Build Muscles And Smash Plateau For Beginners

Build Muscles And Smash Plateau For Beginners
By Chris Chew

Five times a week, two hours each visit. You've been more
faithful to your gym schedule than you've ever been to any
girlfriend you've had. And for a while it paid off: those
muscles started rippling and the girls started paying
attention.

But then, like a bad dream you wake up from, your muscles
suddenly wasn't growing like what it used to do. Your muscles
stop responding to your heavy workout no matter how intensely
you've been training. So you said to yourself, now I will train
harder. So now you put in three hours a session and but even as
you upped your gym dosage, horrors of horrors, your muscles are
actually shrinking.

Ahhhhh, the Gym Plateau. It afflicts all of us and few of us
ever gotten out of it. In fact, most people don't even know
that they have hit the dreaded plateau and thought that their
muscles can only grow so much due to inherent genetic factors.
Not to worry though, if you read the following fitness tips,
and follow these tips to the latter, I can assure you that your
muscles will start growing again and grow bigger they will.

Here are your free fitness tips.

Fitness Tip #1
Take A Break

This tip is easy to comply for most of us but very difficult
for some gym rats. Simply take a break from your workout. Do
not step into the gym or do any workout for 2 weeks. Its time
to let your body recover from the punishments you are dishing
out to your muscles. Some bodybuilders may find this difficult
to do because working out is addictive. You produce endorphin
when you workout and endorphin is also known as happy hormone.
The same hormone you produce when having sex.

Professional bodybuilders take a break after every 4-5 months
of hard training and when they are back in the gym, they shock
their well rested but complacent muscles back into massive
muscle gain.

Fitness Tip #2
Are you training too often?

If your exercises are intense enough, you need only to train
each muscle group once or twice a week. Your training schedule
shouldn't repeat muscle groups in the same week. Every time you
train, you do your muscles damage. Muscles need time to repair
and it does so in the after your training when you are resting.
This means that if you lift weights on consecutive days, there
isn't sufficient time for the body to recover. Try to have one
day rest between each weight lifting day.

If your routine requires intensive weight training, remember
not to prolong your gym time longer than an hour. This is
because your cortisol, a muscle eating hormone level will be
elevated and thus will be counter productive to your efforts.
It eats your muscles.

Most of all, you must sleep! Eight hours or even better, go for
ten hours. Muscles do not grow in the gym; they grow when you
sleep. When you sleep, you are secreting growth hormones for
many bodily functions and one of those functions is to build
muscles. That is why they called it beauty sleep!

Fitness Tip #3
Are you using the correct weight lifting techniques?

If your technique or form is incorrect, not only is your
training retarded, you are also inviting injury. Don't laugh.
But when you exercise you must think and focus, instead of
mindlessly repeating the motions, do take note of how you
perform each exercise and rep. Do so with deliberation and at
the beginning and end of every lift, pause and squeeze the
muscles you are exercising. Mind and muscle must connect! Never
never use momentum of the swing to lift the weights and let
gravity pull the weight down. That is why you must lift slowly
and lower slowly feeling the tension in your muscles and
resisting the load all the time.

In order for muscles to want to grow, you have to stress them
to the maximum, and then further. Do enough repetitions until
you feel you cannot go any further using good form. You must
then either increase the weight or the number of repetitions at
the next session. This is called progressive overload, and
progressive overload is what forces your muscles to grow. As a
general guide, if you can lift more than 12 reps the weight is
probably too light and it is too heavy if your muscles fail you
in less than 5 reps. You may wish to consult your physical
fitness trainer on the correct form and technique for each
exercise.

Fitness Tip #4
Are you using free weights?

Most machines do not involve as much of the synergistic muscles
(supporting muscles) as free weights do. And, therefore, do not
build as much muscle mass. Synergistic muscles are the smaller
muscles that aid the main muscles in balance and strength in
each lift. Machines has its uses, but for beginners and for
smashing plateaus, use free weights.

