Here is a bicep workout for you that we found very useful!

 

Essential Tips For the Incline Dumbbell Bench Press

The incline dumbbell bench press is one of the best movements you can do for your chest development. However, there are important tips that apply to this exercise, as well as to pressing exercises in general, that you must follow to get the most out of the exercise. Here are a couple of essential tips for the incline dumbbell bench press.

1. Find Your Ideal Hand Angle

The way you position your hands around the handles is important for many exercises, but especially the incline dumbbell bench press. Depending on the angle of your hands relative to your body, you can preferentially work the triceps, front delts, or upper pecs.

Since you are probably trying to work your chest with this exercise, get your palms as close to perpendicular with your body as possible. This means that they will be in roughly the same position as if they were wrapped around a barbell.

If you want to work triceps and delts more, turn your palms inward until they are parallel or nearly parallel with the rest of your body. In this position, they will be perpendicular to the position at which they would be for a barbell.

2. Get A Strong Kick-Start To Make The First Rep Easier

One of the hardest thing about dumbbell presses, especially the incline dumbbell bench press, is simply getting the weights into position. However, there are a couple of ways to make this part of the movement go more smoothly.

First, position the dumbbells close to your knee, as opposed to higher up on your thigh, when you're getting ready to kick them up to your chest. As long as you get a strong kick, this will cause them to end up closer to the bottom starting position, rather than further down on your torso.

Second, make sure you kick them up HARD. Unless your leg strength and upper body strength are totally out of balance, you're probably not going to be able to kick your working weights up with too much speed to handle. Getting the dumbbells into position quickly will prevent you from wasting valuable energy.

3. Keep On Learning (and Pressing!)

These important tips will get you started on improving strength, but you must always keep learning more new information to keep the muscular gains coming. For pressing movements, you must work on your arch, your tightness, your speed and power, and many more essential elements.

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Bench Press Shoulder Injury - What to Do When it Happens and How to Avoid It

Shoulders are among the top 4 most injury-prone body parts of out bodies (the other three being lower back, knees and wrists). A serious shoulder injury can mean a stop to your bench strength routine, or at least a serious slow down.

If it already happened, you need to take it slow. Very slow. If you come back to the gym too soon after your bench press injury, you may end up with a chronic pain for the rest of your life. So the number one requirement you need to fulfill is to make sure your recovery is complete. If you have a chance, go to a sports doctor, rather than a regular one. Sports doctors are very well accustomed to shoulder injuries and will be able to give you the best advise on your recovery and therapy.

If you can't see a sports doctor, make sure you see an experienced specialist and listen and follow his or her advise to the letter.

Do not be your own doctor. Chances are that you are too subjective and too eager to return back to the gym which may do you a permanent harm. You are a weight lifter, not a doctor. And your spotter or piers from the gym, despite of a well-meant advise cannot replace a professional doctor's advise.

When you are ready to start working out again, try to use machines instead of free weights. Machines have pre-defined movement, which separates the muscles better than the free weights. This is a key factor. You need to workout muscles in smaller groups. If you have been through a therapy session, you already know that these are done mostly using machines.

After a break from your bench press workouts, the goal is to make sure you are strengthening every muscle needed to perform a bench press. So rather then going back to your bench press routine, start slower. Use barbell exercises as much as you can. This way, you make sure that the muscles in the uninjured side do not do the work for the other side. This is important in order to develop both sides equally.

Of course, you need to pay a lot of attention to your shoulder exercises too. Again, use barbells if you can and work on all three deltoids parts of your shoulders.

One important thing you need to keep in mind - if your shoulder starts hurting, stop immediately. This is not a 'no pain no gain' thing. It is your body telling you, that there is still something wrong with your shoulder capacity.

Of course, better than dealing with the shoulder injury is to prevent it. The most important prevention technique is a proper warm up. Don't just do 1-2 bench presses with lighter weight. You need to warm up each muscle group that participates in bench press. And that definitely includes shoulders too.

Another very common thing that leads to bench press shoulder injury is excess bench weight. You need to know yourself well. Of course, trying a new max always require going into uncharted territory, but if you so-so do 1 rep with 225 lbs, chances are, that increase to 250 lbs is just too much.

And lastly - always use a spotter. When you see the weight going down and not be able to lift it, the pressure on your muscles and joints is just too great. You instinctively press as hard as you possibly can, even if the effort is futile. In scenario like this, something has to give.

Workout hard, but safe, warm up well and listen to your body rather than your ego, and you will enjoy a long bench press career.

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How To Go To The Weights Gym and Not Be Scared

Don't act tough, just get buff!

If the idea of going to the gym leaves you trembling at the knees you may well have avoided going despite a desire to get buff. The grunt of several large sweaty goliaths, gurning their way to big guns and the clunk of huge piles of iron hitting the floor may have stopped you making the start on those abs you have always wanted.

You will be relieved to hear that this is a common fear among men. They worry about being ridiculed if they can't lift even the smallest weight, they are scared of not knowing what to do, they are scared of bumping into a particularly large fellow and starting a fight with a man shaped bull, but above they are scared of the idea that they are destined to be flabby or weedy their whole life. With this in mind, here are some tips to help you overcome your fear and get yourself on the big gun train!

