Seeing a beautiful body on a magazine cover can indeed be a product of modern technology. Many people ask how do I start to look in shape?

So to answer this question you need to know that no amount of physical activity can give you your desired body if it is not coupled with bodybuilding nutrition and a total body workout. Actually, it is the bodybuilding nutrition that is the most vital factor in building the best body. But I will give you ten rules for building that good body.

1. You Must Use Free Weights for all Heavy Sets

Some machines might feel heavy, they do not involve as much of the ancillary muscles areas as the free weights do and, therefore, do not build as much compound mass as needed.

2. Use Lots of Compound Movements

The way that you perform an exercise is perhaps the most important dynamic in building mass. If you want full, hard bulk, do not isolate. Instead, use what Dave Draper calls ‘body thrust’ to compound the involvement of all the muscles in the area. And try not to fall for the theory that cheating robs you of separation and definition. But on the other hand, it augments the compound benefit and builds even greater size so that there’s more muscle in which to carve separations to define the cuts.

3. Try To Find areas of Improvement

Check out your physique to determine which muscle groups need to be brought up in size, then go to the gym with that in mind, concentrating on working those areas first. Begin your workout with a barbell movement and follow with dumbbells. When you do use cables, do so at the end of your workout program. Remember not to count cable sets as mass building sets as well.

4. You should experiment to find your best mass building exercises

In the past I used to perform lots of squats, and I became incredibly strong with them, going as high as 40 reps with 315 pounds. But there came a point where, even at that level of intensity, my legs weren’t growing to my satisfaction. I discovered that my lower back and hips were taking too much of the stress; the solution lay in working my quads more exclusively. So I stopped doing squats and switched to some leg presses and hack squats. My legs are now better than ever.

5. Its a must to avoid injuries

Make an effort to be cautious of dangerous exercises. Squats and flat bench presses, for example, possess the highest injury potential, so I stay away from them. I can’t count the number of individuals whose bodybuilding careers were ended by torn pecs, slipped discs or strained erectors. With proper knowledge and execution, you can get commensurate or even better growth from exercises that work those muscle groups thoroughly without placing undue stress on tendons and ligaments in and around their joints.

6. Make an effort utilize optimum sets

Its good to use a range of 16 – 20 total sets per bodypart.

7. Don’t count exercises

There is no optimum number of exercises. Most bodybuilders prescribe four sets each of four or five different exercises per bodypart, but for some muscle groups, there might be only one or two movements that work them effectively. In those cases, you should do 16 – 20 sets of one exercise, or 8 – 10 sets each of two exercises for that muscle group.

8. Always perform optimum reps

Me personally, I like to train heavy, but I also like to use lots of reps. I recently performed incline barbell curls with 405 pounds for 10 reps, but I consider that to be medium to light weight, and, therefore, not mass training. My favorite number of mass reps on a regular basis is 10, to failure, of course. However, that doesn’t mean you should avoid going as heavy as possible.

9. Test your maximums

find out your strength levels every so often by maxing out with one or two reps. Remembers, though, that any time you play around with benchpress poundages above 405, you flirt with danger. A body cannot consistently withstand that type of weight lifting. When you want to test your max, do not take big jumps. Rather, work up gradually to keep your body accustomed to the changing forces and their deflections at each level. As an example, I go up to 500 pounds for two reps on the incline barbell press, but I do not jump directly from 405 to 500 pounds. But actually, I make sure I can do 465 for at least four reps before I go to my set of maxs.

10. Always eat your meat

Remember that the more protein you eat, the better, and the best form of protein for mass is meat, especially red meat. That’s where you get your muscle building nutrients, your strength reserves and the necessary fats for joint protection. Make all of these tenets second nature to your bodybuilding lifestyle and you will gain good solid mass that you will love.

Intensity and effort is the key to building muscle. Without it, you couldn’t use progressive overload, forced reps, or any other advanced lifting techniques.

Muscle growth depends on constantly increased intensity and overload. Not only that, there’s such a feeling of complete joy and exuberation after completing a killer, intense workout.

You feel good, you feel strong, and you feel confident. There’s nothing like training with complete, 100% intensity. And it’s the most important part of building muscle consistently.

The truth is, if anything is worth doing, you have to give it all you’ve got, or you probably shouldn’t even do it to begin with.

There’s something incredibly intense about lifting 400 pounds on the bench press. Feeling a power in you as you push the weight with all you’ve got.

Not only does this intense, heavy lifting help you to build muscle, but it will also increase your confidence and self-esteem over time.

Intense efforts result in increases in muscle size and strength. The closer you come to using 100% intensity, the greater the chances of building muscle.

But it’s impossible to use peak intensity for long duration when training. After all, you can’t use max intensity when doing long-distance running.

