Free Muscle Building & Health

If you are wanting to add some muscles to your legs, you don't always have to go out and join an expensive gym thinking that you have to use weightlifting equipment in order to achieve your goal. Doing complicated leg weightlifting machines just isn't always needed to build as well as maintain your leg muscles. If you set up a regular exercise plan you can simply do this in the privacy of your own home. You will need to combine strength training along with some regular aerobic exercise and a healthy diet.

You should begin your day by doing some leg stretches. This is going to get you prepared for your daily activities as well as your exercise. You can stretch the hamstrings by sitting down on the floor and put your legs straight out in front of you. Lean forward and reach for your toes, breathe deep for at least 20 seconds. You should do this at least 3 times and then go on to stretch your quads. You can do this by standing up and make sure that your legs are hip width apart. Take one foot and bring it up toward your buttocks making sure to bend your leg at the knee. Hold this position for 20 seconds and then do the same thing with your other leg. You also will need to stretch your calves and you can do this with standing calf raises. Just stand up erect and then slowly get onto your tiptoes and do that for 1 second and then lower. You should repeat this 20 times.

Unless you happen to be overweight you should have no reason to worry about lowering the calories that you take in each day. However, if you are overweight you might want to take in a few less calories each day. If you want to build good muscle you actually should increase the calories that you eat every day. So you need to pick foods that are high with lean protein, good carbs, fats that are healthy. This would be lean meat, fish and whole grains. You need to limit your fried and processed foods as well. If you happen to be a very active person it's probably a good idea that you eat several small meals every couple of hours. This will keep your metabolism going at a higher rate.

You should only work your upper legs out every other day. The kinds of exercises that work out the upper legs are going to isolate your quads, thighs, hamstrings and glutes which is the only way you are going to build muscle. Good examples of upper leg exercises would be some squats as well as lunges. You also can do these with dumbbells in each hand and hold them over your head to make it more challenging.

The days in which you don't do your upper leg exercises you should do your lower legs. This would be the calves that have two main muscles, the gastrocenemuis which is the back of the leg and then the soleus which is under the gastrocenemius.

When you combine good strength training with a good diet and some aerobic exercise you are going to improve all of your muscles and will also help you to lose fat. So make sure to pick the kind of aerobics that will also target your legs. Examples would be walking, biking, jogging and running. Start with just three aerobic sessions a week and the maximum amount of time should be for 30 minutes each day.

It is probably pretty common for a woman to store excess fat in the stomach area. This just seems to be a very common area for most women and this can cause a woman to look heavier than they really are. Although it isn't possible to burn the fat on in just one particular area of the body, you can lose weight overall to reduce the stored fat on the stomach and to help increase the muscles in this area as well.

First you should go ahead and calculate your BMR or basal Metabolic Rate. This is the amount of calories that your body actually needs on a daily basis to be able to work properly at it's state of rest. So if you exercise while providing your body with it's BMR requirements you are going to help burn off more calories than you eat daily. This is the formula for your BMR.

655 + (4.35 x weight in pounds) + (4.7 x height in inches) – (4.7 x age in years) = BMR

You should count your calories and then eat within the numbers to lose the weight and get to where your muscles will begin to show.

You should also make sure that you take a daily multivitamin and one that is going to help your body be able to support more muscle mass and fat loss. Your multivitamin needs to regulate your body by giving it the nutrients you might not be giving it with your diet.

You also will need to start some abdominal routine that should be performed about three to five times a week. This should probably have three to five different exercises that you can do. You should probably try to do three to four sets of ten to twelve reps of each of your exercises. Some good examples of exercises would be:

• Crunches
• Twisting crunches
• Bicycle kicks
• Plank pose
• Reverse crunches

You should also do some cardio training as well and it should be 30 to 60 minutes three to five times a week as well. This is going to help your body burn off some fat as well as tighten your muscles in your abdomen. Some types of cardio training are listed below:

• Jogging
• Cycling
• Swimming
• Rollerblading
• Skipping rope
• Jumping jacks
• Hiking

You could also consider using different types of gym equipment as well like treadmill for instance if you would rather do your cardio exercise indoors. You should also consider experimenting with different types of exercises to which ones that you enjoy better.