Clientele

Before you go in, remind yourself that every one of those blokes was standing where you are now at some point. No muscle, scared of going in and not sure what to do. When you enter and some turn to look at your, think of the fact that they are probably all worried that you are judging them. After all you are all obviously conscious enough of your looks to want to go to the gym. Try breaking the ice by asking some advice or by asking someone to spot you. (If you don't know what that is yet don't worry.)

Gym Buddy

A great way to help you overcome this fear is to go with a friend. Ideally someone that can help you get the hang of the machines and other equipment. But if you don't have a friend like that, any friend will do. Once you get into the swing of going to the gym and start to get competitive with yourself it will help to have a friend to bounce off and to help motivate you to keep coming back.

List

If you do go on your own, take two things with you to help you stay focused and to help you forget about being scared. An MP3 player is great for keeping a rhythm when running or when lifting weights and for blocking out the room. The other thing is a small notepad. Use this to note down every exercise you do, how many repetitions you do and how heavy the weight was each time. This way when you come next time you will know what you have to do and what you are aiming to beat so your muscles get bigger.

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Growing Your Arms With Effective Exercises For Biceps

Although there are big names from many different body parts, it seems that the biceps are endowed with many of the more popular and well-known names. For example, some people call a bicep muscle the guns, other people call them pythons and some people simply make up their own names or even give them a human name. Regardless of what you call them, however, it is important for you to make sure that you are doing effective exercises for biceps in order to see them grow. Here are a few basic principles to keep in mind that will help you to do so.

The vast majority of people that are doing regular exercises for biceps are going to do a variation of the curl. It is this curling motion that works the bicep, and isolates it quite effectively. At times, it may be beneficial for you to do preacher curls, where you're mobilizing the upper arm and using the barbell. At other times, however, you should do concentration curls or standing dumbbell curls in order to work each muscle individually and work the stabilizer muscles along with them. Getting a good mix of these various exercises will give you the most benefit.

Another thing that you should consider is that it is not always going to be necessary for you to directly work the bicep muscle by isolating it in order to see growth. As a matter of fact, using multi-joint exercises in which the bicep is a secondary muscle is going to give you almost as much benefit as isolating it with the curling motion. Some good exercises for you to consider are the bench press and lat pulldown. Not only will you be able to work out the chest and back whenever you are doing these exercises, the biceps will be right along for the ride.

Something else that may surprise you is the fact that it is not necessary for you to work out the biceps in order for you to see growth. As a matter of fact, working the larger muscles of the body, the legs, can help you to build muscle in all areas of the body. The reason why this is the case, is because whenever you are working these muscles using squats, the seated leg press or deadlifts, you're going to be releasing chemicals into the body that signal it to grow. These chemicals do not confine themselves to the area of the core and the legs that you're working, they are spread throughout the body so you will see growth in your biceps as well. This is something that many people don't realize.

Regardless of whether you work out using multi-joint exercises, working the legs or if you exercise the biceps directly, it is a muscle group that should not be ignored. When you work out the biceps and triceps, you can really enjoy some nice-looking arms that will look good, regardless of what it is that you decide to wear.

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Gym Basics - What Are Straps, Chalk and Weightlifting Belts For?

There are many different types of lifting aids used within the gym environment. You may have seen various muscle bound gym-goers using Figure 6's, Figure 8's and chalk to assist in lifting heavy weights? Have you ever wondered what each one is designed for? What do they do and which ones would suit you and your type of training?

Straps: 
The 2 most common straps used in the gym are the figure 6's and figure 8's.

When training muscles such as back or traps the forearm muscles play a vital role in being able to grip or hang onto a barbell or dumbbell. But in some cases halfway through a session the forearms become so pumped resulting in the fingers not being able hold onto a barbell or dumbbell.

When training with straps the load is reduced considerably because instead of the forearms taking all the weight it is distributed through the strap and wrist resulting in your forearms not getting fatigued as quickly.

Exercises where Figure 6's and figure 8's are needed are exercises such as farmers walk, chin ups, dead-lifts, rows and shrugs.

There are two distinct differences with the 6's and 8's.

Figure 6's are designed so that you not only use more of your forearm muscles, but if the weight is too heavy and you must drop it, the weight will slide out from the strap. On the other hand when using figure 8's you stimulate even less forearm strength and rely on the figure 8 strap to hold the weight. Not only this but if you drop the weight, the strap will remain leaving your arm connected to whatever it was you were lifting. This can become dangerous if performing some exercises.

I recommend using figure 6's for all lift but if you like using figure 8's do not use them with dead-lifts and rows, in case you drop the weight.

Chalk: 
Chalk is used mostly by powerlifters and weightlifters. A lot of gyms don't allow the use of chalk because it can cause quite a mess on the floor as well as get all over the weight plates and barbells.

Chalk is mainly used on rope climbing, deadlifts, power cleans, snatch and squats. Its main role is for the trainer to be able to grip as easily as possible while still using natural grip strength.

The benefit with using chalk is that the trainer can lift heavy weights (mostly on deadlifts) and continue to use the muscles in the fingers and forearms without having to rely on straps (which tend to take a lot of the load off the grip.)

