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Best Workout for Muscle Growth: The Squat
August 19th, 2010
1 Comment
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Supplements To Gain Muscle – The Cold Hard Truth
January 9th, 2010
1 Comment
Are supplements really necessary to help you gain muscle?
It’s an important thing to think about.
“Do true bodybuilders require supplements to gain muscle? ”
Here’s the truth about this much debated subject.
Given the billion dollar earnings of the supplement industry, supplements to gain muscle might seem like a smart choice, but let’s first question ourselves on what we mean when we say “need”.
The question that naturally comes up is “do we honestly need supplements to gain muscle?”. The answer is actually simple once you try to understand what exactly they are needed for. Let’s go over some various scenarios….
“Do bodybuilders require supplements to gain muscle mass in order to become larger and to increase strength? “
The answer to this questions is…..NO!
Don’t be fooled by all the hype you read in the magazines, your body does not require supplements to gain muscle and build mass.
If you train hard and eat appropriate amounts of protein, carbs, and fats from whole food sources, you can and will see a major increase in your muscle mass and strength.
Supplements to gain muscle are not necessary. Enough said! You can get stronger and bigger without them.
Given this fact, bodybuilders should not use supplements to gain muscle, right?
No.
There is another question to look at….
“Should bodybuilders use supplements to gain muscle mass and strength to truly maximize their muscle and strength gains? ”
What’s the answer? Absolutely!
Even though using supplements to gain muscle mass and strength is not required to get bigger and stronger, they ARE required if you want to maximize your strength and muscle gains. If you choose to take the supplement route, you will surely see more gains as compared to a bodybuilder who chooses to go without supplements, especially if you invest in the correct products and take them in the proper amounts.
It doesn’t make sense not to, considering the hard hours of work and dedication you put in at the gym and at home on your body; why not throw in a few bucks for supplements to gain muscle so you can make the most of your gains?
Only you can answer the question “How much are these muscle gains worth to me? ”
If the cost of a bottle of creatine is worth that extra boost in strength, then go for it! If buying a tub of whey protein can make your eating plan easier to follow, then why not go for it?
So let’s review the question again, “Do bodybuilders really need supplements to gain muscle? ”
A simple and very basic supplement plan is necessary if you’re really serious about getting the most bang-for-your-buck in terms of muscle mass and strength.
I recommend use the following four supplements:.
1) Whey Protein
2) Creatine
3) High-Potency Multivitamin
4) Essential Fatty Acids
These four basic supplements help in strengthening your body, increase your fat burning capability, and add to your lean muscle size. Keep away from worthless supplements that drain your pockets with no results—stick with these basic four that have a proven track record and are worth their weight in gold.
If you follow the advice I’ve given you here you’ll be miles ahead of all those other knuckleheads at the gymn who buy every worthless supplement they get their hands on and get no results. They will be coming to you wondering what your secret is to such fast results!
Want more no-nonsense muscle building tips just like this one?
Check out www.MuscleGainTruth.com for more info. In a bodybuilding world full of hype and over-exaggerations, I blast right through all the lies and give you the honest truth about what’s necessary to gain muscle fast.
Get Rock Solid Muscles By Training Less Often
December 5th, 2009
7 Comments
Most people agree: the more effort you put into something, the better your results will be. This is a well known truth and can be applied to most areas in life.
When you study hard, your grades get better. If you put in the hard work to be a better athlete, you will become a better athlete. You will be a better musician if you invest more time learning to play your chosen instrument.
If you spend more time working out, it’s only natural to conclude you will get rock solid muscles, right?
Although it might seem counter-intuitive, the answer to this is an abosolute NO! Common wisdom doesn’t apply to this aspect of bodybuilding.
I already know what’s going through your mind….
“Say what? Can I really get rock solid muscles by spending fewer hours at the gym?”
YES! This can really help you to get rock solid muscles, and when you look at the muscle-growth process from its core, it becomes clear why this is the case.
All the processes in your body are geared towards keeping you alive and healthy. The human body is a fine-tuned machine designed to adapt to its external environment.
We feel uncomfortable if we need food or water, we get tanned if we get too much sun, our skin gets callused if it is frequently under friction, and so forth.
So what happens in the body when we break down muscle tissue while working out?
If your answer was “you get rock solid muscles”, then congratulations! Bingo.
If you can make your body feel like you have posed a threat to its musculature, your muscles will respond. The body wants to protect you and since it recognizes this as something that could be harmful to you, it will respond by making the muscles increase in size (hypertrophy). If you continue to increase your workload from week to week, your body will get rock solid muscles because it will continue to adapt and grow.
Isn’t that easy?
