While some people have no problem with repeating the same style of workout day after day, I personally just can’t do it anymore. Regardless of what you may believe, you can switch up your training style frequently and still build a decent amount of muscle mass.Over the course of the past 6 months I’ve completely changed my approach to my muscle building workouts, and I’ve achieved some excellent results…much better than I anticipated!

How I Changed My Muscle Building Workouts For Better Results!

A few months ago, I sort of hit the proverbial wall with my weightlifting workouts. I was getting tired of heading into the same old gym and seeing the same old faces while I muddled around and performed the same old weight lifting routine. Now don’t get me wrong, I was seeing excellent results from my training, but it was starting to become painfully obvious to me that I needed dot make some changes to what I was doing.

Some of the Signs That I Needed To Make Some Changes

1.) My Body Constantly Hurt. My joints were achy, my muscles were constantly stiff and my body was starting to feel a bit beat down from all of the heavy weight lifting.

2.) My Mind Was No Longer Focused. Quite frankly my mind was just not engaged in my workouts anymore. I was a zombie in the gym and as a result, my workouts were becoming less and less effective at stimulating muscle growth.

3.) My Attitude Sucked…And It Was Getting Worse! I get to the point where I was no longer excited to hit the gym. Instead of looking forward to my workouts, I was having a hard time just getting myself to actually head off to the gym.

These were just a few of the things that I was experiencing.  Each of these is a classic sign of over training, but I never felt that I was over training in the classic sense. My workouts were short and sweet and they allowed for more than enough time for my body to recover between workouts, but over time the cumulative effect of doing the same old thing over and over again began to beat me down.

In the next post, I’m going to go over some of the exact changes that I made to my workouts in order to start making progress again.

How To Build Muscle Mass Fast is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

photo credit: jontunn

In order to have an effective growth stimulating workout, there are a few things that your workout needs to accomplish.  The best muscle building workouts incorporate a ton of compound exercises in a way that makes your muscles to move beyond their comfort zone each and every time you go to the gym. This relentless pounding from your serious workouts is what shoots the signals to your brain that it needs to start packing on more new muscle mass in order to get ready for the next time it sees that type of work.

Without over-training any of the muscle groups on your body, here’s how I like to structure my bodybuilding workouts for maximum muscle growth Start of with the clear understanding that you will not be training any of the muscles on your body more than 1 time each week. This will ensure that your body has enough time to rest, recover and rebuild in between workouts.

After that, you need to decide how many training sessions you can fit into your schedule each week. I try to fit in between  2 – 4 workouts each week, but it really just depends on how busy I am at work that week. If you’re serous about building muscle mass, then then you need to target a minimum of 2 workouts a week. If you’re not able to make it to the weight room more than a few times a week, then you’re body’s just not going to be able to pack on muscle mass regularly  .

Once you have a good idea of how many workouts you can fit in each week, you need to group your body parts so that you are focusing on different body parts in each workout. I like to split my workouts so that I’m training  my legs, back and triceps and my chest and biceps on a 3 workout a week schedule or quads, chest and biceps, back and shoulders, glutes and triceps on a 4 workout a week schedule.

Each of your workouts needs to be limited to no more than 60 minutes each. This is enough time to get into the gym and really stimulate some serious muscle growth in an effective way and then get out of there without taking up too much of your time in the process. In order to make this happen efficiently, you’ve got to limit the number of work sets in each of your workouts and you’ve got to make sure to stick to your rest intervals.

If you take this bodybuilding workout advice to heart and you implement what you’ve learned, then you should be able to build some serious muscle mass quickly, easily and naturally!

Your Bodybuilding Workouts is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

The main focus of this article is to shed some light on how long your bodybuilder workouts should be in order to stimulate muscle growth. hopefully I can convince you that it’s possible to actually spend less time in the gym, gain more muscle size and strength and get you back to your life as fast as possible.

In order to build muscle tissue, then you need to provide stimulation to your muscles in the form of intense weight lifting workouts. That said, you can certainly get into the gym and pound your way through a seriously effective weight lifting workout in  a little under 60 minutes. Sure the boring and uninspired 180 – 240 minute bodybuilding workouts performed at a slow pace may be ok if you have no life outside of the gym and a sincere desire to make the muscle building process more difficult. There is a much more effective way to train for muscle size!

If you subscribe to the thought that more is better, you may be pleasantly surprised to discover that that’s just not the case when it comes to packing on muscle mass. If you want to make the most out of the time that you spend in the weight room by activating new muscle growth and utilizing your body’s natural muscle building hormones, you need to take a less is actually more approach to designing your muscle building training sessions.

I personally like to limit my bodybuilder workouts to under an hour of focused effort.  if I try to go much longer than 60 minutes it usually forces me to lose focus on my workout and ultimately leads to a less effective workout. I like to get into the weight rooms, get going with my workout and get back to my everyday life outside of the weight room as quickly as possible.

While some trainers and experts argue that 30 minutes is not enough time for a full bodybuilder workout, I disagree completely disagree. If you’re performing your muscle building workouts with the appropriate level of focus, the very same level that is required to stimulate muscle growth, then you won’t be able to get through much more than 20 – 30 minutes of dedicated muscle building effort.

The point I’m trying to make here is that there really is no totally ideal training time set in stone for everybody. Some people build muscle mass by training 1 day a week, while others need to hit it 4 – 7 times. You need to find out what works best for your body by incorporating a systematic approach to your bodybuilding workouts. The duration of your bodybuilder workout is a moving target just like all of the variables of your workouts.

Take the time to identify what works best for your bodybuilder workouts, then get to work implementing your training approach. With some focused effort and a solid well thought out plan, you should begin to pack on muscle size and strip away fat quicker than you ever though possible.

Bodybuilding Workouts Advice is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

If you want to lose weight safely and naturally, one of the most important things that should be included in any weight loss systems, is some sort of food journal or food log.  Even though this is not revolutionary or groundbreaking, food journals will give you a simple and easy way to keep track of the total number of calorie that you are eating and help you develop a calorie balance that will allow you to lose fat.  This is the biggest element when it comes to stripping off body fat. If you make it a habit to eat an excess of calories then you will not be able to drop any body fat, and you may actually start to gain fat. That said, if you consistently eat too few calories, then your muscles will not be able to get the nutrients that it needs in order to allow for body fat loss. Get yourself into the simple habit of tracking what you eat each day, you should be able to make intelligent decisions about what you eat.

The next thing that your weight loss outline needs to be taking into account is the quality of the sleep that you are getting each night. At this point almost everybody is aware that high quality sleep is an important part of the weight loss process, studies conclusively link lack of quality sleep with an increase in body fat storage. It’s hard enough to lose weight, so there is simply no sense in making the process any harder than it needs to be. I like to teach people to get somewhere around 6 – 9 hours of restful sleep every night while they’re on a fat loss program.

Another important factor in losing body fat is incorporating some sort of fitness plan into your weight loss systems. Sure you certainly can lose fat by just eating less, there is a point of diminishing returns where you just will not be able to eat any fewer calories. The best way to to keep creating  a calorie deficit when this happens is to burn more calories through some sort of fitness program. Don’t feel like you have to do anything overly advanced here, just try to fit in 20 – 30 minutes of aerobics, 3 – 4 times each week. Usually that’s enough exercise to start burning some calories and begin dropping body fat.

Take these fat loss tips and see if the weight loss system that you are currently using works in each of them. If it doesn’t, it’s a safe bet that the weight loss program may not be as effective as it could be. Remember that you can easily design your own weight loss program if you can’t find one that you like.

Weight Loss Systems Tips is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

When it comes to lasting weight loss, one of the most important things that you can keep in mind is that tiny changes to your everyday lifestyle are what will ultimately lead to lasting weight loss.  No protein powder or fad diet will allow you to lose weight and keep it off indefinitely. Long lasting weight loss is often times more about developing the right frame of mind than it really is about dieting or exercising. I’ve noticed that the one thing that everybody really struggles with when it comets to losing weight and keeping to off is creating the right mindset. If you can take the time to get this aspect of your fat loss program all lined out from the start, then you can reasonable expect to be able to really lose a lot of weight quickly.

Once you create the right frame of mind to lose weight, then you should focus your attention on putting together a system that will allow you to make incremental progress towards your goals.  Right off the bat, one of the things that you need to focus on is structuring your fat loss diet for long term success. In order to do this, you need to have a plan that will allow you to eat fewer calories each day than your body expends. This will allow you to create what’s known as a calorie deficit.

photo credit: Michael 1952

Most people will try to get extremely aggressive when it comes to their diets and as a result, they tend to burn out and fall back into their old habits.  It’s very easy to create a small calorie deficit by simply cutting back on extra sugars and unhealthy foods without having to get too restrictive with your diet. Whenever I work with clients who want to lose weight quickly, I almost always advise them to take it easy on their nutrition plans when they first start out and just try to cut out 100 – 250 calories each day. That seems to be a reasonable number of calories to cut without having to completely stop eating and it’s enough of a cut that you should expect to see some consistent weight loss.

After you look over your nutrition program, it’s important that you add some type of consistent workout program into your weight loss systems. While cleaning up your diet is great, it’s just not enough to allow you to lose a lot of fat right off the bat. If you really want to keep the weight that you lose off for good, then you need to mix in some type of regular exercise program.

If you just take the time to get your weight loss systems structured properly before you jump in, you can very quickly piece together effective weight loss programs without having to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars in the process. After you get your weight loss plan ready to go, make sure to actually implement it, as that’s the only way to lose weight.

Weight Loss Systems That Really Work! is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

If you want to gain muscle mass fast, one of the most important things you can do is to create your workouts around building up a real level of new strength.  While a lot of guys totally ignore strength based training saying that it won’t really help you pack on muscle tissue, what they fail to recognize is that steadily increasing your strength levels will allow you to lift progressively heavier weights.

photo credit: CharlieBaxterPhotography.com

As you continue to steadily increase your weights, you will begin to stimulate more muscle growth. As long as your bodybuilding nutrition plan is well organized, you will begin to gain muscle mass at a decent rate.

How To Gain Muscle Mass Fast

When you’re just beginning on you quest to build muscle tissue, limit yourself to no more than 3 weight training workouts per week. Even though it can be tempting to hit the weight room every day, but training too much will not help you build any more muscle mass. 2 – 3 weight training workouts per week will give your body a full day to recover between workouts. beginning weight trainers often have a very hard time wrapping their minds around this,  but the bottom line is that if you want to gain muscle mass, it’s critical that you learn to allow your muscles the time that they need to fully recover between workouts.

Next you’ll want to make make it a habit to limit each of your body building workouts to 30 – 60 minutes max. This is enough time to get in an effective and intense muscle mass stimulating workout. A lot of guys believe that they need to be spending a few hours at a time in the gym, but it’s just not the truth. You just need to learn how to focus your attention on your workout and block out all of the other stuff going on all around you, then  you can get through your workout quicker than you ever realized.

After that, you will want to make sure and train each of your body parts no more than one time each week. This will let your muscles fully recover by allowing for  7 full days of rest between training sessions. Not only will your body feel better, but they should be able to get a lot stronger with a full week to recover. After you’ve been training for a little while and you have a decent base of strength and endurance to work from, then it’s ok to experiment with training each of your body parts more than 1 time each week, but not in the beginning

If you plan on limiting your workout duration to 60 minutes, then you will wan to train no more than 2 muscle groups per workout. If you’re weight lifting workouts are only 30 – 60 minutes, it will be almost impossible for you to train more than a few body parts in each training session. combine your muscle groups together in a way that will allow you to lift with weights that are heavy. It’s a great idea to match up body parts that compliment each other, but do not need a huge amount of energy to complete within the same training session. This will allow your to train with as heavy a weight as possible for each muscle group.

Here’s an example of how I like to combine body parts for maximum muscle growth. I would focus on my pecs and lats one day followed by my delts and traps on another day, my quads and glutes on a separate day and my arms the next.

If you take the time to work these simple yet effective weight training tips into your bodybuilding program you  will build muscle size quickly while building a solid base of strength as well.  over the course of a few weeks these simple weight training tips can lead to more muscle growth than you ever thought possible.

Gain Muscle Mass Fast Naturally is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

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How Fitness Training Used To Work

With typical personal training, you pay a  by the hour fee (usually somewhere in the area of $55 – $75 per hour) which covers your time with a trainer. During this session, you can track changes in your body through body measurements like body fat caliper testing, coordinate future workouts or hit the gym for a workout with your personal trainer.

While the usual personal trainer approach works, I can definitely see how it can get costly very fast! With most programs requiring a lengthy commitment of at least 1 – 3 months in order to see any significant changes in your physique, you can probably expect to drop $1100 just for the enjoyment of talking with your personal trainer 2-3 sessions a week for 1-2 months.  This high cost does not even include any type of custom fitness plan or questions outside of your scheduled PT sessions sessions.

How Online Fitness Coaching Works

With fitness coaching, you usually get access to a qualified trainer as well as professionally designed workouts and diet help for a fraction of the cost of off line personal training. While you don’t get to actually go to the gym with your trainer, you do get access to custom workouts and nutrition templates, access exercise demonstration videos and ask any questions that you have about your program for a reasonable price. Rather than paying for every workout session like you’d typically do in a traditional gym setting, you can usually ask unlimited questions, have your personal trainer adjust your workout programs and sometimes even give your trainer a call for an affordable monthly fee. Basically, you’ll get access to your personal trainer 24 – 7. It’s an awesome new way to get fitness and training help when you need it without having to spend hundreds of dollars in the process.

Is Fitness Coaching The Right Fit For You?

It’s very difficult to identify whether fitness coaching is the best fit for your specific needs, but chances are that if you just want access to a certified personal trainer or fitness trainer to walk you through your training and nutrition questions and design a professional fitness schedule for you without cost or inconvenience of one-on-one training appointments, then online fitness coaching may be a great option.

Online Fitness Coaching is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

While it would be great to believe all of the infomercials and ads put together to get us to think that there is a quick fix, the truth of the matter is that no ab roller device, fat melting pill or six pack ab exercise will be able to take the place of good old fashioned hard work! So put all of your thoughts about electro-stimulation shock devices and cheesy ab rollers out of your mind.  If you want six pack abs, you’re going to have to get down to work by putting the effective ab work outs listed below to use!

There really are a bunch of good movements that focus on the muscles in your abdominals very effectively, so it’s challenging to cut down the list to only a couple of what I believe to be the most effective abdominal exercises. In order to put this list together, I  selected ab exercises that put an focus on one of the big muscles in your abs, while requiring effort from the other abdominal muscles as well.  That way you’re able to hit all of your abdominal muscles in one easy workout without having to get creative with your ab workout.

The Best Ab Exercises And Pointers

The Best Ab Exercises For The Rectus Abdominous

1.    Hanging Leg Raises
2.    Hanging Knee Raises
3.    Hip Thrusts
4.    Weighted Crunches
5.    Weighted Decline Crunches
6.    Cable Crunches

The Number 1 Abdominal Exercises For The Obliques

1.    Saxon Side Bends
2.    Russian Twists
3.    Exercise Ball Side Crunches

The Best Ab Exercises For Your Transverse Abdominous

1. Stomach Vacuums

If  you understand that you’re going to have to learn how to burn fat right away when you begin your abs workouts, then you’re going to have a better than average chance at getting a six pack.  Just take a some of the best ab exercises listed on this page and slip them into your ab workouts. This will ensure that your ab workouts are effective, complete and target all of the muscles in your mid section at the same time.

Best Ab Exercises is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

Next, I’m going to teach you the things that matter when it comes to packing on muscle size and teach you how to design a simple program for building muscle bulk easily. If you really want to bulk up quickly, then all you need to do is commit creating your own custom muscle gaining plan based around the information below.

The very first step in creating a muscle gaining plan of attack is to sit down and think through your dedication to the process as a whole.  While every guy I know will say that they seriously want to build muscle size, hardly any of them are actually willing to put in the hard work to make it happen. Before you even think about hitting the gym, you need to have a good idea of how many workout sessions each week you can make it a habit to get into the gym, how much time you can set aside to be there for during each visit, and whether or not you can get serious about a muscle gain diet program of some sort.  While these things seem like their pretty simple and to the point, they are the very same things that most guys don’t even consider before they jump into their muscle gaining programs.

photo credit: mynameisharsha

Once you have a really good idea of your commitment level to the whole muscle building process, all you’ve got to do is plan out a workout structure and nutrition outline that works within the time that you can set aside.  For a lot of guys this means that they can work out 4 – 5 days every week with no problem, while other guys just can’t break away more than 2 or 3 times a week.   Please don’t spend too much time thinking about the actual number of workouts that you can get in, think more about how much muscle building work you are getting done every time you walk into the gym and you’ll get less discouraged as you move through your fitness routine. I’d recommend planning for at least 2 –3 workouts every week.

After you’ve got your workout program all ready to go, it’s time to start thinking about your muscle gain diet. This is the most important thing to consider if you really want to gain muscle tissue. One of the things that I teach guys who are trying to gain muscle is that you’ve got to be able to focus on some sort of nutrition plan for the majority of each week. Anything less than 5 out of 7 days, and you risk not being able to supply your muscles with enough nutrients to gain muscle mass.

