How Much Protein You Need and

Pro Bodybuilders eat about one gram (sometimes even 1.5 grams) of protein per pound of body weight or per pound of non-fat tissue. I'm sure you've seen that the recommended dail

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Monday, December 7, 2015

Top 7 Chest Exercises to Build Muscle

The only way to make small chest look bigger is to perform “Chest exercises” on regular basis. Before going any further it is very important for you to learn the basic principals and fundamentals of burning fat and gaining muscle. Building chest has always been termed difficult. The reason chest appears to grow slow is due to its size. Chest is a major muscle with lots of fibers. Get started and develop toned, rock hard pecks with some of the most effective “Chest exercises” given below. This is a totally natural program that is hitting the bodybuilding world by storm, so prepare for amazing muscle growth guaranteed and in super quick time.

Basically, in order to have a total chest development you need to do 2 kinds of movements- Press and Fly’s.

(1) Incline Bench Dumbbell or Barbell Press For Upper Chest:
 Chest Exercises


Lie on an incline bench, the angle of which should be around 30 degrees and no greater or else the workload is shifted to the shoulders and off the chest. Select a pair of moderately heavy dumbbells. Grab each dumbbell using a regular grip instead of a grip where your palms face inward. Position yourself and have your spotter hand you two dumbbells, one for each hand. Press the dumbbells upward in an explosive fashion. Conversely, return to the start position in a slow and controlled fashion. Repeat the movements by increasing weights, for as long as you can until failure.

(2) Flat Bench Dumbbell or Barbell Press for Middle Chest:
 Chest Exercises


Lie flat on the bench. For balance and power keep your head, shoulders in contact with the bench at all times and your feet spread out flat on the floor. Have your spotter hand you each dumbbell and without bouncing, smoothly reverse direction and forcefully press to full arm extension directly above your chest and vice versa. Repeat until failure.


(3) ” Chest exercises”- Dips For Middle Chest:
 Chest Exercises


Find a set of dip bars and position yourself on them with your knees bend and your lower legs crossed. Slowly lower your torso down to where your chest nearly touches the front of the dip bar and then return to the start position and repeat until failure.

(4) Wide Grip Decline Barbell Bench Press for Lower Chest:
 Chest Exercises


Position yourself on a free weight decline bench press machine and grab the barbell above you with a grip that is as wide apart as possible. Lift the barbell off of the rack and slowly lower it to your chest and then press the bar back to the start position in an explosive fashion. Repeat until failure. Because of the angle of this “chest exercise” touching the bar to your chest is fine.

(5) Smith Machine Incline bench Press for Upper Chest:
 Chest Exercises


This ‘Chest exercise” is very similar to the regular barbell incline bench press. The only difference is that a smith machine acts as a spotter to you. Place a free standing incline bench under a smith machine. Lie flat on your back and grab the barbell above you with a grip slightly beyond shoulder width apart. Lift the barbell and slowly lower it to about 3 inches above your clavicle and then press the bar back to the start position. Do not touch the bar to your upper chest.

(6) Flat Bench Cable Flyers for Middle Chest
 Chest Exercises

Place a free standing flat bench in between a cable pulley machine that has pulleys on two sides. Position yourself on the flat bench, flat on your back. Using a low pulley on each side, have your spotter hand you the one-hand attachment for each hand. When you begin this movement, you want your arms to be stretched out wide to your sides with your elbows slightly bent and your palms facing inward, toward one another. When you lift the pulleys, visualize hugging a giant tree trunk. At the peak of the movement, really squeeze your pecks together for a one-count.

(7) Free Motion Cable Crossovers For Middle Chest:
 Chest Exercises


Using the free motion machine, securely hold both handles and positions you in a balanced stance. While keeping a slight bend in your elbows, slowly bring the cables out in front of you while keeping the tension entirely on your chest muscles. Squeeze your chest at the peak position and let the weight back up slowly to the starting position.

The secret to a more sculpted physique is to combine chest building weight moves with fat burning cardio. The suggested “Chest exercises” will firm up flabby muscles, while cardio exercise burns fat from all over the body, including your chest and torso. Choose a weight that is heavy enough to challenge your target muscles, but not so heavy that your joints feel strained. Perform these suggested “Chest exercises” 2-3 times a week, with a rest day in between.

Saturday, December 5, 2015

5 REASONS DEADLIFTS ARE GREAT FOR HARDGAINER BODYBUILDERS

Deadlifts are a very important exercise. Some people are scared to do them because they fear injury. If deadlifts are done correctly, assuming you have no underlying medical issues, they are perfectly fine to do. One word of warning first though – make sure you are doing them correctly. Have a search on Youtube for some instruction videos if you don’t have an experienced weight training buddy!