It is easy to understand, although you must keep in mind that this only works if you give your muscles sufficient recovery time. Muscles cannot grow if they are not given enough time to recover.
You will get rock solid muscles if you workout with the minimum volume that is required to trigger an adaptive response. If you activate your thousand-year-old evolutionary alarm system by pushing yourself beyond your present capacity, you’ve done your job. Adding additional stress to the body only increases the time it takes to recover.
A lot of folks train way too often with more sets than they need, when trying to get rock solid muscles. When you go for high intensity weight training, it is a lot harder on your body than you would think. Unfortunately, the majority of bodybuilders create workout programs that do not help their gains and keep them from making the progress they’re working so hard for.
With these 3 basic guidelines, you can get rock solid muscles:.
1) Only train 3 days per week.
2) It’s important to keep your workout less than 60 minutes.
3) Do 2-4 sets for the small muscle groups (calves, abs, shoulders, biceps, triceps) and 5-7 sets for large muscle groups (thighs, chest, back).
Be sure to take your sets to concentric muscular failure and then keep adding on weights or reps each week. When you are consistent and train with max intensity, working out longer or more often than this will actually be counterproductive to your gains.
Want more no-nonsense muscle building tips just like this one?
Check out www.MuscleGainTruth.com for more info. In a bodybuilding world full of hype and over-exaggerations, I blast right through all the lies and give you the honest truth about what’s necessary to gain muscle fast.
Basic Bodybuilding: Choosing the Right Gym
December 5th, 2009
9 Comments
Now that you’ve decided to begin a bodybuilding program, you need to choose a gym based on your requirements.
This is the most important decision that you will make, because the gym you select can be the difference between success and failure in basic bodybuilding.
1) Location.
Ideally you should choose a gym for basic bodybuilding that is close to your home or one that is on the way to your workplace.
A convenient location will ensure that you can’t make an excuse not to go to the gym.
Avoid selecting a gym that involves a long drive, because you will be less motivated to commute regularly and will end up skipping workouts.
2) Cost.
Basic bodybuilding gym membership plans shouldn’t be very expensive.
Don’t blindly sign any contracts for long-term membership to the gym.
You can even take advantage of some great discounts when it comes to bodybuilding memberships at the end of summer and after New Year’s Day.
See if you can capitalize on special benefits such as trainers, fitness testing, nutritional counseling, massage therapy, physiotherapy, and daycare options.
If you can only work out early in the morning or late in the night, it’s obviously necessary to find out if the basic bodybuilding gym is open during these hours.
3) Demographics.
Take a look at the kind of people that come to your basic bodybuilding fitness center.
Different gyms cater to different types of people, for example, gyms that cater mostly to women tend to focus more on yoga and cardio.
Even a gym that caters mostly to hardcore bodybuilders is not always the best option; although you’ll find the right equipment there, working out with the pros during your basic bodybuilding phase can be a bit intimidating.
Ideally, in addition to having all the necessary equipment for both cardio and weight training, a gym should have an atmosphere that inspires you to workout.
4) Trainers.
During basic bodybuilding, a gym that has qualified trainers is a big advantage.
It is important to learn the right techniques from the beginning so that you have a solid foundation on which to build your dream body.
Never underestimate the importance of qualified trainers at a gym.
Trainers certified in basic bodybuilding are a nice resource that you should not be afraid to utilize.
5) Equipment.
You should also determine the availability and quality of the equipment at the gym.
Are the amount of dumbbells and barbells enough for everyone?
Does the gym have enough weight machines for everyone?
Does the gym have all the cardio equipment such as elliptical trainers, treadmills, stationary bicycles, and stair climbers?
You need to check that your gym is well-stocked with all the equipment that you will use in your basic bodybuilding routine.
6) Hygiene.
Cleanliness and hygiene are critical too.
Given the amount of people who sweat it all out at the gym, it is vital that all the equipment is cleaned regularly.
It’s best if all the equipment is cleaned with a disinfectant every night; the lockers and showering area should be clean too.
You’ll realize the importance of this advice when you have to do your basic bodybuilding exercises on a smelly bench.
Follow the link to find out even more about basic bodybuilding and choosing the right gym…
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 at record speed.
Progressive Overload: Advanced Muscle Growth Technique
November 24th, 2009
5 Comments
Is your body refusing to grow, even after months of serious gym-time?
Try the following technique; it might help your body break out of the rut.
Progressive overload is a technique which is necessary to accelerate muscle growth.
The most important aspect of muscle building is progressively lifting more weight or increasing repetitions every week.
Let me repeat, the only way you can accelerate muscle growth is by systematically and continuously increasing the intensity of your bodybuilding routine.
