Categories
Weight Loss Exercise

BodybuIlding Tips for Faster Results



Men who are into bodybuilding and strength training often wonder if they are doing everything they can to achieve optimum muscle growth. In order to get rock hard abs, big biceps and strong muscles, you have to do a multitude of things for faster and better results. There are things you have to do inside the gym while others need to be done outside. If you want your muscle building program to succeed, pay attention to these bodybuilding tips.

1. Proper diet

Your body needs proteins and other nutrients in order to build muscles. Unless your diet provides the nutrients needed by your body, you will never be able to develop bigger muscles. Your diet is an important factor for bodybuilding success.

2. Sleep and rest

Your body grows big while sleeping and resting, not while you are working out in the gym. When you lift weights, minute tears occur in the muscles. The body rebuilds itself while you sleep, making your muscles bigger and stronger. If you don’t give your body time to rest, your hours at the gym will be totally wasted. Use this bodybuilding tip to give your muscles a chance to grow.

3. Overload your muscles progressively

The human body learns to adapt quickly. If you keep on lifting the same amount of weight for weeks and months, your muscles will become conditioned to handle that much weight and will stop growing. Continually challenge your muscles by increasing the weights you lift or doing more reps. This will push your body to build more muscles.

4. Perform compound exercises

Hit two birds with one stone by doing exercises that stimulate more than one muscle group at a time, such as deadlifts and squats. Compound exercises have a positive effect on the entire skeletal system as well as the muscles.

5. Warm up and stretching

BodybuIlding Tips for Faster Results

BodybuIlding Tips

This bodybuilding tip is often ignored by men who want to get started on their workout right away. Warming up your muscles and stretching surrounding tissues can help prevent injuries. Be sure to stretch before, during, and after your bodybuilding workout.

6. Avoid overtraining

Too much weight lifting can be bad for muscle development. Many men who workout long and hard in the gym end up frustrated because their muscles refuse to grow. You will find many bodybuilding tips telling you to back off if you cannot gain muscle mass because of overtraining. Take a break and let your body rest for a few weeks.

7. Workout with free weights

Serious bodybuilders rely on free weights rather than machines to build muscles and gain weight. The reason is that machines do the work of stabilizing the weights, leaving the stabilizer muscles unchallenged. If you want bigger muscles, exercise with free weights and maintain proper form to develop your stabilizer muscles and support muscle growth.

8. Drink water

Water transports nutrients and helps flush out waste and toxins from the body. Athletes require 8 oz. of water for every 10-12.5 pounds of body weight. This bodybuilding tip may seem simple but it is a very important one.

Related Blogs

  • Related Blogs on Body Time
Categories
Weight Loss Exercise

Weight Training Belts – Are They Necessary?



Weight training belts used to be worn only by power lifters and Olympic weightlifters. These days, however, you see more people with varying degrees of skill and experience wearing these weightlifting belts. You may want to know if this device is necessary for recreational lifters. What is the proper way to use the belt, and what adverse effects can arise from the misuse of weight training belts?

Weight Training Belts   Are They Necessary?

Weight Training Belts

Weightlifting belts are primarily used for heavy power lifting exercises such as deadlifts and squats. The belts serve the purpose of preventing lower-back injuries and can help increase the amount of weight lifted. While they offer some benefits when lifting heavy weights, a weight training belt is not necessary all of the time.

How Weight Training Belts Work

A weight training belt works in two ways. First, it reduces stress on the lower back while lifting in an upright position. The belt compresses the contents of the abdominal cavity, thus increasing the intra-abdominal pressure or IAP. This provides more support in front of the bones in the lower back, allowing the spinal erector muscles to produce less force while lifting. The belt also reduces lower back compression or spinal shrinkage.

Second, the belt prevents back hyperextension. By forming a rigid wall around the lower torso, back movement is limited. The belt also prevents sideward bending and twisting.

Wearing a weight training belt allows an individual to complete a greater number of repetitions or increase their one-repetition maximum weight. The belt also reduces the risk of lower back injuries.

Disadvantages of Weight Training Belts

Wearing a belt too often especially when performing exercises with weights below your maximum may lead to a decrease in performance. This is because the belt prevents you from engaging and strengthening your core and abdominal muscles used while lifting. Strong abdominal muscles are important if you want to lift more weights especially during squats and deadlifts.

When Should You Use A Weight Training Belts?

It is best to use a weight training belt only when lifting maximum or near-maximum weights for exercises that stress the lower back. When working with lighter weights, leave the belt off. This will help develop your abdominal and lower back muscles. Obviously, you will not need a weight belt for exercises that do not put stress on the lower back, such as bicep curls.

Important Considerations

While a weight training belt can help prevent lower back injuries, it is always best to learn and practice the proper technique when lifting. Also, be sure to lift an appropriate weight. Remember to lift with your legs and not your back. The spine must remain in a stable and neutral position.

Beginners should be able to demonstrate proper form with lighter weights before moving on to maximum or near-maximum weights. Make sure a spotter is available when doing heavy lifting as weight training belts will give you stability but not strength


Related Blogs

Categories
Weight Loss Exercise

How To Build Upper Body V Shape


How to build upper body V – that V-shape taper from huge shoulders to a small waist – is the first thing that many bodybuilders want to know. It is often what sets bodybuilders apart from others in the gym and makes them stand out on the beach or even in the street. It is what makes a guy look like a comic book superhero about to save the world!

There are three main muscle groups that you need to consider when you are planning how to build upper body to an impressive degree. Let’s take them one by one.

1. Lats

The lats (latissimus dorsi) are the muscles that cover the sides of the middle back, reaching up to the armpit. As a bodybuilder, you will always want to keep building bigger and wider lats.

There are two types of exercise that you need to use if you want to work and build the lats. The first involves chin-ups and pulldown moves. These build width. The second is rows (e.g. cable rows and barbell rows) and deadlifts, which build thickness. You will need to cover both.

2. Deltoids


The deltoids are the muscles that cover the shoulder joint, forming the rounded shape of the shoulder. Your aim when you are considering how to build upper body V will be to build a strong, round ball shape on the shoulder. This gives the shoulders that massive, wide look.

The way to build deltoids is to use both a heavy pressing action and leverage raise exercises. Take as much weight as you can without sacrificing form. Raises should always be performed with full control, never by swinging the weights.

Exercises that you might want to include are: seated press, dumbbell lateral raises, bent over lateral raises, and cable lateral raises both in front and behind the back.

3. Abdominals

While they might seem out of place in an article on how to build upper body, the abs are just as important as the other two muscle groups. Having a tight midsection sets off the shoulders and contributes to the appearance of width at the top.

If you are interested in how to build upper body V shape, you will want to tighten rather than build the abs so that you do not develop a thick waist. For this reason, some experts recommend that you avoid using weights in your abs workout and do not do side bends. This may go against what others tell you but give it a try if you want to increase the contrast between weights and shoulders.

Exercises to concentrate on here include crunches, leg raises, sit-ups and hanging knee raises. For the hanging knee raise, hang from the chin-up bar and bring the knees up as high as possible toward the chest. Lower and repeat.

Of course, you also need to follow a good bodybuilding diet with plenty of protein and complex carbs at the right times. Drink plenty of water too. Soon it will be very clear when you hit the beach that you know how to build upper body!