If you want to pack on muscle mass as quickly as possible, I recommend that you sit down and think about everything before you go out and slam through a workout of any sort. Not only will you have a better understanding of how the body building process fits together, and you’ll be in a much better position to maintain your lean muscle tissue into the future.

You Gotta Plan To Gain Muscle Mass is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

photo credit: Like_the_Grand_Canyon

If you neglect your muscle gain diet, then you wont be able to build any muscle at all. You need to learn how to provide your muscles the nutrients that it has to have in order to build new muscle bulk at the right times throughout the day.  If you can get good at this essential muscle building diet skill, then you will be in a position to really pack on some new muscle mass. Once you get good at feeding your body for new growth, you’ll be able to build muscle mass at will.

The design of your muscle gain diet is the key to making it work for your muscles.  You need to take some time to think about your current lifestyle and also to think about the things that are going to be important  to your muscle gain diet in order for you to reach your goals. If you try to construct a muscle gain diet that is not a good fit for your life, then you will simply not be able to stray the course for very long.  You may become frustrated and disappointed and eventually give up on your goal of packing on muscle mass.

The structure that I feel works best for building muscle mass is to simply plan on eating 5 – 6 medium sized (but nutritionally complete) whole food based meals each day spread over every 2 – 4 hours throughout the day.  This allows you to steadily replenish your body and supply your muscles with the foods that it needs in order to repair damaged muscle cells and build even more muscle tissue.

When it comes to your muscle building nutrition plan, these tips will take you a long way towards actually starting to achieve your goals without the inconvenience of having to work hard without anything to show for it. If you simply forget all of the distractions and over the top nutritional tips out there and put together a muscle bodybuilding diet plan that the fundamental nutritional techniques covered in this article, then you’ll be able to build more muscle mass than you ever thought you could.

The Muscle Gain Diet That Works is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

photo credit: VirtualErn

Most people claim that your free weight workouts are the biggest part of your bodybuilding program, but I really don’t think it actually is.  I think that your mass gain diet is the really critical piece of the muscle building puzzle.  If you understand the importance your muscle building diet right from the start, you will be able to jump ahead of all of the guys who don’t believe it’s all that important.  While they are struggling to pack on any muscle at all, you’ll be in a position to seriously boost your muscle.

Any well thought out muscle gain diet will consist of a solid approach to muscle building nutrition that includes a balanced amount of all of the body building nutrients evenly dished out throughout the day. If you try to implement a nutritional program that forces you to severely limit your consumption of any single nutrient, you run the risk of not giving your body all of the ingredients to pack on new muscle mass over time.  While you may be able to get away with a restrictive muscle mass gain diet in the beginning, but over time your nutritional deficiencies will make it very difficult for you to gain any more muscle mass at all.

My favorite muscle gain diet strategy is to focus in on eating 5 or 6 small meals every day that are made up of just the right quantities of muscle building protein, high quality carbohydrates and veggies. I think it’s best to spread each of these small bodybuilding meals out every 2 hours over the course of the day primarily because it allows me to have very stable energy levels even when I’m not eating a of calories. If you go about designing your bodybuilding diet in this way, your body will be constantly flooded with the foods that it needs in order to repair muscle cells that are damaged and build new muscle mass.

Another critical piece to your muscle gain diet is water.  Without ample amounts of pure water your body just won’t be able to get the muscle building process kicked off properly. It’s important to keep in mind that lean muscle mass is composed primarily of water, so it only makes sense that drinking ample amounts of H2O each day is the way to go for serious muscle growth. I like to remind people to drink 1 – 2 gallons of clean H2O each day, spread out with each of your muscle building meals.  This will keep your muscles well hydrated and allows your body to effectively shuttle nutrients into your muscle cells quicker than before.

If you’re serious about building a lot of muscle mass this year, then you should spend some time getting your muscle gain diet designed for maximum effectiveness. Sure it can be tough to have to put in a few hours of your time before you even hit the gym, but this is ultimately what is going to allow you to gain muscle mass.

Muscle Mass Gain Diet Info is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

In this article I’m going to point out all of the vital things that go into a well designed bodybuilding diet and show you how to put it all together for maximum efficiency.  If you follow along and figure out how to customize your own muscle gain diet, you’ll be sure to build muscle mass, so read on!

Your Muscle Building Diet

When it comes to designing your optimum muscle building diet, there are some things that you’ve got to keep in mind.  It’s critical that you understand that the entire muscle gain process is dependent upon the amount of calories that you eat each day.  If you get this wrong your body just won’t be able to build more muscle mass, so it’s important to get it right from the start. If you’re just starting out with your muscle building nutrition plan, an essential skill for you to pick up is learning how to calculate your ideal calorie target.

After you get your calorie target value all nailed down, then you need to plan out some sort of outline to get the appropriate quantities of each of the bodybuilding nutrients into your body spaced out throughout the day.  In order to put together an effective muscle gain diet, you’ll also want to learn about the muscle building macro nutrients; carbs, protein, fat and water. Any decent muscle building diet will include all of these macro nutrients in the right amounts.

Now that you’ve got your caloric value calculates and you have a good understanding of each of the muscle building nutrients, it’s time to sit down and grab a piece of paper and start listing exactly how many muscle building meals you intend to eat each day, exactly what foods are going to make up each meal, and when you are going to eat each of your meals.

In order to make sure that you are feeding your muscles the foods that it needs to repair muscle cells, it’s definitely important to make it a habit to eat between 5 – 8 bodybuilding meals each day. Each of these meals should have a decent amount of while food protein as well as complex carbohydrates and Veggies or fruits along with a lot of of H2O.

One technique used by physique athletes looking to strip off fat and uncover their abdominals is to learn how to bracket your most energy intense portions of the day with the biggest meals of the day.  That means that if you know that you’re going to be going on a 20 mile hike through the woods, it might be a good idea to eat a big meal before taking off so that your muscles have the energy they needs to fuel your activity level.

If you’re serious about gaining muscle and gaining weight fast, then put these time tested muscle gain diet strategies to work for you immediately. Not only will you start to build muscle mass and increase your strength levels, but you’ll also notice that your body fat will start to naturally decrease due to your updated nutrition program. If you stick with it and make your muscle building diet a habit that you can live with, you’ll be able to achieve some amazing things with your body.

Muscle Gain Diet Advice is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

A few months ago I sent out a survey to my newsletter subscribers asking them what 1 muscle building question they’d like me to answer for them. I though that everyone was probably tired of reading blog posts and articles so I though it might be a good idea to simply answer the questions in an episode of the podcast. So in this episode of the Gain Muscle Mass Help Podcast, I answer your most pressing muscle building questions.  I cover everything that’s holding you back from achieving your muscle building goals and hopefully give you the expert advice you need to move forward on the path towards your new more muscular body!

Gain Muscle Mass Help Episode #5 is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

The main focus of this article is to lay out exactly how long your bodybuilder workout should be in order to force muscle growth. My goal is to convince you that it is realistic to actually spend less time in the gym, gain more muscle mass and get you back to your everyday life as painlessly as possible.

It’s a fact that if you want to gain muscle mass you’re going to want to blast your muscles hard and heavy in the form of heavy and intense free weights workouts. With all of that out of the way, you can definitely get into the gym and bang out an effective bodybuilding in under an hour.

While the standard yawn inspiring 60 – 180 minute free weight workouts performed at a snails pace may be ok if you’ve got no life outside of the gym and a sincere desire to make the muscle building process more difficult. With out a doubt, there is a much more efficient way to force lean muscle growth!

If you believe that more is better, you may be very surprised to realize that that’s not always the case when it comes to building more muscle mass. If you really want to make the most of your time in the gym by forcing more muscle growth while simultaneously taking advantage of your natural muscle building hormonal window of opportunity, you definitely should take a different approach to structuring your muscle building workouts.

I personally like to limit my free weights workouts to under an hour of all out effort.  I find that anything much longer than an hour forces me to lose my focus and ultimately leads to a much less effective workout. I like to get in to the gym, get through my free weights workout and get back to my life outside of the gym as fast as possible.

A lot of trainers argue that 30 minutes is not enough time for a “real” bodybuilder workout, I disagree. If you are performing your muscle building workouts with the right intensity level – the exact same level that is required to stimulate muscle growth, then you won’t be able to get through any more than 20 – 60 minutes of seriously intense bodybuilding effort.

The point of the matter is that there really is no completely “ideal workout time set in stone for everybody. Some people gain muscle mass by training 1 day a week, while others need to put in more workouts than that. Basically you just need to figure out what works well for you by incorporating a systematic approach to your body building workouts. The length of your free weight workout should be a constantly moving target just like each one of the variables of your workouts.

• The Intensity of Your Workouts
• The Length of Your Workouts
• How Often You Hit The Gym
• How Long You Rest Between Sets

All of these components will adjust depending upon your goals. During certain phases of your muscle building workouts, you may be pushing over even an hour of training, while at other times only putting in a few minutes for your weightlifting workouts.

Put in the time to figure out what approach give you the best result, then get to work implementing your training approach. With some dedicated  effort and a well thought out program, you should begin to build lean muscle mass and strip away fat faster than you ever thought possible.

Is My Bodybuilder Workout Long Enough? is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

While most guys won’t just say that they want to tone up their pecs, the the bottom line is that I don’t know of any other body part that attracts  more attention from the ladies than ripped and shredded pecs.  If you’re dying to snag the attention of the ladies, increase your confidence levels and just feel good about the way you look with your shirt off, then you  really need to focus on building up your chest muscles!

Identify The Top Notch Chest Exercises

If you really want to build chest muscles fast, then you need to make sure that your workouts incorporate different pectoral exercises that target your pectoral muscles from a multitude of different angles.  This is really the only way to firm up your pecs and build chest muscles that stand out! This is the first place to start when it comes to increasing the size of your chest muscles. You need to learn how to perform the most effective chest building exercises with decent form.

There no substitute for adequate muscle building stimulation, especially when it comes to forcing your chest muscles grow! Make sure and take the time to learn how to create muscle growth in your chest through decent exercise selection.

Below are a few chest exercises that most guys completely skip over. These chest exercises are also the ones that lead to serious pectoral development if incorporated on a regular basis.

• Bench Press
• Dumbbell Bench Press
• Incline Press
• Dumbbell Incline Press

The upper body exercises above are the proven “winners” when it comes to making your pecs grow.  My advice is to avoid any pectoral exercise (at least for the time being) that isn’t on the list above, until you build some chest muscle.  After you’ve achieved a bit of success, then you can start to get fancy and experiment with different upper body exercises. However, unless you actually begin seeing some growth in your chest muscles stick with the basic exercises.

Preparing Mentally To Build Chest Muscles

While the basic pressing pectoral exercises like; Bench Press, Incline Press and Decline Press all do a good job of hammering the major muscles in your pecs, the bottom line is that most guys perform these exercises, but see little to no results. Sure it’s still important to design your pec workouts around the pressing movements, you also need to learn how to go into your your chest workouts with the proper amount of focus if you want to see results above and beyond what you’ve already accomplished.

If you really want to build a sexier chest quickly then you need to be ready to get after it in the gym.  Nothing will happen in the way of building muscle mass or losing body fat unless you learn how to work hard at the things that are going to lead to the results that you desire.

Before you go to the gym for your next upper body workout spend some time getting mentally ready.  If you want to build muscles, then you need to be able to train with enough focus to force your body to lay down some new muscle mass.  The only way to force your chest muscles to grow,is to hit them with something that they’ve never felt before with each new workout.

If you just take the time to  pick the best pec exercises a you’ll be able to start working towards your goal of a thicker more muscular chest in no time.   With a little hard work, you’ll be surprised at how quickly you can change your pecs!

How To Build Chest Muscles is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

It’s been a while since I’ve sent out a newsletter, so I though I’dbetter sit down and put something together for you guys that you can put to use! I’ve been busy lately writing new articles for www.gain-muscle-workout-less.com and recording new podcast  episodes for www.gainmusclemasshelp.com. So if you haven’t visited the website or browsed through the blog lately go check them out. They’re both packed with practical muscle building content that you can use to achieve your goals…and the best part is they’re both completely FREE!

Alright lets get down to business here and list a few muscle building tips that you can use today to start building more muscle mass naturally.

How To Build Muscle Mass – The Truth, The Whole Truth And Nothing But The Truth (I Promise)!

When it comes to building muscle mass a lot of people are extremely confused about what they actually need to focus their time and energy on to get the results they want. Basically, the muscle building process is very straight forward.  There are only a few principles that you need to master in order to build muscle mass. Not 20 or 30 like most of the “bodybuilding guru’s” would like you to believe.

I know I’ve covered these principles in the past, but it seems like a lot of people are still pretty confused about the muscle building process – so bear with me here.

Here are the things that really matter when it comes to building muscle mass quickly and naturally:

1.) Perform some form of heavy resistance training (weight training)
2.) Learn how to apply some form of progressive overload to you workouts
3.) Learn and apply the bodybuilding nutrition basics
4.) Allow your body to rest and recover between workouts

For a more in-depth explanation of these muscle building basics go read through this article…

How To Gain Muscle Mass Naturally

Also keep in mind that my muscle building program, The Muscle Mass Advantage, that can hep you if you want to start building muscle mass today and you don’t want to waste your time reading through articles and tips. It’s a proven step-by-step plan for building muscle mass fast. You can download it in a few minutes and start moving towards your goal of a more muscular body today!

You can check out The Muscle Mass Advantage at ==> http://www.musclemassadvantage.com

That’s all for this edition of the newsletter. Get out there and start putting these muscle building tips to use – and have a great week!

Your Friend And Trainer,

Nick Andrade
Certified Personal Trainer
Certified Lifestyle And Weight Management Consultant
Author of : The Muscle Mass Advantage

Gain Muscle Mass Help Issue #106 is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

I personally think so highly of chest dips that I try to incorporate them into every one of my chest workouts.  It’s a great movement that really doesn’t get the notoriety (as a chest exercise) that it deserves. If you’re serious about packing on some solid mass in your upper body then you need to learn how to perform chest dips with correct form and make it a point to incorporate them into your chest training program.

While chest dips and dips in general have been traditionally thought of as a body weight exercise, you won’t be able to get the biggest muscle building benefit from this movement until you start performing chest dips with some form of weights. However, in order to get the level of strength that you’re going to need in order to perform weighted dips correctly, it’s a good idea to perform at least a couple of workouts of body weight dips in order to learn the proper form and increase your level of muscular strength so that you don’t actually wind up hurting yourself once you increase the training weight.

In order to incorporate weights into this exercise you’re going to need a weight lifting belt that allows you to hang some type of resistance between your legs.  The most common type of equipment that see in the gyms these days is a basic weight lifting belt with two round metal rings in the front that allows you to run a chain through them and, then hang the weight on the chain.  These belts can be purchased ready to go, or you can retro fit one of your own weight belts.

The main benefit of weighted dips lies in the fact that you can really stretch out your chest muscles during the bottom portion of this movement in a very systematic way.  This allows for more blood flow through your pectoral muscles, while increasing your range of motion and improving your pectoral flexibility. But you do have to be careful to not overextend the range of this exercise, as you can hurt your shoulders or tear your pectoral muscles if you don’t use good form.

In order to get the most out of chest dips and and really stimulate some amazing pectoral growth, you’ve absolutely got to learn how to perform weighted dips with decent form. Make sure to practice this exercise a few times before you even try to increase the weight.  You might find that you need to build up a base level of strength before you move on to more intense chest dips.  If that’s the case don’t lose any sleep over it, just focus on performing your dips with proper form and your strength will improve.

Here’s how to complete dips in order to stimulate some serious pectoral development:

1.) Place your hands on the parallel bars spaced out to shoulder width
2.) Straighten your arms in order to lift your feet off of the foot stands
3.) Tilt your body forward while slowly lowering yourself (this is what takes the emphasis off of your triceps and places the bulk of the load on to your pectorals)
4.) Continue lowering your body until the bottom of your chest is even with your hands
5.) Push your body back to the starting position by extending your arms while focusing on tilting forward as much as possible.

If you want to build a bigger chest, then you’ve got to add chest dips to your workouts.  Not only will they help you improve your range of motion in your upper body, but you’ll be able to stimulate your pectoral muscles to strengthen and grow like never before!

Weighted Chest Dips For Maximum Pectoral Development is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

A massive pair of biceps is certainly impressive, but forcing your arms to grow can be a lot more complicated than most people realize.  While the common 5 sets of 5 reps of dumbbell curls is fine for beginners and even some intermediate trainers, you’ve got to learn how to take your arm workouts up a notch if you really want to build big arms.

Here are a few bicep training tips that have helped me to pack on over 3 inches to my arms over the years.  Each of these arm workout tips is tried and true in the trenches and I guarantee that they will help you build bigger arms.  Read through each of these tips and start implementing them one by one – before you know it your arm workouts will be forcing your body to build some serious muscle mass and everyone will be keeping their eyes on your arms!

