Workout Routines | Building Muscle | Burning Fat | Weight Lifting Exercises

Building muscle is not an easy task. It requires discipline, dedication, and organization. All the pieces of the puzzle have to fit…if one if not in sync then everything else won’t be right…

With that said, one of the most important aspects of muscle building is nutrition…you already know that. You know that eating the right amount of protein, fats, carbohydrates, and micro-nutrients is key, but do you know the importance of meal frequency?

Meal frequency refers to how often you eat. You may have heard about eating 5-6 smaller meals a day, but you probably under-estimate the importance of it…

Food consumption is like feeding wood to your metabolic fire. Your metabolism rages after each meal, especially if you eat the right type and quantity of food. The more often you eat, the more your metabolism churns, which helps you burn off a lot of fat.

Frequent meal consumption also keeps you in an “anabolic” state, in which you’re constantly building muscle. After a grueling workout, your body needs fuel to repair and grow muscle, and the food you eat provides that much-needed fuel.

You see, amino acids are the building blocks of muscle, and anytime amino acids run low in your bloodstream, your body looks to breakdown existing muscle to replenish the amino acids supply. Muscle breakdown, also known as catabolism, is the last thing you want happening if you’re trying to “build” muscle.

The more often you eat, the more frequently you supply amino acids in the bloodstream, keeping your body in a muscle-building state…for longer.

The moment you skip meals or go a long duration without a meal, the body breaks-down existing muscle.

Moreover, positive nitrogen retention is also a great indicator of how much protein you’re synthesizing. Postive nitrogen retention is achieved through frequent eating.

The goal isn’t to stuff yourself. Rather, you need to eat small to mid size quantities of food every 3-4 hours, with an emphasis on lean protein, slow-absorbing carbs, and unsaturated fats. Throw some whole milk in there with a good multi-vitamin, and you’re ready to gain a lot of muscle…fast!

The most common question beginner and intermediate bodybuilders have is: How should I train to build muscle quickly? Although training is very important, it can never be complete without proper muscle building nutrition, or eating the right foods for maximum gains.

Many people make the mistake of focusing on the training aspect of things, even though it is well known that almost any type of workout routine will yield results for the beginner, as long as they’re lifting a load that is challenging…

Infact, at the beginner level, its more important to focus on safety and take a lighter approach, because virtually anything you do will pack on some muscle.

The greater focus should be on nutrition, through which the real bodies are built. Remember, bodies are broken down in the gym, and built in the kitchen. This is a cold hard fact thats very tough to swallow, but its the absolute truth. In the gym, you stimulate and breakdown your muscle fibers. It is during the rest and recovery phase that actual muscle building occurs.

You won’t grow an ounce of muscle if you’re not eating enough. The basic rule of thumb is to consume more calories than you burn, or in other words, create a calorie surplus. These extra calories will then be used to build and repair muscle. Within these calories, its important to focus equally on protein and carbohydrates, while consuming some fat. Moreover, micronutrients such as…

Read the rest of this article on Muscle Building Foods…

The amount of repetitions you do per set can make a big difference on how much muscle you gain…

There are so many opinions out there…some say high reps, while others say low reps. Some believe in feeling the “muscle pump”, while others claim that the “pump” doesn’t help at all.

Just incase you don’t know what a repetition is, its simply completing a lifting motion followed by a lowering motion, one time. So if you do 1 pushup, you’ve completed 1 repetition. Or, if you lift a pair of dumbbells over your head and then lower it, you’ve competed 1 repetition. A set refers to the amount of consecutive repetitions you perform for a given exercise.

The best way to discover the perfect repetition range for building muscle is to look at the science on how each repetition range affects the muscle, and more importantly, how it affects the processes that induce muscular hypertrophy (growth).