As a result, the longer-duration but less intense activities you do will result in less muscle stimulation and growth. That’s why brief, intense bursts of exercise is most important for building muscle.

Those interested in the most muscle growth possible must regularly exercise at the 100% intensity level. Anything less than that and you will not see the best results.

But the problem is, intense efforts require motivation. It’s tough to lift with max intensity all the time. It can be very draining and it places huge demands on the body.

I’m sure you’ve felt, at one time or another, that you didn’t want to do anything too intense. You went to the gym, but didn’t feel like working out. Or you felt really tired and sluggish. Didn’t you find it tough to use any intensity at all?

Believe me, it takes motivation and determination to keep training at an intense level. But if building muscle is that important to you, you’ll find ways to keep upping the intensity.

That’s why it’s important to have strong reasons for working out, goals that you really want to achieve. It’s amazing how much intensity you can use if you’re really after a particular goal.

So the more you want a specific goal, the more intensity you’ll train with. If you’re tired of being picked on or teased for being skinny or small, that will keep you training with intensity in the gym.

Start being more aware of the level of intensity you’re using in the gym. Are you giving it your very best when you step in the gym?

If not, you may not have strong enough goals or a strong enough reason for working out. Until you find your “hot button”, 100% intensity will elude you.

Visualize what you want to achieve from working out in the gym. Picture yourself with the lean, muscular physique you want. And realize that it will take intense and consistent training to achieve that.

And since intensity is the key to building muscle, start using as much of it in the gym as you can. If you start training with 100% intensity, you’ll soon start achieving all of your muscle building goals.

Walking alone puts up to 1.5 times one’s body weight on the foot. Running has been seen to put 3 times your body weight through every inch of your foot. The foot is a very complex structure which when functioning optimally supports and balances the weight of the entire body.

Foot pain is not normal and should not be ignored. It can lead to complex problems that can affect the functioning of other parts of the body, including the hips, knees, and back. Foot-related problems are often treated very successfully with functional orthotic shoe inserts.

Orthotics are prescribed to:
1) Reduce pain
2) Provide support
3) Prevent or slow down the development of a foot deformity
4) Provide better positioning of the foot, knee and hips
5) Improve the overall biomechanical function of the body

Functional orthotics allows the muscles, tendons and bones of the feet and lower legs to function at their highest potential. When appropriately fabricated, orthotics can decrease pain, not only in the foot, but in other parts of the body such as the knee, hip and lower back. By eliminating the need for one’s muscles to compensate for imbalances, orthotics can reduce fatigue and promote efficient muscle function to enhance performance.
They can also increase stability in an unstable joint and prevent an early foot deformity from developing additional problems.

What you should know about orthotics

The use of functional orthotics adds a new dimension in the treatment and prevention of overuse injuries of not only the lower extremity but also of the hip and back. However, there is still confusion as to what orthotics are, what they can and cannot do, along with who really needs them.

What is a functional orthotic?

The Greek work ortho literally means straight, upright and correct. An orthotic is a biodynamic device that fits into running shoes to accomplish two things:

(1) To ensure that the foot moves correctly through the various phases of running which includes heel contact, whole foot contact and toe off, the orthotic functions like a rudder to help the foot function efficiently biomechanically.

(2) To support the foot, the orthotic assists the foot and enables it to communicate and align with the rest of the body. The body is then balanced above the foot in midstride as well as when the foot is on the ground.

A true functional foot orthotic is a custom-made device prescribed by a podiatrist or pedorthist. What it is not is an off-the-shelf device that is essentially just a nice arch support. While these devices are often helpful, they are not a true custom functional orthotic!

The science of biomechanics has provided much of the framework from which functional foot orthotics have evolved. Lower extremity biomechanics is the study of human motion primarily concerning gait, foot stability, propulsion and muscle action.

BIOMECHANICAL BASICS

To fully appreciate why some runners need orthotics and others do not, an insight into basic biomechanics will go a long way towards explaining the need for orthotics.

Our feet go through a very complex series of movements to help propel us forward. One of the most important functions of the foot is to help the body absorb shock when it hits the ground. In running, every time we strike the ground, our lower extremities experience a force between one and a half and three times our body weight.

Pronation

The foot normally strikes the ground on the outside (lateral) part of the heel. As soon as this occurs, the heel should roll in. This motion, called pronation, which absorbs shock, gives the appearance that the arch is flattening out. This mechanism of pronation helps prevent impact related injuries such as stress fractures by reducing forces to the ankle, knee, hip and back.

Once this ‘pronation phase’ is complete, the foot begins to roll-out or supinate slightly, creating a more stable foot position and allowing the lower extremity to achieve maximum efficiency when pushing off.

