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Muscle Building Basics - 4 Steps to Growth

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Published: 05Jun2007
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If you want to build serious muscle you need to learn the basics and apply them. The bodybuilding and fitness industry has become overpopulated with websites marketing everything from expensive supplements to weekend certificate "experts" pushing the latest fitness hype.

How do you know what to truly believe in the fitness community when such a vast array of conflicting information exists?

Isn't it time you learned the muscle building facts and avoid the common pitfalls? In this article you will learn just that, the simple muscle building basics, guaranteed to catapult your muscle gains! Let's get started...

Are you making progress in the gym?

Has your strength stalled?

Has your muscle gains plateaued?

Are you tired of putting forth 100% effort in your training program, only to be stuck at a complete standstill?

If you are frustrated with your lack of energy, strength, and development you could be overlooking some simple and basic steps.

Mind you, these are steps you may already know, but when you get caught up in your training and nutrition, it's easy to lose sight of the basics that produce results.

So, let's take a step back and rebuild your training program so it's effective.

Refrain from Overtraining – Sure, as a fitness person or bodybuilder you have heard this term time and time again. In fact, you have heard it so much that you know you are not a candidate of overtraining.

Overtraining is simply lacking necessary rest between workouts. Why is resting between workouts important? The body rebuilds and grows when it's allowed to rest. If you fail to receive sufficient rest between workouts, your muscles cannot rebuild into a stronger and denser unit.

If you have been hitting the iron 5-6 days a week, cutting your training down to 3-4 days a week may be just the recipe your body needs to overcome your plateau and start growing.

Keep it Basic - Muscle growth is a result of force against weight. This simply means that high repetitions with light to moderate weight results in muscle endurance while employing low repetitions with heavy weight results in muscle growth.

Hypertrophy occurs when a muscle uses its maximum amount of power to conquer a greater resistance.

To put it simply, maximum overload results in muscle growth.

Add Variety – Your body can adapt to general heavy weight with low repetitions at times so every eight weeks or so it's good to change things up, such as poundage, repetitions, tempo, etc.

Great training principles to include breaking a plateau include:

German volume training

Super sets

Giant sets

Tri-sets

Drop sets

Negatives

And so on

Adding a variety of training principles will not only prevent boredom, but can also pull you through a training rut and even spark new growth.

Know Your Limits – Hypertrophy is a result of anaerobic training intensity, as previously discussed. However, bad training form using heavy poundage takes stress off the targeted muscle and brings other muscles into play, which can result in injury.

Do not jerk or swing your weights or hold your breath. You must stay in control of each and every repetition.

A proper lift is using textbook form. With each repetition you should concentrate on both the concentric and eccentric motion as well as the contraction point. In addition, breathing is an important component of lifting properly.

When you can no longer execute a repetition with proper form, either stop or get the assistance of a spotter.

Conclusion

Now that you are armed with some basic muscle building tips, you are better equipped to tackle your next training session for better muscle gains.

Karen Sessions has been in the fitness industry since 1988. She is a nationally qualified bodybuilder and holds two personal training certifications. She has written 6 ebooks on fitness and has helped hundreds of clients transform their bodies. http://www.iron-dolls.com "Use of this article is authorized provided it is reproduced in full, and all web URLS are active hyperlinks directed to the author"

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