Muscle Building Principles

Principle One- Lift Heavy

This is self explanatory but I see way to many people in the gym lifting way to light and not even reaching failure. To grow you must push your muscles to the point to where they must adapt by getting bigger and stronger. Basically when you contract a muscle using resistance (weight) you create little tears in muscle fibers, which must grow back bigger and stronger. The most common rep range used to build muscle is 6-12 reps with relatively heavy weight.

Principle Two- Fail

You must go to failure when lifting. This doesn't mean go to failure on every single set, but the majority of sets you should fail in the desired rep range e.g in the 6-12 range you should fail anywhere in between, if you can go above 12 increase the weight, if you cant reach 6 reps decrease the weight. YOU MUST FAIL TO SUCCEED.

Principle Three- Progress

You should be increasing the weight week to week. When you first start training your strength gains should be quite fast. Remember you must keep giving your body a reason to grow or else it will plateau and your gains will come to a stand still.

Principle Four- Keep Workouts Short

In general your workout should be 45 minutes to an hour and a half no longer. Its widely accepted that you will cause drops in testosterone (vital muscle building hormone) if you workout too long/overtrain. Length of your workout will be directly related to the rest you take in between sets (60-90 seconds).

Principle Five- Structure Your Workouts

Your workouts should be well structured. They should start with heavy low rep compound lifts e.g bench press, and then followed by lighter high rep isolation exercises e.g chest flyes. The main reason behind this is that you will have more energy at the start of your workout for lifting heavier loads.

Principle Six- Use Correct Form

Form is everything, when you use bad form e.g using your back while doing barbell curls, you decrease the stimulation on the bicep, and your just cheating your results. There is a time and place for cheating and that called forced reps. (I will do an article on that later, this article is just a basic outline of building muscle). Also when you use weight you cant handle you increase the chance of getting an injury. Trust me injuries are no joke they are very taxing physically but more so mentally.

Principle Seven- Eat Enough Calories

In reality you must eat more calories than you spend to grow. You may grow slightly if your just starting lifting without changing your diet. Most people say you need an excess of 3500 calories in one week to gain a pound of muscle. This is a myth in my opinion. 1 gram of fat = 9 calories 1 pound of fat = 3500 calories

1 gram of protein = 4 calories 1 pound of muscle = approximately 1800 calories ( including glycogen store)

You do the math, if your gaining a pound a week most of it is probably fat. Eat a surplus of about 150-300 calories daily to gain muscle slowly but surely. You cant bully your body into building more muscle by eating 5000 calories.

Principle Seven- Protein Power

Ideally you should get around at least 1 gram per pound bodyweight. You need protein to provide your muscles with the building blocks it needs to grow and repair. Don't think if you eat 500 grams of protein a day you will gain muscle twice as fast than eating 250 grams. Your body can only synthesize a certain amount of protein daily,after that it is either stored as fat or excreted as urea. This is determined by genetics and hormone levels. Why do you think pro bodybuilders get so big, they take hormones e.g testosterone to increase protein synthesis... they can expect to grow more on extremely high protein diets.

Principle Eight- Sleep To Grow

Ideally you should sleep 8-9 hours a night, realistically you should sleep at least 7 hours. Sleep increases hormones such as testosterone, growth hormone, leptin and also improves insulin sensitivity. All key for muscle building.

Principle Nine- Supplement Wisely

Supplements are to supplement an already good diet not replace it. You should only supplement what you cant get in your diet from whole foods. I recommend whey protein, fish oil, multivitamin, pre workout or creatine ( if you have the money). This is not an essential muscle building principle but it will give you that extra 10%.I will do a separate article on supplements in the future so check back under the nutrition header.

Principle Ten- Educate Yourself

Probably the most important muscle building principle. You cant go into this process of building muscle blindly, you have to know what your doing. Unless your some genetic freak who gains muscle just looking at a dumbbell, you have to do your research.

