If you want to build muscle mass, nothing is more important to the overall process than effectively planned out muscle building workout. If you don’t put in the time to piece together effective workouts  before you go to the gym, then your just setting yourself up for failure. In this article, I’m going to  teach you a proven workout structure that’s really pretty simple and will allow you to stimulate lean muscle growth without having to worry about over training your muscles in the process.

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!

Are your muscle building workouts set up for forcing muscle bulk?  Even though most guys think they’ve designed effective bodybuilding workouts that will help them gain new muscle mass, most of the time they wind up implementing a long workout that requires them to stay in the gym for 2 -3 hours at at time.

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.

If you want to find the best weight loss systems, it it will really help if you completely understand the elements that are a part of a healthy weight loss program. With a few thousand different weight loss plans flooding the market each few months it’s not easy to pinpoint the best programs from the bad. In this article, I’m going to give you a good idea of a few of the things that must be present in any weight loss plan in order for it to be effective at natural and sustained body fat loss.

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.

When it comes to melting off body fat, a lot of people think that they absolutely have to pick up one of the fancy weight loss programs that they see on TV. Sure these fat melting programs can be helpful, the bottom line is that they aren’t an absolute requirement for weight loss. Many people have gone the route of creating their own weight loss plans and they have been able to lose a serious amount of body fat. Here are a few fat melting tips that you can use today to start losing weight easily and 100% naturally.

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.

If you want to gain muscle mass fast, then it’s critical that you have a good idea of how to train in order to spark muscle growth. When you’re just starting out with your muscle building outline, you really can get away with a lot of poor habits and poor technique, but after your body begins to adapt to your training program by gaining strength and laying down some new muscle, it can be tough to push through the initial success and and gain even more new muscle mass.

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.

Can online fitness coaching help you strip off body fat, gain muscle and get into great shape for 1/4 of the cost of a traditional trainer? Over the years, the traditional route to building a better body typically meant joining a gym and signing up for a few personal training sessions with the trainer at the gym.  While this “old-school” approach to getting into shape does work quite well for some, it can be very expensive just to figure out the simple stuff like, how to do certain movements properly and how to work certain machines,not even getting into trying to get a grip on how to design an effective weight loss or muscle building program. There is however a unique new solution hitting the web that’s putting a unique new spin on getting into top notch physical shape for an affordable price – web based fitness coaching membership sites.

photo credit: www.metaphoricalplatypus.com

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.

A ton of men and women are searching the web hoping to uncover best ab exercises to help them get an awesome six pack. While it’s certainly true that you need to construct abdominal training routines that give you the ability to target the different muscles in your abdominals, everybody hopefully knows by now that the only way to get awesome six pack abs is to burn off waist flab and focus on lowering your body fat levels.

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.

If you want to gain muscle mass quick and naturally, then you might want to get a good idea of how the muscle gaining process works.  There are a ton of guys who who really want to gain muscle mass, not many of them have put in the time to really develop a plan for what they are trying to do.  For every person I meet who has things under control in the gym and with their muscle building diet, I see a few hundred who seem to really not even have a clue.  If you really want to build some new muscle mass naturally, then you need to have an organized program to lean on.

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.

Today I’m going to lay out a simple plan for your muscle mass gain diet that can help you to build more muscle mass without having to do anything that could put your health in jeopardy.  While there are a lot of techniques that you can apply to your diet in order to build muscle mass, the truth is that in order to make it happen, you’ve got to have a really good handle on what you eat each day.  The proven muscle gain diet fundamentals that seem like they’re out of date are typically the ones that will allow you to pack on muscle mass and keep it on for years to come.

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.

If you want to start packing on lean muscle it’s vital that you get your muscle mass gain diet all lined out for maximum muscle gain over time.  We all know that it’s definitely possible to gain muscle mass without focusing exclusively on what you ingest, your chances of keeping your new found muscle mass decrease exponentially if you don’t have a handle on what you eat every day.

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.

A well planed out body building diet plan is critical to your success if you want to pack on muscle mass naturally and quickly.  Of course your choice of weight lifting workouts, your muscle building exercise selection and your recovery strategy are all valuable pieces of the muscle gain process, you won’t be able to gain any muscle mass at all if your muscle gain diet schedule is not in the right order.

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.

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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!

Are your bodybuilder workouts structured correctly for stimulating muscle growth?  While most guys are certain that they’ve pieced together effective weight lifting workouts that will help them build muscle mass, most of the time they wind up piecing together a marathon training session that forces them to stay in the gym for 1 – 2 hours at at time.

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.

If you’re dying to gain chest muscles and give yourself that fat free athletic body that you’ve always desired?  If so there are a couple of fundamental tips that you should keep in mind in order to increase the muscle building power of your chest weightlifting workouts and start carving out that thick muscular (and most certainly eye catching) chest that you’ve always wanted. Listed below are a few tips that when put to use will allow you to move towards your goal of a bigger more muscular chest.

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!

This edition of the Muscle Building Secrets Ezine is ready to go with a few basic yet extremely powerful muscle building tips to get you moving towards your goal of a more muscular body quickly and naturally!

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

Weighted chest dips are one of the exercises that most people don’t even consider when they sit down to plan out their chest workouts. While dips are traditionally considered a triceps movement, the fact of the matter is that with a few small adjustments to the position of your body during the bottom phase of this exercise, you can isolate you pectoral muscles and seriously target your chest!

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!

While everybody wants to believe that there is some type of most effective bicep workout that’s guaranteed to help them gain muscle mass in their arms, the truth is that the idea of the single best bicep workout for everyone is a myth. Everybody has a body that responds differently and because of this, muscle growth occurs for everybody by different things.  Even though one particular bicep workout may make my arms explode with new muscle mass, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s guaranteed to help you build bigger biceps.  That said, there are a few biceps exercises that you should include in your arm routines if you really want to force your biceps to grow.

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.

The straight bar curl is one of the first bodybuilding exercises that a lot of people are introduced to when they first start working out. While there are probably at least 5 muscle building exercises that can allow your arms to grow quicker than  barbell curls alone, a lot of people think that they need to be performing hard core bicep workouts that include 10 – 20 sets of isolation style bicep exercises in order to build bigger arms.

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.

Regardless of whether you simply want to shed the flab, firm up your pecs and get rid of the “man boob” look, or your goal is to pack on a ton of chest muscle, then you absolutely must be focusing on the most effective pectoral exercises on a regular basis.  While running into the gym and jumping from chest exercise to chest exercise without a decent plan can actually help you build your pecs to some degree.  However if you really want to build thick muscular pecs that you can be proud of, then you need to create your chest workouts around most effective pec exercises and ditch the longer list of crappy pectoral exercises.

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.

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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!