How To Build Muscle – The Ultimate Guide

Posted on July 1, 2011 by

In this article we are going to talk about the most important principles on how to build muscle. If you follow them there is no way you wont put on muscle and in most cases quickly. This guide is not intended for those who use steroids, as a different set of principles apply for them like working out harder and more frequently. On the other side we have stripped this article for any advice that may not be applicable for normal and the material is therefore very different from what you’ll find in bodybuilding magazines. Everything you learn here can and should be implemented if you are looking to put on lean muscle.

Before we begin to explain further you should stop considering the thought that there is some kind of a magic pill when it comes to building muscle, and any other aspect of life for that matter. We are so sick of seeing advertisement for the new super supplement or the electric pulsating ab device that will get you shredded for the summer. Stop searching the Internet for “how to build muscle quickly” or “how to build muscle fast”. We give you simple yet efficient advice, but you should be prepared for hard work and sweat. Building muscle is not easy.

Lift Heavy

Our first principle is not exactly rocket science. To put on muscle you need to lift weights. There are numerous of different workouts out there, most of them pure bullshit, but there are a couple of them that does a good job at muscle gain for the majority of people. Mark Rippertoe’s program and Max-OT is a great place to start. We do not recommend starting with your own homemade workout regimen, at least not in the beginning. The time will come when you need to tweak and experiment to find the perfect workout for yourself, but the once mentioned are excellent for beginners.

There are a couple of elements that should be included in every workout program. Most important are the compound exercises. These are movements that involve many different muscles and parts of the body and are absolutely crucial if you are going to get stronger and add muscle.

Recover

Working out three times a week, preferably with at least 48 hours of rest between every workout is recommended. You are actually damaging the muscles when you workout and rebuilding them when you are resting. You need to find a good balance of these elements to efficiently put on muscle.

Eat

Eat healthy, varied and keep protein high. When you are resting you should never go hungry, but on the other side please don’t obsess about calories. The body has perfectly functioning hunger and thirst mechanisms. The best advice we could give is to simply listen to them. Eat and drink when you feel like it. An exception to this is to fill up with food within the first half hour after your workout. This is a time when the body is sensitive to nutrients. Don’t freak out if you miss a meal like this as it turns out scientific research has shown there are certain benefits of this too. One of them is an increased level of human growth hormones after fasting.

Supplements

Supplements are not necessary. You make the difference in your diet and workout. Most supplements on the market do simply not have any reasonable scientific backing. There are very few exceptions to this. If we were to recommend any supplements at all it would be protein shakes and creatine.

Motivation

You need to be motivated if you are going to build muscle. This is something most people simply don’t have and the reason so many fail to achieve their dream body. Are you going to be one of these or are you going to set yourself apart? If your motivation isn’t where it should be just acknowledge it and keep moving forward. Realize that going to the gym and eating healthy is something that becomes easier for every time you do it. Start out with simple goals and increase their difficulty in the future.

“The mind is the limit. As long as the mind can envision the fact that you can do something, you can do it, as long as you really believe 100 percent.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger

If you want to see anything added to our how to build muscles article feel free to add any comments below.

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Best Lower Chest Exercises

Posted on July 1, 2011 by

If you are looking for effective lower chest exercises you’ve come to the right place. There are a lot of exercises for lower chest to choose from some of them more effective than others. That being said none of these exercises is able to isolate the lower chest muscles completely. The lower chest is a part of the pectorals major. We have picked out the best exercises that are most efficient at the lower chest, but they also hit the upper and middle part of the pectorals to some extent.

Decline Bench-Press

Probably the most important lower chest exercise. The angle of the movement compared to the surface is important if you want to target the lower chest. You’ve probably trained incline bench press either with barbells or dumbbells, but not so many have tried the decline version. This is exactly the same as incline except you are laying downhill. This way the lower part of the chest is doing most of the lifting.

