.
You’ve got to stay tight to your workout schedule and get yourself into the gym even when it’s the last thing on your mind. If you want to gain muscle size and strength as quickly as possible, you should never, ever miss a workout…
Or should you?
Here’s the thing…
Yes, consistency is important. Yes, you should be sticking to your workout schedule the vast majority of the time. Yes, simply bailing on the gym out of pure laziness is not acceptable.
However, I would like to bring up a quote from the late Mike Mentzer when he said… “Rituals have nothing to do with science”.
What you need to keep in mind is that the human body is an extremely complex biological “machine”, and that not every single workout and recovery period is identical.
In other words, just because your schedule states that you must train on days X, Y and Z doesn’t necessarily mean that this will always be the optimal pattern every single week of the year.
If you wake up on a training day and your muscles still ache, you feel physically tired and your regular motivation to train just feels like it has been zapped... don’t you think your body just might be trying to tell you something?
Why would you force yourself to train in a situation where more recovery time is clearly needed, and when you know that your training performance will be less than optimal? If your body, muscles and mind are clearly still reeling from the previous session, what sense does it make to force yourself to train despite this?
After all, we know that the recovery phase is the ultimate “muscle builder” (the actual process of adding new muscle tissue occurs out of the gym on resting days) and that intense weight training is extremely demanding on the body as a whole…
So why would you deliberately interfere with the very process that transforms your physique in the first place? Why not take an extra 24 hours off and re-enter the gym once you feel physically and mentally ready to do so?
What harm could there possibly be in that?
There is no threat of losing muscle size or strength, as these decreases require 2 or more weeks of inactivity to be set into motion. Yet, there is the perfectly likely reality of a positive gain in the form of proper recovery from the previous workout and improved performance on the following workout.
The underlying key is to listen to your body.
Rituals truly do not have anything to do with science, and if it feels obvious to you that additional rest is needed, take it.
Don’t force your body into another battle with the weights if it clearly is not ready to do so. Don’t let your ego get in the way; just because some muscle building guru told you to “never skip a workout” doesn’t mean that it’s always the best approach.
You do have to use this method with caution, though...
If you develop the mindset of only training when you “feel like it”, then it’s likely that you’ll start delaying your workouts and convincing yourself that it’s correct to do so when in fact it is not.
There are plenty of times when you won’t feel like training purely for psychological reasons rather than concrete physical reasons, and that’s not what I’m talking about here.
I’m simply talking about those days where you are able to sense that from a physical standpoint, taking an extra day of rest would be the better course of action.
Just remember... there is no long-term harm in taking an extra day of rest, but there IS the very real and immediate harm of training your body without being fully recovered first.
If in doubt, take the day off!
Want more no B.S muscle-building strategies just like this one?
Check out www.MuscleGainTruth.com for more info. In a bodybuilding world full of marketing hype and exaggerations, I cut straight through the lies and give you the no-nonsense truth about what it takes to gain muscle fast.
Discover the 1 powerful secret to rapid muscle gains by visiting: www.MuscleGainTruth.com.
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Resource by Anonymous at 2010-09-12 13:09:12, Source: (Edit )
Bodybuilding Beginners: Build Your Foundation First! By Sean Nalewanyj
Have you packed on at least a good 15-25 pounds of clean, muscular body weight since you began your muscle building program?
Are you moving poundages on your squat, deadlift, bench press, row (and every other major compound exercise) that all feel substantially heavy for your body?
Have you added at least a couple of inches or more to all of your major muscle groups?
Are your clothes fitting significantly tighter? Are your friends and family noticing measurable changes in your physique? Are you generally beginning to gain a reputation as a muscular guy that people aspire to look like?
If you didn’t easily answer “yes” to all of the questions I just outlined above, then worrying about the smaller details of your physique is quite simply a waste of time at this point.
As a well known muscle building author, I receive all sorts of emails every single day from aspiring natural bodybuilders around the world. They’ll ask me questions such as…
“What can I do to target my inner chest?”
