The Original Muscle Weight Gain & Muscle Building Blog!!

Fat release bodyweight workout routines are my preferred means to step-up my metabolic process and actually begin burning off fat. Most folks are so pertained about directing to the gymnasium or applying adorned and costly gear that they do not even give attention to their greatest fat release instrument, their body. There are workout routines which are designed to burn fat using three different methods.

First, you will acquire larger fat release as these bodyweight workout routines drive you to apply all of your muscles and carry out a broad array of moves. Second, they’re genuinely comfortable to do anywhere. Think of individual who attends a jammed gymnasium then heads home. Their exercise is done. Finally, they are exercised consecutively which entails that your body has to burn down a lot of sugar and can not repose.

For those who are not really into dancing your way to fitness or doing minimal work to get the results you want there is kick boxing. This is a very active high energy sport that will get you to rapidly tone and loose weight. This not only helps you to strengthen your body and tone but it helps you to strengthen your mind and your heart. One of the lessons is to always know your worth and realize that you are stronger than you think you are.
There are plenty of places you can go to practice or learn kick boxing or you can even get DVDs to learn in the comfort of your own home. Although to get the true benefit you should go to a school or get a partner to come over and practice with you. This way you get the full contact sport and you have a buddy system so you don’t give up so easy. This is great because it is a cardio and physical workout so you get the best of both worlds in one. With the buddy system you can really get into it and maybe even join a school or you can compete in local challenges. You could even just challenge each other to make sure you are up to par.

One of my friends who was overweight wished to reduce her weight to solve her health problems. She fell in the obese category and was suffering from a host of health problems like acidity, pain in the spine and neck and chest pains. She went to different doctors for treatment but was not satisfied with the treatments given by them. When she got chest pains and the doctor did not find anything wrong with her reports, she decided to take matters in her hand.

Her first priority was to reduce weight and so she joined a gym and started exercising. She spent two hours daily at the gym on different machines. She started exercising according to the advice of the trainer at the gym and day by day started losing weight. When I met her after a gap of five months, I did a double take as I could not recognize her. She had lost all the extra weight and she looked wonderful. Where previously she would clothes for extra large sizes, now she was able to wear all kinds of dresses and the best thing was she looked wonderful. I was and am very happy for her as now she can enjoy life as wants to and she does not feel inferior to anyone and has become confident.

No, I’m not yelling at you, but I am being honest that if you’re serious about gaining weight or building muscle mass naturally, then you are going to have to exercise on a regular and intense basis. This article will get you jump started:

Get Up and Exercise

It would not be wrong to state that nutritional supplements are useful for better health. They enhance the energy level and provide strength to the muscles hence, increasing their size and growth. But the fact that these muscle building supplements are mostly rich in proteins does not imply that they can be taken as the complete dietary solutions. It is always wise to have a balance diet program that should include fruits, vegetables and other natural edibles along with supplement intake.

Nutritional supplements should only be taken with proper instructions during the activities which involve extra physical exertion. Working out in gym is a foremost example of a situation when these supplements are more beneficial for gaining weight and getting healthy. During muscle building a lot of energy is lost in the form of sweating hence increasing the rate of hormones and enzymes actions within the body. So, the body demands more proteins and vitamins which these supplement products provide. But one should always keep in mind that internal body functions can not be risked with overdose or lesser supply of any nutrient. A balanced supply of energy as per the body requirements can be healthy and vice versa.

Though there are many sports activities that can be followed in order to stay in better health but staying healthy mentally produces better results of the activities followed in order to gain weight. Mind is the controller of body functions everything that is happening within is in some way linked to the mind. The point is that mental stress can negatively affect the physical condition of any one. It is scientifically proved that all the body metabolisms are harmed and badly affected if one is not mentally in peace.