1.) My first tip for an effective bicep workout may seem like it’s completely unrelated to the process of training your biceps, but it’s important to your success.  If you’re serious about forcing your arms to grow, then you need to make sure that you’re performing heavy dead-lifts to failure One time each week. I’m not sure why this works but, I think it has something to do with the amount of testosterone and growth hormone that are released in your body when you perform heavy squats to failure. But rest assured it’s very effective for increasing the size of the muscles in your arms. In the past I’ve experienced an increase in the size of my biceps and triceps by 1.5″ – 2″ inches by really focusing in on my heavy squatting…while not even training by biceps at all!

2.) Also make sure that your bicep workouts are designed around the most effective growth inducing free weights exercises. If you don’t piece together your arm workouts around the right exercises, your arms simply will not grow – basic stuff.  Stick with the bicep exercises that allow you to train “hard and heavy” through a complete range of motion.

The Most Effective Bicep Exercises

1. Barbell Curl
2. EZ Bar Curl
3. Alternating Dumbbell Curl
4. Hammer Curl
5. Dumbbell Incline Curl
6. Cable Curls
7. Preacher Curl
8. Dumbbell Preacher Curl

90% of my personal bicep workouts start with either ez bar curls or barbell curls.  These basic bicep exercises allow me to train my arms hard with heavy weights.  If you consistently pound your biceps with heavy weights, they’ll have no choice but to respond by getting bigger and stronger!

3.) Perform each set of your bicep workout in the 6 – 8 repetition range.   6 -8 reps is in the accepted “muscle building” rep range, but closer to the lower side.  Focusing your arm workouts in this repetition range will allow you to stimulate as much muscle growth as possible by pounding your biceps with heavy weights. Whenever I perform bicep workouts built around this rep range, I almost always see dramatic results.

4.) Design your bicep workout so that you perform only 2 – 6 sets of 2 exercises max. This will force you to keep your workout to as reasonable amount of time while making sure that your biceps get the work they need to lay down new muscle mass. Also make sure to rest for 1.5 – 3 minutes between sets so that your muscles are totally recovered for the next set.

5.) Hit the gym to blast through your bicep workout only 1 time each week.  If you insist on training your arms more frequently than this you’re going to have a really hard time packing on any muscle mass in your arms. Sure you can get away with it for awhile, but eventually you’re going to hit a wall and actually start losing strength and size in your arms. Instead of taking the volume approach to your bicep workouts, focus on making each workout as efficient as possible – this is the key to stimulating muscle growth. Get in to the gym, get through your workout then get out of the gym as quickly as possible so that you can focus on feeding your body the nutrients that it needs to pack on muscle mass.

Take these simple bicep workout tips and run with them…Your arms will start to grow quickly. I know that this advice seems too basic to work, but it’s extremely effective for building big biceps quickly.

Bicep Workout Help is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

If you need a good solid bicep specific exercise that will literally force you to gain muscle mass and increase the shape of your arms, there is no better movement to stick into your training routine than heavy basic curls.  While I usually like to promote compound exercises for building muscle mass, I don’t consider the straight bar curl to be a compound movement. It is however, as close as you’re going to get to a compound exercise that specifically targets your biceps.

Aside from targeting the muscles in your biceps, the straight bar curl also involves a few other muscles in your shoulders, back and chest, as well as a bunch of stabilizer muscles. While most of these additional muscles have limited involvement in making the weight move through the course of this exercise, simply getting a few of the bigger muscle groups in your upper body working at the same time will produce a more anabolic environment in your biceps and will over time lead to bigger arms.

The big benefit to performing barbell curls is that you can lift very heavy weight, which in turn stimulates new muscle growth with each and every. Even with good form, you will be able to hit your biceps with a much heavier weight than you would with any other bicep exercise. Just in case you haven’t caught on yet, training with heavy weights through a complete range of motion is the best way to stimulate new muscle growth and increase your strength levels – so stick with what works here and focus on hitting your biceps hard and heavy!

I always make it a point to include heavy straight bar curls into each of my bicep workouts so that I can make sure and stimulate new growth each time I blast my biceps.  In order to get the most out of this exercise, create your biceps workout so that you’re performing heavy basic curls before you jump into  any isolation exercises.  This will allow you to make sure that you’re working your arms with heavy enough weight to make them grow before you incorporate any lighter weight isolation exercises. I will typically perform anywhere from 2 – 4 sets of barbell curls followed by  2 – 3 sets of some other isolation style exercise in order to round out my bicep workouts.

How To Perform The Basic Barbell Curl

If you really want to build bigger arms, you need to learn how to perform the straight bar curl with god form.  If you neglect your form you will eventually wind up hurting yourself and you may not be able to lift at all. So make it a point to learn how to train with proper   form.

In order to perform the barbell curl:

1.) Spread your feet out about shoulder width apart
2.) Bend at the knees and grasp the bar with an underhand grip
3.) Stand upright with the barbell hanging in front of you
4.) Hold your back straight with your shoulders back
5.) Curl the barbell up to the top of your shoulders
6.) Pause for a second and then lower the barbell (under control) back down to the starting position

If you really want to build big biceps and you want to do it quickly, then the simple basic curl should be a staple in your everyday bicep workouts.  While there is certainly nothing too exciting about performing barbell curls, over time you will be able to pack on some serious muscle mass on your arms.

The Barbell Curl is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

No matter what body part you want to focus your attention on, I feel that you’re much better off picking with the pec exercises that allow you to train with heavy weights through a complete range of motion that incorporates muscle fibers from many different body parts. When it comes to chest training, I really like to focus on the basic chest presses that involves the muscles of the shoulder and chest at the same time.

I just feel that you get the most out of each workout training this way than you would by trying to singularly isolate each and every muscle group.  If you try to work out for chest growth by focusing on isolation movements that don’t work in your deltoids, you get to a point where you just chant get your pecs to grow because you’re training with very light weights.

Here are my choices for the best all around pectoral exercises.  Learn how to perform each of these chest exercises with correct form and start utilizing them in all of your chest workouts.  Not only will you begin to instantly feel a difference in the size and strength of your pecs, and after a few weeks of determined effort, people will start to notice your bigger, stronger chest muscles.

The Most Effective Pectoral Exercises

1.  Bar Bell Bench Press – This is the universal grandfather of all pec exercises. Stimulating muscles from your chest, delts and triceps this awesome pectoral exercise will help you gain some serious chest muscle quickly!

To perform the barbell bench press – Lie on your back on a flat bench with your butt in contact with the bench and your feet flat on the ground. Grab the bar with an overhand grip spaced just wider than shoulder width. Slowly lower the barbell in a slow and controlled manner until it’s located just below your nipples. Extend you arms upward while pushing the weight until the bar is in the starting position.

2. The Incline Press – The incline press is another timeless (and extremely effective) pec exercise that can help you get your pecs into amazing shape. The barbell incline press places and emphasis on the muscles in your chest and shoulders.

To perform the incline press: Sit on an inclined bench set to between 45 and 60 degrees. I personally like to lower the angle of the bench even lower to somewhere between 35 and 40 degrees because it allows me to train with much heavier weights than I can train with if the angle of the bench is steeper. Just give this pec exercise a try and see what works best for you..

Grab the barbell with an overhand grip that is slightly wider than shoulder width. Lower the bar in a slow and controlled manner to the top of your chest. Make sure that your back and butt are in contact with the bench during the entire movement. Press the weight up until the bar is back in the starting position. Make sure to avoid any aching in your back during this exercise.

3. Weighted Chest Dips – When performed properly weighted dips are one of the most effective chest exercises. Chest dips target your chest muscles while incorporating Your delts at the same time.  One of the really cool things about dips is that when performed properly, they allow you to really stretch out your pecs and deltoids at the bottom of the exercise, which can help to increase the range of motion of your shoulder joints.

To perform chest dips: Hang from the parallel bars with your arms fully extended and you legs curled up behind you. Bend your elbows and lower your body slowly until your chest is level with the parallel bars, then press down and lift your body back up to the starting position. In order to place more of an emphasis on your pectoralis and less on your triceps, lean forward through the complete movement.

If I had to narrow my list down to only 3 pectoral exercises to make up the bulk of my chest workouts, bench press, incline press (as well as the dumbbell equivalents) and chest dips would be the exercises I’d go with.  Not only do these basic chest exercises require little in the way of fancy equipment, but they are the most effective exercises for building a powerful muscular chest.

The Top Pectoral Exercises is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

In the featured segment of this episode of the gain muscle mass help podcast, I take a look at one of the most important fundamental principles of the muscle building process…progressive overload.  Lets face it…if you don’t make a point to progressively stimulate new muscle growth with each and every workout, you’re not going to be able to build as much muscle mass as you’d be able to if you were utilizing the power of progressive overload. I know that these days a lot of people are claiming that progressive overload is too “old school” and that it  just doesn’t work, but that’s just not true! progressive overload is THE underlying principle that makes the muscle building process “tick”.  Whether they refer to it as progressive overload or not, chances are any professionally designed  workout program that you’ve ever tried incorporates some form of progressive overload. After you listen to this episode of the podcast, check out these articles that cover progressive overload pretty well…

1.) Build Muscle mass Fast With Progressive Overload

2.) What is Progressive Overload?

3.) A Real Life Example of Progressive Overload In Action

4.) Progressive Overload Primer

I also talk a bit about a new “My Body Transformation” section that I recently added to the blog.  Over the years, I’ve been able to bring a lot of high quality muscle building content to all of you, but I realized that I just haven’t done a very good job of letting everyone in on exactly what I was personally doing with my own training and diet. In to the future, I plan on updating my workouts, nutrition strategy, progress and really everything related to how I’m training at the moment.

Check out the My Body Transformation section here!

Gain Muscle Mass Help Episode 4 is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

photo credit: Hairy_Jacques

Before I get to the abs work out, I want to let you know that getting washboard abs decline crunches.  Each time I hit the gym, I see at least 3 people at a time focusing on building their abdominals, but only a handful of them actually succeed at getting a six pack. Over the course of a year, I would estimate that I run across a few hundred (at least 600) men and women who spend hours each week working their abs with noting more than a sore midsection to show for it!

Why is it that so many people train their abs with nothing to show for it? I think that most people just don’t understand that in order to get impressive abs, they need to focus on losing body fat by implementing full body workouts and smart diet choices, not by training their abdominals.  Regardless of how effective your ab workout actually is, you won’t be able to see any of your abdominal muscles until you lose enough body fat to expose them. So instead of running to the gym and performing never ending ab workouts, learn how to strip away body fat first and then focus on training your mid section.  Not only will you get a 6 pack quicker with this approach, but you won’t get frustrated when you put in all of the hard work on your abs only to discover that you can’t even see any of them!

A Fun And Easy Abs Workout

This six pack work out hammers all of your abdominal muscles in an efficient order.  Typically you want to focus on performing the hip flexion and leg lift abdominal exercises first, and then your “twisting movements, and then your more traditional ab exercises like Swiss ball crunches and slant board sit ups. Training your abdominal muscles in this order targets each of them in an order that’s most effective.

Just think about it, the leg lift exercises require a a lot more work to complete than either the twisting oblique movements or the upper abs exercises like crunches. What you find if you piece together your abs work out in this order is that you’ll be able to effectively train all of your abdominal muscles without prematurely fatiguing any of them.

Ab Exercise #1 – Hip Flexion Movement

Hanging Knee Raises – Perform 2 sets of 6 – 8 repetitions with a 1 – 1.5 minute rest in between sets.

Ab Exercise #2 – Twisting Movements

Medicine Ball Twists – Again Perform 2 sets of 6 – 8 repetitions with a 1 – 1.5 minute rest in between sets.

Abdominal Exercise #3 – Upper Abs Movement

Weighted Crunches – This time perform 2 sets of 6 – 8 repetitions with a 1 – 1.5 minute rest in between sets.

Ab Exercise #4  – Core Stabilizing Exercise

Vacuums – Perform 2 sets of stomach vacuum contractions holding each one for 8 seconds. In between sets rest for 1 – 1.5 minutes.

Perform this abs work out 2 – 3 times each week with 1 full day of rest between ab workouts. This is an extremely effective abdominal workout that targets each of the muscles in your core easily, quickly and effectively allowing you to develop a tighter mid section. Don’t forget that you should focus your efforts on stripping off body fat at the same time you perform your ab workouts, this is the only way to get a six pack naturally!

Quick And Comprehensive Abs Work Out is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

If you desire to get stunning abdominals, you’re going to have to lose the fat on your waist!

There is definitely a bunch of in for available that shoots to teach you how to burn off midsection fat and expose your ripped abdominals, the truth of the matter is that most girls just don’t want to put in the hard work that’s required to make it happen. Figuring out how to put everything together in order to lose abdominal fat is not easy. It requires a lot of dedication and hard work.

In order to get you moving towards your goal of awesome six pack abs, I’ve put together a list of tips that can help you get to the root of the problem and allow you to strip abdominal fat without having to resort to fad diets, fat burner supplements or any sort of ill advised methods. If you start out by implementing this info today, you will burn ab fat.

How To Strip Ab Fat

Here’s how to go about stripping off ab fat fat and naturally…

1.  Keep track of what you eat each day for 7 days. In order to lose abdominal fat, you’re going to have to pay attention to what you eat so that you can put yourself into a calorie deficit. The only way to lose body fat or abdominal fat is to take in fewer calories than you expend each day. The only way to do this consistently is to keep a close eye on what you’re eating.

2. After you’ve tracked what you’re eating each day for a certain time period, you need to add up the number of calories and reduce your intake by about 300 calories each day (make sure that you eat at least 1200 calories each day though). This will ignite the process and help you instantly take charge of your calorie balance which will force you to lose abdominal fat fast.

3. The next thing you should do if you really want to lose abdominal fat is to make it a habit to perform some type of free weights workout for at least 45 minutes 2 – 5 times each week, in conjunction with 2 – 4 sessions of cardiovascular exercises each week. Both weight training and cardiovascular exercise, burns calories and helps with the calorie deficit that you’re working hard to create. As an added fat melting bonus, when you begin to gain muscle mass to your body because of the weight training, your body begins to instantly burn more calories at rest, which will allow you to lose abdominal fat more effectively than you otherwise would.

The bottom line is that in order to lose abdominal fat, you’ve got to learn how to create a calorie deficit through intelligent dieting and exercise. And you’ve got to make sure that you keep on top of all of your hard work. While it would be great to think that it’s possible to build ripped and shredded abdominals in only a few weeks, in most cases it’s just not realistic.

Building a six pack is a journey that typically involves consistent effort and attention for years at a time. So don’t make the mistake of getting upset after only a few days of work. Just put your head down and get back to work , over time you will strip off abdominal fat and uncover a stunning set of six pack abs!

Lose Abdominal Fat Starting Today is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

Here’s How To Get Washboard Abs…

1.) The most important thing to keep in mind when it comes to uncovering your abs, is learning how to lose abdominal fat. So before you run out and buy one of the popular ab workout routines take the time to learn how to lose ab fat naturally by implementing a solid fat loss diet in combination with aerobic exercise.  You’re trying to eat fewer calories than you burn on a daily basis – this is the only way to lose stomach fat.

2.) Try to work in 2 – 4 20 minute cardiovascular workouts each week in conjunction with about 45 minutes of free weight based strength training.  This combination of an intelligent fat burning diet and a solid workout program is how to make your abs pop out quickly. It’s the quickest way to get yourself into a negative calorie balance naturally and after awhile it becomes a habit that’s pretty easy to stick with!

3.) Make sure to get 6 – 10 hours of sleep each night.  A lot of people who are overweight do not get enough sleep each night and their lack of sleep may be a big contributing factor.  Sleep is essential to the fa burning process and in order to get six pack abs, you’ve got to make sure and get enough of it to keep your body running smoothly. Getting enough sleep also prevents stress and lowers your body’s tendency to store body fat.

4.) Perform some type of abs work out 2 times each week.  This is enough to stimulate abdominal muscle growth and strength gain, but not an excessive amount that can eventually lead to some form of injury.

5.) Drink a bunch of water each and every day.  Water is an essential nutrient for your body so make sure to give it what it needs.

I know that this plan seems boring and dull to a lot of people, but this is really how to get washboard abs naturally. Sure there are a bunch of fancy techniques that can supposedly help you get a six pack quicker, I guarantee the results will last longer if you work these tips into your day to day life! After you lean how to implement these six pack abs tips

That’s all for this edition of Gain Muscle Mass Help.  Get to the gym and start working on those six pack abs!

Download the PDF edition of the Gain Muscle Mass Help Newsletter Issue #105: “How To Get Washboard Abs”

Your Friend And Trainer,

Nick Andrade
Certified Personal Trainer
Certified Lifestyle And Weight Management Consultant
Author of : The Muscle Mass Advantage

Gain Muscle Mass Help Issue #5 is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

In this episode of the gain muscle mass help podcast, I start the conversation on one of the most important aspects of your bodybuilding program…bodybuilding nutrition. Because the subject of eating for muscle gain is such a HUGE area to cover, I thought that it might be a good idea to simply lay out the basics of bodybuilding nutrition rather than jump right into the more advanced nutrition topics. In this episode I uncover the critical components of any well rounded muscle building diet and explain how you can manipulate each of these in order to elicit the most potent muscle building response from what you eat.