Don’t let all these complicated terms confuse you…its really quite simple. In general, there are 3 basic repetition ranges:

1) 4-6 repetitions of heavy weight
2) 8-12 repetitions of medium weight
3) 15+ repetitions of light weight

The 4-6 heavy weight repetition range works different muscle fibers than the 15+ light weight repetiton range. Heavy weight (4-6 reps) typically works the fast-twitch muscle fibers that are responsible for strong, explosive movements. It is understood that these muscle fibers have a very dynamic growth potential…

On the other hand, light weight (15+ reps) works…

Read the rest of this article on the Perfect Repetition Range for Building Muscle…

So from the previous newsletter, you learned the trick to selecting the right exercises…

Now, its time to put the exercises in the right order to deliver jaw-dropping results. Thats right, the sequence you perform the exercises in can be a major difference in the amount of rock-solid muscle you build.

Here’s an example to prove this point… Lets say you perform a triceps exercise before doing the bench press. During the triceps exercise, you work and fatigue the tricep muscles. Next, you move on to the bench. Now, you won’t be able to lift nearly as much weight or complete as many reps as you would had you NOT done the triceps exercise. This is because the bench press is a compound movement that works you chest, triceps, and shoulders. By fatiguing your triceps beforehand, you are limiting the amount of weight you can lift on the bench and limiting the recruitment of the chest muscles…

Ofcourse, in the above example, your tricep muscles got a hell of of workout but your chest was limited. So, its critical that you place your exercises in the right order in order to thoroughly work and recruit all your different muscle groups.

The general rule is that larger muscle groups are worked before smaller muscle groups. The larger groups include the chest, shoulders, back, quadriceps and hamstrings, while the smaller groups include the biceps, triceps, traps, lower back, calves and forearms.

Other key points include placing antagonist muscle groups next to…

Read the rest of this article on Exercise Sequence & Technique…

The “Rocky” mentality is pretty popular in world of fitness. The more you do, the more you push yourself, the better your results, right? WRONG!

The “Rocky” mentality is one of the worst plagues in the fitness industry, and unfortunately, even with all of the modern research and real-world results to prove it wrong, its still quite prevalent…

You see, “Rocky” training is nothing more than extreme endurance training. Unfortunately, MOST bodies are not built to handle such tough, grueling training methods. When people train in such a fashion, most of them subject themselves to high risk of injury, burnout, and overtraining…

This is because the average person neither has the genetics, nor the proper nutrition needed to pull off something so intense. The average person is much better off training within small incremental increases that stimulate and challenge the body, not annihilate it.

So, the question is: What kind of duration, or how long should I workout for?

Well, we’ve already established that more is NOT better. So, when it comes to training for maximum muscle mass, there are 3 important factors…

Read the rest of this article on Duration & Volume…

So what’s the fastest way of building muscle? Well, the absolute fastest way to build muscle is to pop some anabolic steroids, train heavy, and eat a whole lot…but thats NOT the solution you’re looking for.

As modern science studies the process of hypertrophy (muscle growth), new insights have helped in deciphering the most effective ways of building muscle. Anyone that says there is “no” better way of building muscle or says that “all routines are the same” is obviously not well-versed in modern science.

In fact, it is fairly known in academic circles that the fastest way of building muscle is to progressively increase the load over a period of time, prime the body for an anabolic response, and then ensure that enough macronutrients and micronutrients are present in the diet…

It all sounds simple, but there’s obviously a lot more to it. For example, there are hundreds of different theories on “progressively increasing the load” amongst bodybuilders. From drop sets to forced reps, there are tons of different interpretations of this principle.

Similary, “priming the body for an anabolic response” is a fairly…

Read the rest of this article on Building Muscle Fast here…

Stretching & warming up are the most neglected part of a workout routine. I rarely see people focusing on this, and if they only knew the benefits, they would never skip a warmup every again…

Warming up increases your body’s core temperature, increases blood-flow to your muscles, establishes your range of motion, and increases the secretion of synovial fluid, which lubricates your joints.

An increased core temperature and increased blood-flow to your muscles undoubtedly raises your strength by preparing you for heavy workloads. A cold muscle is an inactive muscle, and if you push a cold muscle with a heavy load, then the chance of injury is ridiculously high.

Perhaps the greatest benefit of warming up is your ability to lift more weight, which increases the amount of high intensity stress you can provide to your muscles, triggering a massive growth response sooner.

And, the fact that it helps tremendously with injury prevention is reason enough for you to never skip a warm-up. Building maximum muscle requires heavy weight, and when lifting heavy, the chance of injury is very high if you don’t prepare well.