REASON #1: DEADLIFTS ARE HANDY ‘IN REAL LIFE’

Once you start deadlifting you will start to notice that whenever you lift anything heavy it is similar to doing a deadlift. You may have found lifting large objects hard before. Once you get your weight up in deadlifts, anything large and heavy that you move outside of the gym will be easy and feel natural.

REASON #2: DEADLIFTS CAN BE DONE BY YOURSELF

Bench press, squats and many other compound exercises are not really safe without a spotter. Deadlifts are though – if anything goes wrong you can just release your grip and let bar fall.

REASON #3: DEADLIFTS USE MORE MUSCLE GROUPS THAN ANY OTHER EXERCISE

Deadlifts work a whole chain of muscle groups, all in a simple action.
  • Quads
  • Glutes
  • Hamstrings
  • Lower Back
  • Middle + Upper Traps
  • Abs
  • Lats
  • Calves

REASON #4: INCREASED GRIP STRENGTH

When you do a Deadlift, your hands must grip and hold onto a large amount of weight. With squats your hands are there to make sure the bar doesn’t fall. With bench press and shoulder press there isn’t an awful lot of grip strength involved (when compared to deadlifts). All that weight held tight in your hands means your grip strength will go through the roof.

REASON #5: OVERALL MUSCLE INCREASE!

The main and major reason that deadlifts will help hardgaining bodybuilders is that it really helps build up muscle!

5 IMPORTANT VITAMINS FOR BODYBUILDERS

Most bodybuilders only care about the amount of protein they are getting. Some that take it a bit more seriously count the amount of fats and carbs too. But a surprisingly small number ensure they get the right vitamins, and from the correct sources. There are loads of important vitamins that are needed for a well rounded diet, but today I am going to focus on five of them.
5 IMPORTANT VITAMINS FOR BODYBUILDERS

1: VITAMIN A

Although it is often well known for being good for your vision, Vitamin A is important for muscle growth, as it helps with the synthesis of protein. Any bodybuilder knows that this is important – after all, muscle is what it is all about. It also helps with the production of Glycogen, which is how the body stores energy.
It also helps protect you from infection as boots your immunity.

SOURCES OF VITAMIN A:

  • Carrots
  • Butter
  • Liver
  • Eggs

2: VITAMIN B1 (THIAMINE)

Thiamine is very important for bodybuilders because it helps with protein growth. Everytime you work out or exercise you need thiamine to help make hemoglobin. Hemoglobin is used to help transport oxygen to your muscles.

SOURCES OF THIAMINE (VITAMIN B1)

  • Chicken
  • Fish
  • Nuts
  • Bananas

3: VITAMIN B3 (NIACIN)

Niacin, or Vitamin B3 is very important for energy production. Sometimes bodybuilders use a type of Niacin called Nicotine Acid which makes veins more vascular.

SOURCES OF VITAMIN B3 (NIACIN)

  • Chicken
  • Nuts
  • Eggs

4: VITAMIN D

Vitamin D helps absorb calcium. Without the correct amount of calcium your body will not be able to do full contractions of your muscles. It also helps with the absorbsion of phosphorus, which is used to make ATP (which transports chemical energy within cells for metabolism).

SOURCES OF VITAMIN D

  • Whole Egg
  • Beef Liver
  • Cod Liver Oil
  • Tuna
  • Sardines

5: VITAMIN E

Like Vitamin A, it is a fat-soluble vitamin. It uses fats in order to be used, and it also means it can be stored in your fat cells.
Vitamin E is used in the protection of your cells. Vitamin E helps to protect the cell membranes (outer ‘skin’ of each cell). Because of this it leads to faster repairs and faster growth of muscle.

SOURCES OF VITAMIN E

Most Vit E sources are high in fat.
  • Vegetable Oils – e.g. sunflower oil
  • Almonds
  • Spinach

Friday, December 4, 2015

Friday Practical Pointers: Who Should Avoid Backbends?

by Baxter
Star Rosser, Age 52
Before I make recommendations on who should avoid or be cautious with back-bending the spine, I’d like to briefly discuss “spinal extension.” Spinal extension is the movement required for essential active backbends such as Cobra and Sphinx poses (Bhujangasana), Locust pose (Salabasana), Bridge pose (Setubandha Sarvangasana) and Warrior 1 pose (Virabradrasana 1), as well as all supported backbends. The areas of your spine that have the greatest ability to “extend” (go into a backbend) are, in descending order, the neck (cervical spine), the lower back (lumbar spine) and the rib cage spine area (thoracic spine).