Stress and tension would decrease the weight of a person who is even working out in gym everyday. Basically what happens is the hormone and enzyme secretions that absorb the energy from the food intake do not function normally once mind is under stress. Complete and proper rest should be maintained in order to stay mentally healthy. A normal grown up person should follow the routine of sleeping at least 6 hours everyday to keep him or herself mentally fresh. Hence, it should always be taken in consideration that all the workout and physical exertions that we normally do in order to gain weight will be more affected and result oriented if we stay mentally healthy and give proper rest to our mind and body.

I know that when one is thinking about healthy ways to gain weight high school wrestling is definitely not the first thing that comes to mind. Ironically, though I learned several ways to lose weight, it was wrestling that helped me stumble upon a smart way to build muscle mass. Several of my buddies had been cutting weight by what some would call controlled anorexia. Seeing how weak this made them during practice, I set out for a way to lose weight and still maintain my strength.

I began to read books, magazines, and internet articles that would help me develop a way I could metaphorically have my cake and eat it to. I found the “six small meals a day “diet while in my research. When I began the diet not only did I find that I was losing a substantial amount of weight healthily, I was also gaining muscle mass much faster than I had before. I was really pleased with the results of this diet and would suggest it to anyone who has a healthy work out program.

No, in order to gain weight and build muscle mass it isn’t necessary to spend the rest of your life living inside of gym, spending 24/7 on your workout routine. Read our latest article to find out how and why:

15 Minute Muscle Building Routines

With so many different types of muscle building routines to choose from it can be very difficult to distinguish which one to follow. So many of them are very contradicting in nature. The amount of sets, reps, frequency of training, weight to use, exercises to select from, rotation, etc., is enough to make your mind spin and blow up. In picking out the right muscle building routine you have to keep in mind that there isn’t one particular workout routine that’s best for everyone.

One of the biggest things you can do in picking out the most effective one is determining first and foremost what your main goal is. Pick one and only one. Is it building muscular size? Or is it to burn body fat? Are you primarily concerned with become strong, or powerful? Are you concerned with conditioning and endurance? Each and every one of these goals requires a different workout program to be followed. So, again, what are you mainly after???

You wouldn’t have thought that these to two things would ever be mentioned in the same sentence, much less analyzed in a bodybuilding article, but we did. You might not have realized it, but this could be affecting you as well. Take a look at our latest article:

The Economy Shouldn’t Affect Your Muscle Building

I’m pretty sure that if you’re reading this site your main goal when picking up a weight when you participate in your workout program is to build muscle mass naturally and gain weight fast. However, there are many good “side effects” that come from consistently lifting weights. As a matter of fact, so good that they’ll help you live longer.

According to the Archives of Internal Medicine you’ll lower your risk of dying from heart disease if you take naps regularly to go hand in hand with the rest and recuperation you’re supposed to give your body from the workouts. In fact, the percentage you’ll lower this risk is by 37 percent! You see, it’s not just about the big pecs and ripped abs!

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked this question. Many hardgainers feel that they can gain weight or build muscle mass by taking “extra vitamins”. Well, can you or can’t you? To answer this question take step back and think about it. When it comes to eating to gain weight what have I always said is the bottom line? Eating extra protein? No. Upping your fiber? No. Making sure you get your monusaturated fats or fish oils? No. In order to give your body the nutrients it needs to put on muscle mass and gain weight in the form of lean tissue the bottom line is and always will be overall calories. So, what you need is to eat an amount of calories that will allow your muscles to recover, recuperate, and grow.

So, how many calories are in vitamins? None. Zero. Nada. Vitamins are one thing, and calories are another. Yet, they are not one and the same. Vitamins help certain body functions, but they aren’t calories. So, you can take all of the multi-vitamins in the world but you won’t gain one ounce of muscle mass or gain any weight because they aren’t calories…period. So, to answer the question, will taking extra vitamins allow you to put on some size and bulk up?…….only food will.

Sure, you’ve heard it a thousand times, “You need to get your sleep so that your body can recover and you can gain weight and build muscle mass”. However, a recent article no sleep and muscle building in IronMan magazine provided some hard hitting and concrete studies that really hit home with this information.

