Bodybuilding Basics For Packing on the Muscle

Bodybuilding Basics For Packing on the Muscle
By Emile Jarreau

Just about everyone knows how effective bodybuilding can be for transforming one's body. Packing on serious amounts of muscle and losing serious amounts of fat can go a long way to helping you achieve the look of the physique you've always wanted. Bodybuilding is a popular pastime for many and most men have taken part in it at least one time in their life, often to mixed results.

Even though body building is one of the most common activities for younger men, many of them never take the time to learn the principles of it so that they can truly reap the benefits that can be derived from effective bodybuilding. These can include everything from massive strength and size gains to increased cardiovascular endurance and overall physical health and wellness. Let's look at a few of the problems that often stand in the way of individuals and their bodybuilding goals of packing on the muscle.

First of all, many approach body building with a backward mentality in that they try to train each individual muscle group in their quest for the perfect body. This approach makes absolutely no sense if you're a beginner bodybuilder and are trying to put on muscle. The fact is, you can do arm curls all day and shape your biceps but you'll never put on serious mass with this activity. The best advice in the world for inexperienced bodybuilders is to work on the largest muscle groups at the beginning of the workout so you have the best chance of gaining significant muscle. For instance performing 10 to 15 sets of squats with a heavy weight as the basis of your workouts will go much farther than trying to do individual exercises for each of your body parts. Simply choose two or three major muscle group exercises and stick with those, at least in the beginning.

One of the next things to pay attention to in our journey to pack on the muscle is to rest our bodies as much as possible. This may seem counterproductive when we're trying to build muscle and you may have the urge to continue working out each and every day, but this is most likely a mistake. The fact is, your muscles will grow only when you're resting, not when you're working out. Make sure that each day of intense physical exercise including weight training is followed by a full day of rest so that your muscles can recuperate and build.

Finally, we need to talk about nutrition. As a bodybuilder, you want to increase the amount of calories you take in to feed the muscular growth that you want to occur, but you must feed your body with the right types of calories. This means to increase the amount of lean fish, meats, nuts, and fruits and vegetables. Don't just eat junk for the sake of filling your body with calories. Junk food will simply cause you to gain fat and will take you further and further away from your goals.

The simple principles above will help you get started in bodybuilding and allow you to begin packing on some serious muscle in your endeavor to get into the best shape possible.

Emile Jarreau has been involved in Fitness and Bodybuilding for over 32 years. For more information regarding fat loss go to http://www.MrFatLoss.com

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Grow Huge Muscles Or Strong Muscles

Grow Huge Muscles Or Strong Muscles
By Michael J Stuart

Big bulging muscles are always associated with strength and power; the bigger they are the stronger you are. Increasing muscle strength does also increase muscle mass but usually strength and size are not increased at an equal rate and it all depends on what style of training you do as to what increases faster - size or strength.

A good example of this is the difference between power lifters and bodybuilders, while both groups are large and extremely strong, power lifters will easily lift far more weights than a body builder of similar size.

This is because muscle hypertrophy (the growth and enlargement of muscles) happens in two different ways and how you train your muscles decides on which way will be more dominate. The body builders increase muscle mass primarily by Sarcoplasmic Hypertrophy which is basically the levels of sarcoplasmic fluid increasing in the muscle cells, which increases muscle mass and gives the muscles a bulging, well rounded appearance but does not do very much in the way of increasing muscle strength. This Sarcoplasmic Hypertrophy is achieved by training with sub-maximal loads usually in sets of 8 to 12 reps but it can be more, with short rests between sets.

Power lifters on the other hand train differently and increase their muscle mass via Myofibrillar Hypertrophy which is when the myofibrils (the strands of fibers in your muscles) increase in size which increases strength by a far bigger rate than Sarcoplasmic Hypertrophy but not so much in size. It is also believed that given enough stress during heavy training, after reaching a certain size the myofibrils will split, and with the more fibers in a muscle being a large contributing factor into possible power output, the more fibers that split the better. Myofibrillar Hypertrophy is achieved by training with maximal loads (right up near your one rep maximum) for sets of 1 to 4 reps (can be as many as 6) with large rests between each set.

Just as a side note it should be noted that for anyone starting out in weight training for the first time, the first 6 months will likely see a big increase in strength with little to no increase in muscle size regardless of which training style is used because during this time the training is increasing and improving the muscular-neuro link via your nervous system (the link from your brain to the muscle) which improves the ability to use a muscle. The extra strength gained during the initial training is not due to Myofibrillar Hypertrophy; it's just that through training you are able to use more of the possible power already stored in the muscle.

The bigger your muscles get, the stronger you get, this is true but big muscles on one person will not necessarily be stronger than smaller ones on another person, it all depends on what type of training has been done, whether the muscles are large because they are full of big thick fibers or just pumped up full of fluid and also how good the persons muscular-neuro link is.

The one draw back of training power lifter style is that while the power output achieved is great, there is very poor endurance to go with it, so mixing your program up a little if you took on this style of training with a little strength-endurance work would be beneficial.

Michael Stuart is a fitness professional and believes that everyone should make fitness a part of their life in some way so as to get the most they can out of the life they have. Good fitness is a choice, so make the right one, get Wickedly Fit. Visit http://www.wickedlyfit.com for free workouts, exercise descriptions and more health and fitness articles.

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