Pronation then, is a normal, necessary biomechanical motion in foot function. However, if the foot pronates too much or for too long it will remain unstable, making the lower extremity less supportive of body weight. This can result in a multitude of overuse injuries from heel or arch pain, stress fractures, knee, hip and back pain and injuries.

Pronation, therefore, is a problem only when it becomes excessive. Excessive pronation can result from several causes. Hereditary congenital bone structure refers to our foot type, which to a great extent, is genetically predetermined. The position of the joints can cause the foot to assume a pronated position.

Excessive pronation can also result from biomechanical abnormalities. If a certain part of the foot or leg is unable to go through the motion necessary in normal walking and running, another nearby joint may be required to make up or compensate for this lack of motion. For example, one of the most common biomechanical problems causing the foot to over pronate is a tight calf muscle also known as an equinus. The foot needs to bend (dorsiflex) upwards five to ten degrees at the ankle for normal lower extremity motion to occur.

If this motion is unavailable, the foot will overpronate to make up for the limitation. By stretching the calf muscle properly, these forces acting on the foot can be reduced and can help to prevent lower extremity injuries.

Finally, improper shoe gear is another cause of overpronation. Running shoes that have a curved last or shape will tend to increase the amount of pronation that occurs in the foot. Many shoes are categorized as ‘motion control shoes’, usually made from a straight last, have more supportive materials on the inner (medial) side of the shoe to limit the amount of inward roll (pronation). They are not included to stop pronation but to let this motion occur in normal limits.

Many runners almost literally run their shoes into the ground and discard them only when they have the shoes reduced to little more than a pulp. Shoes are meant to only last 6 months or 500 miles; whichever come first. Remember that if the shoe is worn-out or broken down it cannot function in the way it was designed.

Supination

Is the opposite motion of pronation. It occurs normally right after heel strike to help the foot become a ‘rigid lever’ to propel toe-off. Over-supination is very rare no matter what the resident “shoe guy” at the runner store touts! What is more common is under pronation which can occur with a rigid high arched foot.

A foot that underpronates can be prone to stress fractures because it is not able to absorb ground shock very well. A foot that underpronates needs a shock absorbing shoe. Motion control is usually not important in this type of foot; however, in some cases foot orthotics can help in supporting and redistributing pressure in the foot when a neutral cushioned shoe is just not enough.

How do you know if you need orthotics?

Between 70 and 85 percent of all people have biomechanical imperfections, yet not all these people require orthotic control.

Most serious runners who have biomechanical imperfections end up with orthotics out of necessity. The runner who runs fewer than 20 miles per week will not likely need orthotics unless they have a serious biomechanical weakness, but for the serious runner any biomechanical weakness will be magnified ten-fold, with the result being injury.

When a runner gets a series of nagging injuries one after the other, they are probably caused by a biomechanical flaw and can be corrected by orthotics. Runners who chronically suffer from knee pain, arch pain, plantar fasciitis, heel spurs, hip and lower back pain and certain types of muscular fatigue very often benefit from orthotics.

Will orthotics improve performance?

This is the ten million dollar question! Performance enhancement with the use of functional orthotic devices is an area that requires more research. In theory an orthotic which improves the biomechanical function of running should have a positive effect on running. Although there is no proof that orthotics can make you run faster, by allowing your foot and leg to function more efficiently and by reducing the chance of injury, they may indeed have a positive effect on running performance.

It is important to remember that while orthotic devices are dispensed to achieve optimal biomechanical control they must be part of a total treatment plan and they are not a substitute for regular stretching and strengthening exercises.

If you’ve been weightlifting for a while, but you haven’t seen the results you want, chances are, you’re doing a few things wrong.

Don’t worry, this article will show you exactly what you need to do in your workout program in order to build the most muscle mass possible.

1. Lift Heavy

To gain muscle mass, you have to lift big. Lifting big means going as heavy as you can with strict, form.
This is how your muscles are stressed and forced to gain more muscle.

When you lift heavy, you put stress on the muscles and your body adds more muscle tissue to handle the future stress.

2. Change Things Around

Mix up your routines and exercises from time to time, so that you don’t get bored in the gym.

Stick with the same proven, basic exercises, but change the muscle groupings around or change the days you work out.

Keep things fresh and keep things interesting, so you’re more likely to keep going to the gym.

3. Stick With The Proven Basics

Too many people do too many different exercises for each body part. To get the most muscle mass from your weight lifting, use basic compound movements like the squat, bench press, military press, barbell rows, and barbell curls.

These place more overload on the muscles, forcing them to grow. Since muscle mass comes from heavy and intense lifting, you want to use the exercises that offer the chance to use the most intensity and weight. Stick with the basics.

4. Warm Up Before Lifing

Warming up before lifting helps prevent injuries. You can either warm up on the cardio machines for 5 minutes or you can do a few warm up sets with light weight.