If you’re still in your bodybuilding “youth” and don’t already have a considerable amount of muscle mass to show for your efforts, I would strongly suggest taking these types of questions and eliminating them from your mind until you do.
Why?
It’s because diverting your focus onto these small and trivial issues will only serve to distract you from the most important and immediate task at hand.
And what is the most important and immediate task a hand?
It is to pack as much raw muscle size and strength onto your frame as humanly possible!
That’s right; forget about the nitty-gritty details of whether your biceps match your triceps or whether your chest is on par with your back. These are issues that you can worry about later on, but until you’ve thickened up your entire body as a whole to a significant degree, it’s simply not worth worrying about.
If you’re still a beginner and have been training consistently for less than a year, then stop obsessing over the details. Instead, place all of your focus on the most basic and obvious issues at hand…
Get yourself onto a sensible, rational weight training schedule and stick to it religiously.
Write down every single workout that you perform and place every ounce of energy you can muster on adding as much weight to the bar on a consistent basis as you possibly can.
Grind out all of the biggest, most difficult compound exercises and blast through those discomfort zones with passion and intensity.
Get yourself into the kitchen and pack in at least 5 or 6 properly balanced muscle building meals every day of the week, every week of the month and every month of the year.
Drink your water, get your rest and take your supplements whenever necessary.
In other words: PAY YOUR DUES FIRST!
If you’re in this for the long haul (and you should be, as there are no temporary fixes to be had here), then get yourself on to the most efficient path possible. And the most efficient path possible is the one that focuses on the fundamentals first and the details later.
This is the mentality you need to bring to your bodybuilding program. Just as you wouldn’t attempt a complex guitar solo without learning basic chord shapes first, you also should not attempt to fine-tune and balance out your physique until you have a considerable amount of foundational muscle to work with first.
Building muscle is not rocket-science, but it is a task that requires consistent willpower and determination. And until you’ve been “in the trenches” and have earned yourself an impressive and muscular body...
Stop over-analyzing... Stop obsessing... Stop spreading out your focus onto every single minute issue that pops up…
Get into the gym and TRAIN!
If you want to "build your foundation" in the fastest and most efficient manner possible, make sure to visit www.MuscleGainTruth.com. You can gain instant access to my renowned "Muscle Gain Truth No-Fail System" and get all the tools you need to start building your dream body in record speed.
Discover the 1 powerful secret to rapid muscle gains by visiting: www.MuscleGainTruth.com.
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Resource by Anonymous at 2010-09-12 13:09:11, Source: (Edit )
If You’ve Hit A Training Plateau, Read This By Sean Nalewanyj
Our training programs are running smoothly, and with each week that passes we’re successfully adding more weight to the bar, more pounds to the scale and more muscle size and thickness to our bodies.
Then, all of a sudden and without warning, those gains come to a screeching halt and our muscle building and strength gaining progress is stopped dead in its tracks.
In the bodybuilding world, this is referred to as a “plateau”.
The very idea of this would send shivers up the spine of any serious trainee, as this plateau essentially means that despite our best efforts in the gym and in the kitchen, no additional progress can be made.
What does a typical lifter do in response to this?
They immediately begin haphazardly switching up their training routine in an effort to “shock” their muscles into new growth... They change their exercises and rep ranges... And they implement new “advanced techniques” such as forced reps, negatives and static holds in an effort to break through the plateau into new levels of growth.
STOP!
While exercise variety can sometimes be a reasonable option here, these plateaus exist as a result of far more fundamental reasons. They usually have nothing to do with the repeated use of the same workout.
In the majority of cases, training plateaus are simply the result of overtraining.
All we have to do is review some basic physiology in order to see why this is the case…
When we train intensely in the gym, we are damaging our muscles. Each set that we perform digs a “hole” into the body’s recovery ability. When we leave the gym, the body then uses rest and nutrients in order to rebuild the damaged muscle and to fill up this hole.
