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.

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.

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 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.

If you are trying to get into weight lifting because you want to build muscle, don't make the mistake of telling some people that you are having problems with trying to gain muscle. More than likely they are going to turn to you and tell you to eat more. Although you do need to eat a lot to be able to gain muscle, eating way too much isn't going to get it done.

A lot of people are going to try and tell you that in order to build those muscles you need to gain weight so the best way that you can do this is eat a lot no matter what it is, pizza, candy bars, steaks, hamburgers you name it, they tell you that's the way to build up that weight gain to increase your muscles. This however is a myth. If you eat everything in sight you'll gain weight alright, but not the kind that you want to gain. So you need to eat a lot of healthy foods not junk foods.

Are you doing far too many repetitions that are considered low with a lot of weight thinking this is going to help you bulk up? If you are, well you can stop right now. The low repetition with high weight as compared to the high repetition with low weight isn't going to make any difference in the size of your muscles. As long as you are simply pushing each set of repetitions to the max for yourself, you will overload the muscles and they are going to grow and get stronger.

A lot of different magazines and DVDs try to lead you to believe that if there is no pain there will be no gain. Just another myth. If you happen to keep pushing yourself as hard as some of those guys in those magazines and recordings of course you are going to get as big as them. Not. These people, at least the ones not taking illegal drugs, are genetically predisposed to being able to carry this kind of muscle weight on their body frames. You also need to realize that these people also have been lifting weights for years and years so you can't compare yourself to them, you more than likely will never get to that level. Just remember as long as you are eating enough of the right foods and working out three to five times a week, you will begin to bulk up and bulk up to the point of which is good for your own personal body frame and genetics.

Many bodybuilders will proclaim over and over again that if you don't stock up on lots of protein that you simply can't build muscle bulk. Even though protein is one of the main building blocks for muscle, eating tons of protein is going to guarantee that you are going to get more muscle because of it. Your body needs just a certain amount of protein each day and going over that is not going to change things. Since we cannot store excess protein, nor can we get rid of it, the only thing left for the excess protein to do is to turn to fat.