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.