In the article of the magazine it said “Lack of sleep interferes with testosterone even more. In a study published last year, 12 healthy men…had their testosterone levels monitored after a night of sleep. The less sleep the men got, the lower their testosterone…A study of young men found that sleeping during either the day or night led to more testosterone release. When young men are deprived of sleep, their testosterone levels plummet rapidly…A lack of REM sleep appears to have a particularly potent blunting effect on testosterone release”.

So, hurry up and get to sleep if you want to keep the muscle building, weight gain wheels in motion.

According to a recent research column in Muscular Development magazine, and I quote, “Bud Winter, the legendary track coach of Olympic athletes such as John Powell, Lee Evans, Tommy Smith, and John Carlos, used to to give his athletes “Bud Winter super pills” to improve performance. Winter claimed the pills helped his athletes run faster, even though they were made from sugar. They were nothing more than placebos that worked by the power of suggestion…..Placebos show the importance of positive thinking for success in bodybuilding and sports”.

As I’ve always written, many, of not most supplements aimed at muscle building and gaining weight, such as shakes, pills, powders, and bars, are not what will help you build and gain muscular weight. The big factors in accomplishing this will always be having the right workout routine and eating the correct amount of calories, week in and week out. How many people do you yourself know that takes every bodybuilding supplement known to man, yet don’t ever seem to gain any weight, or build any more muscle mass? What about prisoners? They don’t take any of those nutritional supplements, yet they’re bigger than your average gym rat? Kind of makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

Many popular workout routines and programs have been taking mainstream gyms and exercise enthusiasts by storm. But when it comes to pure muscle building or gaining weight, are certain regimens efficient, such as Pilates? Sure, Pilates may enhance your stretching capacity or your range of motion, aka ROM. However, just because you can stretch further or hold a position for longer periods of time doesn’t necessarily mean that it will stimulate muscular growth and development.

In order to cause hypertrophy in your muscles you have to cause certain things to happen during your workout program. Things such as tension, time under tension, intensity, muscle flow, lactic acid accumulation, etc.,must all take place to cause your muscles to become physically bigger. Does your current Pilates routine cause these mechanisms to go into motion to help you with your muscle building / weight gain goals?

Are you sick and tired of begging your child to get off the couch and get some exercise? Take comfort, because you are not alone. You must set the example first and hope your child will follow. Be assertive and take away your child’s video games and anything else that keeps them stuck in the house.

You should look into taking some healthy exercise classes with your child. Kickboxing and karate classes are a great workout. Moms and daughters may enjoy a dance class or another type of exercise class. Other great options that a lot of communities offer for groups of people are volleyball, swimming, and tennis matches. Use your imagination and do not forget to ask your child what they would enjoy.

Use this time with your child as a time to get to know them better. You may be surprised how comfortable your child is talking to you when you are both participating alongside each other. Not only are these affordable ways to get out of the house, they are extremely important to your child’s health and your relationship with your child.

Oh yeah. Your beloved high protein, low carb diet could be giving you the exact results you don’t want. If you’re reading this site than for sure you main goal in body building is muscle building and gaining weight. You’ll want to read this article to find out why and how:

High Acid Levels Can Cause Muscle Mass Loss

Many fitness enthusiasts believe that the only muscle group that you can successfully work out everyday are your abs. In order to keep up the motivation to complete an ab workout every single day, you will want to add variety to keep your workout fresh. With a little creativity, and a thorough knowledge of what does and does not work for you, will make it simple to create a variety of workouts.

The actual workout will be the first aspect to vary. From day to day, change whether your workout is on machines or not. Try creating themed ab workouts. Challenge yourself to do an entire workout of ab exercises while standing. Another day, you could attempt to do only yoga-style ab exercises. Yet another option is to mix up circuits, and move from one exercise to another in varying order. For even more variety, pepper in non-ab work to lengthen the total overall ab workout.

There are also other ways to vary your ab workout. Music is a great way to add variety and affect the pace of your ab workout. Different locations can also bring a new and motivating feel to your ab workout. If you need a strong dose of motivation, consider planning an ab workout with a competitive friend, which may be just the push your ab workout needs. Lastly, consider rewarding yourself after a particularly good workout or a number of successful, consecutive workouts.

