Body Building Tips

Stay Hydrated

I cannot stress this body building tip enough. The majority of people are actually chronically dehydrated, and this rule applies to everyone, whether they are weight training or not. One of the most important things you can do for your body is to always stay well hydrated. This does not mean maybe you stop at the water fountain on your way out of the bathroom. The average person needs eight to nine cups of water a day just to replace the fluids lost in everyday life. If you are going to be serious about body building, you will be using up more of your body’s water reserves at a faster rate. To figure out how much water you need, take your current body weight, divide it by two, and that’s how many ounces of water you should be drinking daily. And no, tea, coffee and most sodas (especially colas) do not count, as act as a diuretic on your system, causing you to urinate more and actually lose more water than you gained by drinking the thing in the first place. At best, you should carry a bottle of water with you at all times, even when you are not training. This water bottle will become your new best friend and travel with you everywhere you go. Drink it dry and refill often.

Increase Your Protein Intake

To keep your body from losing hard earned muscle tissue and stimulate muscle growth, you'll need to increase protein intake. A good rule of thumb is to start consuming 1-1.5 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight a day. For example: If you a male who weighs 200 pounds, then you should be consuming at least 200-300 grams of protein a day. It's also important to know you will need to spread this out over 6-8 meals/day. I like to get my protein sources from a mix of lean meats, eggs, fish and whey protein shakes. An easy way to accomplish this is to eat at least three solid meals and three whey protein shakes, one shake in between each solid meal and one before bedtime.

Plan Your Workout in Advance

Plan out everything you are going to do in a given workout session ahead of time, and stick to it, including the total workout length, which should be no longer than sixty minutes including warm ups. This should add up to about fifteen to twenty minutes for each section of your body. I reccomend working out specific muscle groups together. For example, work chest muscles and triceps together on the same day of your workout and work back muscles and biceps together on a different day of your workout. The reason for training these particular muscle groups together is that when you workout one of these muscle groups you are actually working out the other too.

Stretch Before Workouts

Debates rage over whether you should stretch before or after warm-ups. I tend to err on the side of before, since stretching extends muscle fibers, actually elongating them (that's why it's called stretching). Second, it increases blood flow to the muscles, ligaments and tendons, providing the cells with more oxygen and nutrients.

Warm Up

Like the hydration thing, this is another one of those important body building tips I cannot stress enough. You can’t train your muscles if you are in the hospital! Do a quick warm up version of each set you plan to do over the course of your work out with very light weights, just to get the muscle groups used to action. Then…

Form Over Weight

Always, always, always use proper technique. If it’s easier to lift something when you hunch over and rush it, that’s because you’re cheating! Exercises are designed to give you the greatest amount of muscle building for the least amount of movement. Use good posture and proper form, If you’re going to put in the time and effort, do it right. If an exercise is too hard, slow down, maybe drop some weight for a while, and concentrate on form.  That said, you should always try to increase your weight for a given set each week and always lift as much weight as possible. Keep going until you can’t lift anymore without help.

Know When To Stop

This should be easy if you’ve planned your workout, but you can actually slow your progress, especially with your arms, by overtraining. Like I said earlier, total workout times should last no more than one hour.

Rest in Between Sets

Let your muscles recover a little between sets with a one-two minute break.

Get Plenty of Sleep

Another very important body building tip is to make sure you get plenty of sleep. This is one of the most important body building tips yet. The fact is during a workout you break the muscle fibers down and it is only during the deep stages of sleep when you actually build new muscle fibers and grow larger in size. Get at least 8 hours of sleep each night. Take short naps during the day if you can.

Track Your Progress With a Training Log

This is a great way to keep yourself motivated and remind yourself of that date with the gym. Log each individual excerise and each muscle group worked for a particular day. This will help you change up your workout routine regularly and keep you from doing the same routine over and over. It's very important to ocassionally change your workout routine to keep your muscles from adapting to your workouts. Always Keep your training log in your workout bag, right next to your water bottle.

I hope you enjoyed reading these important body building tips and will apply this knowledge at the gym. Remember, determination and consistantcy along with these tips will prove good solid results in the end.

  Muscle Building Tips 5 Part Mini Course

Discover 5 Powerful Secrets to Gaining Muscle Mass inside!

         

Name:
Email:

 Note: I HATE spam as much as you do and will never give out your email address to any third parties for any reason.