Tips for Designing a High Calorie Diet to Build Muscle

Tips for Designing a High Calorie Diet to Build Muscle

Adding weight that is all or mostly muscle can be a tricky thing if you aren’t too sure how to approach it. We’ll just assume that most people know that to add weight to your frame you are going to need to consume more calories and to lose weight you need to consume less calories, but the process of adding muscle weight is just a tiny bit more complex than that simple equation.
When people are trying to drop pounds, they often look to eliminate empty calorie foods that are high in fats – desserts, cookies, whole milk, fried foods, etc., so a simple assumption would be to gain weight by adding these things to your diet. Well you could gain all of the weight that you wanted by wolfing down bags of cookies and buckets of fried chicken, but it’s not going to be the type of weight gain that you are looking for.
It isn’t really as difficult as it sounds, but too many people stop listening after they hear “eat more food,” and end up eating too much of the wrong things.
So what do you do when you are attempting to pile on muscle mass?
If you’ve been on the standard diet consisting of three meals, it’s time to start stepping up your numbers. You want to consume anywhere from four to six moderately sized meals a day. Don’t get too excited, I’m not suggesting that you sit down to six steak dinners a day, there are some very simple ways to get the extra calories and protein that you’ll need to help your muscles grow.
Restructure your three normal meals so that each one contains a good lean source of protein if it hadn’t already – your breakfast could be built around eggs, lunch could be chicken breast and dinner could focus on fish – that will most likely add some of the necessary protein without having to do any extra work at all. For the three additional meals you can keep it super simple: a meal could consist of cottage cheese and some fruit, your favorite yogurt and a couple handfuls of trail mix or if you could even have a couple peanut butter sandwiches.
Protein drinks and meal replacement shakes are also excellent ways to tack on extra high quality calories. Many people don’t like to eat right before bed because it can disrupt their sleep pattern, which can also affect the rate of recovery – a great way to combat this is by drinking a protein shake shortly before you turn in. The shake shouldn’t overload your stomach or make you feel like you’ve just eaten a full meal before laying down, but it will provide just as many calories and, chances are, even more protein than a small meal. There are even some people that drink a shake before bed, then set their alarm clocks for about half way through the night to get up and have another shake before going back to sleep.
And just because you’ve upped your meal anti to five or six a day, that doesn’t mean that you should necessarily cut out the snacks. A glass of milk and a handful of mixed nuts will add even more protein, vitamins and essential fats as will carrot or celery sticks with peanut butter or a few hard boiled eggs.
The simple fact is, no matter what your body type, even if you see yourself as a so called “hard gainer” – If you approach your training intelligently, always using proper form and high intensity; allow your body plenty of time for recovery, and increase your calorie intake with good lean sources of protein while maintaining a well balanced diet, your muscles will grow. Aaron is a former "skinny guy" who managed to pack on over 20 lbs of muscle. He attributes most of his success to the information about how to gain weight he learned from http://fastmusclegain.com


by ROBERT BELL
Tips for Designing a High Calorie Diet to Build Muscle

Dumbbells - a leading way to fitness

Dumbbells - a leading way to fitness

Smartness and god looks are today’s need of the hour. It can be said that the era is of strong and healthy people. It has been stated that healthy or fit people are the ones who can give their best to every task that they undertake. A lot many kinds of exercises are undertaken in order to get good health and remain healthy. Some exercises like running or walking or yogic exercises are mostly done without any appliances or equipments but special exercises like the target exercises require equipments. The exercise in which an individual wants to target some specific part of the body often requires special exercising equipments

Dumbbells are one of the commonly found exercising equipments. It can even become a part of your home gym. Due to handy size dumbbells can easily become a part of your home gym. You can do exercises with you dumbbells while hearing and enjoying music. Dumbbells act as one of the most renowned equipments to reduce fat and gaining muscles. The more muscle mass you have the more calories you burn at rest - it's a fact about dumbbells. Dumbbells and dumbbell sets are extremely versatile and one of the best investments you can make for your body. From shoulder presses to dead lifts, dumbbell workouts and dumbbell exercise can be used for both the upper body and lower body to strengthen all your muscle groups. There are many kinds of dumbbells to name a few are Pro-Style Dumbbells, Compact Dumbbells, Hex Dumbbells, Rubber Dumbbells, Chrome Dumbbells, Solid Steel Dumbbells, Neoprene and Vinyl Dumbbells.

There are a number of dumbbell exercises that can be done which are helpful in attaining fitness in true meaning. Hence, dumbbells act as a leading way to attain fitness. It is important to have a guide always with you so that there remains minimum room for injuries or any kind of negative experience.

by JOHN PARKER

Dumbbells - a leading way to fitness

Advanced Workout: Sets & Reps

After you have figured out your form and become more than a beginner, it’s time to re-vamp your routine. The number of sets and repetitions (reps) may be considered more important than the exercises being performed. In the avenue of bodybuilding there is a variety of routines that can be effective. Effectiveness of a routine usually lies in the ability of your workout to put as much strain on a muscle without over working it. This is done much easier when keeping most of the factors in a workout constant and only making one change. This leads to the explanation on how to choose the number of sets and reps to do and how it affects your muscles. The goal of bodybuilding is to increase size and mass of a muscle. This means every set is going to be to what is called muscle failure (except the warm up). Muscle failure being the point at which you can’t move the weight anymore. Having a spotter is essential for this type of workout. For the most part the reps are going to stay consistent, meaning the variable is the number of sets. The ideal number of times your muscle needs to go to failure per exercise is four. Meaning four sets per exercise. For the purpose of this article it’s assumed that there is a proper warm up and stretching before the first four sets. The next step is to determine the number of reps per set. Each set will be to failure so technically you don’t need a number of reps to do because you are going to push the weight until you can’t anymore. This means the proper amount of weight is more important. Rather than trying to complete a certain number of reps, use an amount t of weight to hit a target range of reps. The first set’s range is 10-12. This means you want to stack enough a weight so that your muscles need to stop at 10 or 11 reps. If you can do 12 that’s ok. If you can do more than 12 you need to increase the weight. If you can’t do 10, you need to decrease the weight. The second set’s range is 8-10. The third and fourth set’s range is 6-8. The only factor left is the number of sets to do per exercise. You want to do between 12 and 20 sets per muscle. This is 3-5 exercises per muscle. In all honestly doing less than 4 exercises (16 sets) will be significantly less effective. At first glance it looks like 3 muscles would be 60 sets, which would take hours. Remember though some exercises use more than one muscle. For example 4 sets of chest press would go toward your chest sets and your triceps sets. You still want to isolate muscles when possibly. This helps track muscles so you don’t overwork them. Certain muscles can be worked as secondary muscles and primary muscles on different days. For example the biceps have a fast recovery. A lot of back exercises involve the biceps. You can work back on one day and then isolate biceps on the next day and that muscle should be able to take the extra strain. Learn your muscles to find out the right range for you. Find your body type and work with it to build massive lean muscle. Use the range suggestions for sets to fit a number of sets to each of your muscles. Because of the way your muscles are used in your body, you shouldn’t need to change the number of reps or sets you do unless your goals change. For the most part once your body adjusts to your new workout you will only need to change the actually exercises you do. This will work the muscles from different angles activating dormant muscle fiber, while still pushing them to failure so that you can gain the maximum amount of muscle.
by TOM BISHOP