No matter what kind of program that you put yourself on it's always a very good idea that you discuss it with your doctor before you start a new diet or any kind of exercise program. This is especially true if you happen to be on medications.

Everyone, including those who weight lift will probably come up against some sort of back strain. You can easily strain your back muscles by lifting and bending incorrectly and this will lead to lower back pain that can then seem to affect all body movement. Even if you are someone in good shape it's important that you take good care of this kind of a strain. Below are steps in which you can do so.

Most important is rest. You need to rest your back up to 48 hours after the injury. This is going to help reduce pain, inflammation as well as back spasms. This means you will need to avoid all kind of weight bearing activities or any activity that requires a lot of bending. Always try to avoid any position or posture that seems to cause pain or even a little discomfort. When you go to bed to sleep you should try to lie on your side with a pillow in between your legs. If you prefer sleeping on your back then put a rolled up towel or pillow under your knees instead.

The next thing you should do is to apply ice and a compress to the injured area to help to reduce your pain and swelling this is usually the best when you do it within the first 24 hours after the injury occurred. Getting the swelling and inflammation under control is not only going to help with pain but it's going to help the healing process. You should apply the ice for 20 minutes at a time and you should do this every few hours in the first 72 hours. Applying heat is not recommended.

Make sure to start doing things very carefully and gradually. It's true that prolonged immobility can weaken your muscles and decrease flexibility and further injury so as soon as you can tolerate exercise you should do so. But, you will need to stop any activity that causes any kind of discomfort right from the start. You should wait about three weeks before you begin to bring exercise back into your routine.

The entire time that you are healing you really need to avoid all kinds of strenuous movements by going back to lifting heavy objects. You also need to avoid any kind of twisting when you are healing and don't over reach or bend from your waist. When you do lift make sure you keep your back as straight as possible and bend the knees and use your buttock and your leg muscles. Then you need to lift very slowly and hold the object very close to your body. Simply don't bend over and pick the object up. When you sit you should try to keep the knees bent and your feet flat on the floor and use a back cushion. However, don't sit in one spot for too long of periods.

Make sure that you keep in touch with your care provider and follow all of their advice such as wearing the right kind of shoes, wearing a back brace or back support, sitting on special cushions for support and anything else he or she might suggest. Ask your doctor what you need to do to be able to return to regular activities before you even attempt to do so on your own.

Note: Don't try to be the hero or anything, if you hurt you hurt, so get someone else to help you do the heavy lifting or work that takes some bending to do. Do your best to break down your household activities into smaller segments and do several trips when you are doing something that requires any kind of bending, picking up and carrying.

Do you know that the average person who uses a gym spends a minimum of $30 each month whether they show up to the gym or not? For a lot of us that is way out of our range. So how do we get the benefit of a gym without going to one? Easy, do you have a spare room or a garage? If you answered yes then you already have one problem solved and that's space. Don't think that you have to spend thousands of dollars to fill up that spare room either, because you don't.

After you have found your space, make sure that you clear out enough room for the items you are going to need to build your own home gym. Some of the first things you should buy for your home gym would be a jump rope, a stability ball and some resistance bands. All of these things together will only cost you about $50.

Once you have those small items now you can do some research online or in the classifieds. Generally though you can get on Craigslist and be able to find yourself a used treadmill as well as a weight bench and weights for under $200 for both of them. This is saving you several thousand dollars there, especially with treadmills costing so much. And a treadmill is one thing that will help your entire body including your heart. So it's a good thing to have as part of your home gym.

Make sure that after you have your equipment put in your room or garage that you get yourself a mat as well. One of these mats are needed for when you are exercising on a hard floor it's going to help to protect your joints when you are working out on the floor.

It's probably a good idea that you get yourself a small TV and a DVD player and get yourself some fitness tapes. After all no gym is truly complete without a variety of fitness tapes. This will also give you the opportunity to bring in some good exercise music as well. It's always good to have some music going when you are doing your workouts, even if it's weight lifting, a little music never hurt.

If you can't get all of your equipment all at once, and that could happen when you are shopping for used online, don't forget that you can do a lot of exercises without weights and machines while you are in the process of looking for the equipment that you want. You can shadow box, you can do pushups and situps, jump rope, whatever you can think of while you are in the process of making your own home gym.