Trust me when I say that there really aren’t too many things that are more important to your muscle building success than your bodybuilding nutrition outline.  If you get this right from the start, you’re going  to be able to build an impressive amount of muscle mass naturally, but if you don’t get it all figured out, you may not build any muscle mass as all – It’s that important!

Listen to this episode and uncover…

• The critical components of any muscle building diet
• How much of each nutrient you should be eating
• How much water you need to drink each day
• How many meals you need to fit in each day
• How to space out your meals for the biggest benefit

After listening to this episode, you should have a very good idea of what to eat and exactly when to eat it to support new muscle growth. If you find that you could use a little more help on the subject, check out these muscle building nutrition resources:

1. Basic Bodybuilding Nutrition
2. Diet To Gain Muscle Mass
3. Muscle Gain Diet

Gain Muscle Mass Help Episode 3|Bodybuilding Nutrition Basics is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

Before I jump in and lay out what I consider to be good ab workouts, it’s critical that you figure out up front that it really doesn’t matter how you train your abdominal area, if you’re not going to pay attention to your diet.  While you do need to target some abdominal training routines in order to build up your abdominal area, you’re just not going to be able to see them until you strip away the body fat that’s covering them up in the first place! The only way to make this happen is to get busy burning off body fat not just in your abs, but all over your entire body.

If you’re ready to strip off fat, you’re going to need to pay close attention to what you’re consuming every day as well as performing full body workouts that target the stronger muscle groups on your body. So be prepared to mix up your menu a little bit and focus on training the biggest muscles on your body like your; chest,shoulders, legs,back,etc. Focusing your workouts on the biggest body parts burns more energy witch forces you to melt off more body fat. The more body fat you can get rid of, the more eye-catching your awesome six pack will be!

Good Ab Workouts That Are Simple

I really think that the ab work outs listed below are all you really need in order to carve out an awesome six pack. If you focus the majority of your work on your nutritional approach and hard and heavy workouts and you also make it a priority to sprinkle in a few decent ab workouts each week, you definitely will begin to uncover your abs and achieve your goal of a firmer and sexier mid section.

Don’t try and work your abs every day of the week! Not only is it a counter productive to your goals, but you’ll be negatively impacting the amount of body fat you’re able to burn – instead of focusing on the bigger muscles in your body, you’ll be training with exercises that don’t require nearly as much effort to get through.

Good Ab Workout #1

Hanging Knee Raises – 3 sets x 8-12 reps
Saxon Side Bends – 3 Sets x  8-12 reps
Weighted Crunches – 3 Sets x 8-12 reps

Good Abs Workout #2

Hip Thrusts – 3 sets x 8-12 repetitions
Russian Twists (with medicine ball or dumbbells) – 3 sets x 8-12 reps
Exercise Ball Crunches – 3 sets x 8-12 repetitions

Make it a habit to perform each of these exercises with heavy enough weight to give your ab muscles a reason to grow! Rest for 1 – 2 minutes between sets and try to mentally focus on making sure the muscle contracts during each repetition. Perform each repetition in total control over the weight – do not use training weights that are overly heavy or use bad form or you’ll eventually wind up injuring the muscles in your abs.

There you go…a few good ab workouts that are simple yet effective. Pick one and find time for it in the beginning of the week, then move on to the next workout after some time to rest. Focus on the six pack ab workout tips above, (and make sure not to go insane and train your abdominals each and every day!) and over time, you’ll be able to lose abdominal fat and carve out an amazing six pack.

Good Ab Workouts Are Important is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

photo credit: Life of Sport

In comparison to some of the bigger muscle groups on your body, the muscles in your upper body are tiny. Even though there is no other muscle group on your body that will grab attention quite like a a muscular pair of biceps, one of the biggest downfalls of most guys is that they devote too much time to working on their arms and too little time training the bigger muscle groups on their bodies.

If you’re serious about building bigger biceps, then you need to prioritize your training in the following order (or at least somewhat close to this). First off target the larger muscle groups on your body and work your way down the list.

First train your…

• Legs – (quads/glutes)
• Chest – (pecs)
• Back – (lats)
• Shoulders – (delts)
• Triceps
• Biceps
• Calves

You’ll need to expend an bunch of energy hitting the bigger muscle groups hard and heavy.  If you do this, what you’ll find is that your smaller muscles (like your arms), will begin to get bigger incidentally without direct training due to the amount of muscle building hormones released by your body when you work your way through heavy sets for the bigger muscle groups on your body. So by focusing on the bigger muscle groups first and making them the focus in your training program, you will begin to realize an increase in the strength and size of your biceps.

Also keep in mind that when you perform many of the pulling type exercises that are the focus of your back training, you will be utilizing and in turn training your arms (usually with a much heavier weight than you usually would), so make sure to space your bicep and back workouts a minimum of a day apart.

Now that you’ve got your muscle building program designed properly and everything is in balance.  Then you’ll want to move forward and start working in a few basic bicep workouts.  Don’t make the mistake that nearly every guy in the gym makes and work your biceps non stop – it’s counterproductive to your goal of building bigger biceps and it will wear down your arms after too long.

In order to build bigger biceps, you need to pair down your bicep workouts to 1 arm workout per week.  That’s all the work your biceps really need to grow.  If you hit your biceps hard and heavy any more than this, they will lose size – so try not to do it!

Now that you understand how to properly prioritize your workouts and how often you need to be hitting your biceps, here’s a simple bicep workout that will help you pack on some size on your biceps quickly without taking up too much of your time in the gym.

Start out with a few minutes of light intensity aerobics.  I prefer 5 – 10 minutes of light jogging. Followed by a full body flex routine. A lot of guys only stretch out the muscle groups that they train each day – I really like to stretch out the all of the muscle groups each day so that I’m able to prevent any type of tightening up or injury.  After you get your stretching and warm up in, it’s time to jump into the weight lifting warm up sets below.

Quick Bicep Workout

First Warm Up Set:

Exercise: DB Curl – 1 set x 10 repetitions

select a training weight that allows you to move the weight quickly through a full range of motion.  I typically begin with 20 lb dumbbells.

Warm Up Set #2:

Exercise: Alternating DB Curl – 1 set x 8 reps

Again choose a weight that allows you to move the Dumbbells fairly quickly through a full range of motion, but make sure that it is heavier than what you started with. I like to jump up to 45 lb dumbbells here.

Rest for 1.5 minutes

Warm-Up Set #3:

Bicep Exercise: Alternating Dumbbell Curl – 1 set of 6 repetitions

*Perform this warm-up set with a weight that you can move though the full range of motion easily and under control, but this time begin to up crank up the intensity a bit. the goal is to complete 6 reps with a weight that is getting closer to your training weight, but light enough so that it doesn’t make your biceps tired before the workout even begins. I typically move up to 45 lb dumbbells for this set.

Now rest for 2 minutes

Keep in mind the goal of the warm up sets in this bicep workout is to simply get the blood pumping through your arms and to warm up your tendons and ligaments.  That’s the only goal of the warm-up sets. Make sure that you do not make your biceps too tired during the warm up sets by either using weights that are too heavy or by shortening the rest intervals. If you do this your biceps workout will suffer and as a result you will not be able to generate as much muscle growth as you otherwise would!

Now it’s time to jump into the actual training sets for the arm workout.

Exercise #1: DB Curl

After completing your bicep workout warm-up…

• Perform 2 sets x 6-8 reps

**Make sure to use a weight that you can control for at least 6 quality repetitions, but heavy enough that you can’t possibly perform more than 8!

• Rest for 2 minutes between sets

Bicep Exercise #2: – Dumbbell Incline Curls

• Perform 2 sets x 6-8 reps

Again make sure to use a training weight that allows you to complete the exercise with decent form, but a weight that’s heavy enough that you can’t perform more than 8.  that’s exactly how to get your biceps to grow.  If you train with a weight that’s too light, your biceps will not grow and if you train with a weight that’s too heavy you’re eventually going to hurt yourself.

When it comes to building bigger biceps, that’s really all there is to it.  Learn how to put your workouts in the right order to target the bigger muscle groups on your body first, and then move on to 1 solid bicep workout each week.  As long as your muscle building diet is set up right and you make it a habit to get enough sleep each night, you will build muscle mass quickly and your biceps will get bigger!

Bicep Workout And Arm Building Tips is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

A lot of people really feel like they’re giving it their all but still not able to gain muscle mass and get into amazing shape.  I can’t tell you how many emails I get each week full of “sob stories”  talking on and on about how hard so and so has worked without being able to gain muscle mass.  While there is no doubt that building muscle mass is really hard work, and sometimes very hard to make happen, the truth of the matter is that  it absolutely can be done even without the use of expensive bodybuilding supplements!  Sure there are a lot of people out there who will try to convince you that you need to buy supplement “x” in order to build muscle mass, but it’s just not true.  All that it takes to get the ball rolling and start building muscle mass is a plan of action and a lot of heard work.

Stick with the bodybuilding basics here and focus on the things that matter…

1. A solid bodybuilding nutrition plan
2. A solid weightlifting workout plan
3. A well thought out rest and recovery strategy
4. A way to make you follow through with your plan

That’s really all it takes to build muscle mass! Until you get a good handle on the things listed above stay away from supplements and focus your efforts where you’ll get the biggest return for your investment.

Some Things To Avoid If You Really Want To Gain Muscle Mass Fast…

1.) Avoid not eating enough!  If you want to gain weigh and build muscle mass, then you’ve got to make sure and eat enough calories each day to make it happen.  I see too many guys in the gym who claim they can’t gain weight and build muscle mass regardless of what they try, when it really just boils down to them not eating enough of the muscle building nutrients to fuel muscle growth.

2.) Avoid not getting enough rest!  The only way your body will build muscle mass is if it has enough time to rest and fully recover between workouts.  Make it a point to implement a rest and recovery plan right form the start and avoid the over training trap that most intermediate level bodybuilders and weightlifters fall into.

3.) Avoid not structuring your muscle building workouts properly! Even if you’ve got your bodybuilding nutrition plan nailed down and you’re resting and recovering between workouts it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re going to gain muscle mass. In order to stimulate muscle growth, you’ve got to train properly plain and simple.

4.) Avoid not eating at the right times each day.  In order to fuel muscle growth, not only do you need to eat enough calories and muscle building nutrients, but you’ve got to make sure and consume them at the right times each day.  Your muscles need a constant stream of the muscle building nutrients in order to repair damage cells and grow.

I’ve also been spending some time over the past few weeks putting together some articles about one of the hottest topics this summer…getting six pack abs!  While everyone wants to build muscle muscle mass and get into shape nothing catches the eye quite like a killer set of six pack abs. Keep an eye out for the next edition of the newsletter where I dive into exactly what you need to do to get six pack abs quickly and easily !

In the mean time check out this article that abs expert Mike Geary just published.  It covers a few  very effective six pack abs exercises that most people completely overlook. Check it out here: 3 Unusual Abs Exercises

Well, that’s all for this edition of the gain muscle mass help newsletter.

Download the PDF edition of the Gain Muscle Mass Help Newsletter Issue # 104

Your Friend And Trainer,

Nick Andrade
Certified Personal Trainer
Certified Lifestyle And Weight Management Consultant
Author of : The Muscle Mass Advantage

Gain Muscle Mass Help Issue #104 is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

First things first.  In order to stimulate chest muscle growth, you definitely have to perform muscle building exercises that meet a few conditions. First, the pectoral exercises that you choose, need to allow you to actually target your chest muscles. If you choose pectoral exercises that place most of the emphasis on your shoulders, then your shoulders will be doing most of the work and in turn achieving the benefits of doing that work (you’ll stimulate muscle growth in your shoulders instead of chest growth). So you want to focus on movements that specifically target your pectoral muscles.  It’s ok if the pectoral exercises also incorporate your shoulders or triceps, but the main muscle group in the movement should for the most part be your pec muscles.

The second piece of criteria that the pec exercises that you choose for your chest workouts need to meet is that each of the exercise that you select need to allow you to move a fairly heavy amount of weight (this is the only way to build muscle mass).  Lifting incrementally heavier weights over a full range of motion is exactly how you stimulate muscle growth, so it only makes sense that if you’re wanting to add size to your pec muscles,  then you need to be training with heavy weights.

The third piece of criteria is something that most gym rats completely overlook.  You’ve got to actually like performing the upper body exercises that you choose!  If you hate the exercises that you put into your pectoral workouts, you’re not going to be able to hit your pectoral as hard as you’d be able to if you actually enjoyed performing the chest exercise in the first place, so make sure to stick with  a few of the chest exercises that you actually enjoy. Sometimes you’ve got no choice but to perform a few upper body exercises that you’re less than thrilled about, but try not to construct your upper body workouts around these pectoral exercises, instead find a few that you really enjoy and fit them into the workout.

Below are a few of my favorite pec exercises. After looking over this list of exercises, I can honestly say that about 95% of all of my chest workouts are composed of these highly effective pectoral exercises. Once in a long while, I’ll work in a few sets of cable crossovers, but that really about it.

9 Excellent Pectoral Exercises;DB Bench Press, Bench Press, Incline Press, Db Incline Press, Push Up, Chest Dips, Dumbbell Flyes, Decline Bench Press, DB Decline Bench Press.

If you’re one of the hundreds of guys out there who wants to sculpt out a bigger, more muscular chest, then make sure that your pectoral workouts are composed of the most effective pectoral exercises!  The majority of your pectoral  workouts should be designed around the short list of upper body exercises listed above.  If you follow no other advice than to simply make sure that your chest  workouts are designed with exercises that fit the requirements listed in this article, you will begin to build a bigger chest fast.

A Few Awesome Pectoral Exercises is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

In this episode of the Gain Muscle Mass Help podcast I talk about how you can build an insane amount of ripped and shredded muscle mass fast by sticking with a few basic techniques.  While there’s no doubt that there are hundreds if not thousands of fancy tricks you can employ to help you build muscle mass, the truth of the matter is that the fundamental principle of building muscle mass will account for most of your muscle gain, while the fancy techniques will only help to push you over the hump once you’ve built a decent amount of muscle.

If you’re serious about building muscle mass, then listen to this podcast and implement the tips today! After a few weeks of hard work, you’ll really be able to notice a difference in the amount of muscle mass you’ve gained.

Gain Muscle Mass Help 2|Build Muscle Mass By Implimenting The Basics is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

Now don’t get me wrong, there are literally thousands of tips and techniques that you can apply to your workouts to help push you to new muscle growth, but in all reality, there are a few things that I believe are more important to the process of building muscle mass fast than workout techniques. Sure training with more weight and cramming protein down your throat is an important part of the muscle building process, but let’s face it, the muscle building process can be very overwhelming if you’re not sure where to begin. I can remember wasting weeks of my life trying to figure out the best way to go about building muscle mass – an all the while not doing anything to move me closer to my goals. I’m not saying that it’s not a good idea to plan everything out, but the only way to actually build any muscle mass is to get into ACTION!

You’ve got to hit the gym and train with free weights first, fuel your body with the right combination’s of the right muscle building foods and second and learn how to allow your body to rest and recover fully between free weight workouts. That’s how to build muscle mass in a nutshell. I’ve been training to gain muscle mass and stay lean for over 18 years now and sometimes I take all of the knowledge I’ve accumulated over the years for granted. Putting together an effective muscle building program is really second nature to me now, but I can remember the frustration of being really excited to get started, but not knowing where to even begin. What I realized after awhile is that you can completely bypass the frustration and shorten your learning curve by finding a complete bodybuilding program or system that addresses all of the components of an effective muscle gain program in one easy to follow package.

Then you can just get down to the hard work that’s required to make it all come together, without wasting any time. Just read through the program and implement what you learn with a sense of passion and commitment. If you do this I guarantee you’ll begin to gain muscle mass much quicker than you otherwise would. In my opinion, this is the fastest way to build muscle mass!

Where To Find The Best Bodybuilding Programs

Because I feel so strongly that finding a well designed bodybuilding program is the key to fast muscle gain, I thought that it might be a good idea to point you towards an area of the website where I review what I believe to be the most effect bodybuilding programs on the market today.   If you’re serious about building muscle mass and burning body fat as quickly as possible, I highly recommend checking out the bodybuilding program reviews section at http://www.gain-muscle-workout-less.com.  Look for a program with a style that you can identify with and get started towards building muscle mass today!

Of course you can always check out my muscle building system The Muscle Mass Advantage.  It’s a complete step by step system for building muscle mass quickly, easily and naturally.

Well, that’s all for this week!

