What To Eat To Gain Weight And Build Muscle

June 23, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Are you underweight and don’t know what to eat to gain weight? Millions of dollars are spent each year on magazines, books, and weight gain supplements. Gaining weight does not happen overnight and requires a commitment from you, but does not have to be hard if you work out and
eat the proper foods in large enough amounts.

Numerous people are continually searching for the fastest ways to gain weight and don’t know what to eat. If you truly want to learn what to eat to gain weight and maintain it, a diet rich in calories and protein combined with a regular weight-training regimen will help you accomplish your goals.

If you are looking for the best weight gain supplement for you, take into account your diet and exercise routine before making a decision. Weight gain supplements can very beneficial when used in conjunction with the
diet and weight training routine.

The major part of your calorie and protein consumption should come from the foods you eat. Substituting a weight gain supplement for a meal is never a good idea. Your body needs the natural nutrients found in lean meats, poultry, fish, vegetables, and carbohydrates.

Weight gain supplements can be used effectively as a weight gain aid when they are used to supplement your diet, not replace part of it.A diet consisting of large amounts of protein, fats, carbs, and high in calories is essential to any weight gaining effort aided by weight gain supplements.

Training with weights is necessary if you want to build new muscle tissue, and a weight gain supplement can be used after a workout, in between meals, or as a snack but should never replace a meal.

Protein is a major component of any diet designed to add body weight. Lean red meats, fish, poultry, and eggs are excellent sources of protein. Several small meals per day containing large amounts of protein are crucial to your weight gaining effort. The question of what to eat to gain weight is not as complicated as some believe.

Along with plenty of protein, fats and carbohydrates are a big part of any weight gaining diet. By avoiding sweets empty calories, you will give your body the fuel it needs to add body mass and build new muscle tissue through the nutritious foods you eat at regular intervals during the day.

If you are finding it difficult to stick to a weight gain diet, try eating five or six smaller meals per day instead of three large ones. Keep in mind that a piece of chicken and a baked potato is always better than a shake, bar, or pill.

If you should decide to use a weight gain supplement, make certain you consume adequate amounts of food each day in addition to the supplement. Weight gain supplements can give you added protein and calories and may be especially helpful if used immediately following weight training.

Always be certain your diet contains all the required elements and use weight gain supplements wisely.Learning what to eat to gain weight is a relatively simple task. Increase your calorie intake and make certain
you are eating healthy, protein rich foods.

This combined with weight training and plenty of rest should allow your body to bulk up effectively and help you maintain your new body shape.

Filed Under: bodyweight training, fitness and cardio strength training, Strength Training, Strength Training Exercises, work out Tagged With: , , ,

Work Outs for your Grip part one

January 4, 2009 By Leave a Comment

It totally amazes me that most peoples work outs dont make any provision for training their grip, it really plays a very important role in your ability to advance massively in your strength training exercises.

Yet if you watch lets say as an example deadlifting, you will see that most people are using straps thus taking the emphasis off their grip ability.

It would be much better to include a lighter deadlift routine as well using your grip to get you through and build on it. We are now going to learn how you can improve your grip to an amazing degree and the only barrier to not doing so will be you not taking action on the information I put to you. Lets get started.

Crushing Grip

The Crush grip is the one you would use while you are giving a handshake to somebody you meet and people are always impressed by a good solid and firm handshake, Always start these exercises by warming your hands, wrists and fingers up. This can be done by immersing your hands in warm water and moving your fingers, hand and wrists about.

Dry them off and if you have a set what I call sports shop grippers, start by doing a controlled set of say 5 to 8 reps with them, nothing explosive just nice and easy after a couple of sets just flick your hands and wrists to loosen them up a bit

To start training further you will need a more harder to close gripper, I use the captains of crush type which I find to be of good quality and gets the job done I do recommend that you start with trainer. When it arrives you will find it a challenge and get you under way with work outs for your grip

You only need to train your grip about twice a week, especially when starting out you need to build up and do the reps and sets just like any other strength building exercises try for 3 sets of 6 to 10 reps to start with with both hands and really work at it. Always makes your work outs progressive and posetive.