Once the muscles have been remodeled back to their previous state, the body will then compensate by building additional muscle mass as an adaptive response to the stress.
So far, so good, right?
Here’s the critical factor that you need to keep in mind…
As you become stronger and add more and more weight to the bar on your exercises, the overall stress and resulting “hole” that is dug into the body’s recovery ability continually increases.
The advanced lifter who is bench pressing 300 pounds for 6 reps is placing his muscles and body under far more overall stress than the beginner who is benching 125 pounds.
What does this have to do with plateaus?
Everything!
If you are consistently adding more weight to the bar and pushing your body to higher and higher levels of stress each week, you MUST compensate for the increase in stress by reducing your training volume and frequency.
If the stress from each individual set is constantly on the upward climb yet you are still performing the same number of sets and training days, your body will inevitably be pushed beyond its ability to properly recover in between workouts.
Improper recovery means that the muscle is not given an adequate amount of time to remodel and to increase its size and strength further.
This is why your gains slow down and eventually stop; it’s because every time your body is about to compensate by increasing the size and strength of the muscles, you interrupt the process by placing them under more stress and digging a new hole into recovery.
If the hole never gets filled, you never progress forward, and you keep yourself on the plateau.
How crystal clear and obvious is that?
As you become more advanced, you must train less often and with fewer sets!
Training intensity and volume are DIRECTLY related, and are part of a balanced equation that determines your progress. As one variable increases, the other MUST decrease.
So to all of you out there who are “stuck” on this weight training plateau…
Regulate your volume and frequency!
Decrease the number of sets that you perform for each muscle group slightly, and consider
If by doing this you begin coming back to the gym stronger than you were before, you'll know for sure that you were previously overtraining.
A slight reduction in volume and frequency is usually all that is needed in order to make steady, uninterrupted progress in muscle size and strength.
Instead of panicking and reaching for the latest Muscle Mag for a new "ground breaking" routine, simply understand that the body has a finite amount of recovery ability and that as you grow stronger, you use up more of it on each individual set.
Reduce the volume slightly, consider inserting an additional rest day, and that is most likely all you’ll need to blast yourself through the plateau and into a new phase of growth.
If you found this article helpful, make sure to visit me at www.MuscleGainTruth.com for more highly effective muscle-building tips and tricks. If you want to build muscle fast, then you can't be making mistakes that will sabotage your efforts.
Discover the 1 powerful secret to rapid muscle gains by visiting: www.MuscleGainTruth.com.
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Resource by Anonymous at 2010-09-12 13:09:46, Source: (Edit )
4 Reasons Why Sleep Deprivation Will Inhibit Your Muscle Gains It may seem like a trivial issue that could be easily overlooked, but giving your body a proper sleep every night really is an important step in setting the wheels for maximum muscle growth into motion.
If you really want to see the most dramatic changes in your body over the shortest period of time possible, a restful, quality sleep every single night is a must.
What makes a proper sleep so important?
Well, let’s simply take a look at what happens when you DON’T get a proper sleep each night…
One of the biggest problems with sleep deprivation is the effect that it will have on your mental state. Studies have shown that just a single night with insufficient rest will have a significant negative impact on your mental focus and willingness to perform difficult tasks.
Putting forth an all-out effort every time you enter the gym is one of the primary keys to building muscle fast, and in order to do so you must remain mentally sharp at all times.
Not only will sleep deprivation have a negative impact on your state of mind, but it will also have physical consequences as well. Without a proper sleep, your strength levels will decrease and you'll end up using less weight and/or performing fewer reps than you would normally be capable of.
Your bottom line muscle gains are ultimately determined by the steady increases in poundage that you are able to make on all of your exercises, and keeping your strength at top levels is critical in achieving this as quickly as possible.
As you are probably already aware, your muscles do not actually grow while you are IN the gym. Rather, they grow while you are OUT of the gym eating and resting.
The time that you spend sleeping is one of the primary periods where the recovery and remodeling of damaged muscle tissue takes place. Not only do your muscles require recovery time, but your central nervous system, joints and immune system need rest too.