Download the PDF edition of the Gain Muscle Mass Help Newsletter Issue #103

Your Friend And Trainer,

Nick Andrade
Certified Personal Trainer
Certified Lifestyle And Weight Management Consultant
Author of : The Muscle Mass Advantage

Gain Muscle Mass Help Issue #103 is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

It’s been awhile since I posted an update for my fitness body transformation. I just wanted to write quick post to let you know that I haven’t forgotten about the updates, I’ve just been busy trying to wrap everything up, measure the results and get final pictures taken. Later this evening, I’ll post an update that will take you through the 12 week body transformation training cycle and also show (through pictures) the amount of progress that I’ve made.

Currently, I’m in the middle of enjoying a “week off” from the gym (and my diet!), where even though I’m still fitting in a few workouts and keeping my calorie intake under control, I’m not following any type of structured program. I’m really excited to share the results of this last training cycle with you as the results have been even better than I though they’d be!

Over the duration of this body transformation training cycle, I’ve been implementing the workouts and tips from my training program The Muscle Mass Advantage – in order to get a first hand view of anything that might need to be changed up a bit. So far, I’m really pleased with the results, but I’ve uncovered a few things that I definitely could do a better job of explaining in the book. I’m also really excited to share with you first hand exactly what it takes mentally to completely transform your body from flabby and out of shape to muscular and fit in only 12 weeks. A lot of people can teach you the “nuts and bolts” mechanics of the body transformation process, but few people actually tell it like it is and explain what it actually feels like to dedicate yourself to building muscle mass and burning body fat in only a few short weeks.

Your Friend And Trainer,

Nick

My Fitness Body Transformation Update is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

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The inaugural episode of the Gain Muscle Mass help podcast is finally here!

In this episode of Gain Muscle Mass Help I start the “best way to build muscle mass” series where I uncover some of the latest secrets for building a massive amount of muscle mass naturally! If you implement just one of the tips that I outline in this episode you’ll take a giant step towards achieving your muscle gain goals. Listen to the podcast implement the advice and let me know what you think in the comments section – I’ll be excited to hear from you and see what you think.

Gain Muscle Mass Help 1|Best Way To Build Muscle Pt1 is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

As promised here’s my fitness body transformation week 9 progress report. As I alluded to in today’s earlier post, it felt like I started to “hit my groove” this week.  Everything form my weight lifitng workouts to my cardio sessions seemed to gain momentum and it really felt like y body was making some significant changes.  By the end of the week I really felt lean and muscular – really for the first time since starting my 12 week body transformation training cycle. Hopefully things will continue to progress like they did this week over the course of the next 2 weeks – If so I’ll smash my initial goals!

My Fitness Body Transformation Initial Goals

• To gain 25lbs of lean body mass
• To lower my body fat level from 23.2% to 8%
• To increase the size of my arms by 2 inches
• To increase the size of my legs by 3 inches
• To get killer six pack abs
• To really focus on building up the muscle in my back

My Fitness Body Transformation Week 9 Measurements

• Percent Body Fat – 9.0% (an overall improvement of -14.2%)
• Current Lean Body Mass – 178.8 lbs (an overall improvement of +27.5 lbs)
• Current Fat Weight – 17.7 lbs (an overall improvement of -28 lbs)

After today’s weight-in, I’m really excited. So far I’ve been able to achieve my goal of gainnig 25 lbs of lean body mass and I only have 1% bodyfat to lose over the course of the next 2 weeks.  As long as I can stay focused on my diet and fit in all of my workouts, I should be able to get my body fat levels down around 7%!

In order to keep the momentum going, I’m not going to change anything about my weight lifting workouts and I plan on continuing wiht my 2 cardio sessions a day schedule for the remainder of my fitness body transformation training cycle.

That’s all for my week 9 fitness body transformation progress report.

Your Friend And Trainer,

Nick

My Fitness Body Transformation – Week 9 Progress Report is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

Today I’m going to summarize the Muscle Mass Advantage weight lifting workouts that I implemented during the past week (week 9 of my fitness body transformation). So far I really haven’t been too impressed with the progress that I’ve made up to this point, but something changed this week!  I can’t put my finger on it, but I feel like I made some serious progress towards my goals.  Later this evening, I’ll post my body transformation progress report through the end of week 9, so I’ll know for sure whether I my feelings are substantiated.

Last week my body felt great every single day, so I decided to crank up the intensity and frequency of my aerobics workouts, while still trying got keep my weight lifting workouts running smoothly by performing 2 separate 20 minutes cardio workouts Monday – Friday. It was a bit challenging just forcing myself to jump on the treadmill so often (especially towards the end of the week!), but I really feel that the “2 a days” helped my shed more body fat than I had the week before.

Moving into “crunch time” it’s going to take every thing I’ve got just to drop the last few % of body fat. I’ve already decided that regardless of my 12 week accomplishments, I’m going to extend my fitness  body transformation weight lifting workouts and all until I get my body fat % down around 6% – I really want killer six pack abs! At that point I’m going to increase the amount of calories I’m eating, adjust my weight training workouts and up my protein intake in order to hopefully stimulate some more muscle growth – I think I can get everything to balance out for a lean and extremely muscular body!

Week 9 Weight Lifting Workouts

Monday’s Weight Lifting Workout – Chest & Back

Chest Warm-Up:
Incline Press: 1 x 10, 1 x 8, 1x 6
Work Sets: (rest interval 2 minutes)
Incline Press: 3 sets x 6 reps
Dumbbell Bench Press: 2 sets x 6 reps

Back Warm-Up:
Dumbbell Rows: 1 x 10, 1 x 8, 1x 6
Work Sets: (rest interval 1.5 minutes)
Dumbbell Rows: 3 sets x 6 reps
Lat Pulldowns: 2 sets x 6 reps

Tuesday’s Weight Lifting Workout – Biceps & Triceps

Bicep Warm-Up:
Dumbbell Curl: 1 x 10, 1 x 8, 1x 6
Work Sets: (rest interval 1.5 minutes)
Dumbbell Curl: 3 sets x 6 reps
EZ Bar Curl: 2 sets x 6 reps

Triceps Warm-Up:
Skull Crushers: 1 x 10, 1 x 8, 1x 6
Work Sets: (rest interval 1.5 minutes)
Skull Crushers: 3 sets x 6 reps
Pushdowns: 2 sets x 6 reps

Thursday’s Weight Lifting Workout – Shoulders & Traps

Shoulder Warm-Up:
Shoulder Press: 1 x 10, 1 x 8, 1x 6
Work Sets: (rest interval 1.5 minutes)
Shoulder Press: 3 sets x 6 reps
DB Shoulder Press: 2 sets x 6 reps

Traps Warm-Up:
Upright Rows: 1 x 10, 1 x 8, 1x 6
Work Sets: (rest interval 1.5 minutes)
Upright Rows: 3 sets x 6 reps
High Cable Pulls: 2 sets x 6 reps

Friday’s Weight Lifting Workout – Legs

Quad Warm-Up:
Squat: 1 x 10, 1 x 8, 1x 6
Work Sets: (rest interval 1.5 minutes)
Squat: 3 sets x 6 reps
Leg Press Press: 2 sets x 6 reps

Hamstrings Warm-Up:
Stiff Leg Deadlift: 1 x 10, 1 x 8, 1x 6
Work Sets: (rest interval 1.5 minutes)
Stiff Leg Deadlift: 3 sets x 6 reps
Leg Curls: 2 sets x 6 reps

That’s all for the week 9 weight lifting workouts…Enjoy!

Your Friend And Trainer,

Nick

Weight Lifting Workouts – Week 9 is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

Time to whip out the body fat calipers and see what I’ve accomplished over the past week.  The past few weeks, I really haven’t been too excited to see where I’ve finished, but this week I really feel like I’ve made some decent progress toward my fitness body transformation goals.

The main reason that I think I’ve been able to “get over the hump” and finally start making some progress again is two fold…

First, I decided last week to start supplementing with AST’s micronized creatine monohydrate in order to help me move past a rather serious strength plateau.  I knew that if I continued training with the same weights that I had been using for the past 3 weeks or so, that my chances of packing on any more muscle mass were slim at best, so I figured that a few weeks of creatine monohydrate supplementation would not hurt the cause.  Instead of dosing the creatine out based on the manufacturers recommendations however, I decided to give the advice in Dr. Alfredo Franco-Obregón’s book Creatine A Practical Guide a try.  While I’ve had really good luck in the past dosing out a loading phase of 20 grams a day and a maintenance phase of 5 grams a day, I always kind of felt like maybe that was more than my body really needed.

After implementing the advice found in Creatine A Practical Guide and finishing out my loading phase (5 training days), I began to see and feel an immediate difference in the size and strength of my muscles…I was pretty excited! All in all, a few grams of creatine monohydrate taken in an intelligent way allowed my to literally blast through my workouts at training weights that I hadn’t been able to hit for years, and more importantly allowed me to continue to stimulate new muscle growth during a cutting cycle (which up until now has been almost impossible for me to accomplish).  If you find yourself ina similar situation (trying to lean out but still want to pack on some muscle mass), I wholeheartedly recommend investing in Dr. Alfredo Franco-Obregón’s book Creatine A Practical Guide and shelling out about $20 for some high quality AST Micronozed creatine monohydrate – if you follow the advice in the guide and you drink enough water and continue to train hard, your strength and muscle mass will most likely increase.

The second reason that I fell I’ve started to move in the right direction is the fact that I upped my cardio workouts a bit.  Instead of running for 20 minutes 4 times a week, I decided to start jogging 6 times a week.  This is definitely helping me strip off body fat and so far I haven’t noticed any muscle loss so I’m going to stick with it into the next few weeks and see what happens. If I don’t start to lose any muscle mass, I may start to push it a bit and perform 2 cardio sessions a day for the duration of this training cycle.

Now on to my fitness body transformation week 8 progress report…

Here Were My Fitness Body Transformation Initial Goals

• To gain 25lbs of lean body mass
• To lower my body fat level from 23.2% to 8%
• To increase the size of my arms by 2 inches
• To increase the size of my legs by 3 inches
• To get killer six pack abs
• To really focus on building up the muscle in my back

Here Are All of My Fitness Body Transformation Week 7 Measurements

• Percent Body Fat – 10.0% (an overall improvement of -13.2%)
• Current Lean Body Mass – 176.4 lbs (an overall improvement of +25.1 lbs)
• Current Fat Weight – 19.6 lbs (an overall improvement of -26.1 lbs)

As you can see, I really started to “hit my groove” and blast past the rut that I’ve been in the past few weeks.  I feels great! My strength levels are steadily increasing, my mood is stable (I’m typically really cranky while dieting) and I’m starting to strip off body fat at the same time.  If this type of progression continues I’ll definitely be able to achieve my fitness body transformation goals (I’ve already met my lean body mass goal of 25lbs!)- and probably even surpass them.

Your Friend And Trainer,

Nick

My Fitness Body Transformation – Week 8 Progress Report is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

Well, I put my head down and went to work on my weight lifting routine this week and before I knew it, it was already the weekend and I hadn’t posted any updates to the blog!  I knew that the closer I got to my 12 week deadline, the tougher it was going to be to keep up with my body transformation journal entries – but I’m really struggling just to keep my head above water here…sorry about that!

Today it’s going to be a “catch up” post  that summarizes all of my workouts for week 8 of my fitness body transformation.

All in all, I’m pretty pleased with how things progressed for me this past week.  Now that I’m in the middle of the 9th week of my body transformation, I’m really starting to get a little nervous about  exactly where I’m going to wind up with my body fat percentage. Even though I’ve been diligently performing my 20 minute cardio sessions each day, I’ve been falling off the wagon a bit when it comes to my diet.  While I haven’t exactly been pigging out on crap, I really haven’t followed my low carb bodybuilding diet outline to a “T” either.

Under normal everyday circumstances this wouldn’t be too big of a deal, but in this case I’ve placed a 12 week time limit on everything – so I absolutely have to commit myself for at least the last 3 and a half weeks if I really want to accomplish what I set out to accomplish. The good news is that even if i don’t hit all of my targets within the 12 week time frame,  I can still continue on with my training and dieting until I eventually achieve what I set out to achieve – it just may take a bit longer than I would have liked.

That’s really the cool thing about committing yourself to a life changing body transformation training cycle, if you see it through not only will your body have changed, but after pounding all of the lifestyle changes into your brain over the course of 12 weeks you actually begin to change your habits – from unhealthy habits that lead to the body you had, to healthy and constructive habits that will lead to greater health and a better body down the road. If you see it through, you actually empower yourself to have the body of your dreams for the rest of your life!

The Week 8 Weight Lifting Routines

Chest & Back – Weight Lifting Routines

Chest Warm-Up:
Incline Press: 1 x 10, 1 x 8, 1x 6, 1 x 3
Work Sets: (rest interval 1.5 minutes)
Incline Press: 5 sets x 3 reps
Dumbbell Bench Press: 5 sets x 3 reps

Back Warm-Up:
Dumbbell Rows: 1 x 10, 1 x 8, 1x 6, 1 x 3
Work Sets: (rest interval 1.5 minutes)
Dumbbell Rows: 5 sets x 3 reps
Lat Pulldowns: 5 sets x 3 reps

Biceps & Triceps – Weight Lifting Routines

Bicep Warm-Up:
Dumbbell Curl: 1 x 10, 1 x 8, 1x 6, 1 x 3
Work Sets: (rest interval 1.5 minutes)
Dumbbell Curl: 5 sets x 3 reps
EZ Bar Curl: 5 sets x 3 reps

Triceps Warm-Up:
Skull Crushers: 1 x 10, 1 x 8, 1x 6, 1 x 3
Work Sets: (rest interval 1.5 minutes)
Skull Crushers: 5 sets x 3 reps
Pushdowns: 5 sets x 3 reps

Shoulders & Traps – Weight Lifting Routines

Shoulder Warm-Up:
Shoulder Press: 1 x 10, 1 x 8, 1x 6, 1 x 3
Work Sets: (rest interval 1.5 minutes)
Shoulder Press: 5 sets x 3 reps
DB Shoulder Press: 5 sets x 3 reps

Traps Warm-Up:
Upright Rows: 1 x 10, 1 x 8, 1x 6, 1 x 3
Work Sets: (rest interval 1.5 minutes)
Upright Rows: 5 sets x 3 reps
High Cable Pulls: 5 sets x 3 reps

Legs – Weight Lifting Routines

Quad Warm-Up:
Squat: 1 x 10, 1 x 8, 1x 6, 1 x 3
Work Sets: (rest interval 1.5 minutes)
Squat: 5 sets x 3 reps
Leg Press Press: 5 sets x 3 reps

Hamstrings Warm-Up:
Stiff Leg Deadlift: 1 x 10, 1 x 8, 1x 6, 1 x 3
Work Sets: (rest interval 1.5 minutes)
Stiff Leg Deadlift: 5 sets x 3 reps
Leg Curls: 5 sets x 3 reps

Well, that’s all for the week 8 weight lifting routines summary post…I’ll be back  tomorrow with my week 8 progress report!

Your Friend And Trainer,

Nick

Weight Lifting Routines – Week 8 is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

Today it’s time to pull out the body fat calipers, jump on a scale and measure my fitness body transformation progress through the end of week 7.  For some reason, I feel like I haven’t made the type of steady progress this week that I was making early on.  I’m not sure if it has to do with the fact that I’ve recently started cutting calories out of my bodybuilding diet or whether it’s more a function of getting over the week 6 hump, but I’m a little apprehensive about taking a look at where I stand now more than half way through this training cycle.

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I might start supplementing with creatine monohydrate during the second half of my fitness body transformation in order to help increase my strength levels as I begin cutting calories in order to lean out. Today I’m going to start my loading phase so I should be able to notice a huge difference in the size and strength of my muscles by the end of next weeks workouts – I’ll keep you posted on how things are going. I’m hoping that mixing in some creatine supplementation will allow me to get the most out of the Muscle Mass Advantage workouts that I’m following.

Here Were My Fitness Body Transformation Initial Goals

• To gain 25lbs of lean body mass
• To lower my body fat level from 23.2% to 8%
• To increase the size of my arms by 2 inches
• To increase the size of my legs by 3 inches
• To get killer six pack abs
• To really focus on building up the muscle in my back

Here Are All of My Current Fitness Body Transformation Week 6 Measurements

Percent Body Fat – 11.9% (an overall improvement of -11.3%)
Current Lean Body Mass – 171.8 lbs (an overall improvement of +20.5 lbs)
Current Fat Weight – 23.2 lbs (an overall improvement of -22.5 lbs)

Well, there you have it. I felt like I didn’t make a whole lot of progress towards my goals and I didn’t.  If  I’m going to reach my initial goals, I’m going to have to kick things into overdrive over the course of the next few weeks of my fitness body transformation. Because I really didn’t accomplish any progress over the course of the past week, I decided not to post any new pictures (mostly because they look identical to the week 6 pics that I posted last week).

My Fitness Body Transformation – Week 7 Progress Report is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

Today I’m just going to summarize all of my Muscle Mass Advantage week 7 weight training routines.  I decided to completely take the day off  (no weight training or cardio) so I thought it would be a good opportunity to list all of the past weeks workouts.