There are a lot of different reasons why someone might want to increase their muscle size. Bodybuilders want to get larger muscles to win bodybuilding contests, other athletes need stronger muscles to improve performance and some people who are too thin want it for more weight. On top of doing weightlifting there are some foods that are important for adding muscle to your body. The key is that the foods you eat contribute to lean muscle and some of those great foods are discussed below.

First thing you should understand is that your muscles are about 70% water and then 20% protein. So this means that if you want to build muscle you are going to have to make sure that you include a lot of water along with the right carbohydrates and more protein. Those who work out will require more calories and protein than those who live more sedentary lives. In fact if you are working out and trying to build muscle you should eat at least 2 grams of protein for each kilogram of weight that you carry on your body. You also will need to increase your calories by eating high protein food, the complex carbs, good fats, veggies and fruits.

As much as some say to stay away from meat, if you want to add muscle you are going to need it because meat contains the essential amino acids that are need to build your muscle mass. The protein in meat contains a high quality of protein and it's going to give your body the muscle tissue it needs and won't burn it as energy.

If you are wanting to stay away from fats then picking a good meat will be a challenge. The reason is that although you need beef and pork for your muscle building diet they are high in fat that you don't want. So you need to look for the leaner choices in these two meats and then make sure to eat a lot of chicken and turkey. Make your beef intake once or twice per week and then fill in the rest with chicken, turkey and fish.

Milk is another great food that will help build muscle. One 8 ounce glass of milk has 20 grams of protein in it. But if you are lactose intolerant this could be a problem. But you can go to the alternatives of soy or rice milk. But the protein is much lower in both of these and you would have to drink a lot more of it to get the same benefit as milk. You can always try goats milk if you are lactose intolerant since it seems to be easier to digest and it has more calcium than cow's milk.

Eggs are yet another great source of very high quality protein. One large boiled egg will give you 2.3 grams of protein and almost 60% of that comes in the white and not the yoke. In fact a lot of bodybuilders will eat a lot of egg whites in order to help them gain muscle because the yolk has a lot of cholesterol, a lot of them just don't touch the yolk.

When it comes to carbs, you need to make sure that you only eat the complex variety, these are the best for building lean muscle and they are the healthiest for your entire body. Food that contain complex carbs would be:

• Whole grain breads
• Rice
• Oatmeal
• Corn
• Peas
• Pasta
• Beans
• Yams
• Potatoes

Eating a lot of these foods are not only going to help build muscle but they will also make you full and will help you to stay away from junk food or other snacks you might be tempted to eat otherwise.

Even if you are working out and doing some weightlifting, you will also need other things in your life that will help make the work of building more muscle mass easier on you. There are a number of things that you can do to help build your muscle, of course one is the weightlifting and resting properly but there are different foods that can help you as well. This is key in helping you gain the muscle you are looking for.

You need to understand that your muscles are 70% water and 20% protein. So to build muscle you will need extra water, you will need more energy and you get that through the right carbohydrate intake and then you will also need additional protein. So if you work out you are going to require more calories and protein than the person who doesn't work out. In fact you should eat at least 2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight that you have in order to add muscle. You also need to increase your calories by eating more high protein food, complex carbohydrates, vegetables, fruits and fats.

The meats you eat are important because they provide you with the amino acids that are needed to help build muscle. The protein you get in meat is of high quality and it will ensure that it is used by your body to build the tissue you need for muscles and that it's not used as energy. Meat like beef, turkey, fish and chicken are all extremely high in the protein your body needs.

Of course trying to figure out which meats to eat can sometimes be a challenge. When you eat beef and pork you will be getting a higher fat content and this might not be what someone might be looking for, especially if they are only wanting to add a little bit of lean muscle. So instead they might want to eat chicken and turkey instead. This is not to say you can't eat beef at all, just limit it to twice a week.

Milk as we all know is a great source for our bones but it's good for helping to build your muscle mass as well. Eight ounces of milk contains 20 grams of protein, but of course there are those who are lactose intolerant so they should take a shot at drinking soy or rice milk instead. The protein however is a lot lower in these two than in milk, so you would have to drink more of it.

