Bodybuilding Exercises

Top 10 Bodybuilding exercises ? back to basics training for ultimate muscle mass

In this age of $5000 strength machines and $8000 treadmills, it may surprise readers to learn that some of the best bodybuilding exercises can be performed for as little as $100! That?s right, you don?t need chrome and glitz to transform your physique. Long before Universal, Nautilus, and Hammer Strength, came on the scene, bodybuilders had been packing on muscle mass by training with good old-fashioned barbells.

The following (in no particular order) are our choices as the top bodybuilding exercises of all time.

Squats

Most authorities consider squats to be the best leg exercise. Period. One set of all out squats will do more for your lower body than 10 sets of leg extensions. Squats are also one of the most natural and basic of all body movements (let?s face it how often do you mimic the leg extension in the run of a day!) and target virtually the entire lower body.

Barbell Bench Press

The barbell bench press can be considered squats for the upper body. No pretty machine comes close to what this basic bodybuilding exercise will do for your torso. Long before the Pec deck started taking up space in gyms, bodybuilders were putting muscle mass on their chest, triceps, and shoulders, by training with barbell presses.

Deadlifts

Although long considered a powerlifting exercise, deadlifts are one of those exercises that often get neglected by bodybuilders because they take a lot of effort to do properly. But deadlifts will build you a set of python-sized spinal erectors as well as bestow on you that ?no neck? look. They?ll also do wonders for your hamstrings and thighs.

Chin-ups

Long before lat pulldowns transformed the way people trained their backs; chin-ups were tops of back bodybuilding exercises. The great thing about chins is that you can do them just about anywhere from a play ground to a basement. Unlike lat pulldowns, chin-ups require you to lift as well as stabilize your body (i.e. keep your body from swaying). This is what makes them so effective.

Barbell rows

If chin-ups widen your back and produce that much-coveted v-taper, barbell rows will give your inner back that dense, thick, meaty look. Unlike the more often substituted T-bar row, barbell rows have none of the balancing removed. You have to lift and balance the weight. There is no pivoting on the floor or being locked in a given plan of motion that may be unnatural for your body.

Seated Barbell Press

This is another oldie but goodie. Training with seated barbell presses will give your shoulders that cannonball look. Seated barbell presses evolved from the old standing press that was so popular with Olympic lifters and bodybuilders in the 1940?s and 1950?s. They?ve stood the test of time and you should be doing them.

Barbell curls

It?s safe to say that the first exercise performed on barbells when they were invented was a barbell curl. No cable or machine curl will come close to what these babies will do for your biceps muscle mass. They?ll also build up a phenomenal set of forearms. So if you want hams hanging from your shoulder joints you must add barbell curls to your bodybuilding exercises.

Lying triceps extensions

Lying triceps extensions, also called skullcrushers, are the triceps equivalent of barbell curls. They?re simple, basic, and will bring those horseshoes out for all to admire. So you can fluff with kickbacks or cable extensions or put some serious meat on your arms with this great bodybuilding exercise!

Push-ups

Push-ups go back even further than barbell exercises. Push-ups are the best bodyweight exercise for building the chest, shoulders, and triceps. By changing the height of the legs you can target different parts of the chest. They can also be done just about anywhere, whether the gym or in a hotel room while on the road. So drop and give me 20!

Crunches

Crunches will strengthen your abdominal core. They?ll also improve your posture and help protect your lower back. Crunches evolved from sit-ups, but unlike sit-ups they place less stress on your lower back and keep the hip flexors from contributing to the exercise. As with push-ups crunches can be done just about anywhere and should be the primary exercise in your abdominal routine.

Bob Howard expert on bodybuilding and steroids. Are you looking for more of his bodybuilding articles? http://www.bodybuildinginformation.com Article ? Bob Howard 5/5/2006

Bodybuilding Health

Bodybuilding and nutrition are the key to a healthy life. With an adequate nutrition and physical exercises, you can perk up your life. It is important to understand that you have to combine bodybuilding and good nutrition in order for them to have effect on your body and to improve your life. Bodybuilding and nutrition go hand in hand. A healthy nutrition will provide you with the energy you need to function properly, and you will certainly need energy if you want to start a bodybuilding program. It is well known that physical exercises and bodybuilding will help you maintain a healthy life. Research had shown that bodybuilding will help prevent cardiovascular illnesses by reducing the body fat in you organism and increasing your muscular mass.

