Tuesday, May 6, 2008

The Top 5 Muscle Building Mistakes To Avoid

The Top 5 Muscle Building Mistakes To Avoid
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

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