Don't forget about eggs. They have the highest quality of protein out of any food that offers protein. One large boiled egg has 6.29 grams of protein and nearly 60% of that is in the white of the egg. So it's not surprising that a lot of weightlifters eat a lot of egg whites.

You need to also make sure that you get the right amount of complex carbs because they are necessary in building muscle, especially lean muscle. The foods in this category would be whole grain breads, pasta, rice, oatmeal, peas, beans, corn, potatoes and yams to name a few. This also will help keep you full and you won't be as tempted to eat a bunch of junk foods.

Setting goals for your weight training is essential if you want to be motivated and disciplined. This is something that will help you to make sure that doing your workouts become a habit and something that becomes part of your normal behavior. Without goals you will not be able to be as willing to continue with the program if you don't have something to work for and to look forward to.

When getting started you should first figure out which of the different fitness activities that are of any real interest to you. If you don't like something that you are doing it's going to be hard to keep the goals that you may have in mind for yourself. You can do this by looking at fitness magazines, going to sites online and even visiting your local gym.

Once you have done your research you can sit down and make a more specific list of what your overall goals are going to be with the training routine that you might be thinking of doing. Your training program can focus on losing weight, your endurance, weight training or a combination of any of those things. Your long term goals should be reached by progressing through your training. You can set something like losing 40 pounds or your goal could be running for an hour or bench pressing 200 pounds. To get there you need a program that will get you there one step at a time and not all at once.

You also should make a list of short term goals as well. These can be goals that you set up on a daily, weekly or even on a monthly basis. A daily goal could be to add 10 more minutes to your running. You weekly goal might be to lose 2 pounds or to increase your endurance doing something from 10 minutes to 15 minutes.

You should write a contract for yourself that stipulates what your long term goal is and what you need to do to achieve that goal and you need to sign it and commit to yourself that you will stick to it. You should post this contract with yourself in a place in your home where you see it on a daily basis. This could be where you workout or on your refrigerator.

You should set up a timetable of when you want to try and achieve your different goals and put down certain dates at which you would like to achieve your goal or goals. You need to be realistic however, don't expect more than your body really can achieve. You will only set yourself up for failure by doing that.

Each time you reach a goal you need to give yourself a reward. If this means that you take off 10 minutes early from a workout one day, do so. However, don't be afraid to reward yourself even more by maybe treating yourself to a night out or whatever it is that really makes you happy or is fun.

When you are putting together a workout program that has the purpose of building muscle you will also need to include some sort of cardio exercise within that program. Of course a lot of people think of endless hours of jogging on a track as a way of cardio exercise but it doesn't have to be that way. A lot of people think that you have to work extremely hard on a stairmaster, elliptical or treadmill in order to get the right cardio exercise. But that doesn't have to be the case - it's not so much working hard but working smart. Smart cardio can also be called fasted steady state cardio.

Fasted steady state cardio is a low intensity type of cardio and it will consist of briskly walking and usually done on an empty stomach. They can last from 30 minutes to an hour and usually done in the morning. This can be done on a treadmill, the track or somewhere else outside.

The reason why it is best to do this in the morning is because this is when our body's insulin levels are lower and this is what tries to protect the fat in our bodies and if you do this in the morning it is far easier to combat the fat without the interference of the insulin.

Even though there is a lot of talk about high intensity vs low intensity and the burning of calories, remember that this is just part of your overall training program and you should worry more about high intensity when you are lifting weights. Besides you can lose more fat at the lower intensity levels than you would with higher intensity which may burn off more calories, it's the fat that you want to be dealing with when it comes to the cardio exercise.

Another thing is that the low intensity is far gentler on your joints. When you do high intensity such as jogging your joints are being abused immensely by the force of the jogging and hitting the ground that you are running on. If you are also starting your workout because you are overweight, the low intensity is far better because if you do high intensity you are also adding the extra weight to the joints and this will add additional strain on your joints and could cause a lot of damage. The low intensity is not only good for the joints but the heart will benefit as well.

Like anything new, make sure that you check with your doctor to make sure that you are healthy enough to take on both your weight lifting and your cardio exercises. You may have to start with the low intensity cardio and then move onto the weights after you are in a little better shape.

