Free Muscle Building & Health

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 a fact that it is a lot harder to gain muscle than it is for us to gain fat. So in order to gain some good muscle mass the body is going to have to give up some of it's fat in order to do so. This is going to help you look better as well as feel better. However it is something you need to realize will need to have goals, commitment and a lot of hard work in order to succeed.

First thing you need to do is to set up your goals for yourself. You need lots of self-discipline and commitment as well as some lifestyle changes in order for you to get through this. You need to be fair with yourself though, make sure that the goals you set for yourself are realistic. Don't look at all the body building magazines and make one of those pictures your goal. That's not realistic, especially if you are a novice.

The goals that you set need to be able to match the kind of body that you have. There are three different kinds of body types:

• Ectomorph – This means the the body is lean and has a very fast metabolism.
• Mesophorph – Is a body type that is fairly muscular with a medium metabolism.
• Endomorph – This is the body type that easily stores fat and has a very slow metabolism.

If you know exactly what kind of body type you have is going to be easier for you to set your goals as well as make a workout plan that is going to work for you and not disappoint you.

After you are done with this you need to go ahead and start up your weight lifting program. You need to start off very slowly, no matter what kind of body type that you might have. You need to start any heavy duty workout regime slowly. You should probably keep it to three sessions each week with the sessions lasting anywhere from 45 minutes to no more than 75 minutes at a time. You will definitely need to take one day off between each of your workout days. This will help your body rest and allow your muscles to have time to start to grow. You should also just start with three sets for each exercise when you are first starting and make each set contain 10 reps. You should also make sure to rest about three minutes between the different sets so the body can get enough energy to do the next set.

Make sure that the weights that you pick are comfortable for you when you are first starting. You don't want to end up getting discouraged and wanting to quit just because you didn't pick the right weights. It's also a good idea to just work out one set of muscles per session each week. This will give all the parts of your body plenty of time for rest.

It's important that you also make sure to maintain a well balanced diet and one that will cover all of the different food groups. Make sure to replace the simple carbs, which are sugary foods to more complex carbs which are things like brown rice and whole grains. You need a nice amount of protein as well and some good sources would be eggs, fish, lean red meats as well as chicken.

Make sure that after you are done with your workout that you go and relax and get plenty of sleep for your next day. This will also keep you from getting burnt out and not want to continue with your workout on a regular basis.

One of the best tools you can have to help you stay on track with your training and weight program is to take time out to keep up a fitness or training journal. By setting goals in the journal you'll be able to write different things down that can help you keep track of what your progress is. Even if this means keeping track of weight gain there might be along the way as well as weight loss or other things that have changed along the way.

As silly as this might seem, but in order for you to want to record all of your efforts or lack of efforts in a journal you need to make sure that it is something you enjoy writing in. Find a journal that is attractive to you like a leather bound journal, or a journal that has some design on it that is pleasing to you. You should also make sure that the pens you use are pens that feel good in your hand and that you enjoy writing with. Believe it or not, this will keep you interested in keeping the journal up.

Make sure to document everything in the moment. Don't wait till the next day. It doesn't matter what you start writing in it, just write and make sure that you include the bad with the good or even something that might be indifferent. It doesn't matter, just write it down. Don't think about writing down that bowl of chocolate ice cream you had for lunch, just write it down. Stop feeling guilty, the more guilty you feel about something the more likely you'll repeat it because it won't be written down for you to be reminded to change something that should be changed.

Things that you should include in your journal are:

1. Diet – Write the time you ate as well as what you ate at each meal and each snack time.
2. Exercise – No matter what the extent of the exercise write it down. If it was just a 5 minute walk or a few sit ups or a walk in the mall shopping. Write it down.
3. Your Feelings – Write down how it made you feel. Were you tired after, were you filled with energy. Were you hungry all day long or were you stressed all day? Keep track of all your feelings.

When the end of the week comes around you can take your journal and review the entire week. This will start to open your eyes up to what kinds of habits you are exhibiting. For instance are you making it a habit to just eat once a day. Are you not getting enough exercise? Are you showing too much signs of stress? All of these things can help you figure out what you need to change in order to make your fitness program be more successful.