If you’re going to do the bench press, just use the bar and lift it for 15-20 reps, until you feel warm enough to put more weight on.

Warming up before lifting will help you feel more energetic, so you’re able to lift more weight.

5. Use Max Intensity

To train with intensity, you have to use more weight. And keep workouts short and sweet. The shorter the workouts, the more intensity you can put into your sets.

Stick with just 2 to 3 heavy sets for all exercises. This will allow you to use the most intensity, since you don’t have to do a ton of sets.

6. Use Free Weights

While machines can be good for isolating muscles, free weights offer more overload to the muscles and are better for putting on muscle size.

The machines do some of the balancing for you, so the overload to the muscles will be less.

If you want to hit the muscles with more weight and overload, use free weights instead of machines.

7. Use Low Reps

For maximum muscle, keep reps in the 6-8 rep range. This allows you to use heavier weight than if you did 10 reps.

Again, building muscle comes from overloading the muscles with more weight. It’s easier to do more weight when you use lower reps.

8. Don’t Be Too Strict

If you’re too strict and rigid, you’ll have a tough time using the most weight possible. Yes, be safe and somewhat strict, but give your body the chance to move around a little when lifting.

9. Use Proper Nutrition

Eat 6 small, nutritious meals per day. Use meal replacements or protein powders if you can’t get 6 whole food meals in.

You want to eat every 3 to 4 hours and that can be tough when you have to prepare the food yourself. That’s where meal replacements help.

10. Use Only Proven Supplements

Forget about all the hype supplements out there, stick with what’s proven to work.

Use only protein powders, meal replacements, creatine, glutamine, essential fatty acids, and multi vitamins.

All other supplements are more hype than promise.

There you have 10 ways to get more muscle mass from your weight lifting workouts.

So you want to build big and powerful chest muscles? Huge
big pectoral muscles (pecs) or chest muscles that command respect and adoration? You can be the proud owner of a big and powerful chest.

Many people actually think that there are 2 separate chest muscles, well there aren’t. The chest muscle or pecs that you see on each side of your chest is a fan shaped
one continuous muscle although they may be called by different names such as pectoralis major, minor and clavicle head to differentiate the different parts
of the same muscle. All chest exercises work your chest muscle but from different angles which places different stress on your chest. You need to use a variety of chest muscle exercises to hit your pecs at various angles to
stimulate massive muscle growth. Each different angle you use with any chest muscle exercises will reach into various different fibers in your chest muscles for effective stimulation of different areas of your pecs so that your entire chest will grow muscles fast and symmetrically giving you that broad and powerful chest that threatens to rip through your t-shirt.

For best results building your chest muscles, use free
weights, especially dumb bells instead of machines. Chest muscle workout that use any chest machines should be avoided as it has many disadvantages like it will not only produce the desired results may also cause injuries because of its narrow range of movements. Your chest muscles will also not grow fast because machine exercises lack the involvement of synergistic muscles or surpporting muscles. As with any weightlifting workout, proper lifting form and techniques are of paramount importance.

Many people typically use only 1 or 2 types of chest exercises and almost invariably, it’s the flat bench press and flys . Well, to build a powerfully big and well chiseled chest muscles, that is a fatal mistake as you do not adequately hit the pecs from all angles so as to stimulate muscle growth in your entire chest muscle. All chest muscle exercises will not only work your chest but also your delts, biceps and triceps to a lesser extent. So you need to focus, visualize and to concentrate the force on the chest. Mind and your chest muscle connection is vital here so as to make your chest work harder instead of using your triceps, delts or biceps to power your chest workout. Also work on the full range of motion and
squeeze your chest muscles hard at every top of each movement. Always lower your weight slowly and deliberately fighting gravity to provide more resistance to your chest muscles and therefore elicit more muscle fibers for
more muscle growth.

A word of caution though. You will need a spotter or a
personal trainer for safety reasons because you must lift heavy for excellent muscle gain especially so for chest muscle development. Your spotter or personal trainer will also be able to correct your mistakes and help you with
forced reps to reach into the deep tissues to elicit maximum muscle fiber stimulation.

If you’re interested in fast ways to build muscle and gain weight in record time, naturally you should ask yourself: “What are the best muscle mass building exercises to accomplish this?”

The answer is simple, but because the market is flooded with so much garbage all you hear or read about is either the latest supplement or “advanced” exercises. If real, solid, steel-like muscles are what you want then anytime you are introduced to a “new” or “advanced” way of performing an exercise, you’ll do yourself a world of good by throwing it out the window.

