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Bodybuilding Training Tip For More Growth Hormone Release
By Jeff Anderson
More growth hormone (GH) = more MUSCLE, right?
It’s a known fact that anyone looking to build more muscle mass must address your body’s natural “hormone factory” to see some real gains in size.
But different hormones are stimulated in different ways.
Here’s a cool (and SIMPLE!) “Quick Tip” to add to your next workout to raise GH naturally and kick start some KILLER MASS…
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“Quick Tip” For Skyrocketing GH..
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On your very LAST SET of each exercise, when you know that you have 2 REPS left in you…
…DON’T take them!
Instead, bring the weight to the PEAK CONTRACTION POINT or “flexed” position (e.g.- for bicep curls, it would be the “up” position) and hold the weight while flexing your targeted muscle.
Your goal is to hold this flexing for 20 SECONDS (called “static contraction) before slowly letting the weight down.
This is going to burn like HELL…
…and that’s EXACTLY what you’re looking for!
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Why This Works…
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That “burn” you feel is your body’s natural “lactic acid response”.
When lactic acid is triggered in the body, it sends a signal to your endocrine system to release growth hormone as a “recovery aid”.
And that GH release is a powerful mass-building chemical in your body and your gains will SOAR!
Note: Do this for no more than 1 EXERCISE per body part in your workouts for 1 WEEK. Skip a week before doing it again.
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Special Consideration For…
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…if you’re using my Advanced Mass Building program, then give this method a try in WEEK 3 of your mass-building cycle.
In other words, instead of the insane “DSP” technique I teach you, give this method a try instead to change this up a bit.
Go for it…and feel the burn! 
Can You Gain Muscle and Burn Fat at the Same Time?
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)
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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.
Build Strength and Muscle Mass Through Visualization
If you are reading this right now, I want you to raise your hand as high as you can. Go ahead and do it right now if you haven’t already, I am going to make an important point here. OK, keeping your hand as high as you can, I want you now to raise your hand a little bit higher. What’s my point? Most of us have no idea what we are truly capable of, and we tend to often cut ourselves short.
If you want to seriously maximize your effectiveness in the gym and get results faster and better then you have been currently experiencing, then you must make visualization apart of your workout program. You have probably heard someone at one time say, “I have to see it to believe it.” Well, any successful person in life in any category thinks the exact opposite, they believe it first and then they see it. Apply this to your training and your results will shoot through the roof.
Two ways in which you can use visualization are what we’ll call long-term and short-term. Let’s use the bench press for example. Let’s say you currently can bench press 185 pounds for 10 reps and your goal is to eventually bench press 250 pounds for 10 reps. Long term visualization is when you take some quiet time at night when you are lying in bed, relax your body and mind, and after a few minutes when you feel relaxed, you begin to visualize yourself bench pressing 250 pounds for 10 reps.
The key is to make it as real as possible, as if you are really in the gym working out. Make sure you incorporate all 5 of yous senses and make your visual as close to reality as you can; recall the smell, what the gym looks like, the feel of the bar in your hands, what it sounds like in your gym, everything. See yourself completing each and every one of the ten reps in good form. Repeat this visualization every night, making it more and more of a real experience.
Another trick you can use is to see someone else perform ten reps with 250 pounds. When I was squatting around 300 pounds and had my goal of 415 pounds, I went on YouTube and watched videos of other people squat 415 pounds with ease and this totally gave me a new perspective, and the 300 pounds I was currently squatting no longer seemed so heavy.
Short term visualization works like this: when you are actually at the gym and getting ready to bench press, lie down on the bench and close your eyes. If you are going to do 10 reps, then visualize yourself doing all 10 reps in good form. Make sure that each rep you visualize in your head is a good one that you complete the whole set! Once you see it in your mind, snap open your eyes and perform the set; and repeat what you’ve already done in your imagination.
A final little trick you can use is to visualize yourself as being your favorite bodybuilder or anyone with a lot more muscle and strength then you have while performing a set. Convince yourself as much as possible at that moment that you are really that person; really see yourself as a pro bodybuilder or weightlifter while you perform your set. This technique also works when doing exercises that might not be as challenging on your strength, such as pumping out your pectoral muscles with some dumbbell fly’s; I’ll bet you’ll be able to pump out a few more reps then usual acting like a pro bodybuilder.
Practice these visualization techniques and over time you will be getting a heck of a lot better of a workout then you were without them, thus bringing you closer to performing your best, meaning you’ll get better results.
Muscle Building