Fitness Tip#5
Workout with compound exercises

Compound exercises are exercises that involve 2 or more joint
movements and thereby employing bigger muscles and more
synergistic muscles . Bench presses, dead lifts, squats, and
barbell curls amongst others are fantastic compound exercises .
For example, when you squat , all the muscles in your lower body
get a workout and that alone is about 60 percent of your overall
musculature . Squat also works your back and abs too. Using more
muscles at one go means that you get a better overall workout.
To add icing to the cake, because of the massive utilization of
your muscles , you will pant, huff and sweat more. That means
your routine also has a cardio effect and you will burn
calories even hours after you stepped out of the gym .

Fitness Tip#6
Are you working out your legs?

Your body is programmed to grow proportionately with only
slight variations. If you do not train your legs, your upper
body mass will stop growing before it becomes large. Surely,
you've heard of chicken legs! Just because leg training can be
brutal, it doesn't give you reason to hide your legs in your
pants. To get that super hero X-frame, pepper your routine with
squats . A word of caution though: compound exercises such as
dead lifts, squats, and bench presses must be done in excellent
form and a spotter is highly recommended. This is where your
physical fitness trainer will come in handy as your spotter. If
not, injuries are bound to happen and that may put you
permanently out of the gym.

Fitness Tip#7
What are you eating?

Muscle building requires protein - the more, the better. Meat,
especially red meats and fish, are the best source. It is in
your food that your body will draw nutrients from, for strength
and necessary fats for joint and organ protection.

To have massive muscle gain and help in muscle preservation ,
you need about 2-3 grams of good protein per kilogram of your
body weight . If you want to get serious about muscles , you
may need to supplement them with protein shakes . Eating a meal
and having a protein shake immediately after your workout also
maximizes the window for rapid absorption of nutrients. This is
important as you need to feed the muscles now that you have
damaged them. You should also 6 small meals a day so your
muscles are constantly fed throughout the day. This will help
rev up your metabolism to burn fat too. This will tremendously
help you in your build muscle lose weight program. Remember to
take your protein shake half an hour before you workout too.

Fitness Tip#8
How about Carbs?

Glycogen is the main energy source for any muscle-building
exercise. The body stores whatever carbohydrates you eat as
glycogen and muscles use it to give you energy during your
workout. After an intense workout, do consume carbohydrates
immediately to replace the used glycogen. You can even indulge
in high glycemic carbs such as ice creams and white bread as
these will turn into insulin and shuttles nutrients such as
protein to your muscle cells quickly.

Fitness Tip #9
And Fats?

Yes, your body do need do need fats . But try to avoid
saturated fats such as animal fats or worse, trans fats which
are artificial fats found in pastries, confectionaries and
preserved food. Consume healthy unsaturated fats such as olive
oil, canola oil, fish oils, flax seed oil.

Fitness Tip#10
Water Water is essential.

Water is essential. It is the most underrated macronutrient.
You need at least eight glasses of water every day but when you
exercise , you lose even more water because of the sweating. So
drink before, during and after your workout. Weigh yourself
before and after the workout, and compensate for the loss by
drinking at least 16 ounces of fluid for every pound or half a
kg lost.

Fitness Tip#11
Creatine

While meats are the best source for creatine, which is a
nutrient that helps speed up muscle gain and power you up
during workouts, those who do not get enough from their regular
diet must be supplemented. Creatine puts volume into your muscle
cells and gives you that muscle pump thus your muscles feels
tighter, look bigger and overall illusion of superb muscularity
. It also helps to prevent muscle breakdown.

Fitness Tip#12
Glutamine

When supplemented, it may help bodybuilders reduce the amount
of muscle wasting away or used up as energy. It also helps in
muscle recovery.

Fitness Tip #13
Do you change your routine?

The human body is fantastic at adaptation. So whatever routine
you are on, your body will get used to it. So do change your
routine every 6-8 weeks. For example, instead of working out
your chest muscles at the start of your workout, work your back
muscles instead. You can reverse your whole routine or change
the variations of your exercises or add new ones and take away
some old ones. By changing your routines, you not only shock
your muscles to new growth, it will also prevent boredom by
doing the same thing all the time.

About the Author: Chris Chew is an American Muscle and Fitness
Institute Singapore based personal trainer. He trains models,
pageant winners, actors and other celebrities to look great in
their glamorous professions.Presently, he is running a local
fitness school at http://www.sgfitnessonline.com and written an
ebook "Burn Fat Build Muscles Fast" at http://www.sgfitness.com

Source: http://www.isnare.com