Tuesday 17 July 2012

As You Begin Your Bodybuilding, Pay Attention to These Vital Tips

As You Begin Your Bodybuilding, Pay Attention to These Vital Tips
Bodybuilding is becoming more and more popular and not just for the aesthetic appeal of having a great body but due to the nutritional and exercise principles one can learn and implement. The discipline and education you get on proper nutrition is invaluable when you go through bodybuilding. Your health will be optimise and the good habits you form as far as your nutrition is concerned will be with you throughout your life. To avoid the many pitfalls a person can fall victim to when they begin their bodybuilding journey, it's imperative that you seek out the proper information each step of the way. In this article, we will be looking at some advice that will help you get started on the right path when it comes to bodybuilding.

If you are a beginning bodybuilder it's important to realise that what you eat may be more important than your workout system. In fact, without proper nutrition, getting good visual muscle definition is practically impossible just as bulking up is much harder to do without a proper diet. If you are thinking about trying to gain weight to add muscle mass at the same time as eating to get lean muscle definition, you won't succeed. The two phases, getting ripped and bulking up, are just the opposite. Thus, ideally, you would first go on a bulking phase, where you would eat larger amount of calories than you burn at rest. Next would come the cutting phase, where you eat less and your carbohydrates, protein, and fat would be in different proportions than during the bulk up stage. For the best results during the bulk up phase - to increase your muscle mass - you must remember that the quality of the food is more important than the quantity. The foods you eat must be healthy. Don't eat a diet of junk and processed foods. Complex carbohydrates, fruit, vegetables, good fats, and lean protein are the main ingredients for a good bulking up diet. If you eat about one gram of lean protein for every pound you weigh, you will be right on target. Fat isn't bad at all and at least 25% of the calories you consume should derive from different fats, like olive oil, animals fats and flax oil. Your body needs to use fats for many fundamental functions which is why removing them from your diet or limiting your intake to really low levels will have a negative impact on your health. Eating fats will make you feel content for longer because fats are burned very slowly for energy, which means your ideal body will be easier to obtain.

Compound exercises are the most effective at building up muscle mass quickly because they use more than one muscle group. Squats, bench press and dead lifts are all excellent exercises for increasing your muscle mass, rather than the standard isolation movements which usually just increase endurance rather than size. So, you should ensure that your workout routine includes as many compound exercises as possible to maximise your returns from the time spent in the gym. You should also keep track of your progress because when you start reaching a plateau you'll need to spice things up again.
Bodybuilding is likely to steadily increase in popularity, mainly due to the health benefits it offers, including improved stress management and a higher level of resistance to various diseases. You need to start today in order to begin to change your life in a positive way through bodybuilding.

Monday 16 July 2012

Build a Great Physique with These Bodybuilding Tips

Build a Great Physique with These Bodybuilding Tips
You may have seen some big bodybuilders training in the gym and thought to yourself 'I wish I looked like that', well the good news is you can get a body like theirs. We all can. The only catch is it takes a lot of effort and a lot of time to attain such physique. There are so many benefits, though, that it is well worth it in the end. Keep the following information in mind because it will help you to get the most out of what you put in.
Plan your meals around your day to day activities. The nutrients you consume should be determined by what you plan to do that day. Most successful bodybuilders recommend that you eat a high carbohydrate meal before any intense workout. As a matter of fact, you should also replenish your body after your workout so your muscles have what they need for healing. Keep in mind also that carbohydrates are used for fuel and what you don't use is stored as fat. If you are gaining too much fat, don't eat carbs after 7 pm unless you are going to be very active. It's not necessary to give up carbs completely in the evening, but try to eat fewer by choosing low-carb vegetables with your meal instead of high-carb veggies such as potatoes or corn. And take it easy on the bread. If you have followed the above suggestion and not eaten carbs after 7 pm, your body will not have a lot of stored fuel in the form of fat. Therefore, most bodybuilders recommend that you do your cardio workout in the morning, before you eat. Otherwise, the body will use the carbs in your system for fuel rather than the fat you have stored.