Understand that you need to make sure that within your fitness program or training program that you eat about every 4 hours and you should eat something, obviously good for you, about 4 to 5 times each day. Make sure that you include carbs and proteins in this food as well as some fat. This is vitally important if you are on a heavy workout routine.

It's always very important that before you go off adding any type of new supplement to your regular diet that you do your research on whatever it is that you are considering. It doesn't matter if it claims to be the safest thing in the world, it does not mean there aren't side affects and you should be away of them. That is no different with whey protein. If you are planning to add this to your diet to help you to build more muscle, you need to know that there are side affects.

Number one thing you should know about whey protein and that it is not good for those who are lactose intolerant. If you are wanting to use this protein you will need to make sure that you get whey protein isolate and not just whey protein. This is because the isolate will contain less than 1% lactose, which is the sugar in milk. Regular whey has about 6%, which may not be too much for some but if used in large doses it could bother someone who is lactose intolerant.

Another important thing to note is that no matter what kind of protein that you are considering adding to your diet it is not good for your body to absorb an over abundance of it. If you have too much protein in your body your kidneys will not be able to hand it and there are two things that could happen if your kidneys are unable to process too much protein.

1. Too much protein and the inability for your kidneys to process it can cause your blood to become acidic. Your blood should never be above the 7.0 range on the pH scale. So, when this happens your body tries to correct this by releasing calcium into the blood so the calcium can pick up the byproducts of the protein in your blood turning the blood pH back to neutral where it should be. This all sounds fine and dandy until you realize that you now a bunch of little pieces of calcium floating around in your blood that needs to be gotten rid of. And where does that go? Right back to the kidneys and suddenly you have, you guessed it, kidney stones.

2. The other thing that can happen if you have too much whey protein is that you can go into what is called ketosis. No matter what you have heard about ketosis, know this, it is really bad on your kidneys. Your body will burn off fat to use as energy but you end up starving your body for the carbohydrates it needs. People also cause more problems when they add protein shakes to the mix and cause the body to become confused and doesn't know what to do anymore. Your body will begin to get confused about whether to take care of carbs or fats.

Just remember that it is simply very important for you to check with your doctor and do research before you add any kind of supplements to your diet. It's always better to be safe than sorry.

No matter what your are trying to do when you start a bodybuilding regime, whether it's to build more bulk, become more lean and strong, you still are going to want to lose the fat so you can build the muscle and continue to have a high energy level. A lot of this can be achieved by working out and eating the proper foods, however, for some there is the need for supplements. Especially for those who seem to be avid bodybuilders. Some of the supplements that many use are listed below.

The omega acids are vitally important to many who are trying to bulk up. They are important during the bulking and cutting phases of ones bodybuilding regime. These fatty acids are very important. These acids can't be found in enough supply through natural foods and this is why it is important to try and get them in supplement form. Omega 3 will help to decrease any inflammation that could happen during a training session and is also great for restoration of joints. They also are able to burn fat and help with muscle regeneration. Omega 3 can however be found in some foods like salmon, cod as well as walnuts. Men should have an intake of 1.6g of Omega 3 and women should have 1.1g on a daily basis.

There is also Omega 6 that can be found in soy and sunflower oil and can also be found in a supplement form since there are very few items in their natural form that this can be found. Most adults, men and women should take about 3000 mg of this one each day. The amount of exercise and diet recommendations may change the amount though. It's probably best to consult a doctor about the Omega 6 before taking it.

A lot of bodybuilders also want to incorporate fat burners into their regime. One of those would be L-carnitine which is an amino acid and it can be found as a supplement and it will help metabolize the triglycerides in your body. It is recommended to take anywhere from 500 mg to about 3 g each day.

Choline is another that will help to convert lipids or fats into good energy that is needed for the body. This is sold in supplements as well and can be bought in 250 or 500 mg capsules and there are no recommendations on how much to take.

Another fat burner is called chromium picolinate and is used by a lot of bodybuilders to get ripped. It will help to suppress your appetite and will help in burning fat due to the fact that you will be taking in less calories. They usually recommend that you only take 5 to 30 g each day.