Archive for the ‘Build Muscle’ Category
Some of my clients ask me what they need to do if they want to build muscle. Knowing their fitness goal of building muscle, there are a few answers to my response. First of all, I try to change their routine every 4-6 weeks. We still work the same body parts but with different exercises to cause the muscles to work in a different manner.
We’ll then increase the number of repetitions before we increase the weight, say from 10-12 repetitions. After they’ve successfully completed their increased reps, then we will increase the weight and drop the number of reps. We build muscle up as we gradually increase reps.
These are just a couple ways to build muscle! Remember ladies, you will not bulk up. Guys, get a spotter to help get those last few reps done. One other thing, be sure to allow for a full recovery between workout sessions.
The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) has recently studied body composition and strength changes in women with milk and resistance exercise. Another words, does drinking fat free milk help build muscle mass in women? It has already been proven that consuming fat free milk after a strength training workout in men, helps to build muscle and a loss of fat.
There was a 12 week study with young healthy women that compared drinking fat free milk after strength training to drinking a carbohydrate energy drink. The study proved that drinking 500 ml of fat free milk immediately after a workout, increased muscle mass, increased a greater loss of body fat & increased strength gains in younger women than those who drank the carbohydrate energy drink.
Resistance training is really the only way for women to improve physical and muscular strength, metabolic and bone health. Most women don’t consume enough dairy products because of their fat content. However, the benefits specifically after your weight training workout helps younger women. Be sure to drink fat free milk after your workout to help you build muscle!
Ok folks, have you stepped back and taken a look at your workout routine lately? I mean, examined your workouts for each muscle group from every aspect? If you want to build muscle or just strengthen your muscles, have you achieved your results?? Be honest with yourself.
If your answer is no, allow me to help. Last week we talked about Drop Sets. On my website www.Fitnessfromthepro.com the main page goes into detail about Progressive Overload. Today, I’m going to refer you onto slowing down your repetitions. Which means as you push/pull the weight make the movement slowly and deliberately. Do this both ways, including the “negative”. Control the movement!
Now that you are slowing down the movement you may have to decrease the amount of weight you are using. I know we never like to drop weight, but lift like this for a couple of weeks, and I promise you will see muscle gains.
Build muscle or strengthen them this process will help. Try it!
When you are doing any kind of strength training and your goal is to build muscle, the length of rest between sets is a very important variable. A variable that is not often addressed. That’s why I’m here to help guide you to get the maximum results out of your workouts!
The length of your rest between sets influences your energy recovery and training adaptations. To achieve the result of maximum muscle strength and mass, you will want to lift heavier weights and have longer rests between sets, say 2-3 minutes. If your goal is for muscular endurance, you should be lifting lighter weights and have shorter rest periods between sets, less than a minute. Resting time for beginners is about 1-2 minutes.
So when your buddy wants to talk in between sets, keep one eye on the clock! Tomorrow we’ll go over the speed of the lift, frequency training and Periodization so you can build muscle.
Lift Those Weights Ladies!
Many women shy away from weight training because they are worried building muscle will make them get bigger. This is a common misconception among women. Because of this myth some women choose to focus their exercising routines entirely on cardio-vascular activity. The truth is that gaining muscle will actually help women lose fat.
Imagine that fat is like cotton; it weighs little, yet takes up a lot of space. Muscle is more like brick, it feels heavy, but takes up less space. As you begin weight training you may notice you gain a couple of pounds before you lose any. All that really matters is that you’re losing inches. The more inches of fat you lose the better you’ll fit into your clothes. And, the bottom line is you must lift weights to build muscle.