Saturday, June 11, 2011

Here's a Quick Way To Pack on Pounds With These Muscle Gain Tips


The science behind gaining muscle mass is no science at all. All you need to do is throw a ton of weight and eat a ton of grub, and sleep like a lion.
Muscle gain is achieved through a caloric increase of at least 500 calories above your normal intake and eating at least one gram of protein per body weight, an increase in the amount of stress you apply to your muscles and adequate recovery (sleep).
Let's break this down shall we:
1. You should be eating 5-6 small meals per day. These meals should consist mainly of lean protein, low glycemic-index carbs and veggies. Protein shakes are an excellent post-workout way to gain muscle. After a strenuous workout, your muscles are starving for nutrients. I would avoid whole foods post-workout, because they digest too slowly to be rapidly absorbed by those screaming muscle fibers.
2. You should stick mainly to exercises that utilize large muscle groups: deadlifts, squats, bench press, pull-ups and presses. I don't want to see you doing forearm concentration curls and wondering why you aren't huge yet! I would stick to lower body one session, then upper body the next. The hormone release of large, whole body movements is what you are after. Every few weeks I want you to "switch it up". Change your rep speed, rest period between sets and exercise choices. One final thought is: Less is more! Stick to 12 sets per muscle group and a range of 4-8 reps per set. Use slow and concentrated reps and squeeze out each rep. You want to set those muscle fibers on fire. I'm going to throw in the importance of stretching in this section. A tight muscle is a small muscle! Stretching can actually speed up recovery time between workouts, avoid injury and keep your movements fluid. Yoga can be an excellent way to promote muscle growth.
3. Sleep! I suggest at least seven hours of good quality sleep per night, supplemented with a pre or post workout nap. Try to alleviate any stressors from your life. Stress raises Cortisol levels that will kill any muscle gain efforts. Limiting cardio can be placed in this section. Your main focus is breaking down muscle fibers with heavy weights, then feeding those broken muscle fibers, then letting those fibers recoup through rest. If you are pounding out two hours on the elliptical every day, you are hamstringing yourself. Limit cardio to 30 minutes, three times per week.
Good luck on your muscle gain journey! Now eat that chicken breast and pound me out a set of squats!

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How Increase Your Weight Healthily And Safely


Are you tired of being skinny and underweight? Are you sick of people calling you a hardgainer? Do you want to gain weight and putting on more meat on your skinny frame? If yes, then this article can certainly help you to increase your weight safely and healthily.
In order to increase your weight and become heavier, you need to consume more calories than you burn for your daily activities and you need to do this everyday until the day you achieve your ideal weight. You can further ramp up your weight gaining program by working with weights to build bigger muscles so that you can look bigger and be more muscular. In doing that, nobody can call you a pencil geek anymore or kick sand in your face.
Certain people have naturally high metabolic rate and so are skinny by nature. Others who are underweight may be because of eating disorders, having small appetites or suffering from medical conditions. If you have been losing weight recently, then it is advised that you visit your doctor in order to rule out any medical complications such as TB or cancer or any other medical conditions that can cause weight loss.
Once medical conditions are ruled out, you can begin your weight gain program by consuming more food at every meal or even to eat more meals. The objective of this is to increase your calorie consumption. No doubt this is common sense, but have you tried to consume more calories consistently instead of doing so for a week or two, then seeing little or no result, you went back to your regular eating portions? Persistency is the key, my friend.
Your aim is also to increase your weight in a safe and healthy way and so, you should choose foods that are high in calories and yet are healthy. So this is not an excuse for you to eat heaps of junk foods! Therefore consume nutrient dense foods like legumes, vegetables, fruits, and whole grains. You should also increase your consumption cheese and milk, eggs, good lean meats, poultry and seafood.
Your meals should be balanced in the amount of protein, good carbohydrates and healthy fats. Avoid trans-fat and saturated fat whenever possible. You may even want to supplement your meals with weight gain supplements to consume even more calories.
Working out with weights in the gym to build muscles can also increase your weight because your muscle is much heavier than your fat. That will mean that the more muscle you have built, the heavier you will become.
Most people new to weight training will make the mistake of working out on small muscles like the biceps, forearms or shoulder muscles. They do this for the simple reason that these muscles are more visible.
However for the purpose of building overall body musculature and to put on real muscle mass quickly and effectively, you should concentrate on working out with compound exercises such as deadlifts, bench presses, pull ups, squats, barbell rows and dips.
Compound exercises work more muscle groups and fibers to stimulate more muscular growth. At the same time because of its intensity, it forces your body to produce more testosterone and thus, encourages more muscle growth on your entire body. If you follow these weigh gain tips consistently, you will soon see your weight increasing week after week safely and healthily.
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Who Else Wants Training Tips To Build Muscle?


