Beginning Bodybuilding - Questions/Answers

If you are new to bodybuilding, everything can be very overwhelming. The problem is if you ask a 100 people how to get started, you will get 100 different answers. I will try to answer some of the basic questions everyone asks:

Should I Join A Gym Or Workout At Home?

If you have access to a gym, this is definitely the best choice. There are too many distractions in a home. If you are a very discipline person, then working out at home may be an option. For the average person, home workouts do not last.

Once you decide where you are going to workout, you have to decide on a time of day that works best for your schedule. Try to pick a time that you know will have the least distractions. If you have a family and kids, try to get to the gym before work. Or see if you can get in a workout at lunch. Whatever you chose, just be consistent with your workouts.

An added benefit to joining a gym is you can work with a personal trainer and have a personalize workout routine setup for your body type. If you decide to workout at home, there are plenty of books and magazines that can help you setup a workout routine.

What kind of workout routine should I follow?

If you are just starting out, I would start out with a routine that hits each body part once a week:

Day 1: Chest/Back/Biceps

Chest:
Dumbbell Bench Press ? One warm-up set of 15 reps followed by 3 sets of 12 reps.
Incline Bench Press ? Three sets of 12 reps.
Dumbell Flyes ? Three sets of 15 reps.

Back:
Lat Pulldowns To The Front ? One warm-up set of 15 reps followed by 3 sets of 12 reps.
One Arm Dumbell Row ? Three sets of 12 reps.
Low Cable row ? Three sets of 12 to 15 reps.

Biceps:
Straight Bar or EZ Bar Curls ? Three sets of 12 to 15 reps.
Alternating Seated Dumbbell Curls ? Three sets of 12 to 15 reps.


Day 2: Cardio

Half hour on the treadmill or elliptical trainer.


Day 3: Shoulders/Triceps/Abs:

Shoulders:
DB Should Press - One warm-up set of 15 reps followed by 3 sets of 12 reps.
Lateral Raises ? Three sets of 12 to 15 reps.

Triceps:
Cable Pushdowns - Three sets of 12 to 15 reps.
EZ Bar Skull Crushers - Three sets of 12 reps.

Abs:
Crunches ? Three sets of 20 to 30 reps.


Day 4: Cardio

Half hour on the treadmill or elliptical trainer.


Day 5: Quadriceps/ Hamstrings/Calves

Quads:
Leg Press - One warm-up set of 15 reps followed by 3 sets of 12 reps.
Squats - One warm-up set of 12-15 reps followed by 3 sets of 12 reps.
Alternating DB Lunge - Three sets of 12 to 15 reps.

Hamstrings:
DB Stiff Leg Deadlift - One warm-up set of 15 reps followed by 3 sets of 12 reps.

Calves:
Standing or seated Calf Raises - One warm-up set of 15 reps followed by 4 sets of 15-20 reps.


Day 6: Optional Cardio

Half hour on the treadmill, elliptical trainer or fast walk.

Try to keep a journal of your workouts (including weights and times). This will help you keep track of your progress. Following the workout for a few months increasing the weights whenever you can. Try to keep strict form to avoid injury.

Should I use nutritional supplements?

Definitely! When you workout, you are breaking your muscle down. Your body requires nutrients to build the muscle back up. Building muscle is 10% working out and 90% nutrients/rest. You build your muscle when you are resting.

If I have to pick the top bodybuilding supplements, it would be in this order:

a)Multi Vitamin ? Make sure your body has all the necessary nutrients, antioxidants and minerals to build muscle.

b)Whey Protein ? Try to make sure you eat at least 1 to 1.5 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight if you are following a workout routine.

c)Creatine ? Try for 5 grams of creatine a day. If you have a sensitive stomach, try Kre-Alkalyn.

d)Water ? Water is not a supplement?but it is very important. Drinking lots of water keeps the muscles full and helps flush your body of toxins.

With the supplements listed above, also make sure you stick to healthy foods like oatmeal, egg whites, tuna, chicken, brown rice, vegetables, etc. If you need to cheat, do so in moderation. Try to stay away from processed foods, sugar and alcohol.

Eating small meals 5-6 times a day is more beneficial then 3 meals a day. It keeps your muscles fueled throughout the day.

By following the advice above, you will be well on your way to develop the body you dreamed about. The key to bodybuilding is consistency. If you stay consistent, you will succeed!