I felt that overall the week 7 weight training workout routines went pretty well.  While I’m definitely not too big a fan of training in the higher repetition brackets (usually because I have to lower the training weight a bit) – I typically find that my body responds well to this style of training.  Towards the end of this week, I really started to notice a difference in the fullness of my muscles – I feel like I’m getting pretty big and I really like it.

As in last weeks weight training workouts summary, I decided to stick with 4 (20 minute) cardio sessions, but I tried to ramp up the intensity a bit.  Instead of the usual 9 minute per mile pace, I jacked everything up to around 7.5 minutes per mile and carried that pace out for 2 miles during each aerobic workout.

In order to get the most from my weight training routines, I decided to split my cardio and free weights workout sessions up, performing my weight training over my lunch hour and my cardio in the evenings. I felt that this split worked out pretty well – but it was challenging at times having to drag my lazy butt to the gym for the cardio sessions each evening.

The Week 7 Weight Training Routines

Monday’s Weight Training Routine – Chest & Back

Chest Warm-Up:
Incline Press: 1 x 10, 1 x 8
Work Sets: (rest interval 2 minutes)
Incline Press: 2 sets x 15 reps

Back Warm-Up:
Dumbbell Rows: 1 x 10, 1 x 8
Work Sets: (rest interval 2 minutes)
Dumbbell Rows: 2 sets x 15 reps

Tuesday’s Weight Training Routine – Biceps & Triceps

Bicep Warm-Up:
Barbell Curl: 1 x 10, 1 x 8
Work Sets: (rest interval 2 minutes)
Barbell Curl: 2 sets x 15 reps

Triceps Warm-Up:
Skull Crushers: 1 x 10, 1 x 8
Work Sets: (rest interval 2 minutes)
Skull Crushers: 2 sets x 15 reps

Thursday’s Weight Training Routine – Shoulders & Traps

Shoulder Warm-Up:
Dumbbell Press: 1 x 10, 1 x 8
Work Sets: (rest interval 2 minutes)
Dumbbell Press: 2 sets x 15 reps

Traps Warm-Up:
Upright Cable Rows: 1 x 10, 1 x 8
Work Sets: (rest interval 2 minutes)
Upright Cable Rows: 2 sets x 15 reps

Friday’s Weight Training Routine – Legs

Quad Warm-Up:
Squat: 1 x 10, 1 x 8
Work Sets: (rest interval 2 minutes)
Squat: 2 sets x 15 reps

Hamstring Warm-Up:
Straight Leg Deadlift: 1 x 10, 1 x 8
Work Sets: (rest interval 2 minutes)
Straight Leg Deadlift: 2 sets x 15 reps

That’s it for the week 7 weight training routines summary post.  Although this week of Muscle Mass Advantage workouts seemed like it would be easy on the surface, all of the workouts really kicked my butt in the end!

Tomorrow I’m going to post a progress update for my body transformation through week 7.

Your Friend And Trainer,

Nick

Weight Training Routines – Week 7 is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

Today I headed off to the gym hoping to bust out a decent leg work out routine.  When I got there, someone was using the only squat rack  in the joint so I had to Wait for about 20 minutes – what a pain in the butt! That said, I was able to pour my hostility into my leg work out and I wound up having a pretty decent day at the gym.

photo credit: jontunn

Today’s Work Out Routine – Legs

Quad Warm-Up:
Squat: 1 x 10, 1 x 8
Work Sets: (rest interval 2 minutes)
Squat: 2 sets x 15 reps

Glute Warm-Up:
Straight Leg Deadlift: 1 x 10, 1 x 8
Work Sets: (rest interval 2 minutes)
Straight Leg Deadlift: 2 sets x 15 reps

I was able to get through 2 sets of 15 reps of squats with 275 lbs and 2 sets of straight legged deadlift with 275 lbs. I’ve gotta say that this was a brutal workout…By the 10th rep, my heart felt like it was goin  to jump out of my chest!

Here’s what I ate today for my bodybuilding diet…

• 1 cup of cottage cheese
• 1 cup of cottage cheese
• 4 cups of green tea
• 2 cups of cooked ground beef
• 2 cups of cooked spinach (sauteed in a pat of butter)
• 2 cups of cooked ground beef
• 1/4 cup of walnuts
• 3 eggs fried in olive oil

That’s it for today’s body transformation journal entry and workout out routine.

Your Friend And Trainer,

Nick

Work Out Routine is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

Today’s bodybuilder workout hit my shoulders and traps pretty hard.  While the workout felt great while I was grinding through it, I have a feeling I’m going to be pretty sore tomorrow. My shoulders and traps have always been one of my naturally bigger body parts, but I know I can pack on some serious muscle mass in that area if I focus on targeting them with heavy weights, so that’s what I focused on during today’s workout – trying to up the training weights a bit and force my shoulders and traps to grow!

Thursday’s Bodybuilder Workout – Shoulders

Shoulder Warm-Up:
Dumbbell Press: 1 x 10, 1 x 8
Work Sets: (rest interval 2 minutes)
Dumbbell Press: 2 sets x 15 reps

Traps Warm-Up:
Upright Cable Rows: 1 x 10, 1 x 8
Work Sets: (rest interval 2 minutes)
Upright Cable Rows: 2 sets x 15 reps

I was able to get through 2 sets of 15 reps with 55 lbs dumbbells for the dumbbell press and 2 sets of 15 reps with the weight stack set to #18 for upright cable rows.  During this bodybuilder workout, my shoulders and traps were on fire! It felt great, but I can’t wait to get back to the heavier training weights and lower repetition brackets in the upcoming weeks.

As far as my bodybuilding nutrition strategy – here’s what I ate today…

• 1 cup of cottage cheese
• 1 cup of cottage cheese
• 4 cups of green tea
• 2 cups of cooked ground beef
• 2 cups of cooked spinach (sauteed in a pat of butter)
• 2 cups of cooked ground beef
• 1/4 cup of walnuts
• 3 eggs fried in olive oil

That’s all I’ve got for today’s body transformation journal entry. Give this shoulders and traps bodybuilder workout a try and watch as your shoulders literally explode (especially if you don’t normally train in this rep bracket!).

Your Friend And Trainer,

Nick

Bodybuilder Workout is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

Arvada, Colorado USA
Nick Andrade’s Body Transformation Log – Week 6 bodybuilding workout routines
Objective: To Burn Fat Gain Muscle Mass And Transform My Body In 12 Weeks

This morning I’m going to summarize all of the bodybuilding workout routines that I performed last week during the 6th week of my body transformation. Looking back on my week 6 bodybuilding workouts, I’d have to say that I’m making some pretty decent progress towards my goals. Overall my body feels bigger and I’m definitely continuing to get stronger as the weeks go on. In last weeks workout summary, I mentioned that I didn’t feel like I’d “hit the wall” yet and so far working through week 6 I’d still have to agree with that.  The Muscle Mass Advantage workouts are still keeping things fresh for me with each and every workout – and because of this I think I’ve been able to avoid any type of mental sticking point.

This week I continued where I left off and worked 4 (20 minute) cardio sessions into my bodybuilding workout routines in order to really start the process of stripping off some body fat. While I typically don’t stress about cutting down to 8 % body fat, for some reason I feel like I need to be very careful this time around.  I guess I just don’t want to get too comfortable with the progress that I’ve made so far and try to coast down through the homes stretch only to find that I left something on the table.  I want to be able to focus on building muscle mass and stop having to obsess about losing body fat for the last few weeks of this training cycle.

With that out of the way, on to the bodybuilding workout routines…

The Week 6 Bodybuilding Workout Routines

Monday’s Bodybuilding Workout Routine – Legs

Warm-Up:
Barbell Squat: 1 x 10, 1 x 8, 1 x 6
Work Sets: (rest interval 1.5 minutes)
Barbell Squat: 6 sets x 5 reps
Leg Press: 3 sets x 5 reps

Warm-Up:
Stiff Leg Deadlift: 1 x 10, 1 x 8, 1 x 6
Work Sets: (rest interval 1.5 minutes)
Stiff Leg Deadlift: 6 sets x 5 reps
Leg Curls: 3 sets x 5 reps

Tuesday’s Bodybuilding Workout Routine – Chest & Back

Warm-Up:
Incline Press: 1 x 10, 1 x 8, 1 x 6
Work Sets: (rest interval 1.5 minutes)
Incline Press: 3 sets x 5 reps
Bench Press: 3 sets x 5 reps

Warm-Up:
Barbell Rows: 1 x 10, 1 x 8, 1 x 6
Work Sets: (rest interval 1.5 minutes)
Barbell Rows: 3 sets x 5 reps
Pulldowns: 3 sets x 5 reps

Thursday’s Bodybuilding Workout Routine  – Chest & Back

Biceps Warm-Up:
Alternating Dumbbell Curl: 1 x 10, 1 x 8, 1 x 6
Work Sets: (rest interval 1.5 minutes)
Alternating Dumbbell Curl 3 sets x 5 reps
EZ Bar Curl: 3 sets x 5 reps

Triceps Warm-Up:
Skull Crushers: 1 x 10, 1 x 8, 1 x 6
Work Sets: (rest interval 1.5 minutes)
Skull Crushers: 3 sets x 5 reps
French Press: 3 sets x 5 reps

Friday’s Bodybuilding Workout Routine  – Shoulders & Traps

Shoulder Warm-Up:
Shoulder Press: 1 x 10, 1 x 8, 1 x 6
Work Sets: (rest interval 1.5 minutes)
Shoulder Press: 3 sets x 5 reps
Seated Dumbbell Press: 3 sets x 5 reps

Traps Warm-Up:
Upright Cable Rows: 1 x 10, 1 x 8, 1 x 6
Work Sets: (rest interval 1.5 minutes)
Upright Cable Rows: 6 sets x 5 reps

That’s it for the week 6 bodybuilding workout routines summary post.  This week of Muscle Mass Advantage workouts really kicked my butt and helped me to stimulate some new muscle growth – so if you’re in the market for a few solid bodybuilding workouts give these babies a shot!

Your Friend And Trainer,

Nick

Week 6 Bodybuilding Workout Routines is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

Monday day I hit the gym pretty hard for one of my first weight lifting routines of the week.  While the structure of the Muscle Mass Advantage workouts has completely changed up again (from hard and heavy to lighter with more reps), this time my body feels like it could really use a lighter training week, so I’m actually looking forward to the weight lifting routine changes that I’m going to see throughout this week.

Now that I’m starting to get closer to my 12 week body transformation deadline, I’m starting to get anxious. This week I’m really going to focus on stripping off body fat and sort of take it easy on the muscle building front. In order to make this happen quicker, I’m going to lower my target calorie level just a bit and increase the amount of cardio I’m doing this week in conjunction with my normal weight lifting routines.  In order to spread out the calorie burn over the course of the day, I plan on hitting the gym 2 times each day for the next few weeks (1 time for cardio and 1 time for my weight lifting workout).

I’m hoping that by really focusing on stripping off body fat, that I’ll be able to get very close to my initial goal of 8% by the end of this week.  If I can make that happen, it’ll take a lot of pressure off of me and allow me to relax a bit and focus on building muscle mass for the duration of this training cycle. I really like to focus my efforts on building muscle mass and let the fat loss take care of itself naturally as I start to bulk up, but as far out of shape as I was when I started this program (over 23% body fat!), I’m a bit nervous that I won’t be able to reach my goals if I don’t try to do something about it right now!

The Weight Lifting Routines

Monday’s Weight Lifting Workout  – Chest & Back

Chest Warm-Up:
Incline Press: 1 x 10, 1 x 8
Work Sets: (rest interval 2 minutes)
Incline Press: 2 sets x 15 reps

Back Warm-Up:
Dumbbell Rows: 1 x 10, 1 x 8
Work Sets: (rest interval 2 minutes)
Dumbbell Rows: 2 sets x 15 reps

On Monday, I was able to crank out 2 sets of 15 reps of incline press with 185 lbs.  Definitely not record setting training weights, but it was a challenge to get through all 15 reps for sure. As far as dumbbell rows, I was able to pump out 2 sets of 15 reps with 85 lb dumbbells.  All in all, a decent workout – nothing too crazy but it was challenging working in the 15 rep training bracket.

Tuesday’s Weight Lifting Workout  – Biceps & Triceps

Bicep Warm-Up:
Barbell Curl: 1 x 10, 1 x 8
Work Sets: (rest interval 2 minutes)
Barbell Curl: 2 sets x 15 reps

Triceps Warm-Up:
Skull Crushers: 1 x 10, 1 x 8
Work Sets: (rest interval 2 minutes)
Skull Crushers: 2 sets x 15 reps

Today I performed 2 sets of 15 reps of barbell curls with 95 lbs and 2 sets of 15 reps of skull crushers with 115 lbs.  By the end of this workout, my arms felt like they were going to explode!

As far as my bodybuilding diet goes, I made a few small adjustments but nothing to write home about.  I’m really trying to focus my efforts over the course of the next few weeks on leaning out and stripping off body fat.  I know from past experience that there’s not too many things worse than having to strip off 2 -3 % body fat during the last week of a training cycle, so hopefully giving myself a few weeks to make it happen will allow me to avoid the misery of having to do too much too fast.

In order to strip off the body fat, I’ve decided to take a 2 headed approach and increase my energy expenditure by performing a few more cardio workouts during the week and lower my overall calorie intake just a bit. The potent combination of adding more cardio to my weight lifting routines and eating slightly less should be enough to get me over the hump as far as fat loss goes.

Here’s my modified bodybuilding nutrition outline for today (probably for the rest of the week as well)…

• 1 cup of cottage cheese
• 1 cup of cottage cheese
• 4 cups of green tea
• 2 cups of cooked ground beef
• 2 cups of cooked spinach (sauteed in a pat of butter)
• 2 cups of cooked ground beef
• 1/4 cup of walnuts
• 3 eggs fried in olive oil

Well, that’s all I’ve got for today’s body transformation journal entry.  If you’re in the market for a few decent weight lifting routines give the two listed above a shot – although they seem like they’d be easy to work through if you use a weight that’s challenging enough they’ll totally kick your butt.

Your Friend And Trainer,

Nick

Weight Lifting Routines is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

Yesterday I posted a few pictures of myself before I started my body transformation workouts and diet. Today, I thought I’d post a few current pictures highlighting my progress so far (at the 6 week point). So far I’d have to say that I’m really pleased with the progress that I’ve made.  While I don’t feel like I’ve stripped off too much body fat, I do feel like I’ve packed on quite a bit of muscle mass. If I can continue to strip away body fat and pack on muscle mass at the same time, I’ll be able to easily reach my goals!

Here are a few pictures of my body transformation progress at the end of 6 weeks…

My Body Transformation Updated Photos is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

Today it’s weight-in time again and I’m pretty excited to see exactly where I stack up at the half way point of my body transformation.  Just by the way my body feels and how it’s responding to the Muscle Mass Advantage workouts, I think I’m going to be blowing my initial goals completely out of the water by the end of the 12 week training cycle – but it’s just a hunch.

Sometimes without the cold hard numbers staring you right in the face, it can be tough to see exactly which way you’re headed.  I mean everybody tends to be fairly over optimistic when it comes to what they think they’ve accomplished versus what they’ve actually accomplished – so taking body fat measurements and jumping on a scale each week can really open your eyes to reality.

Here Are My Body Transformation Initial Goals

• To gain 25lbs of lean body mass
• To lower my body fat level from 23.2% to 8%
• To increase the size of my arms by 2 inches
• To increase the size of my legs by 3 inches
• To get killer six pack abs
• To really focus on building up the muscle in my back

Here Are All of My Current Body Transformation Week 6 Measurements

Percent Body Fat – 11.9% (an overall improvement of -11.3%)
Current Lean Body Mass – 171.8 lbs (an overall improvement of +20.5 lbs)
Current Fat Weight – 23.2 lbs (an overall improvement of -22.5 lbs)

If you’re doing the math, that means that I’ve got to gain roughly 5 lbs of muscle mass and strip off 3.3 % body fat over the course of the next 6 weeks in order to reach my goals.  I think this is very realistic – although I hope I can achieve even better results!

I thought I’d go ahead and start putting up some pictures of my progress every few weeks or so for the duration of my body transformation training cycle.  Here are some pictures of what my body looked like before starting this training cycle (I don’t like the hoaky before and after pictures so I just grabbed a few pictures of me from my everyday life pre Muscle Mass Advantage) …

Tomorrow I’ll post a few pictures of my progress so far.

That’s all for my body transformation progress report week 6 update.

Your Friend And Trainer,

Nick

My Body Transformation – Week 6 Progress Report is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

Today I hit my shoulders and traps as hard as I could. While my shoulders are already one of the bigger parts of my body, I’ve never really tried to train them with any sort of consistency. Most of the bodybuilding workout routines that I’ve tried in the past, just seemed to gloss over shoulder and trap workouts.  I guess they figured that if you were performing a lot of the big chest press lifts, then you were stimulating your shoulders enough in the process. I’m kind of excited to see just how big I can get my shoulders during these 12 weeks – because I’ve never really trained them before, I know they’ll be pretty responsive to the workouts!