Check out ExtremeBodyFit.com for more articles like this.

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How To Get A Flat Belly For Women

Step #1

Work those core muscles

Underneath our top layer of abdominal muscles, lays an important group of muscles known as the core muscles. Most physiotherapists would advise their patients who suffer from back problems to strengthen their core muscles. That's pretty good advice for people who wants to keep their mid-section looking toned as well. This is because strong core muscles helps pull in a saggy belly like a corset, giving you a firm, toned waist. Most women do not know how to do exercises that engage and strengthen these core muscles. This results in weak core muscles which send a signal to the body to store up fats around the mid section so that the internal organs are well protected.

You can practise exercises which targets core muscles such as this one below:

While sitting or lying on your back, exhale and let your abdomen expand as much as possible. Then imagine "pulling" your belly button towards your spine, hold for 8-10 seconds. Repeat 8 to 12 times. Increase the time you hold that pull every week until you can hold for one minute.

Step #2

Move that hip

Most of the modern day working adults have desk-bound jobs which seldom requires them to move around much. This contributes to weak hip muscles and causes your pelvis to protrude out, increases the stress on your back and spine, making your belly bulge out.

Try this stretching regime: In the Lunge position, lower yourself until your back knee touches the floor. While keeping your back straightened, push your hip forward until you can feel the stretch in the front of your hip. Hold this position for 10-15 seconds, relax and repeat, switching legs.

Step #3

Control your diet

You knew this was coming, didn't you? It's common sense that people simply refused to accept. They prefer to believe that throwing money in "ab-flex" machines will magically burn off their abdominal fats. Truth is, they wouldn't and never will. You need to get rid of those fats by controlling what you eat.

A few simple suggestions:

Eat more protein rather than carbohydrates, which when un-used will convert to fats. Cut down drastically on sugar, sugar increases insulin production which slows metabolism. Eat monosaturated fats, it's filling and adds flavour to your food.

Step #4

Relax!

Stress causes our bodies to produce cortisol, a hormone that tells our bodies to store fat. You will also be likely crave sugar and fat, an effect of cortisol. Keep snacks and fattening cookies out of reach while you're at work so that you will be less likely to reach for it when you're stressed.

Step #5

Don't work your abs everyday

This will give your muscles time to recover and strengthen. Training everyday will only sabotage your efforts to have a toned ab. Promote your ab exercises to be the first exercise you do in the gym after warming up. This will ensure that you do a thorough workout for your abs without rushing though.

So there you have it, five simple steps to get you ladies started on that sexy, toned abs. If you liked what you've read in this article, there's plenty more where this came from by other "abxperts" (just a term I coined for experts in abs, you've seen it here first!)

Visit http://www.solid6pack.com now for more great tips!

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Weight Loss Diet - 6 Powerful Weight Loss Diet Tips

Everyone knows that most people would like to lose weight, but most don't seem to know the best way to lose weight. To start seeing differences, you have to make some changes in your habit and lifestyle.

Let me share a few very vital weight loss statistics Before I start:

- 64 percent of people in the United States are overweight - Obesity is responsible for 325,000 deaths every year. Alright as you can see Weight Management is a huge Problem in the United States, So we are constantly searching for that miracle drug to help us with weight loss diet.

You may not want to hear, it but it's true - there is no magic spell when it comes to losing weight. However, there are some things that you can do in order to lose fat as quickly as possible.

Here are Six great weight loss tips:

If you favour the traditional route of diet and exercise, then the following tips given below should work greatly to help with weight lose diet:-

1. Eliminate Eating Junk Food.

Most of your efforts to reduce your weight will be unsuccessful of you are unable resist eating junk and processed foods. These primarily consist of fast foods and snack foods such as burgers, pizza, fries, potato chips etc. All of these foods offer very poor nutritional value and it consequently makes no sense at all to carry on eating them. Keep in mind - you will not be able to physically improve on an insufficient diet. You must look carefully at the contents of your cupboard, fridge and freezer and make certain that you switch all sugary and greasy foods with nourishing, healthy alternatives.

