Build Muscle Best While You Rest

Build Muscle Best While You Rest

Gaining muscle mass isn t mentioned nearly as much in the media as losing weight is. However, for a large number of people, especially guys, gaining muscle is more important than losing fat. In fact, even for those who are overweight, gaining muscle mass is much more important than losing the fat, not only for their health, but also for their long-term goals. But how does one go about building muscle and increasing their muscle mass?

There are two primary things that you need to control:

1. Your nutrition.
2. Exercise.
Lack of either of the two will result in failure to gain muscle, especially nutrition.

First, let s dispel some of the common myths about exercise, shall we?

Myth #1 : The longer your workout, the better.
Myth #2 : If you don t sweat, you don t lose any fat. Sweat is the proof of "melting" fat.
Myth #3 : The greater the frequency of your workout, the more muscle mass you ll gain.
Myth #4 : It s better to target individual muscles such as biceps and calves.

So what s the truth?

1. You do not gain muscle mass when you exercise! You gain mass when you rest from a workout! That s why resting between strenuous workouts is so important. Don t work out more than 3 days in a week. A sample workout you may try would be - Mon, Wed, Fri. This gives your body a day s rest between all the workouts and a two day rest before you start the cycle again.

2. It s not the frequency, or the length of your workout, but the intensity of your workout that helps you gain muscle mass. It doesn t benefit you much if you do 50 reps and 15 sets of bench press, but it benefits you a whole lot more if you use weights with which you can do no more than 3 sets with 3-7 reps. This will help you gain a lot more muscle mass as long as you remember to take rest. The reason you need to keep your workout to high resistance, low repetition exercises is very simple. High resistance, low repletion workouts tear the most muscle. When you tear and rip up your muscles your body undergoes catabolism. Catabolism is the process your body uses to break down damaged muscle fibers. After catabolism, the body begins the process of repairing the muscle. Your body will always build more your muscles back stronger than they were before. The process of synthesizing new muscle fiber is known as anabolism. You may have heard of anabolic steroids. Such steroids are taken to enhance the body�s natural anabolic processes. In short, that is all lifting weights does - causes catabolic and anabolic metabolic processes in your body.

3. The best muscle gains come from compound exercises such as bench-press and squats. It s funny to realize that you build more of your biceps doing squats than bicep curls. But stick to chest, leg, and back exercises to gain the most muscle quickly. Every time you workout, work on all of your muscle groups instead of focusing biceps and chest one day, and legs and back the other. If you keep these basic principles in mind, you ll definitely gain muscle mass quickly.

Shaun Allen is an expert on helping people build muscle. He has a popular newsletter that give out muscle-building tips, techniques, and special reports. http://www.betterbodyjourney.com/BuildMuscle1.htm

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