Building Muscle – A Realistic Approach

There are too many diets and products that promise to help you start building muscle quickly and without much work. Unfortunately, most of those diets and products fill a person with false hopes. There is no such thing as going from scrawny to brawny overnight!

The Only Way To Realistically Tone, Shape, and Build Muscles

Since there is no real way to build muscle fast, I’m sure you are smart enough to figure out the only realistic approach to going from scrawny to brawny! It takes a lot of persistence and work! But, more than persistence and work, it takes knowing your body.

You have to know what makes your muscles grow. What kind of diet should you follow to get the best results? Why are your muscles sore after a workout? What happens to your muscles while you sleep? How much can your muscles handle without reaching the point of doing more harm than good? All of these questions are important to building muscle, yet rarely does a get fit quick workout plan ever mention the answers!

The first step to building the body that you have always dreamed of is not to buy the piece of equipment that you saw on a late night infomercial or to go on the next big Hollywood diet. Instead, the first step is to study your body! I understand that learning all of the technical “mumbo-jumbo” can be boring, but there is a book by Lou Shuler from Men’s Health called “The Book Of Muscle” that will make the boring stuff seem not so boring. It gives you a road map (so-to-say) with a guided tour through your body and it’s muscle systems. Ian King, a body building expert also contributes in the book and talks about the best muscle building workouts.

Learn more about The Book Of Muscle, the worlds most authoritative guide to building you body here.

Just like anything worth having, you have to learn everything about building a great body! Would you ever work on your car without knowing what you were doing? Would you ever build your child a tree house without taking the proper safety precautions? If not, then why would you go into changing your body without at least knowing what you were doing? Take a few days and learn about your body. You will be glad you did when you start to see the results that you have always dreamed of having.

Vary Your Workout Routine For Shocking Results

If you are anything like a lot of beginner weight lifters, you probably keep a regular gym workout routine. I know when I first started, I did backs and biceps every Monday; Chest and triceps every Tuesday; Shoulders and traps every Wednesday; Legs on Thursday, and core training on Friday. I read in a few of the bodybuilding magazines that it’s good to keep a routine, but I started to realize there weren’t as many changes in my muscles as I hoped for. I was definitely lifting more, which meant I was stronger, but my overall muscle mass didn’t appear to be going anywhere!

While I served as an Infantryman in the Army, I got to hang out with a lot of fitness freaks. When I say fitness freaks, I don’t mean that in a bad way at all. I wish I could be as motivated as they were! Anyway, a guy in my platoon who was also a professional MMA fighter, told me about shocking my muscles. At first, I didn’t want anything to do with anything that would shock me, but then he explained. He told me that if I were to vary my workout routine just a little bit, I would begin to see results much quicker. He said that our muscles begin to get used to the same movements, on the same days, for the same amount of reps. They need to be shocked out of their lazy stage to perform at their peak.

He was right. Within 2 weeks of changing the workout, I noticed much more bulk. I Was starting to see the definition that I always wanted to see! I didn’t really change much in my routine except for the days of specific workouts and the amount of reps per set. I went from 12 reps per set to 8 reps. I also worked with slightly heavier weights than I normally do since I was doing less reps. On a few of the exercises, I would add another set on just to push my muscles a little bit harder. I changed to shoulders and traps on Monday; Chest and triceps on Tuesday, Back and biceps on Wednesday; Core on Thursday, and legs on Friday. After two weeks, I went back to my old routine. This shocked my muscles yet again!

I’m sure you get the idea… Shocking your muscles is a great way to get quicker and more defined results from your workout. I put it to the test and it worked great for me, so what would it hurt if you were to try it out too? Simply change up your workout routine, and you will see better results than what you are getting right now.

Why You Need Whey Protein Powder For Muscle Building

Our bodies are constantly in need of protein. Whey protein contains the amino acids that our bodies need to function and survive on a daily basis. Amino acids have been called the building blocks of life, so you better take those things seriously! One of the best ways to supplement your body with high quality protein is by using a whey protein powder mix after a hard workout.

After a hard workout, our muscles have been forcefully pulled and stretched in ways they aren’t normally pulled or stretched. The strain on our muscles causes them to “break down”. The essential and non-essential amino acids in whey protein help build the muscles back up. This is where the muscle growth occurs. The protein causes the muscles to come back bigger and stronger than they were before.

If you start to feel tired half way through your workout routine, you probably need some more protein in your diet. Whey protein powder not only helps build up the muscles, but it also provides the body with a lot of extra energy. Even if you don’t plan on working out every day, you should still take in some protein to get that extra push you need to get through the day. This way, you wont have to drink those harmful caffeine or energy drinks.