Stretching is simply one part of an effective warmup. There are basically two forms of stretching, static and dynamic. Static stretching, the most common type, is when you move into a deep stretch and hold if for 10+ seconds. This…

Read the rest of this article on Optimal Warmup & Stretching…

In the previous article, we discussed the concepts of adaptation & progressive overload, and how virtually everything about building muscle revolves around these two principles…

Today, the topics are intensity & frequency, two other “concepts” that are highly “anabolic” in nature, meaning that they can have a significant impact on muscle growth.

Intensity seems to be a very hot topic over the past few years. Proponents of low volume, high intensity training swear by raising the intensity of your workouts, while reducing overall volume. On the other side, traditionalists prefer lower intensity workouts to higher volume.

What is workout intensity?

Intensity is defined as the amount of effort you exert in a given period of time. Another term for intensity is “perceived exertion”. This simply means how you feel while working out. If you feel like you are working out very hard, then your intensity is high. If you feel like you’re having a light workout, then your intensity is light.

Intensity can be measured by the amount of work that you complete within a certain timeframe. So, if you’re lifting 200 lbs on the bench press, and you do 10 reps over a course of 30 seconds, then your intensity for that particular set is: 200 x 10 = 2000 lbs / 30 seconds = 66.7 lbs per second.

Many people argue that in order to elicit the greatest muscle building response, you should workout with 100% maximum intensity. Usually, what they mean by this is taking a set to complete failure.

Although working out at a high level of intensity is beneficial, taking a set to failure may not be. Basically, you don’t HAVE to take a set to the point of failure…

Read the rest of “Part 3: Anabolic Muscle Building Factors” Here…

Alright, so hopefully you’ve read the introductory article on the “10 Most Potent Anabolic Muscle Building Factors”…

Today, I’ll be covering the 1st anabolic factor, Adaptation & Progression.

Really, all of your muscle building efforts…infact, the entire process of building muscle revolves around the principle of adaptation & progression.

Adaptation, as a scientific definition, means a change in structure, function, or behavior by which a species or individual improves its chance of survival in a specific environment.

Survival and equilibrium is the main crutch of the human body. Our bodies are always trying to adapt to a given situation and reach a state of equilibrium in which everything’s operating at an “optimal” level.

When you hit the gym and start training with weights, the body faces a stress, a challenge that is greater than what it is used to. As an adaptive response, the body reacts by triggering the new growth of muscle, in order to keep you better prepared for the next workout.

Basically, the body has adapted to the “threat” of weight lifting. It views it as an attack, and it is then necessary to signal muscle growth as the appropriate response. Everything in your body is in a constant state of adaptation….

Read the rest of this article here…

Is building muscle really as quick & easy as the fitness models and gigantic bodybuilders make it look? I’m sorry if that question offended you…after all, you’re smart enough to know that getting serious results means putting in the time, having patience, and giving some effort…but maybe you’re confused by the overwhelming amount of information floating in magazines, forums, news stories, and websites.

Worst of all, most of the info you probably read contradicts each other…one guru swears by one technique while the other guru calls it the worst muscle building strategy ever!

So what’s the real truth about building muscle?

If you’re a complete beginner, then congratulate yourself! Because what you’re about to learn will put you light-years ahead of the boneheads in the gym…and if you’re a seasoned pro, then you’re going to appreciate the well thought out, scientifically-based, street proven advice we give you.

When all the smoke clears, there are basically 10 anabolic factors, or 10 factors that influence muscle growth. Every single thing you need to know fits into one of these 10 areas, and today, we’re gonna reveal these anabolic factors. Excited? You should be…today you begin your journey for faster muscle growth, increased strength, and ripped definition.

Below is an overview of the 10 anabolic factors. In later issues, we’ll focus on each point and cover it in detail:

1) Adaptation & Progression - Everything pretty much boils down to this principle. Muscle growth is a function of your body adapting to stress, and it only continues to adapt (grow) as long as their’s progression, or an increase in intensity/load.

2) Intensity & Frequency - Tied to the concept of progression…

Read the rest of this article here…