The subject of weight loss is all over the media! People are obsessed with loosing weight, but the subject of building muscle mass, for reasons that I don’t really understand, is not mentioned nearly as much. But as far as a more silent, large number of people are concerned, gaining muscle mass more important than losing fat. Many utilize cardiovascular exercise for the sole purpose of keeping ones heart in shape, while shifting their focus on weight lifting, before or after they have completed their “mandatory” cardio workout. Even for many overweight individuals, focusing on exercises which result in muscle gain serves them better in helping them to reach their overall health goals.
Even though the focus of this article is on gaining muscle mass, I cannot emphasize enough, the importance of accompanying your weight workout with a short 25 to 30 minute cardiovascular exercise session. The reason for this is because lifting weights is bad for your heart if you don’t do your cardio, however you do not have to sit on that boring stationary bike for a full hour. The way to actually go about building your muscles, is by effectively controlling your nutrition and exercise programs, with the overall focus being on gaining physical strength, while maintaining overall health.
There are four common myths associated with exercise in general, and it is commonly believed that the longer you work out, the more you will benefit from your workout. This of course in not true. The second of the myths is the belief that if you don’t sweat, you don’t burn fat. Myth number three is the belief that if you increase the frequency of your workout, you will gain more muscle mass. And the final myth is the assumption that it is more beneficial to single out and target individual muscles, one at a time.
The truth is that there is no muscle gained at all during your actual exercise session. The muscle mass is gained during your rest periods, making resting between workouts just as important as the exercise itself. Ideally, weight lifting should be done three times per week, with the perfect work out schedule being Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, as these specific days are evenly spread out form the beginning to the end of the week. Your body will receive one day’s rest between each full-body work out, followed by a much needed two day rest before you begin the exercise cycle again, on the following Monday.
Both the frequency and length of your workout are irrelevant past a certain point, because it is the intensity of a weight lifting session that helps fuel the growth of muscle mass. For example, you will gain much more from bench pressing three sets of three reps with a heavier weight, than you will from benching three sets of ten reps, with a lighter weight. By pushing a low number of reps, while gradually and constantly increasing the amount of weight that you can lift, your strength and muscle mass will grow rather quickly, provided of course that you take the appropriate amount of rest, in between sets and workouts.
High resistance, low repetition exercises tear the most muscle, thus allowing for effective, fast, but steady growth. The tearing and ripping of your muscles causes your body to undergo catabolism, which is a process by which your body breaks down damaged muscle fibers. After your body has finished the process of catabolism, it begins repairing muscle, through a process called anabolism. In simple terms, all that working out with weights accomplishes, is the triggering of catabolic and anabolic processes within the body.
Compound exercises result in the best muscle gains, with bench-pressing and squats being prime examples. As a matter of fact, squats build your biceps more effectively than curls do. Leg chest and back exercises, along with a steady high protein diet, will allow to gain the most muscle, in the shortest time possible.
Eat Steak Chicken and fish, along with plenty of vegetables. Drink a lot of water, and include whole grain foods in your diet as well. Avoid fruit juice, sodas, and anything else that contains sugar. If you want to “cheat” once in a while, and give in to that candy bar, it won’t hurt you to much, as long as you don’t make a habit of eating the wrong foods. In addition, you should also check some leptoconnect reviews for you to see that there are tons of effective products like lose weight supplements that can help you lose weight so you can build your desired muscle mass.
All it takes to become that big bad iron pumping individual, is the simple three-day-a-week strength training exercise program described in this article, along with the healthy “body-builder’s” diet described. You’re entire workout will probably amount to no more than two hours per day, for a total of six hors per week, which is not too demanding at all. Like many things in life, the key to building muscle mass is in balance and moderation.
