We hear loads of advice and guidance on what to do to build up muscle but much of it is conflicting. For that very reason we are going to set the record straight on a numberof different issues right here and now. Here we go, 7 things not to do when trying to build muscle up: 1) Train for more than 45 minutes. training longer than this can be counter productive as at this point a hormone is released that actually inhibits the muscle building process, train for less than this and the hormones are at the right level for building muscle. 2) Eat lots of everything. Often you hear people say to eat as much of everything as you possibly can. Well of course we need extra calories to add muscle mass but do you really believe that stuffing yourself full of E numbers, fatty red meats, fast food, simple carbs (sugars) and so on is going to be healthy for you long term. Of course not, stick to sensible nutritious foods and you will put on lean muscle mass and save your body from long term health problems too. 3) exercises that isolate individual muscles. That means exercises that focus on one muscle alone like tricep presses. Your time and energy could be put to use a lot better. Stay with compound multi joint exercises such as squats, pull ups,presses and so on. These exercises trigger muscle growth in a few muscles at a time. 4) Ignoring cardio-vascular fitness. I’m sure you have heard that you should steer clear of aerobic stuff as it consumes valuable calories that could be put towards building muscle. yes this is true but come on there is a sensible balance here. Sure get big, but do you really not want to be able to walk up a few flights of stairs without losing your breathe. For long term health include aerobic exercise 2-3 times a week in your program and eat more calories to make up for this energy use-age. 5) Change exercises a lot. You may know that variety ensures muscles keep growing, that is correct but naturally at the same time not letting your muscles establish an exercise rhythm can also limit your progress that you might otherwise make. Stick with an exercise for a couple of months before dropping it. 6) Over train. A major cause of limited muscle building progress is over training. For most people 2-3 sessions a week will be suffice. 7) Stop trying. Too many bodybuilders quit just because there muscle growth eases up a bit. This is the exact time when you should be rising to the challenge and training with more intensity, paying attention to muscle building nutrition and showing determination. Go get em!

Are You Making Them?

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Number 5 – Not Monitoring Your Progress:

So many people just go through the motions with their workouts. They get into the habit of showing up at the gym day after day and mindlessly go through their routine. How many people do you see at the gym with no written plan and no way to keep score to tell if they are making progress?

For a lot of these people going to the gym just becomes a part of their social life. Now I agree that this habit is a lot healthier then hanging out at the local pub. But the time you spend in the gym could be a lot more productive and result in building a lot more muscle.

What gets measured gets improved. All it takes is little bit of time planning out where you want to go and then create a plan of action on how you are going to get there. Or get an experienced coach to help you create an action plan. The old saying “failing to plan, is planning to fail” is often overused, but it is 100% accurate, especially when it comes to bodybuilding.

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Number 4 – Performing Too Much Exercise: Overtraining

Working out too much is just as detrimental to building muscle as doing nothing at all. Once you workout you have to give your body time to repair and grow through rest. A common mistake that people make is thinking that they will get better results if they workout for several hours everyday. This is not true because what happens is the body get stressed and damaged but doesn’t get a chance to recover and build up. This is what is called “over training”. When you over train your body can’t build muscle.

Common signs of over-training include pain and joint injuries, insomnia, prolonged fatigue, lack of motivation to workout, and just feeling burnt out and exhausted. Taking time to rest and recover are vital for achieving long term consistent muscle and strength gains.

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Number 3 – Performing Too Little Exercise: Undertraining

This one is the opposite of the previous one, people tend to take things to one extreme or the other, no one wants to take a moderate approach. Just like some people will think that if some exercise is good, then more must be better. And end up “overtraining”. Others, who have learned about the negatives of overtraining, have taken it to the other extreme thinking that “if some rest is good, then more rest is better”.

The fitness media will always play on people’s laziness and therefore try to promote “easy workouts” as the answer to getting in shape. But the reality is that working out and getting in shape takes effort. There is just no way around it. Anyone who try’s to tell you otherwise is just full of BS. . .

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Number 2 – Thinking You Need Supplements To Build Muscle:

The magazines are the ones to blame for this. In a typical muscle magazine over 50% of the pages are ads (in some cases it’s a lot more). And a lot of the articles are just fancy sales letters recommending muscle building and fat burning supplements.

