Build Large Muscles» Bodybuilders http://buildlargemuscles.com Build Muscle | Build Large Muscles | Bodybuilding Thu, 15 Apr 2010 02:35:31 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Best Abs Exercises Technique For 3-D Abs! http://buildlargemuscles.com/2009/11/10/best-abs-exercises-technique-for-3-d-abs/ http://buildlargemuscles.com/2009/11/10/best-abs-exercises-technique-for-3-d-abs/#comments Tue, 10 Nov 2009 02:18:06 +0000 fitness http://buildlargemuscles.com/2009/11/10/best-abs-exercises-technique-for-3-d-abs/

By Jeff Anderson

Check out any local gym and you’ll see inexperienced members training their abs with endless sets of situps and crunches, right?

While the abs are predominantly made of Type 1 (endurance) muscle fibers and respond to slightly higher repetition ranges,your abs are made up of muscle just like any other part of your body.

Therefore the best abs exercises to get that “cut” look are those that are resistance-based and treat them like any other muscle.

But there’s a special little trick you must know in order to maximize your abs training on your way to having a stacked 6-pack.

In fact, ignoring this principle, could force you to develop “lopsided” abs that are so common among beginner bodybuilders.

Let me share this secret with you now…

The main abdominal muscle you want to be working when training your abs is your “rectus abdominis”, that sheet of rippled muscle that goes from your rib cage all the way down the front of your body to your pelvis.

What’s unique about this abdominal muscle group is that the upper abs can work separately from the lower abs (to some extent)…BUT when you work your lower abs exercises, your upper abs are ALWAYS working as well.

This is why most people (including myself from years of military training focusing on upper abs) had overdeveloped upper abs but underdeveloped lower abs.

Here’s how to correct this…

Make sure you train your LOWER ABS first in your abs workout (ALWAYS!) which brings both upper and lower abs into the workload!

If you don’t work your lower abs first, you exhaust your upper abs too soon and when you DO target your lower abs, your upper abs will fatigue too fast and you’ll end up with under-targeted lower abs.

So the best exercises for lower abs are:

* Incline Leg Raises
* Incline Knee Ups
* Hanging Leg Raises
* Flat Bench Leg Raises

And then follow up with the best upper abs exercises:

* Crunches
* Weighted Crunches
* Situps
* Hanging Knee Raises

]]> http://buildlargemuscles.com/2009/11/10/best-abs-exercises-technique-for-3-d-abs/feed/ 0 Can You Gain Muscle and Burn Fat at the Same Time? http://buildlargemuscles.com/2009/10/22/can-you-gain-muscle-and-burn-fat-at-the-same-time/ http://buildlargemuscles.com/2009/10/22/can-you-gain-muscle-and-burn-fat-at-the-same-time/#comments Thu, 22 Oct 2009 01:32:19 +0000 fitness http://buildlargemuscles.com/?p=397 Can You Gain Muscle and Burn Fat at the Same Time?
– By Jon Benson, Author of “7 Minute Muscle”

Many fitness pros just plain don’t believe that you can burn fat while building muscle at the same time. Every time I read an article by some doctor or expert claiming it’s “biologically impossible” to gain muscle on a hypocaloric diet (a diet low in calories) I just laugh.

I do more than make claims – I have proved this to be true many times. I’ve had my body fat hydrostatically measured during several peaks. In all but one I showed an increase of muscle mass and a decrease of body fat during a 12-16 week period. The one time I didn’t show an increase in muscle mass when was I was training the most in the gym. That may not make sense right now, but it will in a moment.

(Read the full article here: Gain Muscle Burn Fat)


Other Resources:

The secret to getting super lean – I’m talking about being RIPPED, not just “average body fat” – is all about mastering the art of “peaking.” Most people do not have a clue about what it takes to reach the type of low body fat levels that reveal ripped six-pack abs, muscle striations, vascularity and extreme muscular definition, so they go about it completely the wrong way.

Here’s a case in point: One of my newsletter subscribers recently sent me this question:

Tom, on your Burn the Fat website, you wrote:

‘Who better to model than bodybuilders and fitness competitors? No athletes in the world get as lean as quickly as bodybuilders and fitness competitors. The transformations they undergo in 12 weeks prior to competition would boggle your mind! Only ultra-endurance athletes come close in terms of low body fat levels, but endurance athletes like triathaletes and marathoners often get lean at the expense of chewing up all their muscle. Some of them are nothing but skin and bone.’