Too many times do I see curious skinny gym members look over at the “gym buff” doing some funky exercise upside down on an exercise ball with one leg up flailing a pair of light dumbbells around thinking that if they learned how to perform that exercise they can look like him. Forget about it. Whether it works for him or not is irrelevant, the bottom line is that this type of exercise or anything like it will NOT work for hardgainers.

If an exercise is “new” I can almost guarantee it is far less effective then the simple, basic muscle mass building exercises. Why? Because all of the best exercises for maximum muscle growth have already been accounted for years ago. They have and always will be the number one exercises for the single purpose on how to gain muscle weight fast. Nothing compares and they will never be bested.

Basic or compound exercises allow you to lift more weight, and the heavier weight you can lift, the bigger you will be. With that in mind, what are compound exercises and which are the best for maximum muscle mass? Compound lifts, or multi-joint lifts, are weightlifting exercises that force you to use more then one muscle group, preferably 3 or more.

For example, the bench press is a compound lift because although the primary muscle used is the chest muscle, your shoulders and triceps are also helping to lift the weight. Tricep pushdowns, however, are what’s called an isolation or single-joint exercise. Since this exercise just isolates a single muscle, your triceps, it doesn’t stimulate nearly as much muscle growth as a compound lift would. Though there are many different compound exercises, you must focus only on those that stimulate the most amount of muscle and allow you to lift the heaviest amount of weight.

Here are the granddaddy of all compound muscle mass building exercises that you MUST include in your workout if you expect to build maximum muscle mass in the least amount of time:

1) Squats (quads, hamstrings, calves, and also has an effect on most of the upper body)

2) Deadlifts (hamstrings, quads, traps, lower back)

3) Bench Press (chest, triceps, and shoulders)

4) Shoulder Press or Military Press (shoulders and triceps)

5) Bent-Over Rows (back, biceps, lats)

6) Pull-Ups (back, biceps, lats)

7) Bar Dips (chest, triceps, shoulders)

If your workout programs to gain muscle don’t include any of these exercises, then don’t expect to grow very much, and don’t expect to grow at all if you are a hardgainer. Try starting your workouts out with one of these exercises first, before you do any other exercises for that same muscle. This will ensure you exert most of your energy into the most important exercises, the ones that will be most responsible for your growth. For example, if you are training your shoulders, start off with the barbell shoulder press before you do any laterals, shrugs, or any other isolation exercise.

A couple of months ago, a friend asked me why he wasn’t gaining any weight and getting any bigger. So I asked him to tell me about his workout. You can probably guess what it was. Sure enough, he was doing about five exercises for each muscle group, mostly isolation exercises. He wasn’t doing any lower body exercises whatsoever, and the only compound exercise he was doing was everybody’s favorite: the bench press.

So here is what I did: I gave him a simple but proven workout program for fast results that consisted of ONLY compound exercises, which in fact doesn’t look much different from the list of muscle mass building exercises above. I told him to just do a few sets of each exercise a few times a week and to focus on just adding weight to the bar every week. Did he grow? About five weeks later he e-mailed me back and told me of his improvements. He weighed 18 pounds heavier and added around 20 to 30 pounds to each of the compound exercises I told him to do.

Is this a common result? Those who are willing to work hard on just a few compound exercises can expect results like this, even hardgainers. Was it easy? No. He worked hard, just like everyone else who got results like this. No fancy supplements or advanced exercises, just hard work on the key muscle mass building exercises, lots of clean food and plenty of rest.

Now that you know the key muscle mass building exercises for maximum muscle growth in record time, I want you to use them! If you haven’t tried any of them before then you will be in for a treat. They’re tough, they’re demanding, they take sweat and grit and everything you got. They’re not the type of exercises you can do while you hung-over or on 3 hours of sleep. You have to have lots of energy, be properly warmed up, and completely focused if you want to get the most out of them. But they will bring you more results then all of the other exercises put together.

Are you searching for that “one” solution that blasts your plateau and sends your muscles into an explosive growth phase all over again?

The solution to your problem has been under your nose all along…

I’m not going to waste your time with “exercise variety” and “switching rep schemes”, because chances are, you already know these common techniques and use them in your workout routines anyway.

What I want to share with you is something fairly known in the weight lifting industry, but seldom used correctly and maximized to its full muscle-building potential.

The technique that can instantly force your muscles into growth is eccentric training, better known as “negatives”.

Chances are, you have already heard of negatives, but you probably don’t know how to use them for maximum muscle growth.

WHAT IS IT?

A concentric movement is your typical movement, in which the muscle fibers shorten to “lift” the weight.

Eccentric, or negative, movements are when you lower the weight, or bring it back to the starting position. It is the opposite of “lifting” a weight.

Negative movements unleash the power of the “other half” of your repetitions, the lowering phase. In an eccentric contraction, the muscle fibers lengthen to lower the weight.