Warren Kuhl is the owner of http:www.suppsearch.com. SuppSearch.com offers bodybuilding supplement reviews and nutritional supplement price comparisons.

Bodybuilding Supplements-What You Should Know Before You Take Them.

Everybody needs a different amount of nutrients in their diets. These nutrients include vitamins, minerals and proteins. The body needs these nutrients every day in order to function correctly and to defend itself from various kinds of diseases. Sometimes a balanced diet is not sufficient enough to fulfill all of your body's needs, especially when it needs an extra boost of energy like in the case of bodybuilding. There are many different kinds of nutritional supplements that are available to help with bodybuilding and they are becoming increasingly popular these days. They are all useful for people who want to build strong muscles and want to improve their overall muscular physique. Some of them are NO2 supplements, Hi Protien Supplements and Weightlifting supplements.

Bodybuilding supplements are usually composed of a blend of some vitamins, minerals and natural energy vitalizing substances. These substances are useful to promote the growth of muscles and tissues that have been broken down from hard workouts. Fat burning pills are another important supplement in this category and they help to speed up the process of metabolism in order to release energy. Bodybuilding supplements are sometimes referred to as energy boosters or mass builders. NO2 supplements help to bring the bodies blood flow and oxygen to the worked out areas at a greater pace insuring that the body is able to recuperate faster. NO2 supplements also give you that ?pumped? up feeling long after your workouts are over.

Creatine is also a kind of bodybuilding supplement. Creatine will not only assist you in exercising longer but will also help in quicker restoration of strength after program sets.

Normally a nutritional supplement like Creatine is made by combining several different substances that work better and faster when combined than individual substances. Creatine enhancers are used to increase its effectiveness. Creatine phosphate is the energized form of creatine and functions as an energy storage reserve. Supplements rich in nitric oxide (NO2) also work well as bodybuilding supplements. They usually come in the form of tablets and capsules, but some are also available in liquid form.

When exercising it is possible that you will cause damage to your joints. Unfortunately, like the wearing of tires on a car, the connective tissue that cushions our bones will continue to wear out as we get older. There are certain supplements that are capable of preventing joint injury. They usually consist of Chondroitin sulfate and Glucosamine and sulfate. Glucosamine is an amino sugar derived from the chitin of shellfish and is used by the body to support healthy joint structures. Chondroitin complements Glucosamine and works synergistically to provide optimal nutritional support..

Muscle building and energy boosting drinks are readily available are very easy to consume and equally effective. Although there is no real alternative to eating a proper balanced diet, sometimes due to a lack of time we are not able to include all the natural nutrients in our everyday meals. To address this deficiency, you can take nutritional supplements. Testosterone boosters, growth hormones and a blend of herbs and vitamins just to name a few are also very effective bodybuilding supplements

Meal replacement supplements are normally found in the form of powdered material and more commonly known as meal replacement powder or MRP. These are rich in protein and fatty acids, so that they can provide the necessary energy boost required by the body. MRP can be mixed in water or milk before consuming. They also have RTD or Ready To Drink versions which are readily available and are more for the ?on the go? type person. .They This way they are easier to take and provide the instant energy boost needed just like energy boosting drinks. MRP is recommended for bodybuilders who require large quantities of a Hi Protien Supplement to keep them in an anabolic state.

Nutrition bars, commonly known as meal bars or protein bars are also important to mention when considering body building supplements. Before using any kind of nutrition bars, don't forget to consult a health expert because sometimes these bars contain additives that might be harmful to some people. If you are on any other medication to treat a disease, for example if you are an insulin-dependent diabetic patient then you should always ask your doctor before consuming any type of nutritional supplements. Hi Protien bars can be eaten just before working out to give your body some extra pre-workout energy.

Some natural substances like probiotics are also used in bodybuilding nutritional supplements. These are healthy bacteria that are naturally found in the digestive system, these help with the proper digestion of food. Eating a prescribed amount of these supplements daily helps to speed up the digestive process. If you don't know where to start then you can search for bodybuilding supplements on the Internet including fat burning pills and energy boosting supplements, but make sure you talk to your Doctor before you consume any of these supplements.