Depriving your body of sleep will have a negative impact on some of the most important muscle building and fat burning hormones circulating in your body. I’m talking specifically about cortisol, testosterone, growth hormone and insulin.
Simply put, sleep deprivation has a negative impact on every single one of them...
a) Cortisol - A catabolic stress hormone that increases abdominal fat storage and stimulates the breakdown of muscle tissue for use as energy.
Studies have shown that insufficient sleep will cause the body to release higher amounts of this hormone.
b) Testosterone - The most important hormone when it comes to building muscle. The higher your levels of testosterone, the more muscle you can build.
Sleep deprivation measurably lowers testosterone levels.
c) Growth Hormone - Regenerates the body and plays a large role in building and maintaining muscle.
The time that you sleep is also the time when your body experiences a natural surge in growth hormone levels. If you fail to get a proper rest at night this hormonal surge will be compromised.
d) Insulin - Responsible for the uptake of important nutrients into your body cells.
Sleep deprivation can result in an increase in your body's insulin resistance levels. This means that your body will have to release higher-than-normal amounts of this hormone to compensate. This can lead to excess fat storage, diabetes or heart disease.
As with most things, it’s certainly an individual factor and varies from person to person. As a general guideline though, I would recommend that everyone out there strive to get a minimum of 8 hours of sleep every single night. If you feel that you require more than that, sleep for 9 hours or for even longer if you need to.
The bottom line is to get enough sleep each night so that you feel 100% rested and energized throughout the day. If you regularly feel fatigued and sluggish, then increasing your sleeping time is a must.
In terms of building muscle size and strength, proper amounts of sleep will:
- Increase your mental focus and energy
That should be plenty of incentive right there to start paying close attention to how much sleep you’re getting each night.
See you in the morning!
Make sure to visit www.MuscleGainTruth.com for more winning muscle-building and fat loss strategies that you can begin incorporating into your program right away. You'll have the chance to instantly access my award-winning natural bodybuilding program, "The Muscle Gain Truth No-Fail System", and sign up for my free 8-part muscle building email course.
Discover the 1 powerful secret to rapid muscle gains by visiting: www.MuscleGainTruth.com.
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Resource by Anonymous at 2010-09-12 13:09:49, Source: (Edit )
Quick & Easy Tips For Building Each Major Muscle Group With so much hyped up information and bogus "breakthrough" exercise methods popping up all the time, most lifters seem to have lost sight of the basics.
While the basics may not be as flashy and exciting as what most of the "other guys" out there promote, they'll pack raw muscle size and strength on to your body faster than any other method you'll come across.
In this article I am simply going to list each major muscle group on the body, along with some basic tips for building that muscle as quickly and efficiently as possible. Nothing "revolutionary" or "innovative" here... Just the bare-bones truth about building muscle fast.
Let’s get right to it…
Chest
If you want to get the most bang for your buck and develop your chest as quickly as possible, then forget about flye movements such as the pec-deck, dumbbell flyes or cable crossovers. Instead, place all of your focus on the big basic pressing exercises such as barbell presses, dumbbell presses and wide-grip dips.
If you want to include a few flye movements here and there at the end of your chest workout then that’s fine, but your primary focus should be on consistently increasing the poundage on all of your compound pressing exercises.
Use bent-legged barbell deadlifts as your primary back-developing exercise. There is simply no other lift out there that will pack more raw muscle size and strength onto your back and your entire body than the basic barbell deadlift.
It is extremely challenging and uncomfortable to perform, but the rewards are well worth it. It will work you from finger to neck to toe, and if you haven’t been deadlifting up to this point, be prepared for some serious gains once you start.
Laterals raises are fine to include to isolate the medial head of the shoulder, but the meat and potatoes of any effective shoulder training routine is based on a compound overhead press.
Either perform a standing or seated military press with a barbell, or an overhead press using dumbbells. This should be the first exercise in your shoulder routine, with side laterals being performed at the end.