Chest Dips

If you do the dips a little bit bent forward you will better target the pectorals compared to triceps. If you compare the decline bench-press with dips you probably notice the movement and especially the angle of force is very similar. Dips are therefore a great addition to your current workout regimen if you want to work on the lover chest muscles.

Decline Flyes

Do as with the decline bench-press except take a pair of dumbbells or a cable and pull them towards your chest. The same basic principle applies in this exercise, when you are laying downhill you are forcing the lower part of the chest to do most of the lifting. Don’t go overboard with the angle on this exercise. I find them effective and still doable at about 20% decline compared to the surface.

If you are looking for lower chest exercises at home all of the three above has good alternatives. Do a quick search on YouTube and you’ll see good instructions on how to perform them.

Keep in mind that what shapes the lower pectorals and gives that bodybuilder look is mainly body composition. You want to at least put in a little effort on eating the right types of food.

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Best Tricep Exercises

Posted on July 1, 2011 by

A lot of people think it is how much you bench that is the most important, but if we are going to talk about looks, arms are usually the center of attention. If you want bigger, more firm and sculpted arms, don’t do like most people and put your focus on your biceps. The truth is your arms are mostly made up of the triceps muscles, more precisely 2/3 of the upper arm. If you want to improve your arms the answer is simply: Work out your triceps. We are going to show what we believe are the most important exercises for triceps. These are also the best tricep exercises for women as there are not much of a difference in how should train your triceps compared to men. Keep in mind that you have to experiment with this to find out what works best.

Close Grip Bench-Press

If you use a narrower grip, about shoulders width, on bench-press you will activate your triceps very efficiently. If you want big arms, close grip bench-press is an essential exercise. It activates the three different heads of the triceps. For those working out at home an excellent alternative is close grip push-ups. The movement of this exercise is very similar to bench-press.

Dips

Another excellent exercise for working your triceps. This also hits all the different muscle fibers within your triceps. The movement is a little bit different from dips that focus on your pectoral muscles. Keep your body as straight as possible while lowering and pushing in a slow and controlled manner. Add weight if you are comfortable with this exercise if the repetitions are starting to get easy. This is one of the easy tricep exercises with a lot of alternatives if you work out at home. Do a quick search on YouTube and be creative with your furniture.

French Press

The third king of the triceps exercises and maybe one of the best tricep exercises for mass. This exercise also works out all the different heads of your triceps. Get down on a bench with your head facing upwards. Keep your elbows as close to your body as you can and lower the weight carefully towards your forehead. Push upwards until your arms are pointing straight upwards. You can do this exercise in an incline or flat bench with either dumbbells or an EZ bar.

Feel free to experiment with other exercises as well, but sticking to free movements compared to cables and machines is a great benefit.

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Best Songs To Run To 2011

Posted on July 1, 2011 by

For those just looking for a great running playlist and the best songs to run to, scroll to the bottom of the page. In this article we are going to look at what exactly makes a good running song. Of course this applies to many other forms of exercise as well like lifting weights in the gym, cycling and so on. You need a good song that gives you extra motivation and puts you in the right zone for exercising. There is no doubt that music is able to increase your threshold for pain, but why exactly is this?

Scientific Research

There has been done numerous research on motivating songs and athletic performance. The mechanisms of this phenomenon is still unclear as uncovering them is a complex matter. We will for sure know more about this in the future.

This doesn’t mean that the link between motivation and music isn’t firmly established. Some studies show that heart and respiration rate is indeed increased while listening to songs that has some form of motivation aspect to the listener. You are in other words able to train harder than without motivational music.

Just a couple of years ago, a study conducted at Ohio State University, found that some types of music actually increases brainpower and function. It is not a far reach to think that these attributes allow to better control your will and your ability to push yourself.

Individual Preferences

It is important to understand that what makes you motivated is not what type of music you are listening to, it is what music that motivates you. Everyone has different tastes in music and therefore something that is motivating for one person may sound terrible to another.

You should therefore pick your own songs and make your own workout playlists. You might also find that the music in your gym is more annoying than motivating. In this case remember to bring your music player and a good set of headphones for exercise.