The truth is supplements are NOT necessary to build a lean muscular physique. Exercise and nutrition are the only things you REALLY need. There are some supplements can help a little, but not nearly as much as you may have been lead to believe. About 95% of your results will come from proper training and nutrition.

A lot of people have their priorities backwards and spend their time worrying about what supplements to take, rather then focusing on improving their training and eating, which is responsible for 95% of their progress.

It is very common for the typical novice bodybuilder, who has just started working out, to immediately go looking for a ’short cut’ by getting a bottle of “Super Duper Anabolic Muscle Dust 2000″.

It’s a shame that so many people are looking for instant gratification, instead of making the effort to learn how to eat and train better. Get your nutrition and training in order first. Then you can experiment with supplements, if you want to, and see if they make any difference to your overall progress.

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Number 1 – Not Following A Sound Nutrition Plan:

Your diet is one of the most critical aspects of your muscle building routine. You can be spot on with your workouts, but if you don’t fuel your body properly you will NOT get the results you want. Most bodybuilders that I work with day to day don’t have any problems going to the gym and working out. But more often then not they get slack when it comes to nutrition.

The whole idea of eating 6 well-balanced meals per day for bodybuilding is by no means a new concept. You probably already have a good idea of how you should be eating. But the main excuse is usually not having time to eat properly. However, eating a “junk-food” diet takes just as much or more time then it does to eat a healthy diet. At lunch heading over to the fast food joint, waiting in line at the drive through, and then heading back to work takes a lot more time then if you had your food prepared in advance and ready to eat.

The key to following a healthy bodybuilding nutrition program is planning ahead. When you cook your food always prepare for several meals. It doesn’t take any more time to cook larger quantities of food then it does to cook smaller amounts of food for just one meal. Purposely plan to have left overs that you can re-heat in the microwave, this saves time and makes it easier to have quick nutritious meals on hand.

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Transform Your Body From Flabby To Muscular with a Customized Diet and Training Program. Lee Hayward can help you get into your best shape ever with a personalized diet and training program. Whether your goal is to lose body fat, gain muscle, or increase strength; Lee will help get the results you want. For more information visit Lee’s website at: http://www. LeeHayward. com

You see the same people in the gym day after day, week after week, and they never look any different, which is okay if that is their goal. But for most it isn’t. Most people lift weights to get bigger and stronger. After years of seeing these types of people come and go, but never grow, I’ve identified the 5 most common muscle building mistakes that will hold you back forever. The first and probably the most common is doing too many reps. If doing a lot of reps was the way to build size wouldn’t carpenters have arms like Arnold did? Or wouldn’t marathon runners have huge legs? Only doing high rep (anything over work outs will NEVER allow you to add size and mass. Secondly most people do not use enough weight. This is partially because of the high rep counts they do. The idea of “lifting big to get big” seems so obvious, yet few do it. Who is bigger and stronger, the person who lifts 500 lbs once or the person who lifts 100 lbs 5 times? They both move 500 lbs of weight, but the mass building effect of each is totally different. You will never add mass or get stronger if you don’t try lifting weight amounts that you presently can’t! How does anybody ever think their muscles will grow to handle loads that they never try to lift? It is the essence of muscle building. Thirdly, most people lack the workout routine necessary to build muscle. The workouts they do seem to have no rhyme or reason. Building muscle requires a plan. Your workouts should follow that plan. You can not show up at the gym and begin doing stuff and expect it to have a positive effect on your physique. Until you adopt a muscle building plan and stick to it any gain you get will be by sheer effort and luck. The fourth common error I see is you can not, efficiently build mass and lose weight/fat at the same time. One, the other, but most likely both, will fail. This means lifting for mass gains and doing a lot of cardio exercise simultaneously will undermine your efforts. And not why you think. It has nothing to do with calorie burn. Adding muscle to your body requires a MAXIMUM effort in the weight room. If you have the energy to do a bunch of cardio before or after your lifting, then you left mass building in the gym. You should be physically spent after a muscle building session. And most definitely don’t dilute a lifting session by doing cardio first. The last common mistake I see people make is related to the previous one. Some people try to make the case that cardio workouts done on non-lifting days is the answer to the above problem. I will say it’s better than doing it the same day, but the truth really is that you need to rest 100% on your non-lifting days because it is on these days that your muscles actually do their growing. Allowing your muscles to recover is the only way you are strong enough to go back in the gym and lift more than you did before. Which is what muscle building is all about, isn’t it?