2. Drink a Lot of Water- Although you may have heard it over and over again, it is really true. Drinking water not only replenishes your system but also promotes weight loss. How is that possible? Well, as we all know, water is a fluid that directly passes your colon, so drinking water can flush away those toxins and unwanted fats. Drink at least 8 glasses a day for best results.

Water is essential to life and a healthy body. Dehydration will wreak havoc on you and your fitness goals. If you are dehydrated your body cannot function at its optimal level. For example, your muscles will loose strength, you won't burn fat as quickly, and you'll feel tired and fatigued.

3. Reduce the Size of Your Portions-

You should eat five or six small portions each day at regular intervals of about 4 - 5 hours. This will aid appetite suppression and boost your rate of metabolism, causing you to burn additional fat without the need for too much physical effort.

4. Lower Your Calorie Consumption Without Deprivation. Do this by steadily reducing the amount of calories that you get through by a small quantity each day. This will tot up very quickly, but be aware that you will not start to lose weight until you reach the point at which you are expending a more calories than you eat each day. This incremental approach will help to cut down snacking and binging, which would clearly put you straight back where you began.

5. You Want to Start Exercising Regularly-

This doesn't need to be anything excessive, but simply put: working out is almost certainly the most effective way to lose weight and enhance your general heath. Diets by themselves may assist you with losing some weight, but they are not able to improve your stamina, physical fitness, flexibility, mental state and help you achieve numerous other benefits in the way that regular exercise can.

Additionally, exercise is another technique to increase your metabolism, which, once more, helps you to burn off additional fat in less time.

6. Sleep Well- Practice a Good Night Sleep

Sleeping is a favorite quick weight loss tip since it is one of the most effortless. Do not understand the power of having enough sleep. It is vital to your overall weight loss plan. Medical research has proven that sleep deprivation would induce hunger, and improve appetite. This often results in excessive eating. Likewise, having sufficient sleep of at least 8 hours helps to bring a balance to the leptin level and aids weight loss.

There you have the Building block to A Permanent Weight Loss.

There are many ways in which an individual can choose to lose weight. The problem is that diet, and exercise alone for some people still isn't enough, and may leave them struggling to reach their weight loss goals. For many people changing their diet, exercising, and taking nutritional supplements or weight loss products in combination can be the perfect answer to lose weight.

One such supplement is acai for weight loss. Acai is a form of berry that is found in the Amazon, and holds tremendous antioxidant properties. It is also used to increase energy levels, and to improve digestive health. Acai can also help to prevent free radical damage, and diseases like cancer, heart disease, and premature aging. It's the combination of all of these benefits that make acai for weight loss a great option for individuals who need extra assistance.

Acai for weight loss in conjunction with good eating habits, and an exercise routine can be a fast, and healthy way to lose weight. For many, speeding up the process in which they lose weight can help them to feel motivated, and offer them the confidence that they need in order to make the entire weight loss process an easy mental endeavor to embark upon.

One such weight loss product that uses acai is called Acai Berry Select. This is actually offered as a free trial, and is a great way to improve health, and also help to promote healthy weight loss.

Acai berry select can help you lose weight when used as part of a diet and exercise routine-Acai berry contains huge amounts of antioxidants that help to flush the body of toxins, and is most likely the healthiest supplement on the market today.-Acai berry select helps you "lose weight and flush the pounds"

Thanks to a great mixture of healthy weight loss ingredients Acai Berry Select is our top choice for an Acai berry weight loss supplement

My name is Maria Avalos and since 1992 I have been helping people just like you lose weight and create a wonderful revolution in their lives.

If you are truly serious about losing weight please make sure to read every word on this page. Then go ahead and get some Weight loss Diet Supplement.

To read more on Weight Loss Diet Tips and Strategies visit our site @ Weight loss Diet Fast.

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