There are several different types of crush gripper on the market and it pays to have a selection because they hit your body in slightly different ways thus giving you an all round build up they are, here are 3 of them

1/ Captains of Crush

2/ Extended Handle Gripper

3/ Ivanko Super Gripper

Filed Under: Strength Training, Strength Training Exercises Tagged With:

Fitness and Cardio Strength Training

December 27, 2008 By Leave a Comment

There are several exercises you can do here to build up a little cardio insurance for your fitness and strength training, first one that comes to mind is the “Burpee” You stand up straight then put your hands on the floor push your legs back full length then back to stooping position and stand up straight again, repeat this 8 to 10 times for about 3 sets and it will get your heart beating faster.

Another obvious cardio exercise is the good old skipping rope Why not invest in a good quality one and start putting it to use, it will serve you well as a way of building stamina and cardio fitness for years to come Lets face it is a tool that boxers use a lot and they have to be really fit don’t they so don’t sell yourself short and dismiss it out of hand.

Running is another obvious cardio exercise that millions use everyday as they pound the streets of any town or city worldwide The only thing that bothers me about this is you can really be adding up a real problem with your joints later in life and its not very nice I know I have had some experience of this, So here is a very credible alternative that works very well.

Find a grass bank that has say a 45 degree hill that stretches for about 200 yards or so and check there are no rabbit holes or the like you can twist your ankles on Start at the bottom and get down like you are in a race, then you are off and sprint up the hill all of the 200 yards or so then walk back slowly to the start

Breathe in and out normally as you do so, then do it again. Please note if you have to start with 50 Yards that’s fine too If you do this 3 or 4 times each time you do this exercise twice a week should do it, after a couple of months you should see good results

You will feel a major difference in the way your cardiovascular system is working and feeling as well as your ability to perform tasks with renewed stamina and endurance.

If you have not exercised for a long time maybe a  checkup at your doctors is in order, better to be safe, the point here is getting you stronger and feeling really Great.

Another great help when doing cardio strenght training, is doing all your exercises while wearing a weighted vest.  It gives you a harder workout, which will help you to maximize your efforts.  If you would like to get one, take a look here.

Filed Under: bodyweight training, fitness and cardio strength training, Strength Training, Strength Training Exercises Tagged With: ,

BodyWeight Training timed hanging exercise

December 23, 2008 By Leave a Comment

This exercise is the one I usually find most people think is easy and they are really surprised when they try that they cannot hold it for more than a few seconds if that, whether that is due to putting on a few pounds having a weak grip or indeed like most of us Both!

If you are lucky enough to have access to a horizontal bar somewhere where you can start to hang from then start by trying to hold on for 10 seconds then let go and repeat 3 times You will be giving yours hands, wrists, forearms and even your back a real blast. Please note though if you did the handstand strength training exercises I told you about it will help you greatly here with your bodyweight training

Start concentrating at building this exercise up and it will pay dividends for you, maybe at a later date you can (safely) set up a horizontal type ladder and just using your hands go from rung to rung underneath it You will be using all your bodyweight as resistance when you can do this that’s another thing to congratulate yourself about

Consider trying to do pull-ups on the bar as well even 1 good rep for 3 sets is better than none and you will build up your bodyweight training nicely

Horizontal Pull Ups

This exercise is another real good one to have in your routine basically you are in the press up position but upside down hanging from a bar of some sort, also note that the wider the grip you have while doing this exercise the harder it is and will really make you work.

Also you keep your body straight while performing this pull up and tension your abs as well as keeping your legs straight and placed on some sort platform about 8 to 12 inches tall or so. Pull yourself up to the bar and down again In a controlled manner for 3 sets of say 7 to 10 reps.

You can also vary this bodyweight training exercise as well by changing your grip on the bar from wide grip to narrow grip  and if you can do it try one or two pullups with your grip the other way around do not pull yourself up in any form of sudden exploding movement do it in a controlled movement.

Filed Under: bodyweight training, Strength Training, Strength Training Exercises Tagged With:

Strengthening Exercises HandStand Advanced

December 20, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Go back to the wall but this time you will be facing the wall, place your hands down then get yourself in the handstand position the best you can, like I said you should be facing the wall for this exercise. Once there from the straight up or near enough handstand position start walking your hands out from the wall say 3 or 4 small paces then back again do this 2 or 3 times.

Or whatever you can do again do 3 sets of this so pace yourself and concentrate on doing the moves correctly do this for a month and really build this up and do it say 2 times a week because you will be doing other things as well so don’t overdo any of these strengthening exercises

Then do this same exercise but when you have nearly walked back to the wall say 1 pace out or so open your legs wider on the wall and see if you can take your weight on one hand for a few seconds then the other one do this for another month and you will build up this exercise as well.