This is because physical stress and changes in the body’s environment force the muscles to grow.
If the environment doesn’t change, neither will your body, since it doesn’t need to adapt; it’s simple.
For example, your body won’t experience any noticeable muscle gain if you lift the same weight for 3 months, even if it’s squatting 300 pounds for seven reps.
You need to build strength to accelerate muscle growth.
You will only be able to see your muscles grow when you focus on strength gain during every exercise.
This fact can be called a universal law of bodybuilding, and it applies to whatever approach to the sport you take.
There are many bodybuilders, who haven’t figured this law out, and they persist with lifting the same amount of weight, and they get frustrated when they don’t achieve the results they want.
They’re putting in time and effort, without getting the results they should.
By neglecting to keep increasing strength, they can’t accelerate muscle growth.
On the other hand, those who progressively increase the weight they lift, or the number of reps they do, are the same people who easily accelerate muscle growth.
The most important strategy of your bodybuilding workout routine should be to focus on small, gradual increases in the amount of weight you lift and the repetitions you perform.
As a result, your muscles will grow and get stronger.
Unless you challenge your body, it won’t have any reason to grow bigger muscles.
As you can see, without progression, you won’t achieve growth.
Only when you progressively overload your body will you be able to accelerate muscle growth.
Keeping a training diary is the best way to implement a progressive strategy into your workout.
Use the diary to keep track of all exercises, weights, and reps per set.
When you know exactly what you did in your previous session, you can make small improvements in this session.
You should also use your diary to write down your goals.
Writing down your goals means that you take responsibility for meeting them yourself.
These records are also a source of great motivation, as you can see how far you’ve come.
It may not seem like much that you lifted five more pounds this week, but when you can look at many months of progress, you’ll be stunned with how much more you’re lifting and the number of repetitions; moreover, you’ll see how the regular increases have let you accelerate muscle growth.
Check out the website below for more on how to accelerate muscle growth…
If you want to “accelerate your muscle growth” 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.
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Stick to the Basics and Watch You Muscle Gains Explode
October 18th, 2009
5 Comments
By Sean Nalewanyj
Natural Bodybuilding Expert & Best-Selling Fitness Author
www.MuscleGainTruth.com
Let me ask you something…
Have you slapped on at least a solid 15-25 pounds of lean, muscular body weight since you started your muscle building program?
Are you lifting poundages on your squat, deadlift, bench press, row (and every other major compound exercise) that all feel substantially heavy for your body?
Have you gained a minimum of a couple of inches or more to each of your major muscle groups?
Are your clothes starting to feel a little tighter? Are your friends and family commenting on measurable changes in your physique? Are you starting to gain attention as a muscular guy that people wish they could look like?
If you can’t easily answer “yes” to each of the questions I just asked above, then fretting over the smaller details of your physique is just a complete waste of time at this point.
As a well known muscle building author, I’m sent all kinds of emails every single day from aspiring natural bodybuilders around the planet. They’ll ask me questions such as…
“Can you tell me how to target my inner chest?”
“Which exercise is most effective for building up the lower biceps?”
“My rear delts aren’t developing as fast as my front delts. What should I do?”
If you’re still a beginner bodybuilding and don’t already have a significant amount of muscle mass to show for your efforts, I would strongly suggest taking these types of questions and putting them out of your head until you do.
Why?
It’s because focusing onto these small and trivial matters 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 load on as much raw muscle size and strength onto your physique as humanly possible!
That’s right; forget about the little specific details of whether your biceps are as big as your triceps or whether your chest is building as fast as your back. These are issues that you can work out later on, but until you’ve built up your entire body as a whole to a considerable degree, it’s just not worth worrying over.
If you’re still a beginner and have been working out consistently for under a year, then quit obsessing over the details. Rather, put all of your focus on the most basic and obvious issues at hand…
Put yourself onto a sensible, logical weight training schedule and stick to it like super glue.
Write down and keep track of every single workout that you do and place every bit of energy you can summon on adding as much weight to the bar on a consistent basis as you possibly can.
Bore through all of the biggest, toughest compound exercises and explode through those discomfort zones with fire and intensity.
Get you butt in the kitchen and prepare 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 proper water intake, get plenty of proper rest and take your supplements whenever necessary.
To put it simply: PAY YOUR DUES FIRST!
If you’re committed to sticking with it through the long haul (and you should be, because there are no quick fixes to be had here), then put yourself on to the most effective path possible. And the most effective path possible is the one that centers around the fundamentals first and the details later.