 In the 1980s, fat was the big "forbidden" food. Now that onus has fallen on carbohydrates. Eating more carbohydrates each day than your body needs for fuel can lead to fat build up on your body. Normally, your insulin secretion is sufficient to transport the glucose from the carbs into your muscle cells, but if you happen to be insulin resistant, or sensitive, this doesn't happen. If you are just starting out and need to lose a lot of body fat, one sure-fire way is to severely reduce your carb intake. The good news is that carbs can also be very advantageous to the person who is already working out frequently and seriously. When your body fat - which you can calculate with a free BMI Calculator online - reaches less than 25%, note also what your lean body mass is and then multiply that figure times .75 - 1 gram of carbs per day. Just remember that if you consistently do strength-training workouts, the carbohydrates you eat will be burned as fuel instead of being turned into fat.
If you wish to add to the size of your muscles you'll need to increase the heaviness of the weights you lift after each session. You will hit a plateau if you continue to lift the same weights each day as your muscles will become stronger and adapt to the strain. This is the reason why beginners are recommended to start off using a weight that they can only do six reps with. In other words, by time you're completing your sixth rep you are ready to die and there is nothing left in you to allow you to do a seventh. Then you should use the same weight until you can do around ten reps before having to stop. When you're able to do eleven repetitions you must add more weight so that you can only do 6 reps, then continue the same cycle. Doing things this way will ensure muscle growth and progress. Your first steps into the big world of bodybuilding should be easier when you consider the above information. Bodybuilding can be a bit scary for some people but just remember bodybuilding comes with lots of benefits so the discomfort in the beginning is certainly worth it.

Body Building for Beginners


As You Begin Your Bodybuilding, Pay Attention to These Vital Tips
If you've seen huge bodybuilders with lots of muscle in the gym you may have felt slightly jealous, and if you want to look like them the good news is you can. Everybody can. However the thing is to be persistent and committed as it is quite difficult and it takes a lot of time. The benefits are immense though and it is certainly worth the hard work. In this article I'll be telling you how you can maximize your efforts to get the best gains, so keep what I say in mind.
What you eat after a workout is immensely important for getting a great physique. This is because right after a workout the body is in shock and will absorb nutrients more rapidly, in an attempt to recover from the strain it has been put under. It's a good idea to have a protein shake after your workout so that your body can increase its protein synthesis levels and therefore create more muscle mass and increase your strength. Whey protein is the preferred choice with bodybuilders as it gets to work very quickly, letting your body use it much quicker. Muscles are built and repaired with protein, which is why getting high rates of protein absorption is important. Another reason why protein shakes are so popular is because after vigorous exercise lots of people just don't want to eat any solid foods.


If your aim is to get lean and get a six pack you can totally forget about any alcohol! While it doesn't actually get stored as fat, it is metabolized much like carbohydrates, becoming the body's primary source for fuel. What does this mean? It means that the fat you are trying to shift to get rid of that soft look will happily stay where it is until all the alcohol is used up. Two additional reasons for steering clear of alcohol are that firstly it has been shown to lower your libido and secondly it has been shown to reduce muscle strength. If you want to waste all of your hard work from training then go right ahead and drink another beer. You will simply ditch the alcohol if you're totally serious about losing weight and getting ripped.
Compound exercises will help you grow more quickly as they utilize a number of different muscles. Squats, bench press and dead lifts are all excellent exercises for increasing your muscle mass, rather than the standard isolation movements which usually just increase endurance rather than size. To make the most from your time in the gym you should ensure your workout routine includes plenty of compound exercises. You will need to change things around to keep making progress at the gym, so monitoring your progress to see where you're falling behind is a good idea.
Aside from gaining large muscles, you will notice an increase in your popularity, a reduction of your stress, and an ability to stay healthy and well. So, don't wait too long to start your bodybuilding journey because you will gain a lot in the process.