The front and rear heads of the shoulder receive plenty of stimulation during your chest and back exercises and therefore do not need to be specifically isolated.
Cut down on your training volume and understand that the majority of your bicep growth is actually a product of hard and intense back training. Heavy chin-ups, pulldowns and rows all provide plenty of stimulation for the biceps, and direct curling movements are far less important than most people think.
Including a few sets of direct bicep work is still recommended, but going too far overboard can easily over train them and will actually slow down your bicep growth rather than speed it up.
The same thing goes for triceps as well. Any time you perform a compound chest pressing exercise or an overhead shoulder press, your triceps will be heavily stimulated. Because of this, performing direct tricep isolation exercises should be done so cautiously and with only a small number of sets to prevent over-working them.
Since spot reduction is impossible and you cannot target fat loss from specific areas of the body, stop placing so much emphasis on the idea of achieving “6-pack abs” through the use of direct abdominal exercises.
Attaining defined and sculpted abs is mostly a product of your bottom line body fat percentage, and has very little to do with specific training techniques. Include a few sets of direct ab work for the sake of strengthening your core and building up the abdominal muscles themselves, but performing endless sets of situps and crunches is nothing more than a waste of time.
If you aren’t performing a basic barbell squat as the cornerstone of your leg training routine, you’re missing out big time!
Squats are by far the most effective lower body exercise in existence, and by a good margin. Not only do squats provide serious stimulation for the muscles of the legs, but because they force the body to secrete greater amounts of powerful anabolic hormones (such as testosterone and growth hormone) they will increase your upper body size as well.
As the saying goes, “you ain’t squat ‘till you squat!”
Leg curls should be included in your hamstring training routine, but the real secret to a massive set of “leg biceps” is the stiff-legged deadlift.
You can perform SLDL’s using a barbell or dumbbells, and not only will they pack size onto your hamstrings faster than any other lift out there, but they will strengthen your lower back and add size to your upper back as well.
If you really want those stubborn calves to respond, then stop worrying so much about “feeling the burn”, and instead focus on truly training your calves to the point of muscular failure.
Rather than slapping on an arbitrary amount of weight and pumping out 20-30 reps until it starts to hurt, load up as much weight as you can possibly handle for 8-12 high quality reps. Execute each rep in a slow and deliberate manner, squeezing at the top and using a full range of motion until you cannot perform another rep despite your best efforts to do so.
www.MuscleGainTruth.com . You can instantly download my exclusive collection of online muscle-building video lessons, as well as gain access to my award-winning workout plans, meal plans, progress tracking tools and more.
Discover the 1 powerful secret to rapid muscle gains by visiting: www.MuscleGainTruth.com .
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Resource by Anonymous at 2010-09-12 13:09:16, Source: (Edit )
Is It Possible To Gain Muscle Without Gaining Fat? If you’re like 99% of the bodybuilding population out there, your ultimate goal is simple: an impressively muscular physique with razor-sharp definition to match.
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. They don’t want the results to come slowly and gradually; they want to get from point A to point B as quickly as they possibly can and with as little work as is needed. Everyone is motivated to bulk up, but at the same time are afraid of putting on excess body fat.
Let me clear this up right here…
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 simply the nature of the entire process and if you really want to travel a significant way in the “bulking” direction, you have to be willing to accept this.
In order to gain muscle size, you must consume a surplus of calories in order to support protein synthesis. However, there is no way to divert 100% of this caloric surplus towards muscle growth. A certain amount of it will always end up as stored body fat.
If you want to make dramatic changes to your appearance over the shortest period of time, it is always best to focus on gaining size for a set period of time, followed by focusing on losing body fat for a set period of time.
Since your levels of muscle mass play such a large role in determining your basal metabolic rate, it will always be far easier to melt off body fat once you’ve built up your muscle size to a significant degree. This is why beginning with a bulking phase is almost always the most efficient route.