As a welcome diversion to all these strengthening  exercises you can after building this exercise group up a bit see if you can start walking sideways along the wall in the handstand position and back using both the back and then front facing the wall positions Of course your ultimate goal here after a few months of building a solid foundation is to build your strength training exercises up to the point where you can start doing hand stand push ups

When you have achieved this there is still things to make it harder but you will have reached a major milestone in your quest for real strength, dont forget to have a bottle of water handy so you can sip from it when you are working out if that does not cause any sort of repeating in your stomach and a sickly feeling because you are training “upside down” so be careful here and experiment the best way for You to take in some water

Another useful tip is to keep a record in a book of your progress through all the strengthening exercises you do, a few months down the road you will be able to see how much progress you have made .

Filed Under: Strength Training, Strength Training Exercises Tagged With:

Strength Workout using HandStands

December 16, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Timed handstands are another really overlooked way of getting your body set up to increase its strength significantly, lets face it if its good enough for gymnasts and look how strong they are !Especially the guys on the rope ring routines in the air, Amazing. Start out with this good strength workout exercise by simply finding a open stretch of wall (if indoors take your shoes off)

Then place your hands on the floor and practice gently pushing up into the basic handstand position, if you are not used to doing this spend a few days just doing this Just placing hands down and gently flipping up into the basic handstand position and down again After a few days doing this place your hands down and flip up gently into position This is a great strength workout.

Then hold this position for say 20 to 30 seconds or whatever you can do but remember I want you to do this 3 times per session, so 3 times 20 seconds is better than 40 30 and 10 try to hold for the same amount of time for each rep

After a few sessions of doing this you will find that you can do longer timed holds with this and maybe progress to being able to hold the 3 sets for 1 or 2 minutesYou will be building up nicely so here is another challenge for you to try and build up on as well but still keep doing the timed holds ok .

Do a set of Timed holds against the wall then do a set of Pushups in the normal shoulders width apart legs straight behind you and holding your abs in tightly, you will build up to where you can do a timed handstand set combined with a pushup set of 6 to 10 and do this for for 3 sets for a while again if you can only do 2 to 6 pressups that is absolutely fine.

You will build this up to where you can do the double sets quite comfortably and you will start to see noticeable results in a few short weeks if you keep up doing the work, always remember it is no good starting this and expect to see results if you let it go and only train once a month, three times a week with a days rest in between will do just fine and also eating the right diet will help tremendously with your strength workout

Filed Under: Strength Training, Strength Training Exercises Tagged With: ,

Build Strength with Press Ups

December 13, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Press Ups really are a very good exercise to start building some basic strength in your hands, wrists,
arms, shoulders, back and chest and should not be overlooked, Otherwise you will miss out on a very important building block toward your goal of getting stronger. Here are a few variations you can start using to build up with.

Get down in the basic press up position with your hands about shoulders width apart, keeping your feet together, body straight and tensioning your stomach muscles Lower yourself down as far as you can in a controlled manner and push back up to the original starting position and repeat aiming for 3 sets of between 10 and 20 Reps.

Variations you can also try with the press up exercises will hit your muscles from different angles and will surprise you even if you are very good at the basic exercise,

1/ Instead of placing your hands down shoulders width apart, place Them directly under your chest on the floor, place your thumbs together and with the fingers next to them make a triangle shape And start doing the exercise this way

2/ Go back to the first hand position but have your feet placed upon dining chair, this has the effect    of adding more weight to press with.

3/ Next you can try this variation, stand against a wall and place Your hands shoulder width apart on the floor about 2 feet or so In front of you then try a controlled Lowering and raising of your body doing a push up as a precaution with all these exercises I Would place a pillow underneath in case your arms give out Trying these exercises for the first time. Aim for 3 sets of 10 reps

4/ I have added this last option in case you find press ups a real Challenge, please do not get upset if you cannot do them here is a Way to build up to them And remember you will be good at a Strength training exercises other people find hard to do… ok

Do the basic press up as described in number 1 but instead of Holding your legs out straight do the press up while you are Kneeling but place your hands in the same position and press with practice you will soon be doing the press up with your legs outstretched behind you.

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