Perhaps you have been through this type of thing before where by you have decided to improve your health and fitness and in the beginning you felt really motivated. Maybe you watched an inspiring film that prompted you to take action, perhaps a friend of yours you hadn’t seen for a while turned up having lost a lot of weight or having gained significant muscle mass or perhaps you were just fed up of feeling lethargic and unfit. Whatever the reason you started exercising and continued to do so for a few weeks.

However after a while your motivation decreased, you got busy at work, you got tired of making the effort or the results weren’t as good as you’d hoped for and you unconsciously quit your healthy exercise lifestyle. If that all sounds familiar then here are a few easy ways to help regain and sustain your motivation for a healthier lifestyle: 

Try setting an enjoyable goal. For example,what about planning out a mountain biking/kayaking/hiking holiday in an exotic tough part of the world such as the Himalayas,The Alps or The Candadian Rockies. With this trip in mind you really have a goal to aim for. You will need to be in good physical health in order to enjoy your trip to the fullest. If your trip is in 5 montsh time then you can plan a realistic schedule with your fitness goals in mind.

Optin to take part in a local area event. I bet there are plenty of local events that you can get involved with simply have a look on line. Target one of these events as a goal to aim for. Inform a close friend of yours about your future intentions so they can act as a buddy and provide encouragement to you and come to support you on the day. 

Take up a sport or hobby, this doesn’t have to be an ultra serious thing just a light hearted game of soccer or hockey at the weekends but it gives you an easy and enjoyable way to monitor your fitness levels. The first few sessions you will feel the strain but over the course of a few weeks you will get noticeably better.

Visualise. Although this may sound a little strange at first, find a piece of time every day to see in your imagination precisely what you want to do, be and look like. Carrying this out trigger powerful signals to be sent to your sub conscious mind that are about your everyday decisions and day to day actions. Continue to do this and your behaviour will begin to modify itself naturally to lead you towards your goals. This technique is proven to work and used by many top athletes.

Involve family, friends and even your pet dog. The more that you get involved the less likely you are to throw the towel in and quit. You are far less likely to be lazy and stay at home if your friends are calling and texting you to get you to join them.

Learn more. Be curious find out about building lean muscle mass, find out how to get a 6 pack, find out how to shed pounds, find out what muscle building nutrition you need for lean muscle building and so on. By growing your knowledge you are quite probably going to improve the speed of your fitness improvement which in turn will serve to enhance your motivation.

Make sure that you do not make comparisons of yourself with others. I don’t care who exactly you are there is aways going to be people fitter, sexier, more muscular or whatever than you are. Acknowledge this fact and realise that we all travel through this life process each from our own different perspectives. Only make comparisons with your self and your own progress by taking measurements such as bodyfat percentage but the most important thing is that you feel good about what your doing and yourself this is a much better indicator of your improvement in health.

So, with those tips in mind go hit the gym and do whatever it is that you enjoy doing to keep fit, build lean muscle mass or whatever else you want to do, you can do it, just keep it fun.

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We hear loads of advice and guidance on what to do to build up muscle but much of it is conflicting. For that reason we are going to clear up a few things right now about what not to do to build up muscles. Here we go, 7 things not to do when trying to build muscle up:

1) Train for more than 45 minutes. training longer than this can actually inhibit muscle gains because at this point a hormone is produced that limits the muscle building process, train for less than 45 minutes and the hormones level is about correct for building muscle.

2) Eat lots of everything. Often you hear people say to eat as much of everything as you possibly can. Well sure we need excess calories to build muscle mass but do you really think that stuffing yourself full of E numbers, simple carbs (sugars), fatty red meats, fast food and so on is going to benefit you long term. Of course not, stick to sensible nutritious foods and you will put on lean muscle mass and save your body from long term health problems too.

3) Do not do lots of isolation exercises. That refers to exercises such as tricep presses that place focus on one individual muscle alone. This is not a very efficient use of either your energy or time. Exercise using multi joint exercises such as squats, pull ups,presses and so on. Muscle growth is triggered in more than just one muscle at a time.

4) Ignoring cardio-vascular fitness. I’m sure you have heard that you should avoid aerobic stuff as it uses up valuable calories that could be used for burning muscle. yes this is correct but come on there is a sensible balance to be had. Sure get big but do you want to be huge and not be able to walk up a few flights of stairs without panting. In order to preserve long term health then do aerobic exercise 2-3 times a week and simply make up for this by eating more.