Based on what we’ve covered so far, the goal of a bulking phase is simple: build as much muscle size as possible while minimizing body fat gains. Your goal during a bulking phase is never to LOSE body fat; it’s only to gain as little as possible.
This can be accomplished in 3 main ways…
There exists such a thing as “optimal nutrition”, but there is no such thing as “super nutrition”. 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.
The generally accepted caloric surplus for supporting muscle growth is 15-20% more calories than is needed to maintain your weight. If you are consuming a caloric amount within this range, there is no need to go any higher.
The vast majority of your food intake should be coming from lean, high quality proteins, natural/high fiber carbohydrates and healthy/unsaturated fats.
Rather than aimlessly chowing down on every food item in sight, make sure that you’re sticking to lean protein sources, keeping blood sugar levels stable through proper carbohydrate choices, and avoiding high amounts of saturated fats.
There’s no need to go overboard here, but implementing 2-3 cardio sessions throughout the week is another way to cut down on fat gains during a bulking cycle. Stick to high intensity/low duration forms in the range of 10-20 minutes, as these types of sessions do not cause the same degree of muscle loss as longer duration forms do.
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.
To learn exactly how to structure a proper weight training and nutritional plan that will maximize your muscle gains while keeping your body fat levels under control, visit www.MuscleGainTruth.com.
Discover the 1 powerful secret to rapid muscle gains by visiting: www.MuscleGainTruth.com.
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Resource by Anonymous at 2010-09-12 13:09:13, Source: (Edit )
Want More Muscle? Add More Weight To The Bar! It can’t really be that simple, can it?
With the endless articles, fancy techniques, contradictory debates, special breakthrough methods and lineups of self-proclaimed “muscle building gurus” all claiming to hold the secrets to massive growth in minimum time…
It can’t ALL be pointing to this one ultimate truth, can it?
Yes, there are many subtleties and details that make up a winning muscle building workout plan... But the simple fact of the matter is that consistently adding more weight to the bar over time REALLY IS the bottom line goal of any effective training routine.
Take all of the most basic compound exercises (such as squats, deadlifts, bench presses, rows, chin-ups, dips and overhead presses), focus on increasing your poundages as quickly as possible... and that ALONE will yield the greatest muscle building effect from your entire workout plan possible.
Add a good 150 pounds to your deadlift, 125 pounds to your squat and 100 pounds to your bench press, and I guarantee that as long as your nutrition plan is properly in place, you’ll come back significantly bigger, thicker and more muscular than you’ve ever been in your entire life.
But “they” don’t want to admit it…
All of the other “experts” out there don’t want to tell you that lifting heavier weights is the key to dramatic progress. It's either because they simply don’t know it themselves, or because they’d rather sell you some gimmicky approach based on a new “revolutionary discovery” to put more money in their pockets.
They’d rather have you prancing around the gym like a ballerina... carefully balancing yourself on a swiss ball... performing ridiculous “innovative” exercises... super-setting from lift to lift... “feeling the burn”... focusing on isolation movements... and making use of all kinds of other inefficient methods rather than simply having you place your focus on the core heartbeat that makes any intelligently structured bodybuilding program tick…
And that core heartbeat is consistent progression in weight and reps.
It always has been, and it always will be.
The bottom line is simple…
1) Stimulate an adaptive response from the muscles by training intensely with basic compound exercises.
2) Recover.
3) Do it again, but with greater resistance or additional repetitions.
If you are able to do this week in and week out and are continually coming back to the gym stronger than you were before, you are on the right path. If your strength is stagnant and you aren’t able to progress every single week, you are on the wrong path.
Let me ask you…
How often do you see a guy with skinny legs squatting 400 pounds?
How often do you see a trainee with an unimpressive back and shoulders deadlifting 500 pounds?
What about a lifter with an under-developed chest and triceps cleanly bench pressing 300 pounds?
Almost never.
And why?
It’s because size and strength ARE directly related, and because the bodybuilder who is moving the largest amounts of weight in proper form (and with an effective nutrition plan) will almost always be the biggest guy at the gym.