We find that people of all ages are actively interested in creating an impressive physique. To achieve a well set physique, people have turned towards exercises where some active body movements are required. This does not always guarantee good results. In the future, bodybuilding exercises that provide energy and vitality to the body and mind will be more popular as these exercises are completely harmless to our body.

Isometric bodybuilding exercises are fast gaining popularity these days. The principle behind these exercises is that if you compress a set of muscles to the point of inducing a minor controlled stress in them over a period of few months, that particular muscle set will develop mass and endurance strength that cannot be achieved by following other traditional bodybuilding routines. Isometric bodybuilding exercises do not require complex training equipment or constant interventions from trainers. This is why this bodybuilding exercise regimen is bound to be favored by enthusiasts and beginners for developing the physique that they dream of. What is more, research has shown that isometric exercises can help in activating and stimulating our mind. This definitely is an added bonus for you to start your isometric bodybuilding regimen today!

If you want to get fit and lose weight there are several things you need to start doing. You need to do cardio exercises, eat right, and also gain muscle weight by doing strength training. A pound of lean muscle takes up less space than a pound of fat. The more muscle you have the more calories your body burns on it‘s own.

If you’ve been working out and you just haven’t lost and weight, consider that you’ve lost fat but gained muscle. Weight gain of lean muscle is a very healthy weight gain. Many people do cardio exercises three times a week and muscle toning exercise three times a week also. These people do this because they know that your muscle mass makes a difference in your overall health, and also in weight loss.

So if losing weight is your goal, you need to gain some muscle weight. You’ll be a stronger, healthier person, and losing weight will become easier. Your body will become more toned and defined than ever before. You might even have a better healthier body than you did back in high school.

When considering where you want to work out, when you are going to be focusing on your abdominal area, there are some important factors to consider. Just like in real estate, location, location, location could mean the difference between motivating yourself to do your ab workout time and time again, or giving up because you are so uninspired by your surroundings.

First, consider the physical factors of your environment. Will you be more comfortable indoors or outdoors? Will the weather remain pleasant for the duration of your ab workout if you choose an outdoor location? Consider the amount of space you will need in order to move comfortably during your ab workout. Also, does the space allow for sitting, standing, and laying comfortably? It is important not to feel cramped or inhibited in your movements.

The other important factor when choosing a location for your ab workout is how the location will affect your frame of mind and whether your surroundings serve to motivate you. Does being seen motivate you to work harder, or would you rather have a private ab workout? How will noise affect you? Can you play music, or are you looking for a more serene and silent location? Lastly, consider whether you are in search of a tranquil environment, or if you would prefer a place that has more movement and energy.

Bodybuilding through exercises minimizes the chances of developing health issues such as muscle weakness and physical strain. Regular exercise helps to keep the body fit by enabling us to sleep better and lessen the fatigue that we may feel from our work life. A rigorous training regimen reduces stress level, anxiety etc.

Along with endurance, bodybuilding exercises improves the oxygen utilization at the muscular level. Bodybuilding increases the fitness level by improving the cardio vascular strength in our bodies. It results in higher level of activity and makes daily tasks less stressful. Bodybuilding also helps to control weight. By increasing the caloric expenditure, bodybuilding exercises reduce the body fat level.

Regular exercise provides a natural tranquilizer that helps the body to endure the physical strain that we subject it to. If you spend a minimum of half an hour everyday on a bodybuilding regimen will help to control our weight and also keep a check on our vital systems. A well balanced diet along with bodybuilding workouts helps us to prevent many diseases and maintain a healthy body.

Do you find yourself begging your child to put down their video games and get some exercise? Many children stiffen up just hearing the word exercise. What happened to the days of running around outside with friend, coming home for dinner, and when you were done you were out the door again? Unfortunately, those days are long gone and our children are now suffering from a multitude of diseases and illnesses because of this.