However there are some musical characteristics that are more likely to put you in the zone. These range from fast tempo to upbeat songs. Lyrics that is related to motivating is of course something to look for as well, but some people actually prefer the instrumentals. It gives them more space to focus on the workout itself.

It is not to great of a leap to take that music can actually lower your performance also. Don’t you just hate it when you are out running and Bieber plays his current hit on the radio? Always bring your own music if you worry about your performance

The best running songs 2011 list is currently being updated and will be released in a day or so. If you have any good running songs we should add to this list put them in the comment box below.

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Best Core Exercises for Men

Posted on June 27, 2011 by

The core consists of your abdominals, obliques as well as all the tiny muscles up and down your lower back and the sides of the spine. The core is a very important body part, but you don’t hear much about it because you don’t really go on the beach to flex your core. The core is less about looks, but still very important as this is what ties everything together.

If you have a strong core you are a lot less likely to have lower back pain  later in life, which a lot of us have. A core is a difficult body part to work and in this article we are going to give you an overview of the most important and best core strengthening exercises for men.

The Exercises

Start of on your knees and get on all fours. Lift your left arm and right leg at the same time. Repeat and alternate left and right. This exercise makes you engage the core muscles from keeping you tipping and turning and is great for beginners. You might feel this is difficult, but this is as basic as it gets.

For the next exercise you should get up in a push-up position. Lift one leg at the time. Alternate on these and get a total of 20 for each leg (40 repetitions total). After this bring the leg the other way. This means pulling your knee towards your belly and repeating for a total of 40 repetitions.

The third and last exercise is a more difficult version of the previous exercise. Position yourself like you do with the plank exercise. Drop the pelvis to the ground and get it as high up in the air as possible. Do this for as many repetitions as you can.

Do these exercises above two or three times a week. After a couple of weeks you should start getting some improvement. If you are struggling with back pain and this is the reason you want to learn about core strength exercises for men, it would be wise to consult with a physician before you start exercising.

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Best Muscular Endurance Exercises

Posted on June 27, 2011 by

Endurance in your muscles is the ability to perform repeated contractions over a certain amount of time. What are the uses of muscular endurance and what are the best muscular strength and endurance exercises?

It is recommended to stay in the 12-15 repetition range when training for better muscular endurance. Use a resistance that is 75% of your 1RM (the maximum amount of weight you are able to perform one repetition with). The way to measure the muscular endurance is to perform exercises record the amount of reps and the duration.

Squats

Using body weight squats can be a great way to start out with building muscular endurance. You need to have a shoulder width stance or slightly wider to perform this exercise properly. The toes are going straightly forward. Most importantly with this exercise is a neutral alignment spine. This means a natural curvature in both the lower back and upward through the entire spine. The weight should be distributed between the ball and the heel of the foot. Carry the weight with your hips as you do the movement. Progress to free-weight when you feel comfortable with the body weight squats.

Push-ups

Push-ups is the king of muscular endurance exercises. Begin with your hand directly beneath your shoulders. You can vary by placing your hands slightly wider, but typically not much closer than shoulders with. Ideally you don’t want your hands to far above or behind your shoulder as this can potentially cause injuries. Body should be in a straight line from your heels to your shoulders. Lower your body until your chest is almost on the floor and push up the full extension. Repeat

Dips

The tricep dip is one of the most important of the muscular strength endurance exercises. Take a firm grip on the bar. If there are different widths to choose from pick the one closest to shoulder weight. Tuck you elbows behind you and pull the shoulders back. Push up and drop down.

The Plank

To begin start on your knees and elbows, placing your elbows directly under your shoulders and your feet up on your toes. To perform the plank, lift your body up off the floor maintaining a straight line from the shoulders, to the hips to the knees. Avoid raising your hips or letting your body sag.

