Free Muscle Building & Health

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.

Probably the easiest part of your muscle building routine would be picking out what routine you want to go with. After that, it's more than likely not so easy. Being able to set aside time for it, being able to find a way of enjoying it and wanting to continue, etc. It's just hard face it. Focus is probably the one thing that stands in the way of most people no matter what kind of exercise routine they are doing whether it's something simple or something as complicated as body building.

Get rid of the scales, that's right, hide that scale. It is way to hard to concentrate on your routine if you are focused on the scale. You need to understand that muscle is going to weigh more than fat so the scale is going to do you any good anyway, in fact if you've gained weight you may get discouraged, so get rid of it. Hide it in the closet but keep it from being easily accessible.

A good thing to do is to keep one of those cloth measuring tapes that you can use to occasionally measure your upper arms, thighs, calves, waist hips and chest. You can then keep track of all of your results in a workout journal. You should do this only about once every 2 to 3 weeks. Also, to pat yourself on the back, put a nice bright colorful sticker in your workout journal each time you complete your routine each day. Come on, even adults like a bright reminder they did good.

If you are working hard to also lose weight along with building muscle, have someone take a full body shot of you in your workout close and then put it on the refrigerator as a reminder and as an incentive for you to stay focused on your workout program. Then as you begin to lose weight and shape up take another picture and continue to do so whenever there are noticeable changes. This is a great way to keep you focused and encouraged.

Each day either before or after your workout take a look at yourself in the mirror and say something good about yourself, give yourself some affirmation that you are doing a good job and that you can do it, that you can continue to strive for your goal. It's always a good way to keep you motivated if you believe in yourself.

Don't do the workout alone. Sometimes it is simply much easier to keep focused on your goal if you have others working out with you. Each of you may have different final goals but you all have a goal and you all need encouragement. Working together you can encourage each other and help each other stay focused on what's important.

If you are looking to add muscle to your body it's going to take the right amount of weight gain and the right amount of hard work to get it accomplished. It doesn't mean that you have to go to a gym as long as you provide your body with the right kind of resistance that it requires to add muscle. However, you need to understand there simply is no short cuts you can take to add muscle. There is no special diet, no special pill or fancy formula that's going to work. The only way to do it is to lift weights on a regular basis.

If you lift dumb bells you will cause a dramatic effect on your muscles and their mass, so this can be a very good thing to add to your weight lifting program. No matter what kind of a body you have or how little muscle that you have at the time you start if you have a good dumb bell training program in place you are going to increase the size of your muscles.

The first thing you need to do is to make a baseline where you want to start from. Make sure to pick an amount of weight that you can lift eight to ten times. These are the dumb bells exercises that you should include in this:

• Bicep curls
• Shoulder presses
• Chest presses
• Triceps extensions.

The weight for each of these will need to vary and each one of these exercises will need their own weight baselines. So make sure that you figure this out before you go and start the program.

Once you have your baselines for all of your exercises you should lift the baselines twice a week for about two weeks. You should do each set of exercises by doing three sets of eight to 10 reps for each exercise.

After the two weeks you should gradually increase the weight for each exercise. Do the exact same thing with the new weight for another two weeks. As you increase the amount of weights, your strength is going to begin to increase as well, which means that you'll be able to lift heavier amounts each time. In order to continue to stimulate your muscles to grow, you will need to continue to increase the weight as much as your body can handle. Always doing the three sets of eight to ten reps each time for each exercise.

As you continue this type of procedure you will begin to notice a difference in your muscles and once you get to where you want to be, you can then continue to do the exercises at the highest weight you reached in order to maintain your current muscle state.

If you have just decided to start building muscle and if you have never done it before, you need to understand that you are a beginner and you are not going to be able to do some of the same things that someone who is intermediate or advanced will be doing. If try to, you will be sorely disappointed. So it's best you start off easy when first starting your workouts.

Beginning with the basics, in order to gain muscle you are going to have to lift weights, there is no way of getting out of that. But you need to only do what you can do when you first start. You also need to understand some of the terms that go with muscle building.