Knee wraps: 
Knee wraps are designed to push your patella down firmly making it easier to glide up and down. Power-lifters believe by doing this they will be able to lift more weight when squatting. Knee wraps also help you at the bottom of the squat by causing a 'bounce' out of the bottom position, which to some is the hardest position.

I recommend to be careful with using knee wraps because if you use them too much they can cause slight tears beneath the kneecap on the patella tendon.

In conclusion, most trainers do not need to use lifting aides. These will help you lift a little bit more weight but this is not necessarily a good thing. Superior technique and good nutrition is the best way to not only achieve your strength and fitness goals, but also live a healthy lifestyle.

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4 Common Myths About Your Abs

Virtually everyone who starts going to the gym wants a perfect set of defined abs; however, what they don't realize is that getting a nice six pack is harder than it seems. Many people associate having great abs with fitness obsessed individuals who spend more time in the gym than they do on anything else. That's simply not true because everyone has a set of abs underneath all that fat covering them. To help you along your journey, I have complied 4 common myths that you can do away with in order to be better focused on building stronger and better abs.

Myth 1: Avoid Crunches

Recently, a lot of people started avoiding crunches due to fitness experts and rehab professionals speaking out against the exercise. The theory is that crunches require you to flex and bend your spine which could negatively impact your spinal discs by pushing them too far out and causing herniated discs. However, the truth is that this issue is still highly debated. Others researchers state that your body position does not have any responsibility in putting pressure on your spinal discs, but the fact of how tightly you compress your muscles that impacts it. In addition, others note that a person's spinal discs can actually realign themselves during crunches instead of pushing them too far out. In the end, if you do have any spinal injuries, you should not be doing crunches. Otherwise, doing a couple of proper sets can only benefit you in the end.

Myth 2: Your Abs Serve No Purpose Outside Of Looking Good

This one I hear a lot from my various clients. However, saying that their only purpose is for looking good is ignorant. Firstly, your abs are great stabilizers. When you contract your abs it helps you stiffen you mid section and stabilize the entire body, especially when doing exercises such as deadlifts and squats. If you don't have a strong core, you will never be able to deadlift or squat a lot of weight. Secondly, the abs allows us to slow down rotations around your body and for hyperextension of the back.

Myth 3: You Have To Do Only "Abs Exercises" To Build Your Abs

Popular to contrary belief, you don't necessarily have to do abs specific exercises in order to build your abs. Exercises such as deadlifts and squats still work your abs due to them being engaged in order to stabilize the muscles during the lift. In addition to these exercises, even something as simple as a push up can force your abs to work indirectly. Think of the push ups as a plank position except made more difficult by the motion of pushing up and down and you'll get the idea. Therefore, you do not have to directly do abs exercises for your abdominal muscles to still get a solid workout.

Myth 4: You Don't Need To Do Any "Abs Exercises" To Build Your Abs

As I stated above, you don't necessarily just have to focus on doing abs exercises in order to get a nice set of six pack abs, but you still have to do abs specific exercises in order to strengthen your midsection completely. While doing deadlifts and squats will help in improving core strength and stability indirectly, doing exercises such as the Swiss - Ball Pike Rollouts can effectively and directly hit your upper abs, lower abs, and oblique's all at once.

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Why You Need Creatine and Why You Need It Now

Some people look at creatine as some sort of steroid. They see it as an unnatural substance and if one uses it they look at them as cheaters. When in fact the people who are using creatine are not cheaters but smart people who want to look and be at their best. Also, Creatine as a substance is actually more natural to the human body than processed grains or sugars. Supplementation with creatine will not only increase lean muscle mass but will also increase testosterone levels as well. So take a step back and watch and learn why you need creatine and why you need it now!

What is Creatine:

Creatine is a natural substance that is present in almost all vertebrates. Creatine is a very important key component in skeletal muscle metabolism. Not to mention creatine has many scientific studies behind it meaning that it is proven to work and it is one of the most researched and respected bodybuilding supplement right after protein powder.

How Creatine Works and Why You Need It:

Creatine works immediately right after digestion. Right away it binds to a phosphate molecule to form creatine phosphate and this acts as storage reservoir for regenerating ATP. ATP is the chemical source of energy for all muscles in terms of muscle contraction and quick short bursts of energy. Creatine phosphate is an important source of ATP energy in muscle tissues and countless studies have shown that creatine works too.

If you're a bodybuilder, sprinter or any kind of athlete you will need creatine because it increases the power output of short bursts. Also, like I said in the above paragraph creatine will increase lean muscle mass and increase protein synthesis.

Creatine and Testosterone:

You will also need creatine because it is proven to increase testosterone levels. It does this by converting into dihydro-testosterone. Now, dihydro-testosterone is the strongest known androgen known to man and as a bonus it won't even convert into estrogen.

Don't believe me well check this out a recent study done in 2010 on rugby players showed that creatine increased dihydro-testosterone by a whopping 56%. Thats not to bad, and remember this, the more testosterone flowing through your veins the merrier!

Get Your Creatine Online:

- Creatine comes in two forms, it can either come as capsules that you consume once a day or you can have it as a powder that you mix with water.