Friday’s Bodybuilding Workout Routine – Shoulders & Traps

Shoulder Warm-Up:
Shoulder Press: 1 x 10, 1 x 8, 1 x 6
Work Sets: (rest interval 1.5 minutes)
Shoulder Press: 3 sets x 5 reps
Seated Dumbbell Press: 3 sets x 5 reps

Traps Warm-Up:
Upright Cable Rows: 1 x 10, 1 x 8, 1 x 6
Work Sets: (rest interval 1.5 minutes)
Upright Cable Rows: 6 sets x 5 reps

I was able to get through 3 sets of 5 reps with 165 lbs for shoulder press and 3 sets of 5 reps of seated db press with 70lb dumbbells.  For my traps I was able to perform 6 sets of 5 reps of upright cable rows with the weight stack maxed.

My diet didn’t change at all – here’s what I ate today…

• 1 cup of cottage cheese
• 1 cup of cottage cheese
• 3 cups of green tea
• 2 cups of cooked ground beef
• 3 cups of beef brisket
• 2 cups of spinach (in a salad)
• 1 tbs of ranch dressing
• 3 cups of beef brisket
• 1/2 cup of walnuts
• 1/2 cup of cheese
• 3 eggs fried in olive oil

That’s all for today.  If you’re like me and you’ve never utilized a bodybuilding workout routine that consistently targets your shoulders and traps, this would be a great workout to try. Keep in mind that if you’ve never trained your shoulders before, then they have a huge capacity for strength development and growth and this workout will completely hammer all of the muscles in your shoulders and traps!

Your Friend And Trainer,

Nick

Bodybuilding Workout Routine is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

Today’s journal entry is going to be short and sweet.  I’m just going to quickly go over my biceps and triceps weight lifting workout for today and list what I ate. Tomorrow I’ll make my post a bit meatier and go over my bodybuilding nutrition strategy in-depth and teach you how I came to my target calorie value and how I’ve made adjustments to my diet up to this point.

Thursday’s Weight Lifting Workout – Biceps & Triceps

Biceps Warm-Up:
Alternating Dumbbell Curl: 1 x 10, 1 x 8, 1 x 6
Work Sets: (rest interval 1.5 minutes)
Alternating Dumbbell Curl 3 sets x 5 reps
EZ Bar Curl: 3 sets x 5 reps

Triceps Warm-Up:
Skull Crushers: 1 x 10, 1 x 8, 1 x 6
Work Sets: (rest interval 1.5 minutes)
Skull Crushers: 3 sets x 5 reps
French Press: 3 sets x 5 reps

I was able to get through 3 sets of 5 reps with 55 lbs dumbbells for alternating dumbbell curls and 3 sets of 5 reps of ez bar curls with 115 lbs.  For my triceps I was able to perform 3 sets of 5 reps of skull crushers with 145 lbs and 3 sets of 5 reps of french press with 115 lbs.

Here’s what I ate today…

• 1 cup of cottage cheese
• 1 cup of cottage cheese
• 3 cups of green tea
• 2 cups of cooked ground beef
• 3 cups of beef brisket
• 2 cups of spinach (in a salad)
• 1 tbs of ranch dressing
• 3 cups of beef brisket
• 1/2 cup of walnuts
• 1/2 cup of cheese
• 3 eggs fried in olive oil

That’s all for today.  If you want a weight lifting workout that will force you arms to grow, then this is a good one. It targets the strength training repetition ranges and allows you to hit your arms hard with heavy weights – enjoy!

Your Friend And Trainer,

Nick

Weight Lifting Workout is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

Today I decided to listen to my body and just take it easy, so there won’t be any workout detailed below. Instead of the usual, I thought I’d take this opportunity to get caught up and make my body transformation week 5 progress report post.

I opted out of the workout that I had planned and let my body rest. Sometimes backing off a bit and allowing your body to rest and recover is one of the smartest things you can do to continue progressing towards your goals without risking an unnecessary injury – or heading into over-training mode. Tomorrow I plan on being back at the gym, ready to give it my all for a great workout, but today I’m just going to rest.

My Body Transformation Initial Goals

I like to list my initial goals for this 12 week body transformation before I list my current measurements.  It allows anyone who’s new to the blog an opportunity to get some perspective on how much I’ve accomplished over the course of the past 5 weeks.

• To gain 25lbs of lean body mass
• To lower my body fat level from 23.2% to 8%
• To increase the size of my arms by 2 inches
• To increase the size of my legs by 3 inches
• To get killer six pack abs
• To really focus on building up the muscle in my back

And Here Are All of My Current Body Transformation Week 5 Measurements

• Percent Body Fat – 13.4% (an overall improvement of -9.8%)
• Current Lean Body Mass – 165.4 lbs (an overall improvement of +14.1 lbs)
• Current Fat Weight – 25.6 lbs (an overall improvement of -20.1 lbs)

So far, I have to say that I’m really happy with the progress that I’ve made over the course of the past 5 weeks of training and dieting. I think I’m really going to be able to achieve all of my goals by the end of the 12 weeks without having to get too crazy with my diet or workouts – pretty exciting stuff!

Well…that’s all for my body transformation progress report week 5 update.

Your Friend And Trainer,

Nick

My Body Transformation – Week 5 Progress Report is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

Today I felt that things went pretty well at the gym for my chest and back bodybuilder workout.  I really tried to bring the thunder again and hit it hard in order to stimulate some muscle growth. If I’m actually going to achieve my goal of building 25 lbs of muscle mass in 12 weeks, then I’m going to have to get serious and take advantage of every opportunity I have left to force my muscles to grow.

In order to really get things ramped up, I’m thinking of incorporating creatine monohydrate into my bodybuilding nutrition and supplement strategy.  I love creatine monohydrate and have always noticed some pretty good increases in my strength levels after loading. I figure that if nothing else creatine will help me blast through my bodybuilder workouts with heavier training weights and a new level of focus that always comes when i excitedly incorporate something new into my program.

In the past, whenever I’ve used creatine I’ve always just blindly followed along with the manufacturers recommendations.  This time around, I’ve decided to “do it right” and dose out my creatine monohydrate  based on the recommendations of Dr. Alfredo Franco-Obregón in his book Creatine A Practical Guide. Inside of this manual Franco-Obregón explains in detail exactly how to calculate the amount of creatine monohydrate your muscles really need (not the exaggerated quantities that the supplement companies tell you to use).

I highly recommend the book, and I’ll keep you all posted on my results as I work creatine monohydrate into my supplement strategy. If you’re interested, you can check out the Creatine Monohydrate Guide Here

My Bodybuilder Workout – Chest & Back

Warm-Up:
Incline Press: 1 x 10, 1 x 8, 1 x 6
Work Sets: (rest interval 1.5 minutes)
Incline Press: 3 sets x 5 reps
Bench Press: 3 sets x 5 reps

Warm-Up:
Barbell Rows: 1 x 10, 1 x 8, 1 x 6
Work Sets: (rest interval 1.5 minutes)
Barbell Rows: 3 sets x 5 reps
Pulldowns: 3 sets x 5 reps

I was able to get through 3 sets of 5 reps with 225 lbs for incline press and 3 sets of 5 reps of bench press with 245 lbs.  For my back I was able to perform 3 sets of 5 reps of bent rows with 225 lbs and 3 sets of 5 reps of lat pulldowns with the 200 lbs.

Here’s my bodybuilding nutrition outline for today…

• 1 cup of cottage cheese
• 1 cup of cottage cheese
• 3 cups of green tea
• 2 cups of cooked ground beef
• 3 cups of beef brisket
• 2 cups of cooked spinach (sauteed in a pat of butter)
• 3 cups of beef brisket
• 1/2 cup of walnuts
• 1/2 cup of cheese
• 3 eggs fried in olive oil

That’s it for today’s journal entry. Give this bodybuilder workout a try if you want to build some strength and muscle mass in your chest and back.  I’ve been performing variations of this basic chest and back workout for over 10 years with excellent results!

Your Friend And Trainer,

Nick

Bodybuilder Workout is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

Yesterday I headed off to the gym ready to rip into my bodybuilding leg workout with some intensity. I was pretty excited to get back to the gym and start working towards my goals after the weekend off. This week the Muscle Mass Advantage workouts are switching gears again and forcing me to train in the 4 – 6 repetition range for a decent amount of sets (6) for each body part.

I’m mot sure why, but I absolutely love to train in the 4 – 6 rep range.  I start to get excited just thinking about it…I guess it probably has something to do with the fact that I can train heavy in this repetition range – especially during my leg workouts! The “hard and heavy” style of training has always allowed me to stimulate some serious muscle growth quickly, so I’m anxious to see just how it pans out during week 6 of my body transformation.

Week 6 Bodybuilding Leg Workout

Warm-Up:
Barbell Squat: 1 x 10, 1 x 8, 1 x 6
Work Sets: (rest interval 1.5 minutes)
Barbell Squat: 6 sets x 5 reps
Leg Press: 3 sets x 5 reps

Warm-Up:
Stiff Leg Deadlift: 1 x 10, 1 x 8, 1 x 6
Work Sets: (rest interval 1.5 minutes)
Stiff Leg Deadlift: 6 sets x 5 reps
Leg Curls: 3 sets x 5 reps

I was able to pound out 6 sets of 5 reps with 315 lbs for barbell squats and 3 sets of Leg press with 6 plates on each side.  For my hamstrings I was able to perform 6 sets of 5 reps of stiff legged deadlift with 275lbs and 3 sets of 5 reps of leg curls with the machine set to #14.

As far as my bodybuilding nutrition plan goes,I decided to pretty much stick with that exact same menu that I ate last week.  I felt like I had a decent amount of energy during the week and I really felt full most of the time. I was happy with the results, as I was able to strip off some body fat last week all the while increasing my strength levels a bit, so I just thought that it made sense to ride it out.  There’s no sense in making changes to something if it’s working well for you – just let it ride and make the changes as your progress starts to slow down.

Here’s my bodybuilding nutrition outline for today…

• 1 cup of cottage cheese
• 1 cup of cottage cheese
• 3 cups of green tea
• 2 cups of cooked ground beef
• 3 cups of beef brisket
• 2 cups of cooked spinach (sauteed in a pat of butter)
• 3 cups of beef brisket
• 1/2 cup of walnuts
• 1/2 cup of cheese
• 3 eggs fried in olive oil

Well, that’s it for today’s body transformation journal entry. If you’re looking for a great bodybuilding leg workout and you don’t mind the challenge go ahead and give this workout a try. If you attack it with a sense of urgency and train with weights that are challenging for you, your leg muscles will get stronger and you’ll build some muscle mass in your lower body.

Your Friend And Trainer,

Nick

Bodybuilding Leg Workout is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

Over the past few weeks  I’ve decided to implement my version of  the anabolic muscle building diet.  While I’m not typically a fan of low carb fad diets, something about all of the research surrounding the anabolic diet made me take notice.  I became increasingly interested in this nutritional approach after talking with a high level natural bodybuilder at my gym. He mentioned that if you implemented this style of body building diet correctly then you would definitely strip off more fat than a traditional carbohydrate based bodybuilding nutrition approach.

After riding the anabolic muscle gaining  diet wave out for a few weeks, I’ve got to say that the results have been nothing short of amazing! I’ve been able to melt off body fat and slowly but surely expose my long lost abs all the while increasing the amount of muscle mass on my body.  In the past whenever I’ve implemented any type of bodybuilding diet, I’ve had to deal with hunger issues and steadily decreasing strength levels.  So far (now 5 weeks in), my strength levels are through the roof and my body has begun to change dramatically without having to suffer through the day obsessing about all of the foods that I can’t eat.

Today I wanted to lay out exactly what I ate during week 5 of my body transformation, but I’m warning you it’s repetitive, boring and bland…but very effective.  I’ve been able to make some serious p[progress towards my goal of gaining 25 lbs of muscle mass while stripping off a lot of body fat at the same time.  This is something that I’ve never been able to do simultaneously before, strip off body fat while actually building muscle mass – it feels great!

If you’re looking to try something a little different with your muscle building diet, then you may want to consider implementing your version of the anabolic muscle building diet.

here’s what I ate last week…

• 1 cup of cottage cheese
• 1 cup of cottage cheese
• 3 cups of green tea
• 2 cups of cooked ground beef
• 3 cups of beef brisket
• 2 cups of cooked spinach (sauteed in a pat of butter)
• 3 cups of beef brisket
• 1/2 cup of walnuts
• 1/2 cup of cheese
• 3 eggs fried in olive oil

I really tried to get more calories into my diet in order to ensure that I don’t start to lose muscle mass along with my body fat.  It’s a fine line to walk when you’re trying to accomplish both goals at the same time. Unfortunately it almost unavoidable to lose a bit of muscle mass while you’re focusing your efforts on cutting, but you can go a long way to prevent any type of muscle loss by adjusting your calories up and down in  an undulating fashion.  This tricks your body into believing that you’re eating a surplus of calories when you really aren’t – it’s a great way to give yourself a quick strength boost and ensure that you won’t start burning off muscle mass at the same time.

Muscle Building Diet is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

Last week I really dropped the ball as far as my body transformation journal entries, so today I’m going to summarize my week 5 bodybuilding workouts and basically try to cover the entire week of journal entries in one post. I’m not sure why I had such a hard time logging in and writing my posts ( I think it had something to do with the celebration of my 32nd birthday on Friday – man I’m feeling old!), but today we’ll get all caught up and back on track.

As far as my week 5 Muscle Mass Advantage bodybuilding workouts,I felt like it was a pretty good week at the gym. I was able to increase my training weights on almost every  lift and I really started to feel like I was getting into decent shape. Typically I start to hit a mental wall around week 5 or 6 of my training cycles, but for some reason I haven’t experienced any problems yet – it feels great to hit the gym and my body definitely does not feel like it’s being over trained. I think that I’ll be able to blast out some very intense and productive muscle building workouts over the remainder of this 12 week training cycle – it should lead to some serious muscle growth!

This week, I really made an effort to mix in more aerobic exercise sessions.  The closer I get to the 12 week deadline, the more I’m going to ramp up my cardio workouts.  I’m not sure why, but even if I’ve got my bodybuilding nutrition plan dialed in to a “T”, I still need to feel like I’m actively stripping off body fat – and for me a few extra cardio sessions a week is the way to make that happen. I was able to fit in (4) 20 minute cardio workouts this week in between the bodybuilding workouts. I really didn’t kill myself as far as intensity goes, I just jogged for 20 minutes at about a 9 minute mile pace. With my cardio workouts, I just try to get in and pound out a quick 2 mile run.

The Week 5 Bodybuilding Workouts

Monday’s Bodybuilding Workout – Legs

Warm-Up:
Barbell Squat: 1 x 10, 1 x 8, 1 x 6
Work Sets: (rest interval 1.5 minutes)
Barbell Squat: 3 sets x 10 – 12 reps

Warm-Up:
Stiff Leg Deadlift: 1 x 10, 1 x 8, 1 x 6
Work Sets: (rest interval 1.5 minutes)
Stiff Leg Deadlift: 3 sets x 10 – 12 reps

I was able to perform 3 sets of 10 reps of barbell squats with 245 lbs and 3 sets of 12 reps of stiff leg deadlift with 215 lbs. I sort of felt like I was taking it too easy on this workout, but at this point I really don’t want to risk any sort of muscular or joint injury so my motto this week was “easy does it”.  The one area where I really stuck with the bodybuilding workouts was the rest intervals.  I was meticulous about hitting my rest intervals exactly without cheating to rest longer than prescribed. This really made the workout tough, even with the light training weights. By the middle of my squat sets (around reps 6 – 10), my heart felt like it was going to jump out of my chest!

Tuesday’s Bodybuilding Workout – Biceps & Triceps

Warm-Up:
Straight Bar Curl: 1 x 10, 1 x 8, 1 x 6
Work Sets: (rest interval 1.5 minutes)
Straight Bar Curl: 3 sets x 10 -12  reps

Warm-Up:
Skull Crushers: 1 x 10, 1 x 8, 1 x 6
Work Sets: (rest interval 1.5 minutes)
Skull Crushers: 3 sets x 10 12 reps

For this workout, I was able to grind through 3 sets of 12 reps of straight bar curl with 95 lbs and 3 sets of 12 reps of skull crushers with 115lbs. I felt like this bodybuilding workout went about the same as Mondays workout – light training weights, but difficult due to the somewhat short rest interval between sets. all in all a pretty decent bicep and triceps workout!

Wednesday’s Bodybuilder Workout – Chest & Back

Warm-Up:
Incline Press: 1 x 10, 1 x 8, 1 x 6
Work Sets: (rest interval 1.5 minutes)
Incline Press: 3 sets x 10 – 12 reps

Warm-Up:
Dumbell  Rows: 1 x 10, 1 x 8, 1 x 6
Work Sets: (rest interval 1.5 minutes)
Dumbbell Rows: 3 sets x 10 -12 reps

I was able to pound out 1 set of 9 reps of  incline press with 205 lbs, but I had to lower the weight to 185 for the next 2 sets of 10 reps.  As far as dumbbell rows, I was able to get through 3 sets of 12 reps with 75 lb dumbbells.