5) Change exercises a lot. You may know that variety ensures muscles keep growing, that is correct but naturally at the same time not letting your muscles establish an exercise rhythm can also limit your progress that you might otherwise make. Stick with an exercise for a couple of months before dropping it.

6) Over train. Over training is probably the biggest cause for lack of progress. One to two workouts a week for each muscle group should sufficient fro most people.

7) Give up. Too many people give up when their muscle growth slows down. This is the exact time when you should be rising to the challenge and training with more intensity, paying attention to muscle building nutrition and showing determination.

Go get em!

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Just as a tree cannot grow with out sufficient water, sunlight and soil no matter what else you give it, to build up muscle your body also has several things that you absolutely must provide it with in order to grow. No amount of fancy exercise equipment, supplement or outfit will allow you to grow muscle if you do not take the following essential steps:

1) Eat big. Some people never really grasp this concept! If you desire more muscle then you have to give your body something to built it out of, like more calories. If you are not taking on extra calories then your body has nothing to build up muscleswith. Buying a large set of plates and dishes is one good way to ensure you never forget to eat a lot. In this manner you constantly remind yourself each meal of your need for calories for muscle growth. Five or six meals a day will allow you to easily consume lots of calories for muscle growth.

2) Workout intensely. If you are not pushing yourself in the gym then your muscles have no reason to grow. Give your muscle a reason to grow by working out hard for no longer than 45 minutes. Stick to the time proven mass building exercises like: bench presses, deadlifts, shoulder presses, squats,. These stimulate more muscle growth than many others.

3) Do not forget to drink water. Just as your body needs excess calories to grow you r body also requires water for all of the muscle building reactions to take place. Training of course will also increase your fluid intake needs. Carry a bottle of water with you everywhere you go.

And of course just as you cannot expect a plant to grow if you throw harmful substances and so on on it there are several things you absolutely must not do in order to build up muscles

1) Do not over-train. You are more likely to decrease your strength then increase it if you train too much. Why? Following an intense training session your muscles are actually broken down by micro-tears. It then builds itself back up bigger and stronger than previously over the next few days. You will always be unable to grow if you do not allow you muscle sufficient time to recover. Quality rest is essential. 

2) Do not stuff your body full of useless calories. Sure your body needs a lot of calories but it also needs then to be of decent quality in order to build up muscle. Food products such as these: eggs, fish, chicken, potatoes, leafy green vegetables, pasta, fruit, rice and so on should be a pretty average days food. For muscle building these are all awesome.

3) Don’t ever give up. The same thing does not work for everybody all the time. If progress is not apparent then mix things up and experiment with different exercises, a different diet in fact do anything you can but never ever give up. Stick to your goal and you will achieve it. do not forget to enjoy the process of growing and being healthy, don’t punish yourself for not turning into Arnie overnight it will take time, keep a training log to monitor your progress and for motivation.

So ask yourself honestly and sincerely if you really are adhering to these guidelines as best as you can. If you are not then if you really want to build muscle up then wouldn’t now be a good time to change?

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Here are a few quick tips to help you build muscle as fast a you possibly can. No messing around here seven top build muscles tips:

1) Eat frequently and often. For people new to weight training and bodybuilding you may have some problems actually eating enough calories to grow. To get past this problem you ought to consume 5-7 snacks and meals each day and eat double your usual portions.

2) Get heaps of rest. Your body’s muscles need plenty of time at rest if you want to increase their mass. They don’t grow in the gym. So just as you should workout to build muscle mass you should also rest a lot to get big.

3) Don’t train for longer than 45 minutes a time. Training for much longer than this causes the body to release a hormone that will prevent your body from building muscle mass. Finishing your workout after 30 to 45 minutes means that your body’s hormones are at an optimum level to support muscle growth.

4) Use a training log. tracking your progress provides information on what workouts work well for you. You can make use of them again at a later date. They also mean that you can have positive targets to aim at in each gym session this enhances your motivation and shows that you are making progress.

5) Use supplements to improve your overall diet. If you have enough money to spare then use the following supplements to boost your progress: essential fatty acids, multivitamins, whey protein and possibly creatine. If you do not have money for this do not fear, you can make fantastic progress with correct muscle building nutrition.

6) Workout with intensity and determination. Maintain intensity in your workouts by using techniques like: negatives, super sets, giant sets and drop sets.

7) Do not give up…ever! You are in this for the long haul. Remember that the journey is half of the fun so enjoy your journey towards your bodybuilding goals. So with those brutally effective building muscle tips in mind go out and get huge.