- This link is the creatine capsules that we recommend

- This link in the creatine powder that we recommend 

Get your creatine online because buying creatine online is cheaper than buying from your local health store. Not to mention you will have a larger variety of different types of it online than in your local health store.

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Cranking The Intensity Up On Your Muscle Building Shoulder Workout

If you want to experience explosive muscle growth from your muscle building shoulder workout program, there's one thing that you must always be going for - intensity.

By far, one of the biggest reasons that many guys are not seeing the results that they're going for with their workout program is simply because they are not performing their workouts with enough intensity that will generate more lean muscle mass building.

Those who are just going about their workouts, doing the actions but never really putting forth that high level of drive that's necessary to take the body to a new level are going to be highly disappointed in their results. Often, what you think is an in 'intense' workout isn't even close to what you could potentially do and it's only when you really get yourself on a program that was designed with intensity in mind that you really see what this factor of your workout program is all about.

Let's take a quick look right now at a few of the methods that you can use to crank up the intensity of your shoulder workouts. If you are sure to implement one of these into your program plan, you can be certain that you're going to be on the road to size gains.

Decrease Your Rest Periods

The first method that you can use to boost up the overall level of intensity is to decrease the amount of rest you're taking. While you can make no mistake about the fact that if you want to lift heavy you need to be using more rest than if you were lifting lighter, this does not mean your rest periods need to be 3-4 minutes long.

That's a high amount of overkill and is just going to kill your results dead. Instead, keep your rest periods to about a minute. Force your muscles to recover faster and hit them again with that heavy weight. This is a very quick way to directly boost the intensity and help your body deal with fatigue.

Consider Drop Sets

Second, another great way to boost the intensity on your muscle building shoulder workout is to consider adding some drop sets to the mix. Drop sets will be where you perform one set at the weight that you would normally lift and then immediately after that set is completed, you'd drop the weight down by five or ten pounds and then crank out a second set.

Doing it in this manner is a great way to challenge the muscles and help get past any strength plateau you're experiencing.

Just do note that you should never perform every exercise in your workout with drop sets as that's far too much for the CNS to handle.

Pair Shoulder Movements With Leg Movements

Third, you may also want to consider pairing together your shoulder exercises with some lower body movements as well. This upper/lower superset fashion will keep the heart rate higher and keep you moving along without having to actually stop and take complete rest.

Your shoulder muscles will still get a chance to recover though as you do the lower body exercise, so you won't see a hindrance in how much you can lift.

Instead, you'll get a nice spike to your testosterone levels due to the ongoing nature of this protocol.

Start With Isolation and Move To Compound

Finally, the last thing to consider doing if you want to push the intensity of your muscle building shoulder workouts to a new level is to start with an isolation exercise and then move to a compound one. This is precisely opposite of what most people will do and will quickly bring about strength and size gains.

Again, don't do this every single workout, but on workouts where you need a change of pace, it's definitely something to consider.

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Should I Do Cardio When Trying To Build Muscle? - A Short Guide On When To Use It

Many folks wonder whether they should do cardio when trying to build muscle...after all, cardio consists of fat loss exercises used to burn calories and we want to increase our calories when we build muscle not decrease them, right?

In this article I'm going to go over some important points so you can decide for yourself whether cardio should become a bigger factor in your workouts or not.

What Is Your Body Type?

The key to understanding what your cardio needs are and whether you should include it in your muscle building routines, is in identifying your body type. Each body type will respond differently to cardio and affect how you build muscle.

Are you an:

• ectomorph - naturally skinny, finds it difficult to gain any kind of muscle or weight
• endomorph - gains weight and fat easily
• mesomorph - gains muscle quickly but is able to burn fat quickly too.

Depending on which body type you are you will need to approach your cardio differently.

Ectomorphs can probably get away with very little to no cardio when trying to build muscle, while endomorphs and mesomorphs will need to make it a part of their workout routines, since endomorphs will no doubt find that the increase in calories needed for gaining muscle may often create new fat deposits.

What Is Your Priority At This Stage?

Importantly, it is necessary to assess what your current goals are at this stage and what you want to achieve in your workouts.

If your goal is to "bulk up" and you're not too concerned about a little fat gain, since you can burn it off later, then you may want to eliminate or significantly reduce your cardio training until you reach the "cutting" stage.

If you're after a small increase in muscle but more concerned with additional body fat gains, then performing some cardio in your sessions will keep you on track.

For skinny guys and girls I would recommend that you focus on bulking and gaining muscle first (reduce your cardio) and then look to "cut" later. It is easier to focus on one goal at a time than try to do everything at once. Plus the additional muscle gains make will increase your metabolism and make the cutting easier later on anyway.

What Too Much Cardio Can Do

Lack of sufficient rest can prevent your body building muscle tissue,and this can obviously be aggravated by performing a lot of cardio in your workouts, particularly on your "off" days - when you're not lifting weights.

Too much cardio will also eat into your calorie allowance, meaning you have to be ultra careful about how much cardio you do and how this may be affecting your calorie needs.

If your goal is to burn excess body fat while building muscle, the best results from your cardio will be when it is performed at high intensity - incidentally, this can also lead to additional muscle gains.

How Much Cardio Should You Do?

Studies have shown that as little as 15-20 minutes can be enough to burn excess body fat. Ectomorphs can probably get away with less than that.