If you are the type of person who can’t handle eating or drinking stuff that doesn’t taste good, you don’t have to worry. The first time I ever tried vanilla whey protein powder, I thought I was drinking a milk shake. A friend of mine brought a cup of it to the gym for me and had me try it. It didn’t taste like a supplement at all! It actually had a very pleasant taste. You can find many different flavors of whey protein, so there is definitely something that your taste buds will enjoy. My favorite flavors are chocolate and vanilla. Strawberry isn’t too bad either.

Whey protein has many other benefits that weren’t mentioned in this post. I just thought I would touch on a couple of the major advantages that come with taking this kind of supplement. I hope you see the value of protein in your diet! A supplement powder is a way to force feed our bodies with the right amount of protein without worrying about checking the nutritional facts of our food before eating it.

If you are currently taking whey protein regularly, share your thoughts and opinions in the comment section below.

How To Find Discount Fitness Equipment Online

Getting in shape doesn’t have to be expensive! If you want to build muscles at home, you can easily find discount fitness equipment if you know where to look. This post will share with you a few places to find amazing deals on the Internet.

Our generation has it so good! Anything we could ever want is available to us at the click of a mouse. The internet has given us the opportunity to find the stuff we are looking for quickly, find the cheapest price, and have it delivered to our home.

If you are new to online shopping, or you are just unsure of where to find good discounted fitness equipment, the sources that I mention below will be a great place for you to start.

NexTag

NexTag is basically a price comparison shopping engine. If you type a products name, or the type of product you are looking for in the search box, you will get a sortable list of matching products.

Running a quick search for “dumbbell weight sets” and sorting the results by price, I found a few very nice sets of dumbbells for under $10. Try getting that kind of deal at your local sporting goods store.

eBay

I’m sure everyone knows about eBay. If you don’t you must have been sleeping under a rock for the last 10 years. The great thing about eBay is that a lot of the sellers use an auction format to sell their stuff. There is also an option to buy the product without going to an auction. Usually, the Buy It Now price is still below what you would normally pay elsewhere. Here is eBay’s exercise and fitness section.

Amazon

When most people think of Amazon, they think of a book store. However, they sell a wide variety of products, including weights and stuff like that. Don’t be surprised if you find discount fitness equipment marked down as much as 50% either! Take this Deluxe Dumbbell Set for example. Amazon has it marked down 22%, saving you 20 bucks. Now, you can use the money you saved to buy a few protein bars.

Don’t Overpay To Get In Shape

With the economy the way it is right now, you should be trying to cut back on your spending in every way possible. Get rid of that expensive gym membership, use the Internet to find some cheap equipment to work out at home with, and use the money you save on something else. You don’t have to spend a fortune to get in shape if you know where to look. Hopefully this post pointed you in a few good directions.

Plyometrics Using Weighted Vests

If you have never heard of plyometrics, don’t think you are the only one. To be honest with you, the term is pretty new to me too! I mean, I’ve done plenty of plyometric exercising while I was in the Military, I just never knew that wearing weighted vests while exercising was called plyometrics.

Basically, plyometrics involves wearing a weighted training vest while exercising. The exercises usually involve quick actions, such as jumping or lunging, while repeating the movement quickly over-and-over again. The repetitively quick actions cause the muscles to contract rapidly.

While I served in the Military, we wore our protective vests a lot (both deployed and otherwise). We would train in our vests, run in our vests, and even sleep in our vests. I’m sure the leadership didn’t know it then, but the fact that we were wearing our vests was building our strength and muscles in ways that old-fashioned exercising and weight lifting couldn’t. Maybe thats why our bodies were able to handle such a physical beating day in and day out.

If you are an athlete of any sport, chances are, plyometrics can help you. Currently, professional basketball players, mixed martial artists, swimmers, and many other types of athletes use weighted vests to build their jumping ability, their fighting ability, and swimming ability. Not only are their muscles becoming strengthened, but their bodies are building endurance!

If you would like to learn more about plyometrics, you should check out Jumping Into Plyometrics by Dr Donald A. Chu. Inside, his book, you will be able to learn much more than a small blog post can tell you about training with a vest. The book is definitely geared towards athletes, but the exercises inside can be used by the average, every day joe or jane who wants to build their muscle strength and endurance.

The good thing about this kind of training is that you don’t necessarily have to be doing anything at all to get results. You can wear a small weighted vest during your day-to-day activities (walking, working, etc), and still get some results. Of course, the results will be much better though if you actually follow a plyometrics workout.

