Build YOUR Body Blog

Monday, March 27, 2006

Beginners Supplements

"Do I need supplements to gain muscles fast?"
"What supplementation is needed for body building beginners?"
"Are the nutrients from my daily meals enough for me to gain bigger muscles fast?"
All bodybuilding beginners must have asked themselves these questions. You are reading this article because you would have probably asked these questions yourself.
The answer to these supplementation questions is an affirmative yes. Body building supplements are necessary if you want gain bigger muscles faster. This is because various supplements have their own benefits and they work together complementing each other to support muscle mass gain. You will probably not be getting enough of them through your normal meals and that is the primary reason why you need supplementation.
Since there are so many body building supplements in out there, choosing the correct and effective supplementation to gain muscles fast is a daunting task for a body building beginner.
Well, your anxiety will be solved in this article. As a body building beginner, you need only the basic supplementation to gain muscles effectively. You may need some other supplements when you are at the intermediate or advanced stages of bodybuilding.
So what are the basic supplementation to help a beginner to gain muscle mass?
Protein Supplements – Without protein, you will never gain muscles. Protein is the fundamental supplement for every bodybuilder. You need 1 gram of protein for every pound of your bodyweight per day to faster gain bigger muscles. This is a lot of protein and most people will never get enough of protein from their meals.
•Creatine Supplements - Creatine can significantly increase muscle volume along with protein. It will also improve your weightlifting performances and raise your energy levels so that your workouts are more intensive and this provides for greater muscle gain.
•Glutamine Supplements – Glutamine is a non-essential amino acid, which makes up to 60% of the amino acids in the muscles. Glutamine helps in your muscle recovery after your workouts and also prevents muscle lost due to muscle catabolism.
Multi Vitamins / Minerals Supplement – Your muscles need many vitamins and minerals for every stage of its function and recovery. Some vitamins and minerals are antioxidants and will also help in protecting muscle waste, help in muscle recovery and mopping up free radicals after your muscles are stressed out and damaged during your gym workouts.
As a bodybuilding beginner, these are the only supplementation you will need to help you gain bigger muscles fast.

For more info please visit http://www.build-your-body.net

Thanks and God Bless!

Monday, March 13, 2006

Benefits Of Stretching Before Exercise

When you think about gaining muscle, stretching is probably not the first thing that pops into your head. But did you know that stretching plays a critical role in building muscle?
Every muscle in your body is enclosed in a bag of tough connective tissue known as fascia. Fascia is important for holding your muscles in their proper place in your body.
But your fascia may also be holding back your muscle growth. Think for a moment about your muscles. You train them and feed them properly. They want to grow and will grow but something is holding them back. They have no room to grow!
Because fascia is so tough, it doesn't allow the muscle room to expand. It is like stuffing a large pillow into a small pillowcase. The size of the muscle won't change regardless of how hard you train or how well you eat because the connective tissue around your muscles is constricting the muscles within.
The best example of this is the calf muscle. The lower leg is riddled with fascia because of its tremendous weight-bearing duties in the body. It is because of this fascia that many trainers have great difficulty developing their calves.
The solution: stretching.
Using the pillowcase example from above, imagine you can expand the size of the pillowcase by stretching it. Suddenly, the pillow within has more room and will expand to fill that new space.
By stretching your muscles under specific conditions, you can actually stretch your fascia and give your muscles more room to grow.
The key to effective fascial stretching is the pump. The best time to stretch to expand the bags that are holding in your muscles is when your muscles are pumped up full of blood.
When your muscles are fully pumped up, they are pressing against the fascia. By stretching hard at that time, you increase that pressure on the fascia greatly, which can lead to expansion of the fascia.
One of the major reasons Arnold Schwarzenegger had such incredible chest development was that he finished his chest workouts with dumbell flyes, an exercise that emphasizes the stretched position of the pectoral muscles. He would pump his chest up full of blood during the workout then do flyes, holding the stretch at the bottom of the flye. This gave his chest room to grow to amazing proportions.
Fascial stretching is more rigorous than regular stretching but the results can be amazing. When you stretch hard enough to cause the fascia to expand, you will really feel it! When you are stretching the fascia, you should feel a powerful pulling sensation and pressure as the muscle works against the fascia to expand it.
Be sure you do not stretch so hard that you cause the muscle to tear or cause injury to yourself. You will rapidly learn to distinguish the difference between a good stretch and a bad stretch. You should not feel any sharp pain, just a steady pull.
Hold each stretch for at least 20 to 30 seconds as you must give your fascia time to be affected by the stretch. Stretch hard like this only when you have a fully pumped muscle as you must give your fascia a reason to expand. If your muscles aren't pumped, just stretch normally.
One set of hard stretching after each set you do for a muscle group, besides the obvious benefits of increased flexibility, can have an incredible effect on the size of your muscles and their further ability to grow.

Please visit http://www.build-your-body.net for more useful info!

Thanks and God Bless!