As mentioned earlier though, the key to success is in the intensity of the cardio that you perform. Make sure you include it into your weight training workouts to avoid having to train on your rest days - it can make a great warm-up before lifting.

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How to Increase Your Bench Press and Build Muscle Mass Fast

Everyone knows to build muscle mass one of the best exercises for the upper body is the bench press. One of the first questions you are likely to be asked by another bodybuilder is 'how much can you bench press?' Whilst it may not be the best measure of overall strength it does have a certain macho feel to it and a big bench press is certainly very impressive. So lets cut to the chase and find out how we can get a bigger bench press:

Grow your triceps. Your triceps are a crucial muscle in performing the bench press and make up two thirds of the muscle mass on your arm. It may well be that under-developed triceps are restricting your bench press progress. The best exercises to build muscle mass on your triceps are using barbells and dumbells: close grip bench-presses and skull crushers. Isolation exercises like tricep press-downs are less effective. They should definitely help notch up your bench press.

Try training your triceps separately. More often than not muscle building programs will suggest that you train the triceps along with the chest. Try training them on their own for a change. Doing this allows you to attack them when they are fresh and really concentrate and focus on hammering them to stimulate growth. Do this for a number of weeks and see how much more poundage you can press.

Variety. have you been following the same routine for a number of weeks or months? time to mix it up then. After your muscles have done the same workout a few times, they have already adapted to it and therefore the need to grow has been removed. Keep changing things, they can be subtle changes like altering the grip width or reversing the order of your routine or they can be larger changes like doing super sets, compound sets and so on, these will give you a real pump by the way.

Make sure you are not doing too much! While with most things in life more is better, in muscle building this is not quite true. If you do too much and overtrain your chest then it can struggle to recover and find it hard to grow more. Instead of focussing on quantity, focus on technique and intensity. A short intense workout is much more effective than a long drawn out one.

Quality rest. Your muscles do not grow on the weight bench! They grow when they are at rest. If you don't allow then enough time to recover they ain't going to get bigger. Of course, never train when your muscles are sore and a good guideline is only do 6-9 sets each session for the chest, more than this risks over training.

Take some time-off. if you have hit a chest muscle mass building plateau then have a break. let your body fully recover, get rid of all the niggles aches and pains and then comeback fresh a week or two later with renewed energy and motivation.

Use negatives as a form of pushing your chest muscle harder during a bench press workout. Negatives are when two spotters (gym partners) help you press the weight up but then let you lower it under full control. We do this because you can actually lower more weight than you can lift. So if we can get the body used to lowering more weight this will help you get stronger for the lifting/effort phase. The lowering/negative phase also stimulates more muscle growth than the effort phase.

Check your diet. Are you eating 5-7 meals a day with approximately 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight? If not then you may be restricting your progress by not following an effective muscle building diet. Each meal should be roughly 50% carbohydrate, 30% protein and the rest made-up of fats. Use supplements if you can such as whey protein, essential fatty acids and multi-vitamins.

Focus on your technique. Are you pressing correctly. Poor technique can shift the focus away from the chest muscles and can also put you at increased risk of injury. Make sure you are not lifting your feet off the ground and that your hands are not too close together, these are two very common errors.

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Reasons Why New Year's Fitness and Weight Loss Resolutions Fail

Every year millions, if not billions of people make New Year's Resolutions to eat right, get fit & lose weight - and most have abandoned them by March 31st at the latest. Here are the top reasons for their failure and how YOU can avoid making these same mistakes year after year.

1) Fitness, Health & Nutritional Habits 
Before you even set your fitness goals or weight loss goals for the new year, you first need to understand how you got into the shape you're currently in. Unless you have a chronic condition or have suffered a major accident, you're not a victim of anything - and no one else caused you to be out of shape or overweight.

It's imperative that you understand it's your personal habits that led you to your current state. You made choices all along the way, and the choices you made over and over became your default - your habits. Your habits led to your current lifestyle - what you eat, how much and how often you exercise, and what bodyweight and fat percentage you're willing to carry around with you every day.

That's the bad news, so now here's the good news: YOU created those habits, and YOU can change them starting right now, today! Changing your exercise habits or nutritional habits starts with small choices - and over time those choices add up. Plus, when repeated over and over they become your new habits. Yes, this means you need to put a little more thought into routine daily tasks. But you're not satisfied with your current state of health, your fitness or your current bodyfat levels or you wouldn't be making these New Year's Resolutions. So put in that extra thought and make the choices that help you keep these promises to yourself!

2) Not MAKING Time To Exercise 
When it comes to working out you don't take the time - you MAKE the time. One of the few universal values we all share is that we all have the same 168 hours per week, and we all get to choose what we do with those 168 hours. Think of people Like Donald Trump, Richard Branson, Tony Robbins, Louise L. Hay or Les Brown and all they accomplish in any given week - yet they only have the same number of hours that week as you do. The busiest and laziest people you know have 168 hours a week too.

The only difference between them and you is priorities - you use your time in proportion to the importance you give each activity. So if getting in shape, being healthy and weight loss are sufficiently important to you you WILL make the time for sufficient exercise to accomplish your goal of getting back in shape and staying in shape.