This is the mindset 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 challenge that demands consistent willpower and determination. And until you’ve been “in the trenches” and have earned yourself an impressive and muscular body…
Stop over-thinking… Stop obsessing… Stop changing your focus to every single minute issue that comes up…
Just Get into the gym and TRAIN hard!
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.
Don’t EVER Skip A Workout Day…Or Should You??
September 14th, 2009
10 Comments
By Sean Nalewanyj
Natural Bodybuilding Expert & Best-Selling Fitness Author
www.MuscleGainTruth.com
If you desire to be successful at anything in life, discipline and consistency are an absolute must.
You must be ready to work hard week after week, and put forth the necessary effort even on those lazy days when you would much rather not leave home, flop on couch and relax.
There is a common saying that goes “80% of success is showing up”, and for the most part I’d say that is pretty true.
Building and developing muscles is no different.
You must stick like glue to your workout routine and force your butt into the gym even when it’s the last place you want to be at that moment. If you are serious about gaining muscle size and strength as rapidly as possible, you should never, ever skip a workout session…
Or should you?
Here’s the catch…
Sure, consistency is important. Sure, you should be staying true to your workout schedule the great majority of the time. Sure, just bailing out on your workouts out of pure laziness is not acceptable.
However, take a look at a quote from the late Mike Mentzer when he stated… “Rituals have nothing to do with science”.
What you should remember is that the human body is an extraordinarily complex biological “machine”, and that not all workout and recovery periods are the same.
To put it simply, just because your schedule says you are to train on days A, B and C doesn’t necessarily mean that this will be the most beneficial pattern to follow every single week.
If the next training day arrives and your muscles are still aching, you’re physically worn down and your usual motivation to workout feels like it has been nuked… don’t you think your body is maybe attempting to tell you something?
Why would you force yourself to workout in these circumstances where more muscle recovery time is obviously needed, and when you know that your workout performance will fall short of optimal? If your body, muscles and mind are without a doubt still thrashed from the previous training session, does it really make sense to force yourself to workout despite this?
After all, we know that your body’s recovery phase is the ultimate “muscle builder” (the actual biological process of developing additional muscle tissue happens outside of the gym on resting days) and that intense weight lifting is extremely tasking on the body as a whole…
So why would you purposely interfere with the very process that allows your body to take new shape and transform your physique? Why not take an extra day off and come back to the gym as soon as you feel physically and mentally ready to do so?
What possible harm could there be in doing that?
There is no danger of decreasing muscle size or strength, as these decreases take two or more weeks of inactivity to start occuring. Yet, there is the very likely reality of positive muscle gain with proper recovery from the previous training session and increased performance on the following workout.
The basic principle is to simply listen to what you body is telling you.
Rituals truly have nothing to do with science, and if it is clear to you that more rest is needed, then do it.
Don’t force your body into another struggle with the weights until your body is ready to do so. Don’t let your pride get in the way; just because some muscle building “expert” said to you to “never skip a workout” doesn’t mean that it’s always the best thing for you.
However, you do have to apply method with caution…
If you take on the mentality of only training when you “feel like it”, then it’s very likely that you’ll start putting off your training sessions and telling yourself that it’s best to do so when in fact it’s not.
There will be many times when you won’t feel like working out just because of psychological reasons rather than justifiable physical reasons, and that isn’t what I’m talking about here.
I’m simply talking about those days when you are able to sense that from a physical point of view, taking an extra rest day would be the better choice of action.
Simply remember this… there is no long-term danger in taking an extra rest day, but there IS the certain and immediate danger of training your body before first being fully recovered.
When in doubt, take the day off!
Want more no-nonsense muscle building tips just like this one?
Check out www.MuscleGainTruth.com for more info. In a bodybuilding world full of hype and over-exaggerations, I blast right through all the lies and give you the honest truth about what’s necessary to gain muscle fast.
About The Author
Once an unconfident, wimpy “social reject”, Sean Nalewanyj is now a well known natural bodybuilding and fat loss expert, best-selling fitness author, and creator of the insanely popular online muscle grwoth system, “The Muscle Gain Truth No-Fail System”. Learn how to build muscle and gain weight in just 24 minutes a day by visiting: www.MuscleGainTruth.com.
Note to the reader: It is ok to reprint and redistribute this article so long as the content is not changed in any way, the links remain active and the author resource box (including this message) is left intact.
Can You Build Muscle Burn Fat At The Same Time?
September 11th, 2009
1 Comment
http://www.MuscleGainAnswers.com How to minimize fat gains while you build muscle. Burn fat after your bulking phase quickly and easily
Ignore Your Leg Training And All Other Muscle Groups Will Pay the Price
September 10th, 2009
14 Comments
By Sean Nalewanyj
Natural Bodybuilding Expert & Best-Selling Fitness Author
www.MuscleGainTruth.com
Let’s be real; the simple truth is that many lifters in the gym just don’t seem to care
too much about working out and developing their lower body.