Friday’s Bodybuilder Workout - Shoulders & Traps

Warm-Up:
Shoulder Press: 1 x 10, 1 x 8, 1 x 6
Work Sets: (rest interval 1.5 minutes)
Shoulder Press: 3 sets x  10 -12 reps

Warm-Up:
Upright Rows: 1 x 10, 1 x 8, 1 x 6
Work Sets: (rest interval 1.5 minutes)
Upright Rows: 3 sets x 10 -12 reps

On Friday, I was able to perform 2 sets of 10 reps of shoulder press with 135 lbs, then I had to lower the weight to 115 for the final set of 10 reps. For upright rows, I cranked out 3 sets of 10 reps with 115 lbs. By the end of this workout, my shoulders and traps were on fire…it felt great!

Well, that’s all for my week 5 bodybuilding workouts summary and catch up journal entries. Later this evening, I’m going to write a short summary post updating everyone about my week 5 bodybuilding nutrition plan. Next week I plan to get back on track and post a journal entry each day, but I never really know how busy the week is going to be for me.  I fit’s a choice between hitting the gym and preparing my food 0r the daily journal entries, then you may be reading another catch up post next week as well – but I think I can manage at least a few posts. This bodybuilding workouts summary and catch up posts will take the place of the usual workout summary post, and I really hope that having all of the bodybuilding workouts on one page will help all of you who are following along with these Muscle Mass Advantage workouts.

Your Friend And Trainer,

Nick

Week 5 Bodybuilding Workouts is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

I’ve decided to move the training journal posts over to gainmusclemasshelp.com’s blog in order to work around an issue with the other blogs rss feed.  My hope is that by moving the body transformation posts over to this site, everyone will be able to subscribe to the feed in any reader they choose and get immediate access to all of the awesome information that I’ve been covering with these training posts.

It’s a lot to take in, but if you pay attention to what I’m saying each day, you’ll have a very good idea of what it really takes to burn fat, build muscle mass and completely transform your body in only 12 weeks – 100% naturally! I’m laying it all on the line here and opening up my personal training diary for 12 full weeks and posting each and every bodybuilding workout that I take on, complete with a few words about how I felt each workout went and why.

If you’re not sure how to burn fat or build muscle, then you need to pay attention to this section of the blog and get a handle on what really matters when it comes to building muscle and burning off fat. Just start out on day 1 and work your way through the program , if you’re paying attention to what I’m doing (and eating) each day and you actually implement the tips along the way, you’ll have no choice but to achieve similar results to what I’m currently achieving with my body transformation!

My Body Transformation Goals

Currently, I’m at day 30 of an intense 12 week body transformation training cycle in which I’m trying to…

1. Gain 25lbs of lean body mass
2. Lower my body fat level from 23.2% to 8%
3. Increase the size of my arms by 2 inches
4. Increase the size of my legs by 3 inches
5. Get killer six pack abs
6. Really focus on building up the muscle in my back

My main goal ahead of even the 6 listed above is to completely blow the results that I got while competing in the EAS Body For Life Challenge (check out the picture at the top of this post) over 10 years ago out of the water. While I felt that I had achieved an amazing body transformation at the time, I have a lot more knowledge and ambition now, so I know I’ll be able to get even better results this time around.

My Current Body Transformation Results

So far, I’ve been able to achieve some pretty awesome results.  At the end of my week 4 training cycle I had…

• Lowered My Overall Body Fat Levels By 8.4%!
• Increased My Lean Body Mass By 10.6 lbs!
• And Melted Off 17.6 lbs of Nasty Body Fat!

I just wrapped up week 5 of my body transformation and I plan on getting all caught up on the weeks journal entries (here on this blog) by the end of tomorrow at the latest. If you want to check out all of the journal entries and bodybuilding workouts to date, you’ll have to read them over at the GainMuscleWorkoutLess.com blog:

http://www.gain-muscle-workout-less.com/gain-muscle-mass

I really hope that moving all of my body transformation journal entries over to this blog allows more people to get access to this life changing  information.

My Body Transformation is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

• 26gf3caeky
  Posted on Sunday, July 5th, 2009 in Build Muscle – Comments: (0)

Gain Muscle Mass Help’s Best Posts From Jul is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

26gf3caeky is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

The truth of the matter is that training your chest muscles for massive growth is very similar to training any major muscle group on your body for growth.  The key to making your chest grow, is to overload your chest muscles with each and every workout.

My favorite way to provide muscle stimulating overload is to use mulit-joint compound exercises to form the bulk of my chest workouts.  I like compound movements because they allow you to use very heavy weights (the same kind that stimulate muscle growth) through a complete range of motion. This allows you to stimulate muscle growth not only in your chest, but also in various stabilizer and muscles throughout your body.

Here’s a short list of compound exercises that target the muscles of the chest:

• Bench Press
• Close Grip Bench Press
• Incline Press
• Decline Press
• Push-Up
• Dumbbell Flys
• Dumbbell Bench Press
• Dumbbell Incline Press
• Pec Deck Flys
• Cable Crossover Flys
• Dumbbell Pullovers
• Barbell Pullovers
• Weighted Dips

Aside from training heavy with free weight compound exercises, the muscle gain basics still apply.  Make sure to..

1. Drink enough water
2. Rest and Recover Between Workouts
3. Eat enough of the right foods at the right times

Train with the appropriate intensity level

This quick refresher highlights the best way to build chest muscles fast. For more information about building a massive chest, you can read the full article -

==>  Build Chest Muscles Fast!

How To Build Chest Muscles Fast! is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

Simply slugging down huge amounts of low quality protein throughout the day will not help you build muscle mass. If you’re serious about achieving your muscle gain goals, you definitely need to be taking a look at the quality of the protein sources you’re consuming.

When it comes to supplemental whey protein isolate – the best muscle gain protein powder I’ve ever used is AST’s VP2. Not only is VP2 easy to mix and smooth going down the hatch, but it’s also predigested for faster nutrient uptake.  This makes it an ideal choice for a post workout nutrition boost. I’ve never had a bad experience using VP2 and I use it religiously as a staple in my supplemental post workout nutrition arsenal.

When it comes to naturally occurring whole food sources,  the best muscle gain protein can be found on nearly all lean cuts of meat including: beef, chicken, turkey, venison, bison, lamb, pork and cold water fish.  If you’re unsure about the protein content of a particular food source, grab a calorie counter and look up the nutritional profile of the protein source.  If you don’t want to buy a calorie counter, there are many free versions available online:

Here’s a link to my favorite free online calorie counter!

What ever you do,  make it a priority to eat enough of the best muscle building protien sources to fuel new muscle growth. Providing you’re eating a minimum of 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight per day and you’re making an effort to consume your protein from a varitey of natural and supplemental sources, chances are you’re doing more than enough to provide your body with the muscle building protein it needs to help you pack on some new muscle!

Read the full article and uncover the best muscle gain protein sources.

The Best Muscle Gain Protein is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

After we tackle CLA supplements, we take a long look at the particulars of one of the most effective muscle building principles ever discovered…Progressive Overload!  Without proper stimulation, your muscles will not reach beyond their comfort zone and actually grow.  The most effective way to stimulate consistent muscle growth is through the application of the progressive overload principle.  Brush up on your knowledge of this effective yet underutilized muscle building principle!

After we discuss the process of tearing down your muscles in order to stimulate muscle growth, I thought that it might be a good idea to talk a bit about muscle soreness.  The fact of the matter is that if your are going to train for muscle growth, you will eventually face sore and achy muscles.  As with most things in life, knowledge is power (and in this case, less muscle pain) so read through these tips and find out how to minimize the pain of sore muscles.

Moving on, I review Mike Geary’s popular fat loss program The Truth About 6 Pack Abs. While The Truth About Abs has become somewhat of a phenomenon on the net,  I still thought that it might be a good idea to lay out exactly what you get with this 6 pack abs program.  While the sales letter and marketing information always look tempting, sometimes it’s nice to pull back the covers and take a long hard look at something before shelling out your hard earned cash.

What I discovered while reviewing this program is that it is a very well thought out and actionable fat loss program for anyone looking to simply slim down and expose their abs.  What The Truth About Abs isn’t, is a comprehensive muscle building workout plan, but it is built around solid fat loss principles like eating a well rounded nutrient dense fat loss diet, incorporating high intensity short duration aerobics and muscle building weight training workouts.  This is a winning combination for stripping away fat and exposing your abs.

Download the PDF edition of the Gain Muscle Mass Help Newsletter Issue #101

Gain Muscle Mass Help Issue #101 is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

In my experience, nothing is ever quite as good or bad as it seems.  Before assigning CLA supplements the top shelf billing in the muscle building supplement market, or relegating CLA supplements to the “worthless” category, you owe it to yourself to take a look at the studies and make your own informed decision regarding CLA.

Over the past 25 years, more than 600 CLA studies have been published highlighting the many ways CLA supplements can help to enhance the way your body looks as well as your health.

What Are CLA Supplements Supposed To Do?

Lets kick this off by explaining that traditionally, CLA supplements have not been presented as muscle building supplements, rather fat loss and weight loss supplements.  If you’re reading this blog to find out about the best muscle building supplements, CLA is definitely not in the same muscle building category that supplements like creatine monohydrate are in.  That said, there is a substantial amount of evidence that suggests that CLA can help you shed excess body fat.

When it comes to decreasing body fat, CLA supplements safely work in four ways:

1.) They decrease the amount of fat stored after eating

2.) They Increase how fast fat is broken down in fat cells

3.) They Increase the rate of fat metabolism

4.) They Decrease the total number of fat cells in your body

While these benefits are not directly related to the muscle building process, I have never met a bodybuilder who wasn’t interested in burning more fat – naturally!

What Is CLA?

Conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) is a naturally-occurring polyunsaturated fatty acid – an essential fatty acid of the omega-6 family. The human body is unable to manufacture Linoleic Acid or CLA, so it must be obtained from dietary sources. Foods highest in CLA include milk, cheese, beef, and lamb as well as a lot of other processed foods.

Getting enough CLA from your diet for the preferred benefit would require considerable intake of potentially unhealthy foods. This is not only impractical, but would also have a seriously negative impact on your metabolism due to the high caloric penalty you would pay.

My Experiences With CLA Supplements…

Based on my experiences with CLA, I honestly can’t say that I noticed a dramatic impact in the amount of lean muscle mass that I gained, or a drastic reduction in body fat once I began taking CLA supplements regularly. I don’t believe that CLA is a supplement that will give you results that you’ll be able to instantly recognize.

I view taking CLA supplements as more of a healthy thing to do to ensure that I’m getting enough high quality essential fatty acids into my diet. In addition to CLA I regularly use an omega-3 essential fatty acid fish oil supplement and occasionally throw high quality flax seed oil into the mix (especially if I am cutting calories to burn fat). I really believe that if you can experience even one of the many benefits commonly associated with CLA supplements, taking them regularly is well worth the price!

==> More information on cla supplements.

CLA Supplements is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

The muscle building process is certainly not one of the most efficient process in the human body.  It’s difficult for your body to make this happen.  If you want to build muscle mass fast, you can’t sit around waiting for your body to become more efficient and grow… you must give you body  a reason to grow.  This is where progressive overload comes in to play.

The progressive overload principle states that in order for your body to build muscle mass, it must be progressively stimulated over time.  An example of progressive overload in action is increasing the weight that you train with for each of your weight training workouts. By training with progressively heavier weights, you are telling your muscles that they must adapt to the new stress (heavier weights).  Your body will adapt by increasing the strength of your muscles and adding muscle mass.  Once your body has adapted, you then need to continue to overload your muscles progressively over time.

If you take the time to apply the progressive overload principle to each of your muscle building workouts, and you’ve worked out the rest of your plan you’ll be well on your way to building more muscle mass as quickly as possible!

Read this article for more information on using progressive overload to build muscle mass fast.

Apply Progressive Overload And Build Muscle Mass Fast is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

Unfortunately along with the great feeling of self accomplishment I often find my body getting progressively more uncomfortable as muscle soreness sets in.  After 16 years of training, I still have not gotten completely used to the awful feeling of waking up the next day with sore, achy muscles.  Even worse than the initial muscle soreness, is the fact that the uncomfortable pain will typically intensify for 2 – 3 days!  This phenomena is know as DOMS or Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness.

Getting rid of delayed onset muscle soreness once it starts is not an easy task.  While there are things you can do to keep your muscle soreness under wraps after a big workout, it’s usually best to apply some common sense to your training program before hitting the gym. While I’ve come to expect a certain level of muscle soreness following an intense workout, over the years I’ve learned a few tricks to limit the amount of discomfort that I feel a few days after a big workout.

If you’re tired of sore achy muscles read Fighting Muscle Soreness and learn how you can limit the amount of soreness you experience after your intense weight training workouts!

Eliminate Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

The Truth About Abs is a comprehensive full body fat loss fitness training system combined with solid fat loss nutrition advice.  Not simply an ineffective abdominal training book.

“If you’re looking for a cookie cutter six pack abs
system The Truth About Abs Is Not For You!”

As a certified personal trainer myself, It’s great to see a fitness/fat loss program that not only focuses on the basics like strength training, flexibility and nutrition, but one that also incorporates the philosophy of multi-joint compound exercises rather that less effective isolation exercises.

Another thing I really like about this program is the fact that Mike makes it explicitly clear that six pack abs are a product of intelligent nutritional habits, a comprehensive strength training routine with free-weights exercises at the core, and a bit of cardiovascular training.

Of course you already knew that didn’t you?

While the real truth about six pack abs is not a mystery for anyone who has studied exercise science, that doesn’t stop million of people desperately searching for a “quick fix – easy button” style solution to their ever expanding midsections.

If you’re hoping that simply buying The Truth About Abs system and not implementing the advice will be enough to expose your abs…Save Your Money you already know that wont work!

If on the other hand, your ready to do something about your flabby mid section and looking for a proven system to help you achieve your fat loss results, you simply can’t beat The Truth About Six Pack Abs Fat Loss System.

If you need some more information about The Truth About Abs  – I’ve written an complete Truth About Six Pack Abs Review and posted it at Gain-Muscle-Workout-Less.com!

The Real Truth About Six Pack Abs! is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

“Once I tried AST’s micronized creatine monohydrate…I was hooked!”

To this day this is one of the only creatine supplements that consistnetly produces muscle building results for me.

While AST’s micronized creatine monohydrate doesn’t contain any cutting edge blends of nutrients to aid in the uptake of the creatine, you can have confidence that you are getting pure – high quality creatine monohydrate with every serving.

Find out more about AST’s Micronized Creatine Monohydrate here!

Micronized Creatine Monohydrate By AST Sports Science is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

Read Lower Abdominal Exercise Tips and discover how easy it really is to put together a complete workout for your lower abs.

If you’re in a hurry here are the key point of the article along with a WARNING…

Before you get started off on the wrong foot and embark on a journey to never ending dissatisfaction with the way your abs look, you need to understand that training your abdominal muscles without focusing on lowering your current level of body fat is futile.

Not only will you not get the six pack abs you’re looking for, but you’ll essentially be wasting your time by even performing your lower abdominal workout int he first place. Did you know that by working the muscles of your lower abdominals before focusing on lowering your body fat level, you will actually increase the size of your abs which pushes the fat covering them out even further!

“Trust me here when I say that this can be seriously deflating and potentially detrimental to your goal of firm six pack abs.”

My advice here is simple…until you can see your abdominals (your body fat level is low enough for your abs to be exposed), you really need to be focusing your time planning out an effective bodybuilding nutrition plan, training consistently with free weights and mixing in a few (2- 4) sessions of cardio rather than training your abs!

Lower Abdominal Exercise is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

Regardless of…

• How Extensive Your Weight Training Workouts Are…
• How Many Muscle Building Supplements You Take…
• How Much Attention You Pay To Rest And Recovery…

To quote Bill Murray from Meatballs ”It just doesn’t matter”…If you neglect your diet for any length of time and think that you’ll somehow magically build muscle mass, you’re kidding yourself!

While most everyone understands that what they eat is important to the muscle building process, there seems to be a fair amount of confusion regarding exactly how to structure your bodybuilding diet for best results.

By now most people understand the basic (but very vague) bodybuilding nutrition principles like making sure to eat enough muscle building protein, loading up on complex carbs and drinking ample amounts of water. Sure these nutrition tips are great, but they do not explain the down and dirty secrets like…

• How Much Protein Do I Really Need To Eat Each Day?
• How Much Water Do I Need To Drink?
• How Much Fat Do I Need In My Diet & What Types of Fat Are Best?
• What Types of Carbohydrates Should I Focus On Eating?

If you’ve been trying to gain weight and build muscle mass…really getting after it in the gym, but haven’t had much success, you may want to review the bodybuilding nutrition basics discussed here. Then take a long hard look at your own muscle building nutrition habits.

Bodybuilding Nutrition Principles is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help