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Build
Muscles And Smash Plateau For Beginners
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by: Chris
Chew
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Five
times a week, two hours each visit. You've been
more faithful to your gym schedule than you've
ever been to any girlfriend you've had. And for a
while it paid off: those muscles started rippling
and the girls started paying attention.
But then, like a bad dream you wake up from, your
muscles suddenly wasn't growing like what it used
to do. Your muscles stop responding to your heavy
workout no matter how intensely you've been
training. So you said to yourself, now I will
train harder. So now you put in three hours a
session and but even as you upped your gym dosage,
horrors of horrors, your muscles are actually
shrinking.
Ahhhhh, the Gym Plateau. It afflicts all of us and
few of us ever gotten out of it. In fact, most
people don't even know that they have hit the
dreaded plateau and thought that their muscles can
only grow so much due to inherent genetic factors.
Not to worry though, if you read the following
fitness tips, and follow these tips to the latter,
I can assure you that your muscles will start
growing again and grow bigger they will.
Here are your free fitness tips.
Fitness Tip #1
Take A Break
This tip is easy to comply for most of us but very
difficult for some gym rats. Simply take a break
from your workout. Do not step into the gym or do
any workout for 2 weeks. Its time to let your body
recover from the punishments you are dishing out
to your muscles. Some bodybuilders may find this
difficult to do because working out is addictive.
You produce endorphin when you workout and
endorphin is also known as happy hormone. The same
hormone you produce when having sex.
Professional bodybuilders take a break after every
4-5 months of hard training and when they are back
in the gym, they shock their well rested but
complacent muscles back into massive muscle gain.
Fitness Tip #2
Are you training too often?
If your exercises are intense enough, you need
only to train each muscle group once or twice a
week. Your training schedule shouldn't repeat
muscle groups in the same week. Every time you
train, you do your muscles damage. Muscles need
time to repair and it does so in the after your
training when you are resting. This means that if
you lift weights on consecutive days, there isn't
sufficient time for the body to recover. Try to
have one day rest between each weight lifting day.
If your routine requires intensive weight
training, remember not to prolong your gym time
longer than an hour. This is because your cortisol,
a muscle eating hormone level will be elevated and
thus will be counter productive to your efforts.
It eats your muscles.
Most of all, you must sleep! Eight hours or even
better, go for ten hours. Muscles do not grow in
the gym; they grow when you sleep. When you sleep,
you are secreting growth hormones for many bodily
functions and one of those functions is to build
muscles. That is why they called it beauty sleep!
Fitness Tip #3
Are you using the correct weight lifting
techniques?
If your technique or form is incorrect, not only
is your training retarded, you are also inviting
injury. Don't laugh. But when you exercise you
must think and focus, instead of mindlessly
repeating the motions, do take note of how you
perform each exercise and rep. Do so with
deliberation and at the beginning and end of every
lift, pause and squeeze the muscles you are
exercising. Mind and muscle must connect! Never
never use momentum of the swing to lift the
weights and let gravity pull the weight down. That
is why you must lift slowly and lower slowly
feeling the tension in your muscles and resisting
the load all the time.
In order for muscles to want to grow, you have to
stress them to the maximum, and then further. Do
enough repetitions until you feel you cannot go
any further using good form. You must then either
increase the weight or the number of repetitions
at the next session. This is called progressive
overload, and progressive overload is what forces
your muscles to grow. As a general guide, if you
can lift more than 12 reps the weight is probably
too light and it is too heavy if your muscles fail
you in less than 5 reps. You may wish to consult
your physical fitness trainer on the correct form
and technique for each exercise.
Fitness Tip #4
Are you using free weights?
Most machines do not involve as much of the
synergistic muscles (supporting muscles) as free
weights do. And, therefore, do not build as much
muscle mass. Synergistic muscles are the smaller
muscles that aid the main muscles in balance and
strength in each lift. Machines has its uses, but
for beginners and for smashing plateaus, use free
weights.
Fitness Tip#5
Workout with compound exercises
Compound exercises are exercises that involve 2 or
more joint movements and thereby employing bigger
muscles and more synergistic muscles . Bench
presses, dead lifts, squats, and barbell curls
amongst others are fantastic compound exercises .