Choosing The Right Weight Training Equipment For Your Home

If you want to start working out at home instead of paying for a high priced gym membership, it is important to buy the best home weight training equipment. The main reason a gym membership is so expensive is because they have the machines and you don’t! They have the weights and you don’t! They know if you want to workout, unless you have your own equipment, you have no choice but to pay the monthly fee.

Starting a home gym isn’t as expensive as you think either. Think about how much money you spend on the membership as it is right now! Those monthly fees really add up. If you have a membership that charges you $45 per month (that’s what I payed for a while), you end up paying $540 per year. For that price, you could buy a nice set of free weights or even an all-in-one exercise station.

Here are some things to take into consideration when choosing your weight training equipment:

Space Available

Obviously, if you live in a small apartment or just don’t have much available space, you will need to take that into consideration. Most of the all-in-one stations are pretty compact, but some take up a lot of space! A bench will probably take up a lot of space too. If you don’t have much space available, you may have to buy a few dumbbell weights. They don’t take up much space and there are plenty of dumbbell workouts that will do you right.

Features

Depending on the kind of results that you are looking for, you may need specific features. Not all-in-one stations are really all-in-one. Be sure that the machine or equipment that you will be buying will accommodate what you are trying to get done in your home gym. Again, dumbbells will work for almost every exercise you will need to do to build muscles, so if you want to keep it simple, dumbbell weights are the way to go!

Price

Remember, you will always get what you pay for. With that being said, the price range for weight training equipment is very large. You can get cheap equipment for pennies on the dollar (especially used equipment), but for the top-of-the-line stuff like you seen on TV, you better be prepared to spend some money. Most of those machines have financing available though, so if you are spending more than the monthly financing fee on your gym membership, you could save money by financing the top-of-the-line equipment.

You Don’t Need The Best Equipment To Get Results

Just because a late night infomercial promising instant results sounds like the direction you want to go in, you have to remember: You will only get the results you want if you actually do the work. You could easily get in top physical shape with absolutely no equipment at all if you work hard enough. If you are willing to put in the work, nice equipment will definitely help, but it all starts with you.

How To Build Muscles The Right Way – The Third Most Common Mistake

This is the third post in the How To Build Muscles The Right Way series. You can see the first post, which talks about the most common mistake that people make when trying to build muscles here, and the second post, which talks about cardio here.

The Third Most Common Mistake When Building Muscles: Forgetting About Building Strength

Have you ever came across a person that had the muscle mass that you envy, but they were so weak that you could lift more weight than they could? I highly doubt that you have! In order to be able to maximize your muscle building routine, you will eventually need to move up in weight! How can you do that without becoming stronger?

You would be surprised how many people ask me how to build muscles, but want no part in building strength! It seems like the days of people wanting to become stronger are gone! Now, everyone just wants to look good! I always answer with the same line: “If you want to build bigger muscles, you need to build your strength!”

I always get a look of uncertainty when I tell them that! They always say something like: “I could care less about how strong I am! I just want to have big muscles.” Well, my friend… I don’t know if there is a such thing as a person with big muscles that is weak! Building your strength will lead to bigger muscles naturally!

How To Build Muscles And Strength At The Same Time

There are a few different ways that you can concentrate on building strength as well as building muscle. I am going to share with you my favorite workout that does both of those things (concentrating on biceps). Here is what you do:

First, you need to know what your max is as far as curling dumbbells goes. For this example, I will say that your max is 80 pounds. Now, at the gym, take 5 sets of dumbbells, and line them up one next to the other. The first set should be about 10 pounds (each), the second set should be about 20 pounds (each), the third set should be about 40 pounds (each), the fourth set should be about 60 pounds (each), and the fifth set should be your max (80 pounds in this example).

*Warning: This workout will really push you to your limits*

Starting at the first set, knock out 7 reps. When you finish the first set, take no more than 15 seconds rest, and move to the second set. Continue in this pattern until you get to your max. Once you complete your max set, work your way back down, except do only 5 reps of each. By the time you get back to the first set, you will feel like you are lifting 80 pounds, even on the 10 pound set!

What this routine does is push you as close as possible to muscle failure. You want to reach muscle failure on just about every workout! This helps break your muscles down, and forces your body to build them back up, thus making you stronger, while creating more muscle mass!

I personally love this workout, and try to do it at the end of my bicep day. Sometime, I don’t get all the way through it, because I reach muscle failure before I get to the end of the routine, but that is perfectly fine! The goal is to reach muscle failure, no matter how long it takes you to get there!

The End Of The How To Build Muscles The Right Way Series (For Now)

Well, this post concludes this series for now, but I plan on occasionally putting out a post that will add to this series. There are so many mistakes that people make when building muscles, and I could probably write at least 50 more posts! However, I want to move in a different direction for now. I have something good up my sleeve, so make sure you subscribe to the RSS feed, so you can see exactly what I am talking about in the near future!