It’s really that simple.
Yes, there are plenty of other details to implement into your plan if you want the greatest results possible... but when it comes to your workouts at the gym, consistently lifting heavier weights must always be your primary goal.
If you want hype, fluff and filler, then be my guest and follow some fancy “breakthrough” workout plan illogically slapped together by some no-name "expert" without a clue…
But if you want serious, explosive, no B.S muscle building results that will thicken up your entire body and turn you into a powerful mass of muscle as quickly and efficiently as possible, then get back to basics.
Begin performing all of the most basic and challenging compound exercises... execute them with a high level of intensity... write down what you do each week... and place 100% of your focus on “beating the logbook” from workout to workout by adding more weight to the bar and performing more reps.
If you’re able to do this consistently from workout to workout, that powerful and muscular body will be yours before you know it.
If you want to learn the exact step-by-step details of structuring an optimal muscle building workout plan, go ahead and visit www.MuscleGainTruth.com for details. You can instantly download my highly popular natural bodybuilding program, "The Muscle Gain Truth No-Fail System" and can also subscribe to my free 8-part muscle building email course.
Discover the 1 powerful secret to rapid muscle gains by visiting: www.MuscleGainTruth.com.
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Resource by Anonymous at 2010-09-12 13:09:55, Source: (Edit )
Wimp Out In The Gym And Your Gains Will Be Gone In 60 Seconds The margin of time that determines muscle building success or failure in the gym is a heck of a lot shorter than you might think.
Just as fraction-of-a-second moments during a 100 metre dash will make or break a sprinter's race, fraction-of-a-second moments will also make or break your body's muscle growth response in the gym.
In fact, your entire margin of success in the gym can ultimately be reduced to just a short time span of 60 seconds. That's correct, how you choose to handle a short 60 second time period during your workouts will translate to either poor, mediocre or significant muscle building results.
Although each entire workout will last for about an hour, only 60 seconds of that actual time will determine what kind of gains you achieve.
You may be scratching your head right now and wondering what the heck I'm talking about, but allow me to explain…
You see, every individual set that you perform in the gym is ultimately being performed for the benefits that will be achieved on the last 1-2 reps.
Muscles respond to stress, and the only truly stressful reps that actually trigger your body's muscle building mechanisms are those at the end of each set when the body is on the brink of muscular failure.
If a given set consists of 6 reps, then reps 1-4 are only performed in order to get to reps 5 and 6. Reps 1-4 will do very little in terms of stimulating muscular growth, but are necessary to perform in order to overload the muscles on reps 5 and 6.
In other words, it is only the very last 1-2 reps that will ultimately yield a muscle building response from the body. The longer you can push yourself to battle the weights during this small time frame at the end of each set, the greater results you will achieve.
Any of you who have read my articles know that I'm a big advocate of training to muscular failure. There is simply no better way to trigger your body's adaptive responses than to train until your muscles cannot move the weight another inch.
The closer and closer that you can come to muscular failure, the more dramatically your body will respond. This time frame is literally measured in single seconds. If you drop the weights 5-6 seconds earlier than the next guy (the margin is probably even smaller than this), you'll be significantly sacrificing your muscle growth.
So, where did the 60-second time frame come from?
Well, if we assume that you perform 10 total all out sets per workout and have a margin of 6 seconds between success/failure per set, this gives you 60 seconds of total time per workout to either battle through with full effort or to surrender and settle for mediocre results.
It really is true; your bodybuilding success is literally measured by the short, precise moments at the very end of each set and the amount of effort you are willing to exert during this time.
If you can force yourself to train to all out muscular failure, you'll achieve the best results possible. If you drop the weight 3 seconds before muscular failure, your growth will be compromised. If you drop the weight 8 seconds before muscular failure, your growth will be compromised even further.
If we multiply our 60-second figure by my recommended number of 3 workouts per week, this means that your bodybuilding success in the gym will literally be measured by how you choose to handle one short 3 minute long period per week.