For example, when you squat , all the muscles in
your lower body get a workout and that alone is
about 60 percent of your overall musculature .
Squat also works your back and abs too. Using more
muscles at one go means that you get a better
overall workout. To add icing to the cake, because
of the massive utilization of your muscles , you
will pant, huff and sweat more. That means your
routine also has a cardio effect and you will burn
calories even hours after you stepped out of the
gym .
Fitness Tip#6
Are you working out your legs?
Your body is programmed to grow proportionately
with only slight variations. If you do not train
your legs, your upper body mass will stop growing
before it becomes large. Surely, you've heard of
chicken legs! Just because leg training can be
brutal, it doesn't give you reason to hide your
legs in your pants. To get that super hero
X-frame, pepper your routine with squats . A word
of caution though: compound exercises such as dead
lifts, squats, and bench presses must be done in
excellent form and a spotter is highly
recommended. This is where your physical fitness
trainer will come in handy as your spotter. If
not, injuries are bound to happen and that may put
you permanently out of the gym.
Fitness Tip#7
What are you eating?
Muscle building requires protein - the more, the
better. Meat, especially red meats and fish, are
the best source. It is in your food that your body
will draw nutrients from, for strength and
necessary fats for joint and organ protection.
To have massive muscle gain and help in muscle
preservation , you need about 2-3 grams of good
protein per kilogram of your body weight . If you
want to get serious about muscles , you may need
to supplement them with protein shakes . Eating a
meal and having a protein shake immediately after
your workout also maximizes the window for rapid
absorption of nutrients. This is important as you
need to feed the muscles now that you have damaged
them. You should also 6 small meals a day so your
muscles are constantly fed throughout the day.
This will help rev up your metabolism to burn fat
too. This will tremendously help you in your build
muscle lose weight program. Remember to take your
protein shake half an hour before you workout too.
Fitness Tip#8
How about Carbs?
Glycogen is the main energy source for any
muscle-building exercise. The body stores whatever
carbohydrates you eat as glycogen and muscles use
it to give you energy during your workout. After
an intense workout, do consume carbohydrates
immediately to replace the used glycogen. You can
even indulge in high glycemic carbs such as ice
creams and white bread as these will turn into
insulin and shuttles nutrients such as protein to
your muscle cells quickly.
Fitness Tip #9
And Fats?
Yes, your body do need do need fats . But try to
avoid saturated fats such as animal fats or worse,
trans fats which are artificial fats found in
pastries, confectionaries and preserved food.
Consume healthy unsaturated fats such as olive
oil, canola oil, fish oils, flax seed oil.
Fitness Tip#10
Water Water is essential.
Water is essential. It is the most underrated
macronutrient. You need at least eight glasses of
water every day but when you exercise , you lose
even more water because of the sweating. So drink
before, during and after your workout. Weigh
yourself before and after the workout, and
compensate for the loss by drinking at least 16
ounces of fluid for every pound or half a kg lost.
Fitness Tip#11
Creatine
While meats are the best source for creatine,
which is a nutrient that helps speed up muscle
gain and power you up during workouts, those who
do not get enough from their regular diet must be
supplemented. Creatine puts volume into your
muscle cells and gives you that muscle pump thus
your muscles feels tighter, look bigger and
overall illusion of superb muscularity . It also
helps to prevent muscle breakdown.
Fitness Tip#12
Glutamine
When supplemented, it may help bodybuilders reduce
the amount of muscle wasting away or used up as
energy. It also helps in muscle recovery.
Fitness Tip #13
Do you change your routine?
The human body is fantastic at adaptation. So
whatever routine you are on, your body will get
used to it. So do change your routine every 6-8
weeks. For example, instead of working out your
chest muscles at the start of your workout, work
your back muscles instead. You can reverse your
whole routine or change the variations of your
exercises or add new ones and take away some old
ones. By changing your routines, you not only
shock your muscles to new growth, it will also
prevent boredom by doing the same thing all the
time.
About the author:
Chris Chew is a personal trainer and count actors,
pageant winners, models and other celebrities as
his clients. He runs a fitness training school in
Singapore at http://www.sgfitnessonline.comand
is the author of "Burn Fat Build Muscles
Fast." See his books at http://www.sgfitness.com
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