“There seems to be a contradiction unless I’m missing something. Why do bodybuilders and fitness competitors have to go through a 12 week ‘transformation’ prior to every event instead of staying ‘lean and mean’ all the time? If they practice the secrets exposed in your book, they should be staying in shape all the time instead of having to work at losing fat prior to every competitive event, correct?”

There is a logical explanation for why bodybuilders and other physique athletes (fitness and figure competitors), don’t remain completely ripped all year round, and it’s the very reason they are able to get so ripped on the day of a contest…

You can’t hold a peak forever or it’s not a “peak”, right? What is the definition of a peak? It’s a high point surrounded by two lower points isn’t it?

Therefore, any shape you can stay in all year round is NOT your “peak” condition.

The intelligent approach to nutrition and training (which almost all bodybuilders and fitness/figure competitors use), is to train and diet in a seasonal or cyclical fashion and build up to a peak, then ease off to a maintenance or growth phase.

I am NOT talking about bulking up and getting fat and out of shape every year, then dieting it all off every year. What I’m talking about is going from good shape to great (peak) shape, then easing back off to good shape…. but never getting “out of shape.” Makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it?

Here’s an example: I have no intentions whatsoever of walking around 365 days a year at 4% body fat like I appear in the photo on my website. Off-season, when I’m not competing, my body fat is usually between 8 – 10%. Mind you, that’s very lean and still single digit body fat.

I don’t stray too far from competition shape, but I don’t maintain contest shape all the time. It takes me 12-14 weeks or so to gradually drop from 9.5% to 3.5%-4.0% body fat to “peak” for competition with NO loss of lean body mass…using the same techniques I reveal in my e-book.

It would be almost impossible to maintain 4% body fat, and even if I could, why would I want to? For the few weeks prior to competition I’m so depleted, ripped, and even “drawn” in the face, that complete strangers walk up and offer to feed me.

Okay, so I’m just kidding about that, but let’s just say being “being ripped to shreds” isn’t a desirable condition to maintain because it takes such a monumental effort to stay there. It’s probably not even healthy to try forcing yourself to hold extreme low body fat. Unless you’re a natural “ectomorph” (skinny, fast metabolism body type), your body will fight you. Not only that, anabolic hormones may drop and sometimes your immune system is affected as well. It’s just not “normal” to walk around all the time with literally no subcutaneous body fat.

Instead of attempting to hold the peak, I cycle back into a less demanding off-season program and avoid creeping beyond 9.9% body fat. Some years I’ve stayed leaner – like 6-7%, (which takes effort), especially when I knew I would be photographed, but I don’t let my body fat go over 10%.

This practice isn’t just restricted to bodybuilders. Athletes in all sports use periodization to build themselves up to their best shape for competition. Is a pro football player in the same condition in March-April as he is in August-September? Not a chance. Many show up fat and out of shape (relatively speaking) for training camp, others just need fine tuning, but none are in peak form… that’s why they have training camp!!!

There’s another reason you wouldn’t want to maintain a “ripped to shreds” physique all year round – you’d have to be dieting (calorie restricted) all the time. And this is one of the reasons that 95% of people can’t lose weight and keep it off –they are CHRONIC dieters… always on some type of diet. Know anyone like that?

You can’t stay on restricted low calories indefinitely. Sooner or later your metabolism slows down and you plateau as your body adapts to the chronically lowered food intake. But if you diet for fat loss and push incredibly hard for 3 months, then ease off for a while and eat a little more (healthy food, not “pigging out”), your metabolic rate is re-stimulated. In a few weeks or months, you can return to another fat loss phase and reach an even lower body fat level, until you finally reach the point that’s your happy maintenance level for life – a level that is healthy and realistic – as well as visually appealing.

Bodybuilders have discovered a methodology for losing fat that’s so effective, it puts them in complete control of their body composition. They’ve mastered this area of their lives and will never have to worry about it again. If they ever “slip” and fall off the wagon like all humans do at times … no problem! They know how to get back into shape fast.

Bodybuilders have the tools and knowledge to hold a low body fat all year round (such as 9% for men, or about 15% for women), and then at a whim, to reach a temporary “peak” of extremely low body fat for the purpose of competition. Maybe most important of all, they have the power and control to slowly ease back from peak shape into maintenance, and not balloon up and yo-yo like most conventional dieters!

What if you had the power to stay lean all year round, and then get super lean when summer rolled around, or when you took your vacation to the Caribbean, or when your wedding date was coming up? Wouldn’t you like to be in control of your body like that? Isn’t that the same thing that bodybuilders and fitness/figure competitors do, only on a more practical, real-world level?