I bet you never thought of it this way before!
You must train hard and with full effort at all times. When the weight feels heavy and your muscles ache and burn with discomfort, you must push through and continue until true muscular failure is reached.
If you stop short, even a second short, your gains will be compromised.
Keep this in mind at all times in the gym and you'll experience better results than ever before.
If you want to learn some awesome psychological techniques for breaking through the pain barrier and “mentally numbing” the discomfort associated with hard training, make sure to visit www.MuscleGainTruth.com for details.
Discover the 1 powerful secret to rapid muscle gains by visiting: www.MuscleGainTruth.com.
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Resource by Anonymous at 2010-09-12 14:09:19, Source: (Edit )
Why Inadequate Rest Between Sets Will Murder Your Muscle Gains Bobby finishes a hard, focused set of barbell squats and re-racks the weight. His legs are wobbly, his heart is racing and he feels light headed as he takes a big swig from his water bottle. He looks down at his watch and presses the “start” button to begin counting down backwards from 2 minutes.
Bobby read that 2 minutes is the ideal rest time between sets in the gym, and he wants to get it exact. Once that watch beeps at the 2 minute mark, he'll be back in the squat rack to perform another set.
He stands up tall and paces around trying to catch his breath in preparation for his next battle with the weights.
*Beep*
2 minutes is up. His legs still feel weak, his heart still beats frantically and he doesn't quite feel 100%, but that watch beeped and that means his time is up. He must perform his next set regardless of how he feels.
He unracks the weight and squats down. His legs still burn and he wishes that he could have had more time to prepare for this set. He puts forth a mediocre effort, re-racks the bar, and sets his watch for another 2 minutes.
Bobby, just like a ton of other aspiring lifters in the gym, is making a deadly, critical mistake.
By having a set rest interval between sets, he is forcing his body to train at an effort level that is far less than his maximum potential and is severely sacrificing the amount of muscle growth he can ultimately stimulate because of this.
Muscles grow because of an adaptive response to stress. You lift X amount of weight for Y number of reps, and your body adapts to this level of stress. In order to see continual gains in muscle size, you must continually force X and Y to higher and higher levels.
In other words, building muscle is all about progression in both weight and reps. It is about lifting as much weight as you possibly can for the greatest number of reps that you possibly can (within a given rep range of course) and then continually striving to improve.
Because of this, you must always go into every single set of every single workout at your maximum strength potential. By sacrificing the amount of weight you can lift, you sacrifice the amount of muscle you can build. And there is no worse way to make this sacrifice than by not providing your body with enough rest between sets.
Throw out your stopwatch and forget about looking at the clock.
You should only begin your next set when you feel that you can perform it with 100% of your strength potential. A stopwatch cannot tell you when that time has arrived; only you can by listening to your body and relying on your own instincts.
The set rest period theory is also highly flawed because it does not take into account the fact that certain exercises tax the body much more heavily than others and therefore require more rest between them.
A deadlift and a tricep pressdown aren't exactly in the same boat here. After a heavy set of deadlifts to failure I'll usually be resting for at least 5 minutes, often even more. A set of tricep pressdowns is obviously not as taxing and may only require a rest period of 2.5 minutes for me to feel fully recovered.
Go on your instincts and only perform your next set when you feel that you can do so with 100% of your strength. Implementing just this one training technique can have a drastic effect on your muscle size and strength gains.
What about proper rep ranges? Workout length? Exercise selection and layout? For more details on proper workout structure make sure to visit www.MuscleGainTruth.com. Most people are dead-wrong in the way that they perform their workouts, and I can help you to clear up the confusion once and for all.
Discover the 1 powerful secret to rapid muscle gains by visiting: www.MuscleGainTruth.com.
Note to the reader: You are free to reprint and redistribute this article as long as the content is not altered in any way, the links remain live and the author resource box (including this message) is left intact.
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Resource by Anonymous at 2010-09-12 14:09:02, Source: (Edit )
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