In addition, bodybuilding reduces the aging process and it will increase your confidence. Any one can practice bodybuilding from a teen age to a rather older age. You do not have to be a professional bodybuilder in order to feel the effects of these trainings.Bodybuilding will increase your muscular mass, bone strength and combined with the right nutrition it will increase your energy levels. Being a bodybuilder has many advantages but the most important one is a healthier life achieved by reducing fat and cholesterol levels, stress levels, regulating blood pressure, cleansing the internal organs, and preventing illnesses.

Working out will boost your self-esteem increase your moral help you relax more easily and reduce the stress in your life. Bodybuilding will for sure make you feel better and look better therefore drawing attention to you. Looking great the opposite sex will find you more appealing.Overall bodybuilding will help you improve your life from all points of view.

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Bodybuilding Hypnosis: Mind Over Muscle

Those rugged individuals who pursue bodybuilding and other strength related sports are known to be a group bordering on the fanatical-and they often cross over that boundary. Whether it is a new diet or exercise regimen, they are always on the lookout for whatever will give them the extra edge. Bodybuilding hypnosis is another tool that can have considerable potency.

Contrary to the image of hypnotism in funny stage shows or scary movies, a hypnotized person does not become unconscious or out of control. Rather it is a relaxed state of awareness where an individual learns to better activate his full mental and physical potential.

Clinical hypnosis is often used to help people successfully overcome fear, pain, lack of confidence, stress and unwanted habits. There are also three primary areas where hypnosis can help the bodybuilder as well, these being relaxation, breaking past barriers and maintaining focus.

Relaxation. As every strength athlete knows, muscle is actually built during the resting phase. Exercise that progressively increases in intensity places stress on the muscle fibers. During rest the body adapts by making them larger and stronger in preparation for future challenges. Although regular exercise is a great stress-buster, it is a rare individual who can relax deeply and completely at will. A lack of sleep and rest interferes with the hormonal system?s ability to respond to stress; dampening energy, immunity and yes, muscular development. Hypnosis has a well deserved reputation for helping people to develop deep relaxation skills.

Breaking past barriers. Are the limits on your potential solely physical or is there a mental aspect involved as well? Sports history tells us the story of Sir Roger Bannister, the first human to run a mile in under four minutes. Prior to that, many ?experts? proclaimed that this feat was impossible and possibly life-threatening. What is most interesting is that after Bannister smashed that barrier, several other runners followed suit soon after. Nothing had changed about them physically. Rather the collective belief system of those athletes had undergone a transformation for the better. Hypnosis enables you to overcome self-imposed limitations. Maybe your potential is greater than you have suspected?

Increasing focus. It has been noted that successful people are usually both confident and intently focused on what they truly want. The word ?confident? itself is derived from the Latin for ?with faith.? If you can persistently focus on a compelling goal image, your behaviors will unconsciously change in order to turn that picture into reality. Most people lack focus and are vague as to what they want out of life or from their training routine for that matter. As a result their efforts tend to be scattered and inconsistent. Is it that you want greater size, strength or definition? A few minutes spent every day relaxing and focusing on your desired outcomes will pay handsome dividends.

If mind over matter is possible, certainly mind over muscle is as well and should be considered when putting together a well-rounded training program.

James Malone is a Certified Hypnotist from Point Pleasant, New Jersey and is also the publisher of the wildly popular Creative Calm Online Newsletter. He realizes that you would probably kick sand in his face (and deservedly so) if he were to suggest that hypnosis could replace proper diet and exercise when it comes to building your ideal physique. But what if it gave you an added 5% edge in your performance over the next year, would you be interested? You may wish to learn more about his Mind Over Muscle Audio Program.

Simple Tips for Starting Competitive Bodybuilding

As a bodybuilder you should be aiming to enter into the competitive bodybuilding area and show off your body in a bodybuilding fitness competition, especially given the amount of time, effort and money you are putting into your training. Competitive bodybuilding fitness competitions take place all over the world and display some of the finest, athletic bodies on the planet.

Each competition has numerous categories and levels, so even if you are still a novice you can still find a competition that is at your level. However, if you are going to enter you?re going to have to put in a lot of training before hand, so you?ll need lots of self discipline and dedication in terms of actually getting down the gym and training and also your diet.

