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Keys to Muscle Growth

So why do most people lift weights? More than likely it is because they want bigger or stronger muscles; or a combination of the two. But aside from just learning what to do you should always understand why you are doing it. Here are the Keys to Muscle Growth.

Typically speaking the body will adjust based on the stress placed on it. If you simply just do your daily routine in life the body will essentially stay the same in terms of strength, speed, and endurance. However when you start doing things like resistance training then the body adapts by becoming stronger.  But it is not an overnight process.

Types of Growth

Muscles can grow in two different ways called hypertrophy or hyperplasia.

Hypertrophy is the type of growth most commonly associated with resistance training. That is where the muscle grows in size because the actual muscles fibers grow larger. This happens when the fibers get torn during training and then grow back stronger and larger. That muscle soreness you get a day after training is the result of the torn fibers.

Keys to Muscle Growth
Keys to Muscle Growth

There are two types of hypertrophy. Sarcomere hypertrophy has to do with the contraction phase of the muscle while sarcoplasmic hypertrophy is the non-contraction phase. Both are important for overall size, density, and muscle strength gains.

Hyperplasia is growth based on an increase of muscle fibers. This happens when a fiber splits creating two fibers the same size as the original. There have been various theories on whether hyperplasia is something that really exists or not.

Muscle Breakdown

The idea behind resistance training is to speed up the natural process that occurs in the body. Typically every 2 to 4 weeks the body will naturally break down and rebuild all of the muscles. By training you speed that process up. When you break down the muscle fibers from resistance stress the body compensates via growth as a protection method. If your body is properly fueled with nutrients then your body will be rebuilding 24 to 36 hours after the stress was placed on the body.

Does It Matter What You Do?

Not necessarily. While many people feel you need to use core exercises like squats, dead lifts, or clean & jerks to build maximum size, muscle growth can occur whenever the body is stressed. That is not to say that these exercises aren’t great, but there is more than one way to do things.

An example would be people who do heavy labor. Often they don’t hit the gym regularly because they regularly stress their bodies from lifting and carrying large loads. At one point I was doing heavy labor for a week by breaking concrete for a few hours a day with a sledge hammer. With years of regular gym time under my belt I had done all sorts of lifting already. But after that week of exhausting work (and another week of recovery) I noticed that my shoulders were larger and seemed broader to people. It was a matter of stressing my body so much that it compensated and grew. Personally I considered this scenario something like hyperplasia (which was noted in the shoulder muscles of some swimmers).

That is not to say you should ditch your current program for heavy labor. But it should bring awareness to the concept of variety in what you are doing when attempting to make your body grow. After it has adapted to a certain type of stress you might need to adjust exercises, reps, sets, or anything else to throw a curve that you then have to adapt to.

Ben Sanderson is an author for Nutribomb Bodybuilding Supplements. At Nutribomb, we provide you with the latest information on the best supplements you can find on the internet.

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Top Tips To Get Your Olympic Body Ready For This Summer

London will host the 2012 Olympics this year so it is the ideal time for the nation to get their bodies fit and ready for the games. World class athletes invest a lot of time in developing the ultimate Olympic body, so what is actually involved?

Body type

What are you best at? Different bodies have the ability to perform different tasks more effectively. Sprinting may come natural to some, whereas others will find endurance tasks come more naturally. Therefore, individuals should familiarize themselves with their body composition as different people have a different percentage of muscle fiber type that determines whether or not their body will excel in power, speed or endurance. Training the body should be directed towards the body’s natural ability.

Set goals

Individuals wanting an Olympic body should know what it is they want to achieve at the end result. Therefore, an event that is enjoyed by an athlete is the event that any training or physical plan should revolve around. If the training is enjoyed individuals are far more likely to see success. People that want to lose weight should review their diet and commence an interval training program of cardiovascular endurance exercise alongside short sprinting. Running, cycling or swimming will help achieve weight loss.