Don't try to tell me you don't have enough time - we all have the same amount of time, and you already know people in your situation who have time to hit the gym, go for a run or take exercise classes, don't you? What you really mean is your current activities already fill your schedule, right?

And that's the biggest reason exercise resolutions get broken year after year - trying to fit 3 - 5 workouts a week into an already over-crowded schedule. It's like trying to pour another cup of water into a full glass - it won't go in, but instead will make a mess, right? And that's what happens when people try to add in exercise time to a full schedule - it makes a mess of their week.

So how do you solve this one? Simple. Decide what to take out of your schedule to make time to exercise. Look for the obvious time-hogs first: watching television, spending too much time on the Internet, playing computer games, hitting the bars and clubs, etc. Everyone I know spends time at at least one of those four, and I assume the same can be said about you, right? So now you have to decide where you'll trim the time for 3 or more exercise sessions per week.

Remember, the decisions need to be made based on your priorities - is your health more important to you than those reality shows, time on Facebook and Google+, beating the next level of WOW or knocking back a few drinks at the bar quite so often? For best results, don't eliminate anything you truly love to do, or you'll harbour resentment towards your workouts and your own subconscious will sabotage your workouts.

Instead, cut out what you really don't care about and if you need to make more time still then trim back the activities you enjoy just enough to free up the time you need. Taking just 20 minutes a day from each of 3 leisure pastimes gives you that hour a day, as does skipping a single TV show a day. You already have the time... Now just free up enough of it for your exercising - and decide in advance where the time's coming from so there's no conflict each week.

3) Not Setting A Realistic Pace 
Let's look at a common pair of weight loss and fitness goals: losing 20 pounds of bodyfat next year and adding 20 pounds of muscle next year. Either one can make a major change in your health and body image while boosting your self-confidence and energy levels. The biggest problem is far too many people suddenly jump into the gym and start lifting weights life a fiend to build muscle fast, or drastically cut their calorie intake thinking they need to drop all 20 pounds in the first month or two. If you did either of these last year, how did you measure up at the start of this year? If you're like most people, you were even further from your goals this year than last.

The issue here isn't your goals - both are reasonably achievable. The issue is a sudden change in your diet and/or exercise routine. Why the rush? In most cases it took years to get to the shape you're currently in, so don't try to change it overnight! To lose 20 pounds next year, start with a single small change to a healthier diet each week. To add 20 pounds of muscle, start light with the 7 compound exercises and add 1 more rep to each set each week and add 1 new exercise a month. Even if you didn't start to see any weight loss or muscle gain in the first 7 months, you'd still only need to drop 1 pound of fat or gain 1 pound of muscle per week from August on to still meet your goals for the year. Put another way, gaining or losing just 1/2 a pound a week throughout the year would be 26 pounds for the year - you'd have surpassed your goal by 30%. Getting and keeping a healthy lifestyle is a life-long pursuit, so remember that health, fitness and weight maintenance are marathons, not sprints.

4) Not Setting Reasonable Goals 
Sure, every woman at some point wants to be a size 0 and every guy wants to become a Herculean champion. But for most people that's just not going to happen no matter what they do. We're all born with pre-set genetics that, to one extent or another, predetermine what our ultimate limits are. But the good news is everyone can still do an awful lot to improve themselves before hitting those top limits - in fact, very few people, including pro athletes, never reach the point where they find out what their limits are.

So set reasonable goals, based on where you're at now. If you're planning to lose weight, find out what your bodyfat levels are and plan to lose 10% or 25% of that over the year. Notice I didn't say a percentage of your weight, but a percentage of your bodyfat. This is important because your body has a lot of weight it needs - muscles, organs, skeletal bones, blood, brain and the like. So for example if you have 30% bodyfat and you weigh 250 pounds, your fat weighs 75 pounds and your goal would be to lose 7.5 to 19 pounds over the year. If you weigh 120 pounds with 30% bodyfat, your fat weighs 36 pounds and your goal would be to burn off 3.6 to 9 pounds.

If you're lifting weights to build muscle or build strength, the idea is even simpler. Don't say 'I want to gain X pounds of lean muscle' or 'I want to squat/deadlift/bench X pounds'. Instead, aim for the best gains you can safely and reasonably achieve. The best you can do with no drugs, proper form, strict lifting without using momentum, etc. To build the muscle, try to add 1 rep to each set each week while increasing the weight you're using once a month. To build strength, add a bit more weight to each of your work sets any time you can while still maintaining proper form. Either way, don't get hung up on the weight being used or drawn into comparisons with others - focus just on your personal progress as the year progresses.

5) Not Enough Self-Confidence 
When one sets realistic goals to build muscles or lose weight and truly believes they can achieve and over-reach those goals it's easier for them to stay on track. For others, though, it's common for them to seek refuge in the 'knowledge' that they couldn't reach their goals no matter what they did. How often have you heard someone say "I've tried everything and nothing works!"? The truth is NO ONE has tried EVERYTHING.

Overcoming this one is tougher since your self-talk programs your subconscious, which in turn controls your urges and confidence. If you're one of these people, find an accountability coach such as a weight loss coach or a personal trainer. Knowing they'll give you a hard time if you miss a session, that they'll be expecting you to show up and that you'll be paying for their time whether you show up or not will greatly increase the chances you'll stay on track.