I mean, a thick pair of quadriceps aren’t really considered by most people out there to be a “showy” muscle… and I don’t think there’s anybody out there who can recall the last time a girl asked him to “flex his hamstring” for her.
Everybody is so dead set on having a wide, thick upper body that they either forget about or flat-out ignore the other half of their muscles below the waist.
They’ll invent just about any reason know to man to avoid hard and heavy leg training. They’ll spout off responses like “I just run to build my legs”, “squats are bad on my knees”, or some other simular lame reason.
I cannot stress enough how serious a mistake this truthfully is…
Not only does it look silly having a shredded and muscular upper body perched atop a pair of toothpicks-for-legs… but what if I told you that your refusal to put just as much muscle building focus on your lower body was actually limiting the volume of muscle you could gain in your chest, back, arms and shoulders?
You might suspect it was nothing more than a lame trick to get you into the squat rack, but it actually is the truth.
See, most people imagine weight training is a simple cut and dry issue of “train muscle A using exercise B, and muscle A will get larger and stronger”.
This short-sighted view of muscle development is one of the main reasons why most trainees fail to maximize their results in the gym. They end up settling for just average and never obtaining the kind of explosive, massive muscle growth that they are truly capable of.
Here’s the facts…
The muscle building process within the body goes well beyond a basic localized event that happens at the level of the muscle tissue itself!
A large portion of muscle growth also comes about as the complete body as a whole is put under stress and adapts on a holistic level. This is accomplished through the increased production of vital hormones such as testosterone and growth hormone.
These hormones are revered as the “holy grail” of muscle growth, as they are one of the main factors that influences how much muscle any given person can potentially develop. When bodybuilders take anabolic steroids , all they are really doing is increasing the circulation of these hormones.
Now, since you’re a natural trainee and ramming a steroid needle into your butt just isn’t your thing, you’ve got to find other ways of ramping up the production of these muscle-increasing substances.
So you know what is one of the most effective ways to do this?
That’s right…
Hard and heavy leg training!
Squats, leg presses, lunges, stiff-legged deadlifts…
Did you ever notice how intensely difficult and downright gut busting these exercises can be when performed to a high level of intensity?
After getting done with an full on set of these lifts you may find yourself wondering why in the heck you came to the gym in the first place. This is because they involve the biggest muscle groups on your body and permit you to move large amounts of weight.
The truth, however, is that while these leg exercises demand a great deal of mental strength and discipline to hold to, their intense difficulty is one of the key ways to really force your body to increase its anabolic hormone production.
Higher anabolic hormone levels means larger muscle size and strength, not only for your lower body, but for your entire upper body muscles too.
If leg training is not a consistent portion of your workout routine (or if it is portion of your schedule but is just treated as an after-thought), you are missing out on a lot of total body gains that you could otherwise be enjoying.
Seriously, take me up on this offer…
Work in a hard and intense day of leg training into your weekly workout schedule. Focus on the basic compound lifts such as squats, leg presses and stiff-legged deadlifts, and focus on taking yourself to the limit and increasing the weight to the bar each week.
Do this for 4-8 weeks, and then shoot me a line and tell me what you experience.
If you’re like 99% of everyone out there, you’ll notice that your strength on every single upper body exercise went through the ceiling… and that your chest, back, arms and shoulders became visibly larger more muscular as a result.
If you sincerely don’t give a flip about the size of your legs, then fine, I can’t make you do so. However, if not for the benefit of your lower body, then at least incorporate hard and intense leg training for the benefit of your upper body muscles that you want to develop.
It may not seem like it makes sense at first look… but the simple truth is that intense and consistent leg training absolutely is one of the true “secrets” to a large, ripped and muscular upper body!
To learn precisely how to organize an effective leg routine, and to get all the insider secrets for training all of your entire body, be sure to visit www.MuscleGainTruth.com. I explain everything for you in great detail, including complete training routines, video lessons and much more.
About The Author
Once an unconfident, wimpy “social reject”, Sean Nalewanyj is now a well known natural bodybuilding and fat loss expert, best-selling fitness author, and creator of the insanely popular online muscle grwoth system, “The Muscle Gain Truth No-Fail System”. Learn how to build muscle and gain weight in just 24 minutes a day by visiting: www.MuscleGainTruth.com.
Note to the reader: It is ok to reprint and redistribute this article so long as the content is not changed in any way, the links remain active and the author resource box (including this message) is left intact.