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Ankle Strengthening Exercises

Posted on June 26, 2011 by

There are many other reasons you should start with ankle strengthening exercises. Getting a nasty ankle sprain can be a painful experience. These injuries often repeats themself if you don’t strengthen your ankles. You may recover fast, but usually taking time recover fully is advised. In this article we are taking a closer look at which exercises you should do for increasing your ankle strength. Keep in mind that this includes ankle strengthening exercises for dancers and also ankle strengthening exercises for runners.

Treatment for Ankle Injury

An ankle injury is usually something that is short term. You would want to reduce the swelling as fast as possible. Put compression around the area of the injury and make sure it sits firmly. Cooling with ice is also recommended. You want to start to plan how you are going to recover the endurance and strength of the muscle to prevent further injuries.

Strength Exercises

You could start with simple standing calf raises using your own body weight and gravity as resistance. Add in the use of therabands early in the process. You can get them relatively cheap at places like pharmacies that sell medical supplies.

There are four main movements for the ankle when you are using the theraband. These are getting your toes towards and away from the shin, and also turning the foot inwards and outwards. You want to make sure to train these exercises a proportional amount of time.

Take as many repetitions as you feel comfortable with. Starting low and steadily increasing is recommended. Watch some YouTube videos to see exactly how the movements look like and try to mimic them properly.

Strengthening the muscles of the ankles are a great way to start, but after a while you want to add in balance exercises as well. Keep in mind that these two categories go hand in hand. You are already working your balance with the strength exercises and vice versa.

Balance

Stability exercises are crucial for a healthy restoring of an ankle injury. Most exercises is based on using one leg at a time. Start with doing simple one legged squats as far down as you feel comfortable with. After a while you should try to go even further down and challenging yourself. Start off with a flat surface and progress to one-legged exercises with unstable surfaces.

To wrap things up, a great place to start is the therabands. After a while you want to add in exercises that are mostly focused on balance and stability. This combination is crucial in preventing further and more serious exercises of your fragile ankle and also very beneficial for other activities like dance.

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Burn Fat Fast

Posted on June 24, 2011 by

Looking for ways to get that belly fat and get fit for the beach? Maybe health is your motivator. Whatever your reason is there are the best ways to burn fat fast. They could make up a huge difference both in the short and long term. If you follow them your success is guaranteed.

1. Eating Healthy

Some people say that body composition is 90% diet. While this is clearly arguable you should not underestimate the diet factor when trying to reduce body fat. If you want to put on muscle mass you need to focus on working out as well. Burning fat can purely be done by fixing the way you eat, bur for best results implement muscle building exercises as well.

Stop focusing on calories. If you read around the Internet for other fat burning tips you will find that most of them recommend calorie counting. In the last couple of years there has been a shift from this obsessive behavior to a more natural way of looking at nutrition.

It is all about carbohydrates. Everything you need to know is that these nutrients directly cause insulin in the bloodstream, which is responsible for the storing of fat. The less carbs you eat the faster you will burn fat. Not to mention the massive health benefits. Other than that, use common sense and eat varied and healthy.

2. Strength Training

You knew this was on the list. Building muscle is a safe and will give results in increasing your metabolism. There are numerous of different strategies you can go for and the Internet Is filled with all kinds of junk of how to build muscle. We have looked at it, thrown out all the crap, resulting in Top 3 Muscle Building Tips. The basic gist of it is this: Your workouts should be focused around compound exercises and lifting heavy ass weight!

3. Interval Training

As for the above paragraphs your workout set intervals should be small. You want to train hard for as long as you possibly can to burn fat fast.

Another tool to use are HIIT (high intensity interval training). These are intervals consisting of max or close to max bursts of effort, followed by rest, repeated for a number of repetitions – in other words ideal for burning fat fast. There are several different methods for HIIT. We recommend you to look into the tabata protocol and 4×4. These have a large amount of scientific research backing their fat burning claims.

Most people will read this article and not do anything about their situation and goals. Stop being an information addict and be proactive. There are no best way to burn fat and secret tricks. Implement these concepts and stick with it. Are you like 90% of the population or are you going to prove to be something different?