Another option is to find someone with similar goals to lose weight or build muscle and keep each other on track. You'll still need some self-discipline to show up when they don't - don't use their actions as permission to slack off yourself! And be prepared to replace your partner, or add in another person, if you find they're not as committed as you are - no one but YOU should be setting your pace or be in charge of your results.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/8250862

Importance of Workout Schedule for Building Muscle

There are many tools not that talked about in the muscle building world and an important one is on having a workout schedule for building muscle. It is of great importance of having a schedule for building muscle, as it will help you stay consistent and focused throughout your muscle building journey. We will in this article go through the benefits of having a workout schedule for building muscle and what it can look like.

Why do you need a workout schedule for building muscle

The obvious reason for having a workout schedule for building muscle is that it will be harder to get side tracked. Once you have a schedule, you will know exactly when to train, how to train and on which days. Furthermore, if you have a workout schedule for building muscle and exercise the same time each day, you will create a habit in your mind and it will be a lot easier packing your bag and going to the gym.

A simple workout schedule for building muscle could look like the following:

Monday: Chest 
Tuesday: Back 
Wednesday: Rest 
Thursday: Shoulder 
Friday: Arms 
Saturday: Legs 
Sunday: Rest

Benefits of having a workout schedule to build muscle

The above schedule for muscle building is just one of the many you can find. But by having a workout schedule like the one above or any other, you won't look like a question mark when entering the gym, because you know exactly what to work on and you have probably visualized your whole session before entering the gym.

A mistake a lot of people make when starting to workout and not having a schedule for muscle building, is that they a lot of times hit the same muscle twice or more. Your muscles need rest to grow and it is actually on your rest days that your muscles grow to become muscular.

When you don't have a workout schedule for building muscle, the chance for hitting the same muscle repeatedly is increased and by working on the same muscles, your body will adapt to your routines and you will not experience the accelerated growth that you want in your muscle building journey.

However, if you have various schedules for muscle building, with different exercises to choose from, you will keep on surprising your body and surprising the body is the best way to increase your muscles.

If there is one thing I want you to get out of this article, it is the importance of having various training schedules for muscle building. This will not only help your muscles grow faster, but it will also be more exciting to work out. We as human beings like variation and having different exercises in your workout schedule for building muscle is the best way to stay consistent and ensuring yourself your dream physique.

You can either do this by gathering different workout schedule for building muscle from various sources or you can invest in a muscle building program that offers a lot of variety, both in exercises and also in nutrition, which is as important as working out. So make sure to get a workout schedule for building muscle and enjoy the results for yourself.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6226741

Why you need protein to grow

It is an established fact that a high protein diet is essential for muscle building and growth. Muscles like all other forms of body tissues are made up of proteins. Proteins form the basic building block for any kind of muscle growth to occur. The proteins from high protein dieting regimes are also necessary for the generation of all forms of tissues like hair, nails, bones, muscles, hormones, enzymes, antibodies and many others. For any form of growth to occur, proteins are needed. Of particular interest for bodybuilders is the fact that 60-70% of all proteins are found in muscles. Given this fact, it is not surprising that there is a lot of hype amongst bodybuilders on high protein diets for muscle building. Let us try and get a better understanding of how this type of eating regime helps muscle building.

Proteins are made up of smaller units called amino acids. These are truly the smallest building blocks for the body to use to build muscles in a high protein diet. There are about twenty types of amino acids, and all of these can be combined in various permutations into proteins for muscle building. Of these twenty, there are two types of amino acids - non-essential and essential amino acids. The non-essential variant can be produced by the body when needed. Whereas the latter type of amino acids need to be ingested through a high protein diet. Of particular concern to bodybuilders are the essential amino acids since these cannot be created by the body. They are nonetheless essential for muscle building. That is why it is not uncommon to see bodybuilders scrutinizing their foods and supplements to ensure that essential amino acids are found in what they eat.

In planning their high protein eating plans, bodybuilders often look for different sources of proteins in their foods. First on the list are complete proteins. These are essentially a balanced combination of essential and non-essential proteins found in the food types of an eating plan. Examples of complete protein sources include, lean meat, seafood, egg whites, fish, protein powder and milk. The second type of proteins is the incomplete protein source that can be found in most grains, legumes and beans. There are certain amino acids missing in this category, but they are nevertheless necessary in any eating plan as some amino acids from this incomplete source are not found elsewhere. Finally, there is vegetarian protein source. The protein from this source is found in vegetables and plant products only. To many bodybuilders, determining the source of their protein is very crucial to ensure that their hard training regime will reap ma
ximal muscle growth. Sometimes, bodybuilders ingest so much protein into their system through their high protein diet, that it can become counterproductive in their quest for muscle growth.

So does, a high protein diet really leads to solid muscle growth? There are two schools of traditional arguments here. On the one hand, conservative dietitians and medical community has long argued that the body only requires its Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) of protein, which is approximately 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight. Anything in excess will be wasted. On the other side, 'protein pushers' with their prescribed high protein diet recommends taking 400-500 grams of proteins in a single day. This is way in excess of the RDA. Modern research has shown that, increased training activities have resulted in an increased utilization of proteins within the body.