Reps – This is when you perform a single exercise from beginning position back to the original position. Each full cycle of the exercise is called a rep. So if you do the exercise five times then you did five reps.

Sets – This is how many of those reps that you do without stopping for any rest. So if you again do that one exercise five times which is five reps you are doing one set.

Resistance – This would be the amount of the weight you would be using in one particular exercise.

Rest – This would be the amount of time that you take between the sets of your exercise.

These are the terms you will hear and use the most when you are doing your muscle building exercises.

When you are working out you need to make sure that when you start out that you have just enough resistance for your body where you can feel some strain when you are doing 8-12 reps for building muscle and if you are just wanting to build strength then 1-6 reps would be enough. Advanced people will probably do 12-25 reps per set.

In order for your muscles to grow you will need to increase the weights as soon as you feel that the weight you are currently lifting is too easy to lift. Make sure that you just add slightly more each time you feel the need to increase the resistance for your muscles.

As a beginner you should not do any more than 15 reps for each set and you should probably never do more than two sets. You need to let your muscle get use to lifting weights before you should ever consider doing more than this.

A basic workout routine should only be three days per week. A good example would be Monday, Wednesday and Friday would be the perfect set up, but of course things don't always work perfectly. When you design your workout in this fashion it will give your body the required 48 hours of rest that it needs for the muscles to be able to grow. Each workout each day should last only an hour when you are first starting out.

If you want to find out ways to put your workout program together it's probably in your best interest as a beginner to either find a friend who is already lifting weights to help guide you and encourage you or better yet, if you can afford it, get yourself a personal trainer until you fill confident enough to do the routine on your own.

It's out of the bag and no longer a secret, the American diet consists of more than 30% fat, this is according to the American Heart Association. Teens are the ones that are the most susceptible to gain a bunch of weight because of all the easy access to all the junk food available in schools and everywhere else. Today there are also so many things that make life so much easier that a teen barely has to move off of the couch to be entertained. But if you are a teen that has decided to lose some fat and gain some muscle, here are a few things you should do to help you do just that.

The very first thing you should do is go see a doctor and get yourself a physical. Just because you are a teen does not mean you shouldn't get a physical and get the advice of a doctor before you go on any kind of diet or exercise program.

You also need to understand that you are only human and that you need to set realistic goals. Goals that you know you can reach. The last thing you want to do is set yourself up for failure. Try not to set your goal for any more than losing two pounds a week. This is the healthiest way for anyone to lose weight including teens. Anything over that is considered not very healthy for your body.

The next thing you need to do is stop eating all of that fatty food. Stop eating so much greasy pizza and hamburgers. Try and limit your fat intake to about 3 teaspoons each day. You need to also stop that late night snack eating. You know you do, and you really need to make that a big “No no” on your diet and exercise plan.

You need to include exercise in your program. That's right, turn off the Playstation and get out and do some real exercise. The best way to do this is consider joining some sort of program at a gym. This will give you some structure and a variety of different kinds of machines that you can work with. Once you find a gym you like and can afford you are going to create a consistent workout.

Consistency is important and once you have a workout that you like you need to consistently do it and since you are a teen you should do the workout at least four times a week. The length of your workout should be at least 45 minutes each session. You need to make sure that you also include some cardio in the workout as well. A treadmill is a good place to start and then you can work on moving to other things after you have gotten used to the treadmill.

A good thing to do is to talk to a personal trainer at the gym so they can help you learn how to use all of the different equipment and they should also be willing to help you figure out a routine for your workout, something that is right for your needs. This way you will have someone to rely upon in case you need help or advice during your workouts. It will also help to cut down on any possible injuries.

If you follow these suggestions by combining a good diet and exercise you may see a difference as soon as 30 days and you will discover it's not so bad to exercise, lose fat and gain muscle.

If you are wanting to increase your muscles you will soon find out that it is a very difficult thing to do especially if you don't stick with a program or you don't do the exercises correctly. To be able to build your muscles you need to have structure, discipline and you must be completely dedicated to what you do in your workouts, what you eat as well as what you drink. Below are some things that can hinder the growth of your muscles.