Now, it is not enough to simply lower the weight slowly in your regular exercises. For maximum benefit, you must isolate and do negative movements alone!

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS?

Here is a brief list of the benefits of eccentric (negative) training:

1) Increase in Training Weight: You can add a lot more weight when doing a negative movement. It is much easier to lower a heavier weight than it is to “lift” that same weight, which means that you can increase your training poundages instantly.

2) Neural Adaptations: After adapting to your regular concentric, or “lifting” movements, you can shock your muscles and nerves into adapting to a whole new negative movement. This causes confusion at the neuro-muscular level and forces you muscles into growth.

3) Muscle-Fiber Breakdown: Eccentric (negative) movements have been scientifically shown to cause greater muscle trauma and breakdown than regular concentric movements, resulting in greater muscle gains.

4) Type II Muscle-Fiber Activation: A study published last year concluded that maximum weight eccentric movements recruit more Type II Muscle fibers, those responsible for strength and speed.

5) Long Term Strength Gains: New research also shows that maximal eccentric movements cause neural adaptations that result in longer lasting strength gains.

THE BEST WAY TO DO ECCENTRIC (NEGATIVE) TRAINING

1) Choose a resistance level about 30% greater than what you would normally lift, and slowly lower that weight from the top position for a period of 3-5 seconds. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A PARTNER!

2) Perform 2-3 sets for larger muscle groups such as chest, shoulders, and back. Perform only 1-2 sets for smaller muscle groups such as biceps and triceps.

3) Rest for 3-5 minutes between sets, because negative training is very intense on your muscles.

QUICK TIPS

1) It is best to dedicate one day out of the week and do a whole workout routine focused on negative movements only.

2) If you can hold, or lower a weight for longer than 5 seconds, consider increasing the weight as it may be too light. If it takes you less than 3 seconds to lower a weight, consider reducing the pounds as the weight may be too heavy.

3) Don’t overtrain! Listen to your body…Stick to less sets, and once you reach a set where it’s taking you less than 3 seconds to lower a weight, STOP!

4) If you don’t have a partner, you can train uni-laterally, using only one side of your body. This can be achieved with dumbbells, machines, and cables. Your non-active side would spot or support your active side.

CONCLUSION

As mentioned earlier, eccentric, or negative, movements have been shown to cause greater muscle-breakdown, neural adaptations, & recruitment of Type II Muscle Fibers.

This means that you can experience better muscle growth, greater strength gains, & more explosiveness.

Make sure to dedicate one day a week to do an entire workout routine focused on negative movements only.

You now have the knowledge to enter the fast-lane of muscle growth. How fast you want to go is entirely up to you…

Until next time, have an absolutely muscle-blasting workout routine!

Here are some of the most effective exercises for a bigger bench close-grip pressing movements like close-grip flat and slant bench presses, close-grip board presses, will help increase your triceps making them stronger for your overall bench.

- Maintain your shoulder blades pulled collectively and stretched. At the time of pressing you have to create the most even environment achievable. This can’t be made in case both of your shoulder blades are off the bench. Keep your shoulder blades flat creating a stretched, more even surface from which to press. This is for the reason that more of your body is in touch with the bench. These methods also alter the distance the bar will have to travel. The solution to pressing big weight is to press the shortest distance achievable.

- Maintain the pressure on your higher back and traps. You want the force around the sustaining muscles. This is done by stretching your feet into the floor, thus stretching your body into the bench. Make an effort for this: stretch out on the bench and line up so your eyes are four inches in frontage of the bar (toward your feet). Now utilizing your legs stretch yourself into the bench to put pressure on the higher back and traps. Your eyes must now be still with the bar. This is the same force that is pertained during the time you are pushing the barbell.

- Drive the bar in a straight line. Drag your shoulder blades jointly, push your chin and elbows, and get the bar to your upper abdominals or lower chest. This will lessen the pressing distance and decrease the amount of shoulder rotation and strain.

Have your elbows tucked in and the bar straight over the wrists and elbows. The elbows must stay tucked to maintain the bar in a straight line as illustrated above. Maintaining the elbows tucked will also permit lifters to use their lats to push the bar off the chest. Football players are trained to drive their rivals with their elbows tucked and then blow up through. This is the similar for bench pressing. Bench pressing is all regarding producing force. You can create larger amount of pressure with your elbows in a tucked position relative to an “elbows out” position.

- Fill your stomach with air and hold it. For utmost efforts and sets under three reps, you must strive to hold your air. If you breathe out in course of the utmost effort, the body structure will vary slightly, as a result changing the channel in which the barbell is traveling. Also keep in mind to breathe with your stomach, not your chest.