Building muscle is not as complicated as it may look. The need for steroids and other muscle enhancing devices is not always necessary. In fact, with a few simple rules to follow and some strict discipline you can get those huge biceps that you always wanted.
The first step to successfully building muscle is eating protein. Muscles use protein in order to rebuild themselves after strenuous activity. In general, protein is the building block of muscle so without protein you can't build muscle. Most commonly, one gram of protein is needed per pound of your body weight. This is a daily recommended amount for individuals looking to get muscle. For instance, a four-ounce serving of cooked chicken contains 35 grams of protein. If you weight 180, you would need 180 grams of protein, which would be about 20.6 ounces of chicken.
Despite all of the low-carb diet fads, you must consume carbohydrates to build muscle. Carbohydrates are not only equivalent to energy, but also convert into glycogen in the muscle to later be used as glucose. The use of the glycogen occurs during periods of intense bodybuilding. If there is not enough glycogen, it is difficult to get muscle. The usual recommendation is to consume about half of your calories from complex carbohydrates. These carbs are composed of multiple strands of single carbohydrates and take longer for the body to break down. Therefore, not as much fat is stored in the muscle.
Drink an ample amount of water to increase muscle size. This is because over 50 percent of your muscle is composed of water. Additionally, dehydration can take a toll on weight lifting sessions. Glutamine
Other recommended nutrition includes consuming glutamine and creatine. Don't forget that a healthy balanced diet is essential for your body's overall health. Without you overall health, it is quite a challenge to build muscle.
The recommendation for weight lifting exercises is more repetitions and less weight. Keep increasing the weight. This tones muscles and doesn't necessarily build a ton of muscle. On the other hand, more weight and less reps builds muscle and defines muscle. Doing a combination of both types of exercise will help build muscle and keep that muscle. Be sure to alternate muscle groups if you are looking to have muscles in more places than just your arms. Calisthenics build muscle and don't require very much, if any equipment. These types of exercises include push-ups and pull-ups.

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Best Muscle Building Foods That Help For Your Strong Muscles & Ripped Abs


It is very important to build your muscle strong. It is possible only if you are taking healthy foods and necessary nutrients. The below listed are some of the best muscle building foods that will help you.
Protein
Protein is the most important muscle building food, because most of the muscles are packed with water and proteins. So it is very important to have food contains lot of protein supplements such as cottage cheese, lean beef, fish particularly salmon and tuna, eggs (only white), lean chicken or turkey.
It is a must to consume lot of protein rich foods to get the entire benefits of amino acids, which are the major supplements to build the muscle. Proteins are fully packed with amino acids and most of the muscles are packed with proteins. It is better to change your diet plan frequently, so that you can get a chance to consume different basis of proteins and amino acids, because there are more than 20 different types of amino acids. Each type of protein will help you to gain your muscles in a different way.
Water
You have to drink at least one-liter water every day to make your muscles stronger. The content of water and protein in muscle are 75% and 25% respectively. So it is very important to drink plenty of water to your muscle. Drinking water not only helps you to make the muscle lean but also helps to maintain the digestive system properly.
Multi-Vitamins
You should be very careful on the foods, which you are having regularly. The foods must contain all the necessary nutrients like vitamins, minerals, calcium and carbohydrates. Sometimes you may go down from the level of regular vitamins and minerals because of the diet plan and workouts. So to compensate the level of vitamins and minerals you have to take multi vitamins in your regular diet. You can get the sufficient vitamins and minerals through perfect diet, protein shakes and meal replacements.
Carbohydrates and Healthy Fats
You are not able to gain weight without the help of carbohydrates and fats. It is fact that nearly 65% of the food, which you are having regularly, is packed with carbohydrates and fats and the rest is by proteins. To reduce the risk of breakdown and losing muscle it is important to have ample carbohydrates and fats. You are not able to gain muscle without sufficient healthy fats in your regular diet such as Omega 3 and monounsaturated fats. These are the major factors to manufacture the important muscle-building hormone called testosterone. You must eat plenty of carbohydrates to make your workouts longer and to lift heavy weights during workouts to make the muscle bigger and stronger.
Glutamine
Glutamine is an amino acid. You know that amino acids are very important to the muscle. Glutamine creates more than 60% of the amino acids that can be useful to build your muscle stronger and bigger. To get the necessary Glutamine it is better to have high protein foods along with Meal Replacements and Protein shakes. It is advised to take 10-20 grams of L-Glutamine powder daily to improve your body.
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Top Five Foods That Help Build Muscle


Exercise is not the only important part of building muscles. Perhaps equally important is exercising good diet and good food habits. When you put food into your body, you are giving it building blocks and materials with which to construct and repair itself. This includes building muscles. As you might expect, there are foods that help more, and foods that help less. This article will focus on foods that help more, here are the top five foods that help build muscle.
1. Eggs
Protein is vital for building muscles. Simply put, without protein, your muscles will not grow. Also, besides water, protein is the most abundant element in your body. Someone who wishes to gain more muscle needs a higher protein intake than other people. The point of weight lifting is to damage muscle fibers, so they grow back stronger. Protein is an important component of muscles, and an egg contains six grams of protein.
2. Yogurt
Yogurt is another source of protein, the importance of which has already been discussed. Regular yogurt (the kind with fruit on the bottom - not sugar free) is extra beneficial, since the fruit it contains provides carbohydrates, which boost the amount of insulin in your blood. Insulin reduces protein breakdown after exercise.
3. Mixed nuts
Nuts provide a whole powerhouse of goodies, including mono- & polyunsaturated fats, protein, fiber vitamin-e, zinc, and more. Mixed nuts provide the whole shebang, plus, they are dense in calories, which can help you gain weight. But, for the latter reason, it is also suggested that you don't make a diet out of them.
4. Beef (especially silverside)
100 grams of beef contains about 30 grams of protein. Silverside is the beef with the highest level of protein. Not only does it contain a large amount of protein, it also contains only five grams of fat, making it an ideal food choice anyways.
5. Spinach
Ever wonder if there really was anything to Popeye's secret food? Well, turns out there is. Of course, don't expect the results to be quite as dramatic as in the classic TV show, but there certainly is value to spinach. Spinach contains a high level of calcium, which helps relax muscles, so as to reduce the chance of cramps. It also increases the efficiency of exercise, by causing better muscle contractions. In addition to this, since spinach is alkaline, it can speed up muscle recovery and reduce the chance of lactic acid buildup.

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