One of the biggest factors that will hinder your muscle growth is the drinking too much alcohol. The reason for this is because it will limit the protein synthesis that is needed by your muscles. Drinking too much alcohol can also keep your body from distributing nutrients like vitamin A, B, C, calcium as well as zinc, all of which are vitally important for the development of muscles.

Another thing that will hinder the growth of your muscles is if you allow yourself to become dehydrated. Remember that your muscles are made up out of protein and water so how much water you drink or don't drink on a daily basis is going to impact the way that your body will build or not build muscle. In order for you to build good muscles is for you to drink at least 8 glasses of water each and every day, which is 72 ounces of water. Without this amount of water in your body you are not going to be able to build the muscles. The water will saturate your muscles and this then in turn will increase the anabolic environment that will then help your muscles to grow. One thing to take into consideration is the amount of water a person needs to take in also will depend upon their height, weight and the amount and level of activity they are putting their body through.

If you do not take in enough protein into your body you are not going to be helping the growth of your muscles. Proteins contain the essential building blocks for your muscles and that would be amino acids. The lower amounts of proteins that are taken in the lower amounts of amino acids there will be and this will hinder muscle growth. The reason for this is that the muscles will lack enough fuel for them to produce the energy to grow. If you want to build muscle it is important that you have one to two grams of protein for each pound of body weight that you carry on your body. So if you weigh about 150 pounds then you need 150 to 300 grams of protein each day of the week. If you eat less than 100 grams each day your muscles will find it just too difficult to function and be able to grow.

Another factor that can hinder muscle growth is weight training. You heard that right. Although this is suppose to be part of building muscles, it's not going to do any good if you don't do it right. For instance if you over train, you will not give your muscles the rest they need and it will be harder to recover. If they don't have enough recovery time they will not be able to increase in size. Understand that growth only takes place when you are actually resting. So if enough rest is not given the muscles don't have a chance to rest and grow.

You muscles are not going to do much on their own unless you do something about it. Basically in order to gain any new muscle you literally have to force them to grow. It is important that you don't fall for the quick fix muscle gaining pills or drinks, as tempting as it might be it's not going to do you any good in the long run. Besides, synthetic substances can have long term ill effects on you and your body from dehydration to dependency. So it is better to do it the traditional way, lots of hard work and a good diet.

In order to force your muscles to grow you will need a very high intensity resistance workout program. You need to learn to work out certain groups of muscles on one day and do another group of muscles on the next day. For instance do the shoulder area on a Monday, do your legs and hamstrings on a Wednesday and do your arms and chest on a Friday. This gives all of the different areas attention they need and rest they also need between workouts.

It is not the weight that is important, especially in the beginning. It's how many reps and how slow you perform those reps that are important in forcing your muscles to grow in a healthy manner. You continue to use a certain weight at the same reps and speed until it seems to easy to do any longer. This is when you increase the weight but continue the same amount of reps and the same slow speed in which you began with.

Make sure that you provide your body with plenty of lean protein. Your body needs adequate nutrients in order for it to maintain the muscle mass that you are adding to your body. Protein is vital for muscle growth. So eating whey protein, eggs and meat like fish, chicken and very lean beef are great sources. You can also get your protein source from milk, cheese and of course yogurt. It's a good thing to start the body off with some protein in the mornings and then slow down the digestive system by having a dairy product before going to bed at night.

You will need to make sure that you have some carbohydrates in your diet as well. Carbohydrates will serve as an energy source for your muscle growth. If there are not enough carbs in the body the body won't have enough energy to produce more muscle. In the morning you should probably include some simple carbs for some quick energy like some fruit juice but most of the time your diet should include complex carbohydrates like rice, potatoes, oats, whole grains and pasta. You will also find that corn, broccoli and beans are also complex carbohydrates and these should also be included in your diet.

You also need to make sure that you have enough omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids in your body. You can get both of these by simply including avocados, fish, soy, walnuts, fish oil, flax oil and sunflower oil in your diet. Make sure however that you keep your intake of saturated fats down to 10 percent of your calorie intake in a day.