I have found a great way to get our children to exercise without them even knowing. By signing your child up for extracurricular activities, they will be socializing, having fun, and secretly getting a good amount of exercise. Almost any sport will do, baseball, football, soccer, dance, just name it. As long as your child is up and moving, you have accomplished your goal.

Not only will your child unknowingly be exercising, but also they will be having fun and so will you. Your child’s participation in a group will benefit them for many years to come. Sports teach children wonderful tools to use in social situations and they tend to steer away from any bad influences. Your child will also be more confident and comfortable in their own skin.

As the modern exercise bike becomes more and more laden with digital equipment and sensors that can more accurately simulate a ride around the neighborhood or around the world, the software being built into the equipment is working to ensure that you can bike some of the greatest roads in the world from the comfort of your own living space.

Thanks to the newest in GPS software, more and more exercise bikes are now coming preloaded with the ability to bike anywhere in the world from your machine. This new terrain mapping technology allows GPS makers to build into their devices road grade and elevation changing information, which is helping to create more accurate exercise bike simulations.

With this technology, the hope is to soon allow people to get on their exercise bikes and simulate bicycling routes around their neighborhood or from famous places and events, such as the Tour de France, allowing the average bicyclist to exercise and have the ability to endure the same trails and roads that professionals use to get their exercise and train for their cycling events.

While many of those focused on building muscle mass concentrate on their workouts, diet is a great supplemental component to assist in reaching one’s fitness goals. In order to build muscle mass, it is best to eat several smaller meals throughout the day. This means approximately 4-6 meals, or one every 2 ½ to 3 hours. The largest meal of the day should be eaten at breakfast to ensure even calorie distribution throughout the day.

Protein should account for 35% of overall daily calories, which is about 40-60 grams for a 200 pound man. Each meal should also include vegetables, and a smaller amount of carbohydrates and fats in order to=2 0balance one’s diet and keep energy levels from sinking. Try to eat lean proteins in order to build muscle mass such as chicken, turkey, salmon, tuna, egg whites, cottage cheese and yogurt. When coupled with intense muscle building workouts, this diet is ideal. While not necessary, depending on your workout intensity, this diet can be paired with muscle building supplements, but it is not recommended that supplements account for more than 40% of your daily intake. Whole foods, such as the proteins listed above, should be no less than 60% of your total diet.

For many who have a heavy bodybuilding routine, protein supplements are a great way to add the fuel you need to your body and replenish the energy that you use in your routine on a daily basis. However, many bodybuilders have become highly reliant on getting their protein from a canister and not from their diet. Indeed, many bodybuilders are also on a diet during their workout regimen that prevents them from taking in enough calories or protein to give the body the natural protein fix that it needs to create muscle and build good body mass.

Many bodybuilders who have tried to get more of their protein from foods have reported good success in doing so while still working out regularly and maintaining a healthy weight. Often, their proteins come from not only the typical meat sources that one would site in protein counts, but also from many of the alternatives that are used by vegetarians to get their protein - namely beans and other types of legumes. These high protein alternatives are often low calorie, and provide some proteins that you can’t get from a powder or a shake. Adding some of these to your diet can give you a natural protein boost along with meats and your supplements.

I know you’ve seen those crazy claims for BowFlex and other types of infomercial workout equipment claiming that you can “build a body like this in just 20-30 minutes a day, 3 times a week”. Well, anyone that has undergone an intense workout routine for the purposes of muscle building and gaining weight naturally know that’s not the case. It takes a lot more muscle pumping than that to build a truly muscular physique with low levels of body fat.

However, even that minimum amount of weight training is at least something. Sadly, according to the World Health Organization, 60 percent of the world’s population doesn’t even workout the minimum recommendation of 30 minutes of daily moderate-intensity physical activity. This so-called “physical activity” doesn’t even include working out with weights. This could even refer to jogging, a brisk walk, and other activities….yet most people don’t even get that. Wow!

Muscle building routines designed to help you gain weight fast in the form of lean tissue gains are a form of “physical activity” that must be done on a regular basis for the skinny individual looking to build muscle mass without the use of steroids or dietary supplements.

