Bottom line: if you want to build muscle, you gotta start lifting heavy things. This means you need access to a gym with a fantastic selection of free weights. Of course, body weight exercises are great for losing weight and for keeping the muscle you have already developed. However, if you want to get serious about weight training, you must have a gym that includes a bench, barbells, a squat rack, and a place to do chin ups, pullups, and dips. That will allow you to work most efficiently.
Most people are looking to achieve functional size and strength, so it’s important todo a lot of full body routines with compound activities that work more than one muscle group at once. This is important because these exercises will keep you safe while developing solid growth and stimulation. Plus, they will do it in the most effectual way possible. If you stick to doing isolated exercises on weight machines, you spend all your time working single muscles and ignoring stabilizer ones. However, if you do a compound exercise, like barbell squats, every muscle in your body is engaged, which helps you to grow strong and remain injury free.
The following tips should give you more advice that will help you with health, fitness, and building muscle.
Always Warm Up
It is insanity to wander into a gym, load a bar with 45 pound plates, and bang out your routine. You absolutely must get your muscles warm and your heart rate up before you start. Try a dynamic warm-up session with lunges, jumping jacks, hip raises, body weight squats, jumps, leg swings, etc. Then, ease into your lifting session by doing a set or two lifting just the bar. When you finish all of this, it’s time to add some weight and start your real sets.
Lift Quickly
This doesn’t mean that you should be fast rather than careful. You can’t throw the weights around and lose control. Trainers explain this to their clients by asking them to think of “explosions” when they do their deadlifts, squats, bench presses, etc. If you start to worry about lifting and lowering more gradually, it makes your muscles work slowly. Instead, your muscles should be trained to be powerful, fast, and explosive.
For example, when you do some bench presses, think about pushing the weight with enough force to send it through the ceiling. When you do squats, imagine blasting back up when you reach the bottom point. Remain firmly in control, but don’t slow down. Lift those weights quickly.
Keep Your Form Perfect
There are some exercises that you can do incorrectly without suffering any problems. For instance, an incorrect bodyweight squat won’t be an issue. But, there are other exercises that can, if done incorrectly, land you in the hospital. If you are doing a squat with 385 pounds of weight positioned across your shoulders, bad form can do serious damage.
When you are new to lifting, don’t let ego be the driving force behind your choices. You need to work with very light weights and learn to do the exercise properly before you move on to heavier lifting. You can even just start with the bar; there’s no shame in that. If things get too easy, you can always add more weight the next time you work out.
Remember to Stimulate, Not Annihilate
It’s not a bad idea to push yourself for one more rep when you come to the close of a set. But, there are trainers who advocate working your muscles until they are thrashed, which creates concerns about poor form, extreme muscle fatigue and soreness, and injury.
Sometimes, people who feel compelled to work their muscles to death also turn to stimulants as a way to maintain the energy needed to keep lifting. It’s better to be measured in your workout than to run the risk of a cocaine addiction. If you or someone you love has been abusing crack cocaine, cocaine abuse treatment may be the only safe and sure way of getting your life back on track.
When it comes to building muscle, it all happens when the muscles are at rest, not when you are actively lifting. So, you don’t need to work them to death every time you enter the gym. It’s not worth it. Push yourself for your best, but know when to finish.
Change the Time Between Sets
Your muscles are affected by the amount of time that you wait between sets. Therefore, altering those times can alter the way that you build muscle. When you are doing three sets of five reps with a massive amount of weight, you can stop for three-five minutes between each set. This will allow your body to focus on building pure strength. But, if you are doing sets in the eight-twelve range, keep it down to about a minute or so between those sets. Make sure you are consistent with the times that you choose, and track your progress between weeks when you are doing the same workout.
Avoid Overdoing It
Some people honestly think that more means better when it comes to weight lifting. But, that isn’t at all the case. There is no need to spend two hours in the gym every day or to do 17 different types of chest exercises. When you work efficiently, you can narrow your focus and get the most out of your workout. Ideally, your routines should be less than 45 minutes long and you only need to do three or four sets (after warm ups) of each exercise. That routine will be enough to stimulate muscle growth. And, doing it three times a week is enough also. When you lift every day, you don’t give your muscles time to regrow bigger. Refine your routines so that they are really exhausting and intense. If you do that, less can be more.
Write Everything Down
You need to be keeping a training journal. In it, make sure that you keep track of how many reps and sets you do of each exercise. Then, you can compare your performance from week to week. If you try to keep track of everything in your head, things can get confusing. This way, you will know exactly how much you need to lift each week to surpass what you were able to do previously. This will keep you getting stronger.
Also, be sure to get enough sleep. Optimal muscle building needs 8-9 hours of quality sleep per night.
Krizzia Laspiñas is an expert health blogger specializing in addictive behaviors as alcohol addiction, gambling, and opiate addiction. You can visit her official website at: http://www.addictions.com