In order to be able to add any muscle weight to your body you will need some weight gain in order to work with. The kind of weight you will be putting on will be lean muscle weight and not fat. You need to understand that to put on this kind of lean muscle is actually a double process. You need to gain the weight but also eliminate the fat. For instance, if you gain muscle but also gain fat then you may be stronger but you are carrying around some useless weight as well. You will look larger but you won't have muscles that are leaner. So in order to do this you will need to eat the right food and lift weights.

It is important that you don't do something like this alone. If you can you should talk with a personal trainer about what is called regular resistance training programs. These involve multi joint movements and are very efficient for the growth of muscle because they actually stimulate multiple muscles all at once. It also accelerates your body's metabolism after, which means you are burning more calories when you are at rest.

You should consider sitting down and keeping track of everything you eat for several days. Once you have done this you should look at the calories that you have taken in. If you have not gained any weight with the food you have eaten during this time while doing your weight lifting then you may have to adjust your average daily calorie intake. This way you can figure out what your daily maintenance level will be in order to add that lean muscle to your body.

When you figure out what you are taking in, it's probably a good idea then to increase your intake to about 300 to about 500 calories more per day in order to make sure that you are getting enough calories to be able to add muscle. You need to make sure that the calories that you take in are from proteins that are lean like chicken breast and some tuna in water, never eat the tuna packed in oil.

You should also replace those simple carbohydrates like white bread or white rice with the more complex carbohydrates like whole wheat or whole grains like whole grain bread and brown rice. You should make sure that you include a lot of vegetables as well for they are also complex carbohydrates and so their consumption needs to be increased as well.

It is easier on your body if you eat small amounts of food at each sitting and this should be done every 3 hours or so instead of eating three huge meals a day. This is a good way to have fuel continually supplied to your muscles and doesn't really give the body that much time to store the foods as fat when you eat in this manner.

Make sure that you are performing a regular routine of high intensity training to keep fat burned off and to continue to boost your metabolism. This is why it's important to also include with your weight lifting some cardiovascular workout as well. This can be on a machine or it can be running, swimming, rowing, whatever gets the heart pumping is going to work.

Note: It is important to make sure that you divide your workout into different intervals where you alternate between a hard workout and a resting period then back to the workout. This should be done in 20 minute intervals. In other words work out for 20 minutes then rest for 20 minutes before moving onto something else.

If you are thinking of weight training but think that heavy duty weight training might be too hard on your joints, depending upon how old you are and what condition you are in, this could be true. That's why you might be able to benefit from slow rep exercises instead. Weight training that is done slowly and still has controlled and intense movements is going to be a lot easier on your joints, will actually be tougher on your muscles, which will help them grow and it will also add a little cardio benefit as well.

You should get yourself an exercise notebook so you can keep track of your progress. A lot of people forget to do this and they think it's silly but the fact is your body doesn't want to change so keeping track is a good incentive to keep you going. When you start seeing the results down on paper it helps to motivate you.

When you decide on a program to go with on the weight training machine you should try and pick about eight different exercises that are going to work the upper and lower parts of your body. This is the kind of workout you should do at least twice a week with a few special cardo sessions included between those two workout days. Don't alternate the body parts and do a lot of sessions during the week, this is only counter productive. You need to remember that it's not the actual workout that's important, it's the recovery time that you give your body that counts most in building the muscle. If you train every day you do not give your body the time it needs to repair itself and grow new muscle.

You will next need to figure out just how slow you want to perform your eight exercises. With each rep you have a positive portion as well as a negative portion of each exercise. Your first part of the motion is at the start and that is the positive and then returning to the original position is the negative. You should make the time for each portion anywhere from 3 seconds to 10 seconds. In other words each part of a rep should be say about 3 seconds each.

After you have figured out how slow you want your reps to be you should then set the amount of weight that you think you can do for say 10 seconds each half of the rep. It can be less but it should be for longer so that if you know you can hold it 10 seconds then there is no doubt you can do it for less time. When you do start your exercise remember to breathe at all times it does you know good to hold your breath when you are performing your reps.

You should start off by doing 5 to 8 reps of each of your exercise or until you reach that point where you know your muscles cannot take anymore and this is called the muscle failure point. If however, you are able to go past 8 reps then you know right away that you have the weights too light and you will need to adjust until you reach that muscle failure.