Muscle soreness after an intense workout training session is pretty much a fact of life for anyone trying to gain weight by building muscle mass naturally. Well, according to Muscle and Fitness, there are ways to train to help alleviate or almost eliminate this.

According to the magazine, researchers at the University of California at Santa Cruz had athletes perform a nine week full body workout. The magazine says, “The control group performed each set and sat down to rest between sets. The cardioacceleration group first performed a twenty minute warm up to get their heart rates up to about 60 - 85 percent of their max heart rates in the target range. Researchers found that the cardioacceleration group experienced less muscle soreness in all muscle groups trained and DOMS was eliminated by the fourth week. The control group continued to experience muscle soreness”.

A lot of this has to do with the fact that when you maintain your heart rate high throughout an entire workout you’ll improve your metabolism and your body’s ability to remove toxins and bring fresh and much needed nutrients to the hard working muscle groups.

So if your involved in a workout program designed for muscle building and weight gain keep that heart pumping, not just your pecs!

Clenbuterol, also known as “clen”, is a heavily looked for, heavily used prescription drug that, although intended to treat asthma, is used in the bodybuilding world, both competitively and non-competitively, to was is believed as muscle building and fast fat burning. Jeff Everson, in a recent column in Planet Muscle magazine, answered a reader’s concerning the use of clenbuterol as a performance and physique enhancer. His reply is very revealing about this highly used, yet in an ignorant fashion, ergogenic aid.

In the column, in part, he writes, “Animal researchers years ago showed that clenbuterol had the rather odd action of working as a calorie nutrient-partitioning agent — in pigs! Without exercising activity, clen shifted calorie intake into more (preferential) muscle tissue, versus fat, in porcine and other livestock. But those of you raised on farms know that pigs grow huge muscle mass on corn, curds, whey and well…slop. Humans are not farm animals”.

Thank you Jeff Everson for telling like it is, and not simply being a “monkey see, monkey do” type of writer and bodybuilder. It’s amazing how because a handful of individuals took the results from some animal study, which in this case would really have no relevance to humans, ran with it, went above and beyond the truth, and recommended it as a huge weapon in holding on to hard earned muscle you’ve built through the use of weights on intense workout routines, while burning body fat fast…..and from there most bodybuilders followed along and used it without any further thought.

This quote is an excellent quote in which I agree with completely.

Probably the most popular workout drink out on the market, Red Bull has been hyped up as an excellent energy drink for those looking to increase power, strength, muscle building, and weight gain. Well, not only does it not contain enough of the main energy boosting ingredient, but there’s even a Canadian study that shows it.

Read my latest article to find out the truth about Red Bull:
Red Bull Doesn’t Boost Workout Energy

If you are hitting the weights hard and are working out intensely, then you should be experiencing sore muscles now and then, not that it’s needed on a daily basis to stimulate muscle building and weight gain. Well, unless you enjoy pain during every waking moment, soreness can really be a pain…..no pun intended.

Other than quickly reaching for you bottle of aspirin or Advil, two things you can do to help relieve some of that muscular soreness is:

1) Weight training (the blood flow the brain signals to the working muscles helps take in nutrients, such as vitamins, minerals, calories, hormones, etc., but also takes away or removes toxins).

2) Drink caffeine (some studies claim that it can reduce pain by up to half).

Again, you have to be training hard enough to every now and then induce soreness within the muscle, not to be confused the pain that comes from an actual injury. All of these things will make your muscle building and weight gaining experience much more pleasant.

With core training being the latest and greatest fad term out there now in articles, workout programs, and infomercials, new studies that are published are looked at as being the standard in how to implement workout programs that allegedly will give you that tight midsection. This includes to types of exercises, how often, etc. Well, there are many times factors that are looked over in many of these studies, yet the average reader doesn’t pick up on that and is then mislead. Then, 6 months or a year down the line they wonder why they aren’t seeing any results for all of their effort.