If you are serious about taking up competitive bodybuilding you should really try to find your self a training partner and coach. As having the guidance and support of an experienced coach and the support from a training partner will definitely help improve your chances of success in the competitive bodybuilding arena. You and your coach need to determine your training programme, your diet and what competitions or events you want to train up to compete in. Also you need to decide whether you are going to be a ?natural? bodybuilder or whether you will use performance enhancing supplements such as steroids. The natural route is best for your body, but there is no reason why you shouldn?t supplement your diet with essential vitamins and nutrients to help optimum growth and repair of your muscles, especially if you have to eliminate some foods from your diet to lose weight.

The next step is to put some time into investigate and find local competitive bodybuilding competitions near to home, as they are a great place to ?dip your toe? in and get started. If you can?t find any locally you might have to travel to further a field to find competitions, so you?ll need to schedule this into your training plans.

Competitive bodybuilding and fitness competitions often vary in terms of the price to enter and the competition rules and regulations, so make sure you do your research carefully. Usually you?ll have a tour or guide the day before or on the morning of the event, so the more prepared you are, the more professional you will appear to the other competitors and judges.

Prior to the event, make sure that you have covered and mastered in training all the poses that you need to be able to do for the competition, and learn how to tense up your muscles for each pose while appearing relaxed. Other things you might want to do or take into consideration are tanning and removing excess hair and anything else that might improve your chances of winning. Ask your coach for advice on this or ask other bodybuilders you have met through your training.

Once you?ve done the competition, critically assess how well you have done, both positives and negatives, if you try and learn from your mistakes you?ll continually increase you chances of winning in future events. See what the other competitors are doing and ask them questions too. You should also try and speak to the judges after the event to get their opinion on how you did and get some tips for your next competition. Listen carefully to all their hints and tips and sooner than you think you?ll be the one winning all the prizes!

Do you want to learn how to pack on massive muscle, melt away fat and get the body of your dreams? If so, get your hands on free bodybuilding tips for beginner bodybuilders by clicking the following link: http://teenbodybuildingtips.info/

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.

Adolescent Bodybuilding: Is It Too Early To Start?

Adolescent bodybuilding is a great way to instill discipline and start out on the road to a healthy lifestyle at a young age. In contrast to bodybuilding for the older crowd, adolescent bodybuilding has a completely different set of rules; reps and sets change, as well as the amount of weight, frequency of workouts, even goals and motivation.

Home Many Days

Adolescent bodybuilding workouts should not be undertaken more than three days a week to start. In fact, three days is ideal in adolescent bodybuilding. Once you gain more experience you can lift four or five days a week. It is important to stick to this schedule in adolescent bodybuilding to avoid over exertion. Yes, the younger you are the easier you bounce back, but you should avoid this urge for at least a while.

Length of Session

One hour should be plenty, but no more than 90 minutes. You might be young, but you are not invincible. If you push your body to hard it can set you back on your road to success by forcing you to take extra days off to recover.

Reps, Sets and Weights

These are probably the most difficult aspects of adolescent bodybuilding to establish. This is because you will have to experiment and see what works best for you. What works best for some may not always work for everybody else. Play around with weight, sets and reps to see what works best. This can take a few months so be patient and do not get discouraged. Every young person interested in adolescent bodybuilding has gone through the same process.

Goal Setting

As with any form of bodybuilding, in adolescent bodybuilding you should have goal. These goals should be reasonable and achievable in a short period of time, and by reasonable, I do not mean aim to look like the Incredible Hulk within six weeks. A good form of motivation is to take a picture of yourself in a bathing suit as you undertake your healthy lifestyle choice and compare your body to it as you begin to excel at your adolescent bodybuilding program.

Rewards

The older crowd of bodybuilders can appreciate the rewards of a longer life span, but for those in the adolescent bodybuilding domain the rewards are more along the lines of impressing the opposite sex and feeling good about themselves. There is nothing wrong with this. Self-esteem is important at this age in a young person?s life, so if adolescent bodybuilding helps accomplish this, then great. What really matters (good health, discipline and self control) will come later.

The "Muscle Nerd", Jeff Anderson, is a world-renowned fitness consultant and author, most noted for his cutting edge research in natural bodybuilding and fat loss. Discover the secrets to transforming YOUR body today at: http://www.musclenerdfitness.com

What Is The NO Supplement? Should I use Nitric Oxide Supplement For Bodybuilding?

