Body Building Basics – Building a better body you can be proud of!

There are as many varied opinions on what “plan” one should follow to build muscle, as there are people who have those opinions. On one thing they do agree, however. You must have a regimen.

· You can begin by defining your objective. 
· Why are you interested in body building? 
· What do you hope to accomplish? 
· What is your ultimate goal?

It’s all about commitment and belief. There is an abundance of information about how to begin and conduct your journey, but without a burning desire to achieve, you are doomed to inevitable failure.

The following tips are not intended to be a “one size fits all.” Take from it what you will. In that light, consider the following list:

1. Before beginning any serious weight lifting or body building regimen, consult your physician.

2. Set your goals. Define what you expect to achieve with your new bodybuilding campaign within a realistic time frame. If you create goals that are unattainable you are setting yourself up for failure. You can become bored, disappointed and disillusioned to the point where you may give up. This is a very sad outcome to what might have been the best decision of your life. Don’t sell yourself short. Set your long-term goals, of course, but also set short-term goals that are achievable. And, don’t forget to reward yourself when you do achieve them.

3. Consider the costs.If you don’t already have a budget, create one. Then, determine what amount of discretionary funds you have available for your bodybuilding program. This will determine whether you can afford to have a home gym or if your needs would better be served by joining a club. Joining a club is still a good short-term introduction before spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on equipment that might not be appropriate for your needs.

4. Don’t forget some of the low cost alternatives to purchasing your bodybuilding equipment. If used equipment is still functional why spend the extra dollars just for a little glitz! Good, brand name used equipment is every bit as functional as something right off a showroom floor.

5. Consider combining a home gym along with a membership in a public facility. Purchase less expensive free weight equipment for use at home and join a gym to have access to the more expensive equipment. You can design your entire workout routines around a combination such as this.

6. Eat healthy! This can’t be stressed enough. The only true bodybuilding 

aids are good nutrition. Consult a licensed dietician. Watch your local community calendar for free seminars on diet and nutrition. Learn all you can about what nature freely provides that can help you to develop a healthy diet.

7. If you choose to use dietary supplements, make certain that you know what you are putting in your body. Follow the packaging guidelines we outlined above. Ask your physician for his/her recommendations based on the regimen you have selected. No friend, coach or acquaintance can take the place of your physician. In fact, you may even investigate finding a physician who specializes in sports wellness.

8. Be kind to yourself. Yes, it’s important to push to achieve your goals, but it’s very easy to tip the scales in the other direction and create a nightmare for yourself. Obsessive, compulsive behaviors are not conducive to a healthy bodybuilding lifestyle.

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Muscle Building – Staying Motivated

It’s been a little while since my last post, and things have been crazy!  I’ve been traveling a lot lately, and have to admit that I haven’t been able to focus as much attention on the site or my muscle building as I would like.  Now that things have settled down a bit, hopefully I’ll be able to focus on the site.  You may have noticed a few changes to the design of the site, which is an ever-evolving work of art and will continue to morph and change over time.

I wanted to use this opportunity to talk a little bit about staying motivated in your muscle building mission.

Everyone goes through times when they lose focus or motivation towards their muscle building goal (or any goal for that matter).  What separates the strong from the weak is the ability to both realize the lack of focus, as well as overcoming this hurdle and continuing on your path of greatness!

Sometimes a lack of motivation will be blatantly obvious, but there can be times where it may not be so obvious.  I tend to not notice my lack of motivation and focus when I become so busy and wrapped up in other things and projects.  My attention can very easily shift during these times, and it can often take a while until things slow down a bit and I can reevaluate my priorities and focus.

People may lose focus for only a couple days, which is great, while other people may lose focus for months (or even years).  It’s not necessarily important how long you’ve lost focus or motivation, but rather if you’re willing to pick things back up again or decide to throw in the towel.

It seems the longer you’re without focus or motivation, the more difficult it becomes to pick the pieces back up – and this is especially true in muscle building.  It’s important to look at your original goals you had set and determine if they’re still meaningful to you.  In muscle building goals, people will generally have the same goal or ideal body composition that they started with.  This is a great motivating factor to get you back on that horse, and back in the gym.

If you feel that you may have strayed from your original muscle building plan, I urge you to take a look at where you may have gone wrong and what kind of adjustments you can make to get back on track.  If you’ve been sticking to your guns and following a muscle building plan, I congratulate you and wish you continued success.

Stay motivated, Stay fit, and Stay on top of your game!

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5 tricks to keep motivated and not give up

Keeping motivated and not giving up when building muscle can be hard at times. Here are 5 tricks that will help you overcome some every day hurdles you may face.

1. Eat staple meals every day

Setting yourself a number of set meals that you eat every day or often will make life a lot easier. You will know the exact calories and protein. The meals will be easy to prepare and cook – you will become efficient at making them.

This is especially useful for times like in the morning or before bed, when you can’t be bothered to think of what to eat and how much. Having a set meal you always eat or few you can choose from will prevent you from skipping meals or eating the wrong foods.

2. Don’t fret over a missed workout

Ever missed a workout? Whatever the excuse – no time, work, no energy or just plain lazy – you must not let this one missed workout effect the rest of your training and eating.

Simple do the workout the next day. Depending on your workout routine this may affect your other training days, you must have some rest days, so just remove one of the rest days to make up for the missed workout.

Your body won’t care if the workout is a day late, it will probably be happy to have an extra day to recover. All your need to do is make sure you do it.

3. If you miss a meal, eat more at the next

When eating a lot of calories it is best to split your daily meals up into smaller more manageable meals. This means eating 5-6 meals a day, usually around every 3-4 hours.

If you miss a meal this gives you no reason to binge and give up on that days meals. Your muscle won’t suddenly start catabolizing itself. Your body can still maintain the muscle tissue until the next feeding.

All you need to do is make sure you are getting enough calories and protein overall. This can be accomplished by adding the missed calories to the next meal, spreading it over the next few meals or eating an extra meal at the end of the day (for example an extra protein shake).

4. Track and measure

Track the variables in your workouts and measure your results. You must track how much weight, which exercises, the reps, sets and resting times in your workouts. Knowing the previous workouts intensity will let you know what you need to do to beat it. This is vital for progression and therefore muscle growth – which will fuel your motivation.

Measure your results – weigh yourself and measure your main body parts every month. Take before and after pictures. The simple feeling of seeing and knowing you are packing on lean muscle mass every month will give all the motivation you need.

5. Progress

To build more muscle mass you must progress in your workouts in some way. The intensity must increase by either lifting more weight, more reps or decreasing the resting times.

It is best to aim to increase the reps or weight, however this can be hard to accomplish with each workout – there’s nothing worse than not being able to lift more than the previous workout.

Instead try keeping the weight and reps the same but decrease the resting time. You will have effectively increased the intensity and you should be able to complete the same amount of reps.

Then in the next workout you can bring the resting time back up and increase the weight or reps. This will ensure you progress with every workout and don’t lose motivation.

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