Read the latest article concerning this:
Study On Core Muscle Activity Lacking

In MuscleMag International, they report on how the Journal of Orthopaedic and Sports Physical Therapy says that massages immediately after exercise increases blood flow to the skin but not the muscles. This could be because blood flow to the muscles remains maximally elevated right after a workout routine and doesn’t allow room for a massage-induced increase in blood flow.

They suggest to wait at least 2 hours after you’ve finished your muscle building workout program before laying onto the massage table to have your knots flattened out to help speed up the recovery, repair, and growth process of gaining muscular weight.

Getting a regular massage will help you out in this area and will reduce your need to rely off of pain medications to deal with the soreness and stiffness that can result from intense weight training.

You may think that intense weight training only works the muscles and other systems, such as the cardiovascular. However, there’s something else that derives great benefit as well…..your brain.

MuscleMag reports on a study from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign found that regular workout routines will protect the brain and keep it young. The author’s wrote, “Physical and aerobic training can lower your risk of developing some undesirable age-related changes in cognitive and brain function and also help the brain maintain its ability to recover one function if another starts failing later in life”.

The intense focus and concentration that’s required to perform your workout program properly to stimulate muscle building and weight gain no doubts keeps the cob webs out of your brain as long as you continue to train.

Oh yeah, all you’re doing when you’re drinking those vitamin enriched beverages is creating expensive urine, because you aren’t getting any benefits to your workout routine by ingesting them. Companies would like you to believe that they’ll help, but they won’t. Read my latest article concerning this….your muscle mass and your wallet will thank you for it.

Supplement Ripoff: Vitamin-Enriched Drinks

Some people swear by pain medications to help relieve the muscular soreness that can come about as a result of intense, muscle building workouts.  Well, the mere expectation of relief causes our body to release numbing agents called opioids.  If you want the same relief from generic pain medication as you expect from a name brand like Tylenol or Advil, check out the active ingredient on the label……..they’re exactly the same.  So, no need to be wasting money on meds that are named brand since you’re getting the same thing.

Medical studies can help provide certain clues into many things, such as health issues that can directly affect positively or negatively our muscle building and weight gain efforts.  Case in point is a study in which 192 people with moderately high LDL cholesterol levels both raw garlic and garlic pills every day for 6 months, although their LDL cholesterol levels didn’t change.

Bravo to this study because it’s one of the few that actually demonstrates the worthless-ness of most nutritional and dietary supplements out on the market.  So many people these days want to fix everything with a pill instead of looking at their lifestyle…….including goals such as wanting to build more muscle and gain weight.

A recent study that was done by Cornell University revealed that the overweight individuals they surveyed didn’t stop eating until the plate was empty.  You may feel that eating like animal to gain muscular weight and build muscle may be the way to go.  Yes, you do need to eat a lot, but not everyday and to a certain extent, and under certain conditions and guidelines.  Not just for the sake of it.

According to Brian Wansink focusing on the food left on your plate and not what’s in your stomach influences you to keep eating…..which instead of muscle building can lead to a lot of fat building!

A very revealing study demonstrated that even on a diet as low as 800 calories per day you can hold onto your muscle building efforts……but you’ve gotta hit the weights just as hard! Performing aerobics to get you cut is one of the worst things you could do to yourself. Read the latest workout article to find out more:

Muscle Building Workouts Preserve Muscle On Low Calories

You need to get away from the flat barbell bench press if you are seeking more muscle building in the chest area. Read my latest article to read why dumbbells are superior:

Dumbbell Presses Build More Pec Muscles

Incredible how everyone takes a particular study done on some type of diet (usually some form of a low carb / ketogenic diet) and will completely miss the boat on how to interpret it. Check out the latest article to see what I mean:

Low Carbs Are Not A Magic Wand

As this month’s M&F reports, MRSA (the Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus outbreak) is a staph bacteria that has been infecting athletes and muscle-builders alike. Because of the sharing of gym equipment, spreading and contracting of this outbreak can actually be pretty easy to get….unless you take the obvious precautions. No, don’t avoid going to the local gym or recreational center if it’s going to mean you miss out on your all-important muscle building workouts. Do what you should be doing anyway to avoid germs and bacteria, constantly keep your hands clean, avoid touching anything you don’t need to touch, and keep a hand sanitizer near by at all times.

