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The past few days I’ve been talking about changing up your workouts either by changing the exercise or completely using a different training style. These recommendations will assist you if you want to build lean muscle. Today, I have another suggestion for you, change the order of your exercises. That’s right, vary your exercises.
Generally, we suggest that you work your larger muscle groups first, legs, chest, back…etc. However, to build lean muscle, try working the smaller muscles first. For instance, triceps are the assisting muscle group when you are working on your chest. The idea here, would be to work the triceps and fatigue them. When you go ahead and work on the chest, the triceps will be fatigued and you will recruit more of the pectoral muscles to work harder when doing a bench press. Yeah, it will feel harder, but that is the point…build lean muscle!!
How about changing the exercise order by the progress made from your last workout session. Here’s an example, if you worked your back and got extra repetitions, or increased your weight, that would be a successful session. However, when working on the shoulders and there wasn’t any real progress made with an extra rep with the front or lateral raises, then work the shoulders ahead of back. Another words, work the least progressed muscle part first down and work down to the body part with the most progression.
I hope the suggestions made here today help with your goal to build lean muscle. Any time there is muscle confusion, that is a good thing for growth and results!
Ok you have reached a plateau and you are not seeing the results of lean muscle. In order to build lean muscle, your body has to fully recuperate after an intense weight lifting workout. The body has limited capacity to build lean muscle and it will not happen until the muscle has had time to recover. So allow yourself to take time off for a week or 3 every now and then.
If you are looking to build that lean muscle, don’t sabotage yourself with other heavy workouts. You should have brief high intensity weight training workouts specifically for muscle growth. Then sprinkle in low intensity fat burning sessions. You don’t want the body to have to recover from the cardio, then there’s no time for the muscle growth. So space out your high intensity workouts with lower intensity calorie burning workouts to allow for proper rest and recovery to build lean muscle.
There are times that you may reach a plateau in your workouts which can be very frustrating. One way to bust through that plateau and build lean muscle, is to change the tempo. Scientists have claimed that speed and time of a lift, lower, and time between reps, can enhance a muscle further. They give this “tempo” 3 numbers. The first number tells you how long you should pause between reps. The middle number represents how many seconds it takes to lift the weight. The last number can be an X which means you should perform that part of a lift fast!
For example, if you have a tempo of 411, it should take you four seconds in between reps. The middle number of 1, says it should take you 1 second to lift the weight. While the third number 1, says it should take 1 second to lower the weight.
While this may sound confusing and a little difficult, it actually ensures good form while executing a number of reps. This can assist you as you build lean muscle.
It seems that I am having a hard time trying to build lean muscle. I wonder if it is just the season. All I want to do is wrap a blanket around myself and read a book or watch TV. So, my New Year’s Resolution to myself is to build lean muscle. How am I going to motivate myself to do that?
Maybe I’ll buy some new workout clothes and put some serious rockin’ tunes on my MP3 player. I’ll have to stop eating so much and pick healthier choices. I love when it’s summer because there are so many fresh fruits available. If I want peaches, I’ll have to buy canned peaches.
I’ll need some serious mind power to get me back on track. I want to look more toned and lose the extra pounds from Christmas. From now on, there will be no more cookies or candy for me. I am going to be a mean lean wrecking machine and build lean muscle in 2010!!!
P.S. I’m only 4’11″.