A healthy diet and exercise program will ensure that you live a healthier and longer life. Always remember to research any nutritional supplement and talk to your doctor before taking anything. How you take care of yourself today

Christopher DiCicco is the owner of the online Nutritional Supplements Store Flexhealthnutrition.com and has been involved with health and nutrition for over 20 years. www.Flexhealthnutrition.com

Weider Home Gym - A Great Fitness Machine

Buying a Weider home gym means buying an excellent fitness product at half the cost of other exercise machines. Weider makes sturdy, excellent fitness equipment for a low cost. Their equipment is built as well as commercial equipment is, but it is created for home use, which results in lower costs. Weider home gyms have been the name in home gym fitness centers for years. There are a number of excellent pieces of equipment Weider makes to meet your fitness vision.

Weider Pro 9635 Home Gym

This fine piece of Weider exercise equipment has everything you need to develop your major muscle groups. Its eight stations include a bench press, butterfly arms, a leg developer, a high and low pulley system, a military press, a leg press, and a vertical knee raise. It has three hundred and sixty pounds of maximum resistance, and durable vinyl cushioning that will last the life of the center.

Weider Boxing Gym

This complete Weider home gym offers a great workout with a number of boxing features for added dimension. Boxing can provide you with health benefits you may have previously overlooked like hand-eye coordination, response time, and extra muscle tone. Boxing can also be a great way to work on your self-defense techniques in our increasingly dangerously society. This complete system has a forty pound punching bag, a speed bag, a chest press, a leg developer, butterfly arms, and a low pulley. Whew, talk about a complete system. It's patented plate loader system helps speed your workout up to get you out of the gym and enjoying your life.

Weider Pro 2200 Strength Trainer

This model offers a compact presentation with everything you might need in a home fitness gym including high and low pulleys, a chest press, padded butterfly arms, lat bar, padded leg developer, and an ankle strap. This Weider product, like most, also features an exercise chart to help you begin building your ideal workout.

Dean Iggo is the webmaster of a home gym website providing reviews of the best proform treadmills and fitness equipment including, treadmills, ellipticals and dumbbells from top brands including Proform, Precor, Total Gym, Smooth, Weider and more.

When To Take Bodybuilding Supplements

Supplement timing

There are lots of supplements now available for bodybuilding to help add more muscle or to get stronger and to recover faster. As the number of supplements that one can use and afford gets greater and people have to figure out when the best time to take various supplements is and what amount to achieve the greatest affect so that the money you spend is spent wisely and you get the greatest gains in the shortest amount of time.

To look at what supplements you should take during the day there are some key times of day that supplementation is based around these are early morning, pre-workout, post-workout and before sleep.

In the morning you have been asleep and without food for about eight hours and you have to prepare for the day you haven?t had any food and your body is running low on fuel.

Pre Workout-This is the time before you hit the gym and put your muscles under stress to stimulate them to grow. What you take before hand can help improve your workout performance thus generating a stronger stimulus for muscle growth.

Post Workout- After you have worked out your body starts to go into recovery mode after the stress that has been put on it, you need to make sure that you body doesn?t slide into a catabolic state causing you to start to lose muscle mass. This is the time to kick start your body into a phase of growth.

Before sleep- You are preparing for sleep, sleep is when your body does a lot of recovery and growth. Levels of growth hormone rise during sleep and muscle growth occurs at this stage certain supplements are needed to help maintain the growth.

Some supplements are more important than others, there is some debate about which supplements are ranked more important but there is general agreement that protein is the most important followed by creatine then following those are arginine, tribulus, glutamine and BCAAs. There are other supplements available the ones I have mentioned here are some of the most popular ones. You may want to experiment to see what works best for you but here is a schedule of these supplements if you had access to all of these you may want to experiment to see which combinations work best for you.

Here is a schedule that you could follow if you were using these six supplements
Morning
40 Grams of Protein
2-3 Grams of Arginine
This is needed to supply the body with protein and amino acids after 8 hours fasting this will help prevent any muscle breakdown. The Arginine help dilate blood vessels when exercising and helps boost levels of growth hormone

Pre Workout
3-5 Grams of Creatine
20 Grams of Protein
40 Grams of Carbohydrate.
5 Grams BCAA
Creatine is taken pre workout to help boost strength and endurance with the whey protein as well and the carbohydrate to provide energy. During exercise you body may turn to amino acids for fuel BCAAs stop the body from turning to muscle tissue for fuel and may also stimulate faster fat burning.

Post Workout
3-5 Grams of Creatine
40 Grams of Protein
40 Grams of Carbohydrate.
5 Grams BCAA
The body is under stress and needs to start to recover the protein is utilized by the body to help repair muscle tissue and the carbohydrate help replenish energy levels from exercise. The creatine helps improve strength and endurance. BCAAs also provide fuel for recovering muscle as they are readily absorbed into the bloodstream.