Therefore, extra protein is actually required to stimulate maximal muscle growth. In other words, for any hard training bodybuilder, the extra protein stipulated in an eating plan makes sense. However, it is also wise to not over consume proteins, as there are side effects and detrimental effects to muscle growth. It is important to strike a balance between taking in more proteins in a high protein diet to induce growth, and at the same time, ensure that only the required amount is consumed to prevent side effects from occurring.

Mike Mass

The Best Supplement to Build Muscle Revealed!

Finding the best supplement to build muscle is something to cherish considering the large number of muscle building supplements in the market today. Of course, these supplements have a big role to play in gaining muscle mass, yet bearing in mind, from the outset, that the exercise and nutrition components play bigger roles in all of this, will help.

Nevertheless, among the few known effective supplements, one stands out. It is known as creatine monohydrate. Apart from helping to burn fat and boosting strength, it also helps in the development of lean muscle mass within days.

Taking creatine supplement increases the level of creatine phosphate in the muscles which can be taken to be water drawn into the muscles. This is necessary because approximately 70 percent of muscle's overall mass is contributed by water with protein taking about 20 percent while the rest is shared by mineral and high energy phosphates. So, taking Creatine supplement increases the level of water in muscle cells which eventually translates into larger muscle size. The beautiful thing about this is that with a daily dose of 20 grams of creatine monohydrate for 5 days, you can put on 9 pounds of strong lean muscles. Even after you stop using the supplement, its beneficial effects will still be conspicuous particularly when considered from a muscle building perspective.

Creatine supplement is regarded as the best for several reasons. In the first place, depleted adenosine tri-phosphate (ATP) can be easily replenished by increasing the muscle stores of creatine phosphate. ATP serves as the "fuel" that facilitates muscle contraction. ATP is used up whenever muscles contract. With sufficient creatine phosphate in the muscles as replenishment for the used up ATP, training harder and consequently building muscle fast will be an easy venture.

Creatine supplement also enhances greater filament thickening by increasing the amount of water in muscle cells. This is otherwise known as greater cell volumisation. Filament thickening occurs when the myosin and actin filaments in muscle become stronger and thicker. This is one way creatine contributes to building muscle fast.

Some recently conducted researches are suggestive of the fact that production of some anabolic hormones may be increased with the help of creatine supplement. Testosterone and growth hormone, two hormones that assist in gaining muscle mass, are among these anabolic hormones.

As mentioned earlier there are also some other effective muscle building supplements like testosterone boosters and protein powder. Both helps with building muscle fast but are no where near creatine monohydrate in terms of rapidity and significant gain.

By Dane C. Fletcher  

One creatine product I recommend is;

Will Lifting Heavy Weights Make You Bulky?

Many people who aspire to good health and a sleek physique, particularly women, eschew weight training because they fear it will make them big and muscular. Many others, particularly men, embrace it for precisely the same reason. So what are the facts? Does weight training, or weight lifting, make you bulky?

Genetics and gender can define the extent to which that happens, as can age. Women have far less testosterone - essential to the process of gaining lean muscle mass - than men, and the process of growth slows considerably with age, although some growth is still possible at more or less any age.

Eat Up, Rest Up and Bulk Up

The received wisdom is that performing limited repetitions with a heavy weight is best for bulking up, whilst increasing the "reps" and reducing the weight is the preferred method for "cutting", or definition. For many gym users the intention is to tone rather than to grow, and to gain strength without becoming bulky or excessively muscular.

And up to a point that is sound, but it overlooks some essential truths. First off, weight or resistance training is only part of the deal if the object of the exercise, if you'll pardon the pun, is to pack on lean mass. Over-stressing the muscle causes it to break down, but it needs to be nourished and replaced if it is to grow. This is where diet comes in or, more specifically protein. Protein is the foundation stone of muscle and without sufficient protein intake the muscle will not expand no matter how hard it is punished. This is one of the reasons why you will see guys in the gym who have been training all their lives and pump impressive weights but still look like the sand-in-the-face man from the Bullworker adverts of old.

On top of this, the recovery process is only made possible when the muscles are given sufficient time to rest. It is a well-established truism that failure to allow the body enough time in which to rest and recover will always lead to failure in the process of muscle development.

Grow With Gravity

This doesn't at all mean that there are not ways of inducing muscle growth which do not involve barbells and dumbbells and clunking slabs of heavy metal. There is increasing enthusiasm for bodyweight exercises, that is using the natural weight of our bodies and the simple force of gravity to provide the resistance needed to stimulate muscle growth. It adopts the same principle and is usually a lot cheaper, but the range of available movements can be limited.

So the answer to the question is that lifting heavy weights can make you bulky, but only if this is what you desire and you stick to the plan. By embracing proven scientific principles and adopting a regime which includes consuming the right foods in the right quantities and taking enough rest, working out with weights which are heavy and become progressively heavier will result in muscle gain.

Phil Andrews is a freelance English-language content writer specialising in articles, web content and blogging. He is the author of The Best Year Of Our Lives, a historical fiction novel set in 1976 about a group of young people growing up in a restless West London suburb beside the River Thames.