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Top 3 Muscle Building Tips

Posted on June 22, 2011 by

What are the best and most efficient ways to put on lean muscle mass? We are giving you the top 3 tips to build muscle. There is a lot of variation as far as genetics go, but if you implement and follow the principles we give you in this article and put in some effort you will put on muscle. A lot.

1. Eat Big

If you don’t eat enough food your body will simply not make the muscle building process a priority. The fact is that building muscle is less important than other functions of your body such as heat regulation or the actual energy requiered your workouts require.

Protein is important. Rich sources such as meat, fish, fowl and eggs should be included in every muscle building diet. Supplement with extra protein if necessary. Fat and carbohydrates are also important. You need to eat a wide variety of food while keeping away the junk. Eating burgers and fries will build muscle, but not as efficent. You will also put on a lot of fat. You could go deeper as far as muscle building nutrition tips go, but the information in this paragraph is sufficient if you don’t want to obsess about it.

2. Lift Weight

Since you are looking for ways to get bigger you should already be thinking about lifting weights. Without these workouts your body has no idea that it should actually build muscle. There is no reason for it. Our bodies are evolved to save as much energy as possible and will store your food as fat for later use.

Every workout regimen for building muscle should be based around compound exercises. This is where most of your muscles are worked on. We suggest you work out at least three times a week. Each day starts with either deadlift, squats or bench press. Put on max effort and always increase weights when possible.

3. Sleep and Rest

You exert your muscles during the workout and rebuild them while resting. Don’t underestimate this factor. A lot of people actually work out too much. Their bodies are not able to repair the broken muscle fibers before they hit them with another round. You will not get any stronger if you do this. Worst case is actually to lose muscle and is not uncommon!

Building muscle is simple. The best way to build muscle is some kind of variation of the three above tips. If you only implement two of the tips and don’t put in enough effort on the last one your results will be a lot worse. Stick with these tips and you will succeed.

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How To Gain Weight Fast

Posted on June 22, 2011 by

In this article we are going to give you the best way to gain weight fast. It’s important to know that there are many genetic differences and everyone respond differently to a diet and workout regimen. What you read below is very general and if you follow it results will come.

Eat A Lot

You have probably heard about the whole calorie surplus concept. You have to put in more energy in your body than what you use to put on any weight. This is true, but we recommend to not count the calories of what you eat and calculating your daily spend all day long. Simply eat a lot. You have a sensation of hunger. If you want to put on weight as fast as possible you should not feel this sensation. If it starts creeping up you suppress it by eating. This is especially important for hard gainers.

What are the foods that make you gain weight fast? Eating a lot is one thing, but what we don’t recommend is eat a lot of junk. Whether you are fat or a skinny guy looking to put on some muscle, if you eat junk you will not gain muscles as efficient as possible. It is also extremely unhealthy (this applies to skinny guys as well). Try to eat as much protein as possible, while keeping a reasonable varied diet. Meat, eggs, fish and fowl are required in a diet to gain weight fast.

Lift Heavy

Go to the gym at least three times a week. You need to start sending signals to your body that your muscles need to get stronger. How do you do this? By lifting heavy ass things. Don’t go to the gym mainly to socialize. You should experiment with training to failure and even going a few repetitions beyond. You make your body think it has been in a life threatening situation and need to put on more muscle in case it happens again.

Your workout should be structured around compound exercises. These are exercises targeting big body movements, such as squats and deadlifts. By doing deadlifts more than 600 different muscles are activated in the movement bombarding your nervous system with the signals we want to send. Always try to increase the resistance.

Rest

Many mistakenly think that you are building your muscles in the gym, but actually it’s when you are resting the body takes it time to rebuild your muscles, hopefully stronger than before. Without an adequate amount of sleep and rest between your workouts you will never get bigger.

If you want to gain weight fast you need to put an effort in all three categories above. Working out and putting on muscle is a synergy of eating, sleeping and lifting heavy. If you are struggling, take a couple of days rest, write down a fresh set of goals and keep going. Put in the effort and give it enough time and you will eventually get there.

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