Sleep Time
40 grams of Protein
2-3 grams of Arginine
Before you go to sleep you need to endure your body has adequate protein for 8 hours, carbohydrate is avoided at this time to prevent it being converted to fat. The Arginine helps boost growth hormone levels during sleep.

This should hopefully serve as a guide to then is the best time to take certain supplements you may want to experiment with different amounts or adding other supplements and you don?t have to use all the ones listed here. Just one or two at the roper times can help with your progress and it is still essential to have a good diet and to weight train proper supplements aid you they will not do all the work.

Graeme Muir has an interest in weight training and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and improving performance through supplementation, go to GRMProducts for a range of supplements available and further articles.

Using Supplements To Enhance Your Bodybuilding

For attaining peak performance in body building it is imperative that the bodybuilder uses the right nutritional supplements.

Supplements play a big part in male body building diet programs because our diets often do no contain the necessary vitamins and nutrients our bodies require to for increased muscle mass and fat loss at the same time.

Luckily for the bodybuilder, the nutritional supplement industry now provides more pills and more powders than ever before.

With a choice of chemical-based and natural supplements, it is always wise to place preference on the many natural body building supplements available today. Not only do they help to speed up the muscle building process, they are also more in harmony with the body than their chemical counterparts.

Natural bodybuilding supplements play a vital role because they feed the body with the nutrients required for muscle growth. These nutrients are not necessarily present, in the required quantities, in the staple diets that have reduced nutritional value due to cooking.

One must choose body building supplements wisely, because there are supplements that are very dangerous if not used properly or if used in incorrect quantities. Furthermore, the right time, with food, with water, and avoidance if you have certain medical conditions are also important considerations.

Some supplements are made to protect muscles and joints against injury, some are used when you want to put on weight, others improve your circulation, plus a host of other supplements for very specific applications and benefits. You must pay attention to each body building supplement that you plan on taking to ensure that there will not be interaction between supplements that could affect your health.

If you are unsure, then it is wise not take a body building nutritional supplement. Alternatively, ask your doctor or pharmacist about the supplement in question.

You need to finalize your diet and supplements only after a professional has evaluated your body weight and height so that the person can recommend the best combination of supplements for maximum fat loss and maximum muscle gain.

The goal of bodybuilding as a sport is to improve your health while providing you with an enviable physique that is attained through long hours of training and strict diets. The correct supplements will help maintain your health by feeding your body with vitamins and the nutrients that are missing from your daily diet.

For more information on bodybuilding visit InformationAttendant.com, where you can also find a selection of information and knowledge with RSS feeds for syndication.

A Primer On Bodybuilding Techniques

There are certain steps that a bodybuilder must follow when doing weight training. These techniques almost always include improved form to make the exercising harder as opposed to easier.

There are many different bodybuilding techniques can you can use to improve your physique. These include pyramids, negatives, drop sets, twenty-ones, giant steps, partial reps, and forced reps. These are all wonderful techniques to be used according to your requirements.

Using the technique of constant tension without reaching the locking point is very effective in some exercises. Full contraction plus full range stretch is important, which means the bodybuilder must perform every rep of every exercise at the full range of motion.

A bodybuilding technique that enables the bodybuilder to thoroughly work out a single muscle group is called the giant set. The giant set consists of three different exercises performed successively, focusing on a specific muscle. This can be done for every muscle but one must use it sparingly on the back.

Drop sets are a good way to round off a workout for specific muscles. They give you a pumped-up feeling in the muscles and consume the last bit of energy left in the muscles.

Twenty-ones is a technique that works every area of the muscle as opposed to a single range.

Another good technique is constantly thinking "maintain tension," while you intentionally increase the tension on the muscles while doing the rep.

Other bodybuilding technique that you can use super sets that are good for exercising a particular range of muscles, completely exhausting the muscle fibers, and working two separate groups of muscle.

Slowing down with your reps can also help. Slow repetition is often more effective repetition, because this small change in technique can help improve form as well as boost muscular development.

You can employ any one of the many bodybuilding techniques. You need to vary your technique frequently so that your muscles do not get used to a particular exercise.

For more information on bodybuilding visit InformationAttendant.com, where you can also find a selection of information and knowledge with RSS feeds for syndication.