How To Build Muscles The Right Way – The Second Most Common Mistake

This is the second post in the How To Build Muscles The Right Way series. You can see the first post, which talks about the most common mistake that people make when trying to build muscles right here.

At the end of the first post of this series, I mentioned that even when I am trying to build muscles, I never leave out cardio from my workout. A lot of people believe that cardio is not important to the muscle building process, and in all honesty, some of them are right!

Whether or not you decide to include cardio into your workout should depend on your body type. If you are naturally skinny, with a high metabolism, you may not need to put any emphasis on cardio. However, if you are slightly over weight (and be honest with yourself!), it is very important to get yourself a regular cardio workout, as well as a muscle building workout.

How To Build Muscles, And Include A Cardio Workout In The Process

While I was in the Military, we did TONS of cardio. We would run for miles! At first, I really hated it, but it started to grow on me! I enjoyed the rush that you feel after finishing a long distance run. I loved the way my legs ached after doing a hill run! I also really liked when we would do a combination of running and muscle building!

A great way for you to start to include a cardio workout into your muscle building process is to run for a set amount of time, stop and do a few minutes worth of upper body workouts, and then start to run again. This is something that we liked to call “circuit training“

The best place to set up a circuit training course is an open field. Take about 5 or 6 cones, set them up in a circle, and use some kind of sign to mark each cone with a different upper body workout. Here is an example of a what I am talking about.

Make sure you bring the equipment that you will need for each exercise. Grab a couple sets of dumbbells for the curls and presses, and a chair for the dips.

What I like to do is run 5 laps around the circle, stop at a station, do about 2-3 sets of the specified exercise, and run another 5 laps. I usually rotate through each station about 2 or 3 times.

Now, you are getting the cardio workout that you may need, and still concentrating on building muscles! You can always add more stations if you want! The picture above was just used to show an example. At the end of the circuit, you will feel really good about yourself, because not only did you work on your upper body, but you got a really nice, and not too strenuous cardio workout!

What’s next?

The third post to the How To Build Muscles The Right Way series will talk about another common mistake that a lot of people make when they are trying to build muscles. Make sure you subscribe to the RSS feed, or check back soon, so you can learn how to avoid the mistake!

How To Build Muscles The Right Way – The Most Common Mistake

There are so many places on the Internet that promise to teach you how to build muscles, but most of them fail to remind their readers about the common mistakes that people make when they are working out.

This is the first post of an ongoing series of post’s that will show you some of the common mistakes that most people make when they are trying to build muscles. Today, I am going to talk about what I consider to be the most common mistake!

The Most Common Mistake

I will admit, before I served in the Military and was taught how to build muscles the right way, I was guilty of making the most common mistake. Every time that I went to the gym, I would concentrate my entire workout on building up my biceps and triceps.

The fact is, the biceps and triceps need very little direct stimulation! Compared to the other muscles that make up your body, the biceps and triceps are very small muscle groups, and take far less concentration to build into the pythons that you envy!

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not telling you to completely stop working your bi’s and tri’s, but you need to put more emphasis on the other muscles groups that make up the entire package! For instance, take a look at your thighs. Compare the size of your thighs with the size of your arms. Your thighs are much larger than your arms, so wouldn’t you think that they would need to be worked out a little bit more than your biceps and triceps?

How To Encorporate Other Muscle Groups Into Your Workout

A simple solution to this common mistake is to set up a workout plan that includes your entire body. What I like to do is set up a plan that allows me to work out opposite muscle groups. Here is my weekly workout plan, which allows me to build all of my muscles, instead of just my biceps and triceps.

• Monday – Back and Biceps
• Tuesday – Chest and Triceps
• Wednesday – Shoulders and Traps
• Thursday – Legs and Abs
• Friday – Cardio
• Saturday – Cardio
• Sunday – Day Off

As you can see from my schedule, I dedicate Friday and Saturday completely to cardio training. Now, what you do not see in my schedule is that I actually work on cardio every day! Every morning, before the sun rises, I run to the gym. It is about a 3 mile run, which gives me a pretty good cardio workout. On the way back home, depending on how tired I am from my workout, I will either jog or power-walk back home.

The Next Post To This Series

In the next post, I will talk about another very common mistake that people make when they are trying to figure out how to build muscles. I kind of hinted to it in the previous paragraph, and I’m pretty sure you can figure it out! Make sure you check back, or subscribe to the RSS feed, so you can find out what the common mistake is, and learn how to avoid it!

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