NO is the chemical symbol for Nitric Oxide, it is a gas essential to ?signaling molecules.? Specifically, it properly controls blood circulation as well as regulate the functions of the stomach, brain, liver and lungs. Additionally, it is also responsible for controlling blood pressure. Significantly to men, nitric oxide helps in the dilation of the blood vessels for the occurrence of ?penile erection.?

It is said that Nitric Oxide is a helpful bodybuilding supplement. A bodybuilding supplement is responsible for muscle build-up as well as elimination of unwanted fats.

A heightened blood flow is the essential aspect of nitric oxide that is why it is important to most bodybuilders. They are benefited by the following:

- Nitric Oxide improves blood flow which makes way for nutrients to be properly delivered to the muscle cells. As a result, there is proper growth of muscles during ?adaptation and recovery stage.? - Nitric Oxide reduces potential inflammation in the body. By which, muscles are protected to tremendous stress.

Other health-related benefits of Nitric Oxide include:

- It protects an individual from the possibility of heart problems since NO aids in the protection of blood vessels.

- It aids in the proper control of platelet functioning.

- It reduces ?artery plaque.?

- It helps in the lowering of cholesterol.

There are different types of Nitric Oxide supplements available in the market.

1. MRI NO2

This type of Nitric Oxide supplement is noted as an important innovation in bodybuilding supplement. MRI NO2 is said to create a continuing ?muscle pump.?

2. BSN Nitrix

It is a non-hormonal supplement which does not contribute harm from hormonal imbalance. Its primary function is to boost nitric oxide levels in the body so that a heightened blood flow will be obtained.

There are three necessary nutrients which can be found on BSN Nitrix such as Phosphoplex, L-Citrulline, and Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide or NAD.

3. Pinnacle NoX2

The important ingredients of A-AKG and A-KIC make the said product efficient to lengthen ?muscle pumps,? enlarge and revitalize muscles.

It is said that Pinnacle NoX2 is the same as MRI NO2. The only difference is with the cost of the product. The latter is more expensive.

4. Syntrax Nitrous

This type of Nitric Oxide bodybuilding supplement is a powder supplement which makes it easy to digest. The arginine ingredient mixed with malic acid makes Syntrax Nitrous effective for proper secretion of insulin, efficient pumping of muscles, production of energy and most importantly muscle recovery.

The use of the above-mentioned samples of Nitric Oxide bodybuilding supplement must first be consulted with your trainer. The need for a supplement varies from one person to another. There are possible side effects which can be encountered with the use of such products containing Nitric Oxide such as:

- High NO dosage causes diarrhea and vomiting.

- Frequent headaches.

Aside from Nitric Oxide supplements, you can obtain natural sources of the said chemical compound with food substances containing L-arginine such as meats, fish, milk products and grains.

The use of bodybuilding supplements has its own specific advantages and disadvantages. To obtain optimum result it is recommended that you take in supplements in its recommended dosage.

A bodybuilder?s physique will not be obtained with supplements alone, you need to undergo serious training, be keen with your diet and most importantly get enough rest.

For more great information and resources check out Body Building Routines and Supplements here. Check out our Free Body Building Routines Guide

Even Cheap Home Gyms Can Do the Job

You don't really have to spend lots of money for a home gym system. You may think that you do but if you will only be using your gym rarely, then ask yourself: Why spend such a fortune? Going to the department store around you or watching the paper for sales would really get you a gym for a cheaper price.

If you can, wait till summer when all the yard sales in the area start up. Shop around there and for sure you can usually find real good buys. It's not a good thing to put yourself into debt by trying to really get the most expensive machine in the market - you do not have to get a product that you think is better than what the neighbor next door or across the way plus what other family members has.

Some of the cheaper home gym equipment is just as good and just as effective as the more expensive ones. You wouldn't really use all the features of your home gym, it would be wrong to think that not buying the expensive ones would not give you benefits. Purchasing the cheaper would give you no fear of not using every piece of that equipment because you did not buy it for the parts that you are not going to use all the time.

Think about how you could just save your money and the hassle of trying to pay the amount of the expensive home gym systems. You can always get your money's worth with something that does not cost a fortune to you or your bank account. No matter where you go to purchase your equipment you would need to just make sure that it is what you are looking for with the exercise that you want to accomplish with a home gym and that all the pieces are there if done at a yard sale. Remember that cheaper is sometimes better for you.

Callie Armstrong is a writer for http://www.AllergyHero.com. Her insights on dieting, exercise and health can be read at http://www.body4beach.com