Review diet

Olympic athletes have a strict diet that is followed religiously. Diet is the key focus for individuals looking to improve their physical and mental well being. Forget calorie counting and direct attention towards the content of the food. Everybody is aware of the importance of eating fruit, vegetables and slow carbohydrates, but individuals are encouraged to note the sugar content of the foods being consumed as sugar has high calorie count. diet plans will create structure for meals and snacks which will aid weight loss.

Olympic Body
Olympic Body

Eat frequently

Regular food intake will maximize the body’s efficiency, and this will increase the metabolism which means more calories are burnt. Olympic athletes consume five to six meals daily as smaller meals increase muscle mass and maintain maximum efficiency.

Drink water

60% of the body is made up of water; therefore regular water intake is absolutely necessary. The circulatory functions will be affected if the body endures a fluid loss of just 2% which will decrease performance significantly.

Training

Regular and intense training will help athletes reach their ultimate potential. Depending on the individual it will take different methods and time periods to reach the goals in place. To see real improvements, three workouts daily will instigate the progression to an Olympic body.

There are plenty of strategies to help individuals get the Olympic body but it will take time and commitment. Diet is essential and people should enforce a healthy and nutritious diet plan straight away. Exercise should be eased in gradually to prevent injury and exercise intensity and duration will gradually develop as training is introduce.

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Get Rid Of Underarm Jiggle with These Tips

If you’re looking to get rid of underarm jiggle, it’s important that you take the smartest approach possible to combat this problem head on.  Far too many people are not using the right techniques when aiming to get rid of underarm jiggle and because of this, do not see the results they’re after.

The following tips are going to help you get rid of that underarm jiggle once and for all while developing a more toned and defined look.

Perform Two Triceps Exercises per Session

The very first thing you should be doing if you want to get rid of your underarm jiggle is perform a variety of different triceps weight lifting exercises.  This is going to help firm and tone that muscle area so it’s not only stronger, but looks better as well.

Since muscles respond best to variety, don’t let yourself get hung up on only one particular exercise.

Instead, mix it up between a number of different movements, adding at least two per workout.  Good triceps exercises include bent over triceps extensions, overhead triceps extensions, dips, rope press-downs and triangle push-ups.

Don’t forget that you’ll also work the triceps any time you’re doing a bench press, a shoulder press, or an incline press as well.

Add In Interval Cardio Training

The next thing that you must be doing to help get rid of the underarm jiggle is add in some interval cardio training.  This form of cardio is going to be far more effective for increasing the metabolic rate which then helps speed up the entire fat loss process.

By doing interval training rather than your regular cardio workouts, you’ll not only help to reduce the underarm jiggle but you’ll also lean up the entire rest of your body as well. Since losing the underarm jiggle comes down to just lowering the entire body fat level, as the arms look better all other areas will too.

Be Sure To Use a Lowered Calorie Diet

Finally the last thing that you must be sure you’re doing is using a lower calorie diet.  Exercising is definitely going to help with losing the underarm jiggle but if you’re taking in too many calories, you still are going to struggle.  It’s very easy to eat back what you burned off in an entire workout session in a matter of minutes if you’re not careful so by paying attention to your diet you’ll really be speeding up the process of reaching this goal.

Loosing that underarm jiggle is going to require a combination of a lower calorie diet that’s high in protein and vegetables, enough interval cardio training to boost the metabolism and help shed body fat all over, as well as appropriate strength training exercises that will stimulate the area right underneath the arms.

It’s important to realize however that you can’t spot reduce so even though you may be performing all your triceps strengthening exercises, it’s only when you’re successfully able to bring the body fat levels down that you’re really going to accomplish success.

This article is a guest post by Nick. Nick writes for Muscle Building & Healthy Weight Blog – Building Body Muscles.com. Nick also follows fat loss and fitness programs and provides first hand reviews of this programs on his blog. Right now he is trying a program called 7 Minute Muscle –You should check out his blog to read more of it. Also, subscribe to fitness newsletter.