If you wish to significantly increase a muscle’s strength and size, you need to do resistance exercises with that muscles on a regular basis (one to three times a week).

Resistance Training
Resistance training, also called strength training, is performing an action against some kind of resistance, most commonly a weight. The resistance can also be provided by rubber bands, or even the weight of your own body or body parts.

In order to be effective at increasing muscular strength and/or endurance and/or power and/or size (which is why many people resistance train) you need to make sure that the resistance is sufficiently large that you can fatigue yourself in a relatively small number of repetitions. Remember to continually push yourself to do at least 1 more rep (or more weight) than you did in your previous workout.

Less Aerobic Exercise
Too much aerobic activity can slow your muscle gain. Aerobic exercise will increase a muscle’s endurance and tone and make it slightly larger, only by a small percentage.

However, you don’t need to necessarily cut back on the total time spent on cardio, rather then number of days. Also try to do the cardio at different times in the day from your weight lifting. For example, if you are doing four sessions of cardio for 30-45 minutes a week, try instead to do two session of 1-1.5hours.

If you want to build muscles, it is important to understand exactly how muscles are built. It is also important learn how to tell if your form is correct or not.

How are Muscles Built?

Muscles are built when blood is forced into your muscles during a weightlifting program, it activates the “micro trauma” or tiny little tears in your muscles, and your muscle tissues repair and rebuild themselves bigger and stronger than they were.

However, only if you allow ample resting time. It is important never train the same muscle group two days in a row, or you will cut off the rebuilding process. It is during the Eccentric Contraction or negative phase, that promotes blood flow to the muscles and causes micro trauma which builds muscles.

Therefore it is more important to let the weight come back slowly on the negative phase, then on the Concentric Contraction or positive phase. The speed that is recommended is one to two seconds for each positive phase (lifting movement) and three to four seconds for each negative phase (lowering movement).

If you are doing the exercise movement correctly, you should have a feeling of warmth, some fatigue and a “burning” sensation at the end of each set. This indicates use of proper form. If you are not getting these feelings, you may need to review the proper form for your exercise as this is probably an indication that a common mistake is not allowing blood to be fully targeted to your muscles.

Best Exercises to Build Muscles

So, are these the best exercises? Well, that depends on what you want. Do you want mass or definition? Do you want width on thickness? Do you want overall mass? Do you want lower abs? Do you want upper chest? Are you on a mass cycle or pre-contest?

For the back
Seated cable row
Front chin (pull-up)
Pulldown behind neck
Barbell row
Front pulldown
Narrow grip pulldown/-chin
Chin behind neck

For the chest
Dumbbell flye
Bench press
Incline bench press
Cable crossover
Parallel bar dip
[Cross bench] pullover
Dumbbell press

For the shoulders
Press behind neck
Dumbbell side lateral
Upright row
Cable side lateral (one hand)
Dumbbell press

For the abs
Roman chair sit-up
Bench/Incline leg raise
Crunch
Hanging leg raise
Incline sit-up
Cable crunch

Here is our hand picked list of best exercises:

Overall mass: Deadlift
Back width (upper lats): Front pull-up (weighted)
Back mass/thickness: Barbell row
Lower lats: Chin (narrow grip) (weighted)
Lat isolation: Stiff arm pulldown
Lower back: Back extension
Overall chest: Bench press
Upper chest: Incline press
Lower chest: Dip (weighted)
Shoulder mass: Press behind neck
Side delts: Dumbbell side lateral
Lower abs: Reverse (incline) crunch
Overall abs: Crunch (weighted)

It will be easier for you to build muscle when taking muscle building supplements. Medical information shows that supplements like muscle building supplements and dietary supplements can be effective in helping you to manage your weight. Read about the benefits of dietary supplements and effectiveness of muscle growth supplements today.

Share This

Similar Posts On GainingWeight.info Food To Assist Building Muscles Common Mistakes when trying to Build Muscles How to Gain Weight - 7 Weight Gain Tips Bicep Curls: It’s Not What You Do, It’s How You Do It! Drinking Milk After Exercise Encourages Muscle Gain And Fat Loss, Study Finds

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 13th, 2007 at 1:27 am and is filed under Muscle Building. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.