Building Muscle – Nothing Gets Done Without Hard Work
How can you work on building muscle while increasing your overall strength and fitness? There has always been a great confusion when determining the right course of action when it comes to building muscle and keeping fat at bay. There are literally thousands of Web articles, magazine specials and books on the topic. There are dozens of local and international bodybuilding experts producing a stream of information on building muscle for anyone’s consumption. If you try to read every expert’s take on how to improve your bodybuilding efforts, you may still be reading after a few years. That’s how much information there is out there! The good news is that I’ve taken the liberty of crystallizing the most important principles of building lean muscle and condensed them so you can learn the basics fast.
The Foundations of Bodybuilding
Challenge Your Body – How can you make your workouts interesting and challenging enough to trigger a higher performance response from your body? The secret of continuous progress in bodybuilding is knowing how to challenge your body so that it doesn’t get bored with your workouts. Our bodies are extremely adaptable organic engines. Once you’ve reached your peak performance for a specific set of movements at fixed intensities, that is the time when your body begins to achieve equilibrium.
Why does equilibrium matter?
When your body attains equilibrium, it ceases to perform at its highest level and you may find it more difficult to cut fat and build mass in specific areas of your body. You can change this trend by progressively increasing the total weight or resistance you are using whenever you work out. When we lift weights at the gym, we are essentially introducing resistance to the equation. Our muscles fight against this resistance and when they do, muscle fibers contract and expand as they struggle to pull, push and lift the various resistances we use in our exercises.
How can you progressively increase the intensity of your workouts?
One of the best indicators of your strength is the number of repetitions you can manage when you lift a specific weight. For example, if you are currently lifting 100 pounds on the bench press and you can press 100 pounds 20-30 times easily, this probably means that your body has already adapted to this weight set and it’s no longer being challenged properly. In all honesty, you should not waist your time with a weight you can press more than 20 times in any exercise. So if you can pump out 20, add weight until you can barely complete the 20 reps. You need to increase the intensity of your weight lifting for building muscle!
How will I know if the weights are too heavy?
Lifting weights that are too heavy will most likely result in overworked muscles, muscle injuries or joint injuries. It is almost impossible to maintain good lifting form when the weight is too heavy which leads to injury. If you’re trying heavier weights for the first time, test your strength gently. If you cannot lift your dumbbells or barbells at least 5 times in a row, your weights are too heavy to start.
Good Routine For Packing On Muscle
Do 6 sets of each exercise using the following format – 12 reps, 10 reps, 8 reps, 6 reps, 4 reps, 2 reps. Add weight to each set. Your last rep should take 90% strength to finish. Rest one minute in-between sets.
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My only suggestion is doing regular exercise, doesn’t matter what kind you choose. Start small, do it everyday and increase gradually.
In excitement of muscle building, don’t strain your body with over weight. Instead of doing any good it can give you fatal injuries.
I had been doing same set of exercise for 15 days now but didn’t see any result. Now I know that I had to gradually push the limits, increase the weights. Thanks.
Thank you for pointing out the thing about equilibrium. I didn’t knew about that. It was good to know.
One important thing to understand on body building is that your body is not going to be muscular over night if you spend entire day for workout.
Its a gradual process. It takes time.
I completely agree with you when you said that we should waste time with a weight that we can press more than 20 times in any exercise.
Thank you for sharing this information. I always feel a bit more sleepy and lazy after I eat some heavy food. I didn’t know it had these scientific explanations.
A good routine is very much necessary to build your body right. Thank you for sharing the repetition format for good routine.
Lifting too heavy weights can do more bad than good. It is very important to know how much to lift or it can cause injuries. Newbies tend to do this mistake often.
Hello! This post couldn’t be written any better! Reading through this post reminds me of my old room mate!
He always kept chatting about this. I will forward this article to him.
Fairly certain he will have a good read. Many thanks for sharing!