Beginner's Guide to Muscle Building Information
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If you are looking for great beginner's muscle building information, you have come to the right site. This 5 step guide will get you started on a muscle building program that will work for you to build muscle fast.
Do you find yourself looking at other people in the gym or in fitness magazines and wondering how you can build muscle like those people? For years, I did too (and admittedly, I still do sometimes).
Even when I was in tip-top shape in college, I used to see pictures on magazines and wonder how I could grow my arms or chest or legs.
What were their secrets? What muscle building products were they using? Did they use special workout routines for building muscle? How did nutrition fit into their muscle building programs?
Finally, I stopped looking at the magazines, and started reading them. What I read startled me. Each magazine gave the same muscle building information, though it was often in disguise. It was hidden among the advanced muscle building exercise routines and nutrition tips, but it was there nonetheless.
Though this page is designed to provide beginners the best muscle building information available, I often come back to these 5 tricks to building muscle when I hit a plateau, even as an advanced lifter, to help me regain my focus, and get my muscle building program back on track.
So, today, I am going to pull back the curtain on that advice and give you only the facts, to help you wade through the noise and get you focused on what you need to grow – the best muscle building information for beginners.
5 Steps You Can Put to Work today to Start Building Muscle Fast
- Start by Setting a SMART Goal.
This tip alone has helped many, many people and business succeed. Think of getting in your car to go on a trip, and you start driving, but about 10 minutes into it, you have no idea where you are going. Well, taking on a muscle building routine without setting a goal is just like that. You have to start with the end in mind.
A SMART goal is specific, measurable, action oriented, realistic and time bound.
- S : How much muscle would you like to gain?
- M : How are you going to measure your progress?
- A : What actions are you going to take to get there?
- R : Is it even possible to reach your goal?
- T : By when would you like to achieve it?
You can have the best muscle building products and equipment in the world, however, if you don't have a goal, you will never be as successful as you could be.
Setting a goal help you get your mind focused on success, and where your mind goes, your body will follow.
More information on getting started with SMART Fitness Goal Setting.
- Create a Diet Plan.
You should strive for a diet plan that initially meets two goals:
- Has enough calories to build muscle mass, and
- Gets you at least 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight (more if possible).
You absolutely will not gain weight and build muscle if you do not get enough calories. To estimate your calorie needs, use the method in How Many Calories do I need to Build Muscle?
Getting enough calories is only part of the battle.
A lot of the muscle building information you read wants you to focus on finding the right balance of nutrients (carbs, protein, fat).
While the balance of all three major nutrients is important, this muscle building information is for beginners, so I want to focus your attention on the primary building block of muscle: protein.
Protein is the most plentiful substance in your body, other than water. When your muscles are broken down through exercise, you muscles use protein to repair and build new muscle. If you do not get enough protein to facilitate this process, your muscle growth will be stunted.
You may have to try a protein supplement like whey protein powder. It is one of the top muscle building products on the market, and most that I have tried make for a pretty good protein shake.
- Create a Workout Plan.
When building muscle, you should focus on lifting weights as your primary form of exercise. This means that you should minimize your cardio workouts in you muscle building routines.
Why?
Remember, you are trying to maintain calorie surplus in order to gain weight primarily from muscle. Cardio work only serves to burn those extra calories that should be used for building muscle.
You can get workout routines from our free muscle building routines page.
- Get Plenty of Rest.
During your workouts, you are actually causing minor trauma to your muscles. They are being broken down. When you leave the gym, however, your body starts using the fuel from your nutrition plan to repair and build those muscles and to get you ready for your next workout.
As a general rule of thumb, you should get at least 48 hours of rest between workouts for any given body part. This means that if you are doing a full body workout routine, you should lift weight no more than every other day.
Rest is an essential component that should not be overlooked in any quality muscle building program.
- Stay Motivated.
It can be frustrating, especially for a beginner. As I write this, I can recall the times when I felt like the returns were not worth the investment.
I believe it is what you do with these moments that separates us from being average and moves us to achieve our goals and dreams.
I used many of these self motivation tips on this site to help me push though those barriers so that I focus on the task at hand – building muscle.
The best muscle building products, diet tips, and workout plans will not do you any good if you do not stay motivated to work for what you want.
The moral of the story is simply this: You have to but this muscle building information to use to see progress. Once you have these 5 tips firmly ingrained into your muscle building program, then you can move on to more advanced training and nutrition techniques.
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