- Prepare with compensatory increase of rate. Drive the bar with maximal force. You must have proper technique when you’re trying to move forward, be it 40% or 100% of your max, you have to go to 100% failure to get stronger. If you can bench 500 pounds and are preparing with 300 pounds, you must then pertain 500 pounds of energy to the 300-pound barbell.

- Press the barbell and try to drag the bar at a distance! Do not lift heavy weights if you’re not in a comfortable physical state when lifting the barbell. The most excellent way to get the body stretched is by pressing the bar.

- Dedicate one day per week to Max press training. The bench press must be taught using the dynamic-effort technique.

Are you eating your prescribed six bodybuilding meals a day and not gaining muscle?

Have you been blowing your hard-earned cash on body building supplements with techie names like “Nitric-this” and “Cell-Max-that”, yet still fall short of getting the size gains you’re after?

You’re not alone. Thousands of muscle building enthusiasts are needlessly struggling – grunting and sweating for painfully little progress – and mislabeling themselves “hard-gainer”.

Building muscle, like accomplishing anything, requires some rational thinking and a well-executed strategy. It doesn’t just happen because you made it to the gym and finished your workout. It won’t occur simply because you’re using a product that was purportedly created by a “genius” wearing a lab coat. Successful natural muscle growth takes place as a result of adherence to laws of nature – just like success with any endeavor in life.

To back my point, let’s look at what many muscle building aficionados counter-productively do in gyms around the world. This is a simplistic example, but some variation of this scenario is the cause for much unneeded frustration for too many natural bodybuilders.

Let’s say Bill and Joe are training partners. They arrive at the gym to perform their much-anticipated biceps workout. Bill likes to start out with standing barbell curls and he’s glad he has Joe there to spot him. Bill just knows that if he can get Joe to assist him with the heavy sets, some “forced reps” will really get his arms growing. He’s decided to use the ever-popular ‘pyramid technique’ to work his way up to those heavy sets.

Bill ends up doing six sets. His sets are as follows: 50 pounds/8 reps, 55 pounds/8 reps, 60 pounds/6 reps, 70 pounds/6 reps, 55 pounds/7 reps, 50 pounds/6 reps.

Bill feels proud of himself. It was a grueling biceps workout. His first three sets were moderately challenging. However, the 70 pounds he piled on the bar for his fourth set of 6 reps represented a respectable stretch for him.

Although he didn’t ask for any help from Joe, he definitely had to dig deep within himself to find that extra pride-inducing push that allowed him to achieve the set of six reps. This fatigued his biceps enough to make the final three sets extremely challenging, even though they were performed with descending amounts of weight.

Five days later, Bill and Joe are back again for another biceps workout. Why? Because their schedule says it’s time to work those muscles again. Of course, muscles only grow from recovery between workouts – not directly from the tissue-ravaging training sessions themselves. But Bill and Joe have apparently worked out some kind of deal with their biceps in which the muscles have agreed to recover and grow in a four to five day span (sarcasm).

Bill wants to get bigger, so he’s decided to boost his heaviest set up to 75 pounds. He figures this will really “shock” his biceps into growth. His sets on this workout look like this: 50 pounds/8 reps, 55 pounds/8 reps, 65 pounds/6 reps, 75 pounds/6 reps, 55 pounds/6 reps, 50 pounds/5 reps.

Wow… Bill got a little assistance from Joe and managed to use five pounds more weight on his two heaviest sets. That extra intensity caused him to fall short a couple reps on his final, lighter sets. But that’s okay, right? Bill is increasing the poundage and getting stronger and bigger, isn’t he?

Hell no! … Bill is deceiving himself. If you add up the total volume he moved in the approximate twenty minute time period during the first workout, it was 2,305 pounds. Five days later, he moved 2,260 pounds in the same time frame. His volume of lifted weight went down. Now he’s counting on moving forward after having possibly over-trained in this most recent workout. Yet he’s not even aware of what he’s doing.

Until Bill straightens this out, it won’t matter how many stomach-stretching meals he piles down. And all the nifty powdered supplements made by smart looking guys in cute little lab coats won’t help much either. He’ll just be peeing all that into the toilet and wasting time to boot.

That is, unless and until he gets his bodybuilding strategy on track. Nice, huh?

If you’re old enough to remember, or lucky enough to have saved some bodybuilding magazines from the 80’s then you could see which muscle building supplements they were advertising then and which ones are still being advertised today. There’s a few that have carried on because they work. Truth is, so many products come and go because they’re fads and simply don’t do what they promised.

It’s easy to get your head spinning and wondering about all the ads in the mags and what people say about this new product and that. If you’re serious about bodybuilding but haven’t been at it for several years or you aren’t getting ready for a contest, then the best advice about muscle building supplements is “stick to the basics”.