When it comes to trying to burn fat so that you can reveal all of the muscle you’ve built, one of the many things that so called experts recommend is to stick to the “browns” and to avoid the “whites” when it comes to nutrition. “Brown” referring to brown sugar, brown rice, etc. And, of course, “white” referring to white sugar, white rice, etc.

Well, Becky Holman reports in IronMan that brown sugar is not more healthful that white sugar. Your body processes both the same way. Molasses makes brown sugar brown, but the calories and carbs are the same.

I love this observation by Becky because it just goes to show even further just how ridiculous diet experts have gotten in what they suggest to eat and what to avoid. Like I’ve said a million times, whether you are trying to build muscle or to burn body fat it will always, at the end of the day, come down to straight up calories, regardless of the color of the food!!!!

Muscular Development cites a study down in the Journal Applied Physiology that explains why a lot of us lose a lot of performance in the gym when engaging in muscle building workouts when we begin to get real “hot under the collar”.

Lars Nybo from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark concluded that excessive increases in body temperature from working out intensely in the heat causes fatigue. Metabolism during exercise works by taking energy from food and converting it to energy the cells use to contract muscles, send signals, control fluids, and build muscle tissue, amongst others. However, the metabolism becomes inefficient as temperature increases, so the body attempts to cool itself by diverting blood to the skin and sweating. Unfortunately, the magazine goes on to report, this blood is no longer available to deliver oxygen to the exercising muscles, which results in fatigue.

High temperatures over longer periods in the brain disturb the capacity to contract muscles…..al which affect muscle building.

A ton of money is spent annually on the dietary supplement DHEA by individuals, especially older ones, looking to up their natural testosterone levels. But there’s a recent study that may prove different:

DHEA Found Not To Build Muscle

That’s right, even though everyone seems to make isolation exercises the “red-headed stepchild” in the muscle building / weight gain process, they build just as much muscle mass as any compound bodybuilding movement.

Don’t take my word for it: Here’s a quote from Markus Ruhl, one of the biggest IFBB professional bodybuilders ever, from a Flex interview: “The biggest mistake I see people make in chest training is assuming that flyes and cable crossovers are for definition and not mass building. Definition comes from diet and cardio; weight training is to gain mass. I never do an exercise that does not build mass, and that includes flyes and crossovers. I do them with full power….”

Markus, you have just made one of the most intelligent observations I’ve read a bodybuilder make. How refreshing!

Fiber is one of those substances that, although it doesn’t provide weight gaining or muscle building calories, does have an impact on your digestive, which, as I’m sure you know, has to process any food you eat to build your body. Well, two cups of beans 26 grams of fiber, which is exactly what most people recommend everyone should be consuming daily.

Knee wraps are one of the things that many weight lifters include in their gym when off to a weight gaining / muscle building workout. However, wraps can actually increase the chances of you causing some problems, as you can find out in the latest article:

Gain Weight - Problem With Knee Wraps

Especially in freezing environments, hot cocoa is a very popular drink. Well, not only does it tastes great (if you don’t burn off your taste buds, tongue, or roof of your mouth from the lava-like temperatures), but it also is good for gaining weight and building lean muscle. Hot cocoa is full of anti-oxidants, over 500 mgs worth.

Just so you can appreciate how many mgs that actually is, green tea, which now-a-days everyone seems to be praising the skies out of, only has about 50 mgs. Red wine only has about 160 mgs (unless, of course, you’re one of those that can’t seem to stop drinking after the first glass…..lol).

CLA is one the more popular supplements out on the scene that claims to keep body fat levels low while you gain weight and build muscle. Well, read my latest article, Gain Weight Supplement - CLA May Not Be Worth It to read about a study conducted in Norway that shows other wise.