So even if you have no competitive aspirations whatsoever, don’t you agree that there’s something of value everyone could learn from physique athletes? Don’t model yourself after the huge crowd of losers who gobble diet pills, buy exercise gimmicks and suffer through starvation diets like automatons, only to gain back everything they lost! Instead, learn from the leanest athletes on Earth – natural bodybuilders and fitness competitors…

These physique athletes get as ripped as they want to be, exactly when they want to, simply by manipulating their diets in a cyclical fashion between pre-contest “cutting” programs and off season “maintenance” or “muscle growth” programs. Even if you have no desire to ever compete, try this seasonal “peaking” approach yourself and you’ll see that it can work as well for you as it does for elite bodybuilders.

If you’re interested in learning even more secrets of bodybuilders and fitness models, visit the Burn The Fat website at: Burn the Fat

About the Author:

Tom Venuto is a lifetime natural bodybuilder, an NSCA-certified personal trainer (CPT) and a certified strength & conditioning specialist (CSCS). Tom is the author of the #1 best-selling e-book, “Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle,” which teaches you how to get lean without drugs or supplements using the secrets of the world’s best bodybuilders and fitness models. Learn how to get rid of stubborn body fat and increase your metabolism by visiting: Burn the Fat.

]]> http://buildlargemuscles.com/2009/10/22/can-you-gain-muscle-and-burn-fat-at-the-same-time/feed/ 0 How to Build Muscle Size Like the Old Timers http://buildlargemuscles.com/2009/06/08/how-to-build-muscle-size-like-the-old-timers/ http://buildlargemuscles.com/2009/06/08/how-to-build-muscle-size-like-the-old-timers/#comments Mon, 08 Jun 2009 05:04:37 +0000 fitness http://buildlargemuscles.com/2009/06/08/how-to-build-muscle-size-like-the-old-timers/ build strength
Derek Manuel asked:


nd the fifty’s through the seventy’s, we can learn a lot of solid information on how to build muscle size as well as gaining weight from the old-timers. There was a lot more common sense and simplicity when it came to weight training workouts for muscle mass.

Their training techniques differed very much from the ones we know of today, though most of the ones they used then are far more effective. The difference about their training was that they understood the importance of lifting heavy weights to build muscle. Because when you build strength, you are building the foundation for size. Some strength exercises focus on building muscle mass better then others, while others have more of an effect on gaining weight.

Not only did the old time bodybuilders train with different exercises and programs then what we mostly see today, but the way they trained was completely different altogether. They trained HARD. Back then most of these bodybuilders worked out in basements or garages of their own homes. They didn’t have all of the pads, machines, and fancy gym equipment that make training easier and more luxurious that we have today.

In fact, many bodybuilders trained without any racks whatsoever, so in order to do most exercises, they first had to clean the weight off the floor and then get it into position (a clean is an Olympic exercise in which you pick the weight up off the floor and pull it up and get your elbows under it in one quick motion). Can you imagine that before beginning to squat say, 200 pounds, you first had to pick it up off the floor, lift it over your head and then lower it onto your shoulders? Now that’s hard work.

Gyms back then were more like dungeons, and you would only go in for one purpose and one purpose only: to lift weights. The old timers would go in there, concentrate fully on their workout, train hard, and get the heck out. For most bodybuilders back then, there were probably no easy days in the gym. You either give it all you got, or you don’t workout at all.

Since they understood the importance of lifting heavy weights to build muscle on most if not all compound exercises, this made easy workouts virtually impossible. They HAD to concentrate on what they were doing. They HAD to work hard on each rep of each set of each exercise. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t get any stronger, and if they didn’t get any stronger then they knew they wouldn’t get any bigger.

There were few if any supplements back then and steroids weren’t even heard of yet. They didn’t have machines or pulleys or cables. But what they did have was more then average successful weight trainers.

Gains of 10 pounds a month for hardgainers was not uncommon, and many gained 20 to 30 pounds of muscle within just a couple of months without much of a thought. Why? Because they weren’t exposed to the same bunch of garbage that is out there today. They trained with the right knowledge and loads of hard work and common sense.

If you really want results from your workouts, you have got to change your attitude and thinking towards your training. Think of how the old timers trained next time you hit the gym. Go there with a single purpose in mind, and never let your mind stray from your workout. Your results will triple by focusing your mind while at the gym. If you’re just an “average” gym member, you’re going to get average results.

If you really want to know how to build muscle size and add some raw strength, then keep your workouts simple, focus on the compound exercises, and workout with 110% intensity. Next time you’re at the gym, think about how the old timers trained, and your results will improve tenfold.



Muscle Gain
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