There have been a few constant, proven supplements that have helped people speed up their muscle building process. Products that have not gone away and won’t because they are part of the basic building blocks of a complete bodybuilding program. Here they are:

1) Protein Supplements (Whey Protein, Meal Replacements, Protein Bars)

2) Creatine

3) Glutamine

4) Multivitamins & Minerals

5) Essencial Fatty Acids

6) Glucosamine

1) Whey Protein

Since muscles require protein and lots of it for growth we give the NO.1 spot to protein. Of all the types of protein available whey protein is the beat you can put into your body. Why? Because it rates highest in “bio-availability” meaning the largest amounts will be absorbed into your body than any other type of protein.

Whey Protein has all of the essential amino acids and is high in the Branch Chain Amino Acids which will prevent your muscle tissue from breaking down during your workouts.

The two main types of whey protein you’ll find on the market are isolate and concentrate. Both are of the highest quality and the difference is isolate tends to mix better in liquid and some people say it tastes better. You can also buy products which are a mixture of both isolate and concentrate whey protein.

To make sure you get all your protein requirements every day, whey protein is the way to go.

Meal Replacements (MRP’s)

Meal replacement powders have become very popular probably because of their convenience. Whereas whey protein has just one type of protein and no real amounts of carbs, fats, or vitamins and minerals, a MRP usually has several types of protein like casein, milk, egg, and whey combined along with carbs, vitamins and minerals so it really is more of a meal.

The good thing about MRP’s is the convenient packets and the more complete nutrient value but the the downside is they are more expensive than the pure protein products.

Protein Bars

Protein bars can have their place. You can take them anywhere with you and just start chewing, no powders to mix or anything like that so convenience is really the key with bars. The downside is they are usually higher in sugar and are made with a lower quality protein found in the other products mentioned above..

2) Creatine

This supplement is the most popular muscle building product used today, and for good reason… it really does work. It has been proven in the lab and in the gym.

Here’s what it does for you:

1) will increase your lean muscle and strength

2) will speed up your recovery time

3) decrease lactic acid production

4) decrease mental fatigue

Recently, more studies have been made on creatine and there is great news about it’s benefits for not only muscle builders but for all around health. It has been shown to improve symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, and Huntington’s disease. It improves sarcopenia which is a loss of muscle mass due to aging, improves function of the brain, and improves cardiac function in those with congestive heart failure.

A truly modern supper supplement if ever there was one.

3) Glutamine

Glutamine another of the basic and essential muscle building supplements. It’s noticeable effects won’t be as instant as creatine but rather help you get faster overall gains in the long term. It is one of the amino acids who’s major role is to make protein for your body. It promotes muscle growth while decreasing muscle catabolism, which is when your muscles get stressed and start to break down after being heavily stressed from a hard workout which will have a negative affect on the glutamine levels in your body. Providing sufficient amounts of glutamine will eliminate this muscle-robbing catabolic state.

Your body gets gluamine from protien-rich foods like diary, poultry, red meat, fish and beans but to get a lot of it you’d have to eat real large amounts of these foods so a supplement for additional glutamine is a good idea.

4) Multivitamins & Minerals

In a perfect world, with a perfectly balanced diet you wouldn’t need to take a multivitamin & mineral pill but unfortunately most of us don’t eat perfectly balanced diets and if we did chances of our food being nutrient rich and organic are not too good.

There are thousands of reactions going on in our bodies which rely on enzymes. Vitamins ensure that enzymes are there in quality and quantity to make sure these chemical reactions happen efficiently in our bodies constantly.

So vitamins are important for overall health but for muscle building as well. Hard workouts will tax many vitamins in your body and therefore to keep the muscle building process happening in a positive way, supplementation is key.

5) Essential Fatty Acids

A good portion of your diet needs to be fat. No, not the kind that comes from greasy fries or doughnuts but the good, natural fat we can get from peanuts, avocados, cold water fish like salmon, olive oil and flax seed oil.

Fatty acids will improve your metabolism, increase your testosterone production and your growth hormone secretion therefore playing an important role in building muscle.

6) Glucosamine

When glutamine joins forces with glucose, they form a sulfate called glucosamine. Most simple carbohydrates are used as an energy source but glucosamine gets right into the structure of your body tissues.

The sulfate chondroitin can also help to prevent injuries by getting around your joint surfaces and giving a smooth range of motion. This works well with glucosamine and some companies have created products using both.

Not only does it help in reducing joint inflammation and pain, it actually treats the problem by rebuilding damaged cartilage and connective tissue.

There you have it, the top 6 best muscle building supplements you can use to round out your work out program to get the maximum amount of gains. Remember, these supplements won’t work unless you do! Most of your gains will come from hard work and a good diet. Used as part of a good training program you will see results a lot faster with the proper supplements.