Who should avoid back bending poses? Those with:
  • Lumbar facet arthritis.
  • Lumbar spondylolisthesis, a condition where the vertebrae bone above slides forward of the one below.
  • Chronic low back pain that worsens with backbends.
  • Anxiety that worsens with backbends.
  • Cervical arthritis (if you need to avoid taking your neck and head back)
  • Vertigo that is sensitive to extension of the neck
  • Osteoporosis. Avoid extreme backbends. 
  • Wedge fractures. Avoid all backbends, even shallow ones.
  • Abdominal hernias or diastasis recti (abdominal wall separation). 
  • Untreated hypertension (high blood pressure). Avoid longer holds of active backbends. Supported backbends (such as Bridge pose on a block) or restorative backbends are fine.
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Bodybuilding Nutrition

Nutrition is one of the biggest factors in gaining lean mucsle mass.Eating the right amount of clean calories is essential.To find out how many calories you need to eat each day without getting fat all you need to do is,multiply your bodyweight by fifteen.So if you weigh 100 pounds u need to eat 1500 calories.(i would add another couple of hundred to make sure).These need to be clean calories.That means no rubbish you won’t get the same good carbs from a bag of crisps that you would from a plate of pasta.I try to keep my calorie intake to a 30-50-20 ratio.That means protien 30% carbs50% and fat 20% and try to spread the calories over around 5 to 6 meals each day.I need to eat around 3500 calories each day and i know how hard it can be to fit all the meals in when you need them most.I am a full time  worker and a father of three so preparation is important.Make your meals before work or the night before.

Good scources of protien
  • chicken
  • lean red meat
  • eggs
  • fish
  • cottage cheese
  • whey
  • pork
Good sources of carbs
    bodybuilding Nutrition
  • brown rice
  • potatoes
  • wholewheat pasta
  • wholewheat bread
  • potatoes
  • oatmeal
  • beans
  • fruit
Good fats
  • olive oil
  • fish oils
  • flaxseed oil
  • avacado
  • nuts
  • peanut oil
  • sesame oil
PROTEIN

Protein is essential to bodybuilding when you work out you create micro tears in the muscle it’s the protein that mends these and makes the muscle bigger.there are 2 types of protein. Complete proteins which are mainly derived from animal sources such as meat,fish and eggs and incomplete proteins such as beans,rice and other vegetables.When we eat protein it is digested down into amino acids there are 20 different amino acids.Our bodys can make some of these amino acids and some it can’t.The ones it can’t are called essential amino acids and it is important that we get these from our diet.
bodybuilding Nutrition


CARBOHYDRATES

Carbohydrates are our bodys fuel the body burns carbs to give us energy.which in turn leaves the protein for growth.the simplest form of carbohydrates is sugar.The body breaks down carbohydrates into glucose which then fuels the body.There are 2 main types of carbohydrate. Complex carbohydrates which are mainly starchy foods like potatos and bread which need to be broken down and digested before they can be made into glucose.Simple carbohydrates are sugars found naturally in food and also sugars that are added to food these kind of sugars should be avoided as they don’t have a great nutritional value.

FATS

Fat is also essential to a healthy diet so long as you stick to unsaturated fats.Unsaturated come in three areas.Monounsaturated fats such as vegetable,olive and sunflower.Omega 6 polyunsaturated such as corn and soybean.Omega 3 polyunsaturated  such as flaxseed and fish.Even these fats should be kept to a carefuly planned diet.

Weight training for beginners

Weight training for beginners

One of the best things about weight training for beginners is that it’s one of the most challenging and satisfying times a new bodybuilder will encounter.Challenging because of all the new things they will need to learn to become a good bodybuilder,and satisfying because now is the time when you will be able to see and notice more the gains that they are making.
Weight training for beginners should not be a problem.Any decent gym will have instructors that are more than happy to show you the right techniques and how to lift the weights without injuring yourselfe in the process.This is very important because if you injure yourselfe on your first visit chances are you won’t have the confidence to go back.
Once you know how to lift the weight safely and have an understanding of how much weight you can handle you need to find a workout plan that suits you.Now as a beginner you need to really concentrate on gaining strenghth and size (bulking up)I would suggest that any weight training for beginners should involve a lot of core exercises.These exercises use a lot of muscles at the same time therefore giving your body good all over workout.
  • benchpress
  • deadlift
  • squats
  • pullups
  • pressups
  • rows
These are just a few exercise you should be adding to your weight training for beginners routine.When i first started lifting weights i was hitting the gym at least four times a week,two upper body and two lower body workouts a week.If i could make it to the gym for a fith day i would concentrate on core exercises only and after only a few weeks i was noticing really good gains.
While training, keep things to a high tempo,only wait around a minute between sets and try to get your whole workout done in an hour or less.Any more than an hour and our bodies start releasing a hormone that eats muscle.Remember to warm up before you start this will also prevent injury,5 to 10 minutes on the exrcise bike should do it plus 5 to 10 mins stretching.
Weight training for beginners