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Stressing your muscles in different ways is one of the keys to continuous and uninterrupted growth to build muscles mass. If you do the same workout over and over again your muscles become used to the stress and gradually the workout will become less and less effective at stimulating muscle growth. Luckily there are a number of strategies that can be used in order to introduce variety to build your muscles mass and ensure your muscle start growing again.

1) The progressive overload principle. Well really you should be doing this as a matter of course. You can simply keep increasing the poundage each workout or keep increasing the number of reps you do. A combination of the two is fine also

2) Giant sets. This method is performed by doing one set of an exercise and the following this up with another exercise that hits that same muscle group. For example, squats followed immediately by leg extensions. You can then rest one to three minutes between sets and do it again.

3) A superset is where you do one regular set immediately followed by an exercise for the opposing muscle group. An awesome pump is often generated after doing these sets. Such as, rows after bench presses, tricep pushdowns followed by bicep curls.

4) Reps that are forced. On a regular set, instead of failing on the last rep you basically get a friend to asisst you in completing the final rep and then to help you in doing a further 2 or 3 reps. The aid ough to be very minimal and only just enough to allow you to finish the repetitions.

5) Negatives. This is when a regular set is completed to failure and then a friend assists you in doing more reps but they don’t help you lower it, you have to do this yourself.

6) Drop sets. Do a regular set until failure, lower the amount on the bar and do a few more repetitions, decrease the amount of weight lifted once more and continue doing more reps and keep doing this. This is a very intense technique that creates a real burn and can help build muscle mass a great deal.

This is just a start on the different varieties of exercise that can be done to build muscles mass but be warned these can leave you feeling quite sore for the next few days so always ensure that you allow sufficient rest between exercises.

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When  a personal trainer first asks a new gym attendee what their goals are, they most often hear replies such as: “Build muscle lose fat”,  “build muscle then lose“, “burn fat build muscle”, ”build muscle and burn fat”. So, it would seem to be that nearly all people would prefer to get bigger muscle s and also simultaneously reduce their percentage body fat. In the next few paragraphs I discuss if it is really possible to do this or is it something that only professional bodybuilders and marketing companies believe is possible?

Is it actually feasible to build muscle mass and lose fat tissue at the same time?

The short answer is ‘yes’ however not without a great deal of difficulty, calculating calories and discipline but it can be done! To build muscle mass you have to eat more calories than you use up throughout each day leaving a decent amount left to build muscle but not so many that they get stored as fat tissue. Without excess calories you will not build muscle, with too many excess calories you may build muscle but also add some extra body fat as you do so. The key here is not too eat so many calories that you put on fat but too eat just enough so that you build muscle mass. There are

If you wish to avoid adding fat at the same time as building muscle then you really have to work out your exact calorie requirements and then stick to them. to work out your calorie requirements then use the following simple equation that provides an approximate answer:

Find out your body weight and you percentage body fat e.g. 200 pounds with 10% body fat.

Workout your body’s lean mass.g. 200 pounds minus your 10% body fat equals 190.

Take your lean body mass and multiply it by 19 e.g. 190 multiplied by 19 equals = 3610

This is then the amount of calories you approximately need to eat to gain muscle mass provided you are doing effective workouts too. However this is just a rough figure but if you consumed 500-1000 more you would maximise your muscle growth but probably pile on some body fat too. this number of course is only an approximate figure and it would be difficult to track the number of calories you consume in a day anyway.

So I am guessing you are not overly excited at the prospect of the above methods, if so what are the alternatives available to you. Well the two step option is the most highly recommended and it is what most bodybuilders do. First you build muscle then you lose weight. This is also known as going through a bulking up phase and then going through a cutting phase. This is much easier as in the first phase you simply need to eat a lot and often. Therefore all you need to do really is to take on board more calories than the above total. This phase would usually last for 3-6 months after which you will likely have put on a good few kilograms in solid muscle and also a few kilos in body fat too. Now you start to eat less calories and increase the cardio-vascular sessions so that you work off more calories per day than you take on.

Maintaining your muscle mass and burning off excess calories will thus be the main focus of the newxt few months. So in effect looking at the results over a year you will have built muscle and burnt fat but you will have done it in two separate stages and not at the same time. The final long term outcome is the same only you will have gotten there in two seperate distinct steps.

So if you do wish to build muscle and burn fat I highly recommend that you build muscle then lose fat in two separate stages. Expert author Tom Venuto has the entire process and more broken down into simple steps for you, read the ‘Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle E-book’ Review here for more information on how to build muscle then lose fat.

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