Weight training for beginners nutrition

Now you really need to get your head around  nutrition.None of this will do you any good at all if your diet is rubbish.All the rubbish that you used to eat needs to be replaced by good clean calories lot’s of fish,red meat,fruit and veg,brown pasta and rice,nuts,eggs,milk,potatoes.You need to be eating around five meals a day all good clean food.I know that sounds boring but it’s just the way it is and a small sacrifice for a great looking body.

weight training for beginners supplements

Now to the issue of supplements.If you are a beginner you shoudn’t really need to be spending money on an endless supply of different potions,you should be able to get great results with a good diet and exercise routine.If however your not.Don’t get sucked into buying every new wonder powder that comes on the market.Most of them are a load of overhyped rubbish and you don’t need them.The only supplements i would say you need as a beginner are these
Whey protien/milk and egg protien     Creatine     Multivitamins     Fish oil
These are the only ones as beginner that i would go near.Leave the rest for when you are a lot more advanced.Right just one more thing to remember when down the gym.Enjoy it cos in a couple of months your gonna look great.

Steroid dangers

In this article i am going to to talk about steroid dangers i’m going to look at steroid dangers and steroid benefits so that hopefully i can give you the best information i can without sounding like im just giving out a biased rant.And then if you are thinking about taking steroids you can make your own well informed descision.

What are steroids

To know about steroid dangers we need to know what steroids are. Anabolic steroids are a drug that mimic the use of testosterone in the body. They increase protein in muscle cells and bring on or enhance other masculine qualitys,such as vocal cords and hair growth.Steroids were invented in the 1930′s and were used by the medical proffession to treat a number of illnesses such as delayed puberty and wasting diseases.It was then discovered that it was making lab rats grow more muscle mass and has been reported that the nazis experemented on soldiers with steroids to make them stronger and more aggressive.This has never been proven though.After the war steroids were starting to appear in the world of sport as it was discovered they could improve an athletes preformance.Most notably in the 1956 olympics by some of the soviet athletes.IN 1975 the olympic committee banned the use of anabolic steroids.There are over 100 different types of steroid.

Steroid dangers in men

  • baldness
  • shrinking testicles
  • man boobs
  • infertility
  • prostate growth

Steroid dangers in women

  • decreased size in breasts
  • hair growth
  • deepened voice
  • irregular periods
  • enlarged clitoris

Steroid dangers in general

Here we look at steroid dangers that can effect men an women.One of these being the phsycological effect steroids have.The most common or well known being roid rage or increased aggressiveness that can lead to violence.Other phsycological effects such as reckless behaviour,phsycosis,restlesness,depression and phsycological addiction.Other steroid dangers are that it may weaken the heart.Now i have read quite a few articles on this one and all of them say that it may weaken the heart not that it does so the jury is still out on that one.Although the study that i just read did have a very strong argument to support the fact.Another big steroid danger is the effect they have on the kidneys steroids can seriously overwork the kidneys especially ones that are taken orally.In teenagers the steroids can cause the bones to fuse in effect stopping any growth at all.Which is worrying considering the amount of pumped up teenagers you see walking around these days.Also higher levels of bad cholesterol and lower levels of good cholesterol can be a problem.

The benefits of steroids

Steroids rapidly increase muscle strength.Gains in strenghth that would normally take months can be attained in a matter of weeks.which is why they are so popular with bodybuilders especially beginners who don’t want wait months to start seeing gains.
Lot’s of bodybuilders take steroids before competions so when they are depleting their bodies of fat and water they don’t lose their size and nuscle mass.
steroids give the ability to work out for longer and with more intensity and also allow you to recover quicker.Meaning more time and more trips to the gym without going into a negative nitrogen balance which is when you will lose muscle mass
So there you have it now it’s up to you to decide.For me it’s a no brainer i don’t want to spend the next ten years ranting and raving at family and friends and then die of a heart attack aged 43 just to get big quick.but i’ll let you decide.