(Los Angeles Times) UPDATED 2009-07-28

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a warning to consumers that they should avoid using body-building supplements that are marketed as containing steroids or steroid-like substances. The FDA’s move comes in response to reports of serious adverse reactions to these substances, including severe liver injury, stroke, kidney failure, and pulmonary embolism (artery blockage in the lung). The agency is urging consumers to stop using any body-building product that claims to contain steroids or to enhance or diminish androgen-, estrogen-, or progestin-like effects in the body. One manufacturer, American Cellular Laboratories, received a warning letter telling the company to stop selling its products that contained synthetic steroids. Read more…

Who doesn’t want killer pecs? I do, you do, every guy I know does. But wanting ripped pecs is one thing; actually getting them is another.

If you want to lose the flabs and get rock-hard abs, you will need to roll up your sleeves and put in some work building chest muscles. There is no other way, and there are no shortcuts. You can’t buy abs or force them to show simply by eating less or eating healthful foods more. While diet can help you lose excess fat, it won’t give your chest muscle definition. Only a workout can. Below are some tips to help you build muscles fast. Read the rest of this entry →

Ahhh… beginners. If you’re only starting out chest building, let me tell you right now there’s nothing wrong with being a beginner. We all have to start somewhere. But being new to chest building means you’re most likely to make a lot of mistakes before you find your groove and perfect your moves. Why not save time and save yourself from grief by avoiding these top 3 chest building mistakes most beginners make?

1. Training too long. It’s easy to get carried away in your workout – you’re only starting out after all. But spending hours lifting weights is a huge mistake. Aside from being physically and mentally draining, training too long will only overstress your muscles. You don’t want to do this, believe me, because it will stunt muscle growth instead of enhancing it.

The solution? Limit your chest building to 45 minutes tops. You can do a lot in 45 minutes, especially with a great guide to point you in the right direction.

2. Training too often. Training too frequently is even worse than training too long. When you train too long for one session, you can stop doing so the next session. But when you train too often, this means you’ve been training too much too frequently. In other words, you’re putting your muscles through continuous strain! This is bad and will backfire on you for sure. Aside from priming you for a quick burnout, your workout efforts will yield diminishing results.

As a beginner, limit your workout to 4 days a week. This gives your body 3 days to rest.

3. Training too intensely. Many newbies think because they’re only getting started, they need to catch up with the guys who have been chest building for a long time. This, obviously, is wrong. There is no content, and if you out your body through so much so soon, you will most likely injure yourself in the process. So, take your time warming up to your routine.

Building chest muscles is hard work, but it can be fun. And, if you do it right, you’ll find those abs showing in no time at all!
Photo Credit: combust

Click Here To Start Chest Building Now!

Chest training is challenging, but once you see how firm and sexy it makes your torso look, you will surely want to throw yourself into it head-first, never mind the difficulties involved. Here are some chest training tips that will help you lose the flabs and firm up the abs in no time at all!

1. Start with lighter weights and fewer repetitions. If you’re only starting out, you’re probably thinking the more sets you do and the heavier weights you lift, the better. This is not true at all. You need to start gradually, to give your body time to warm up. You also need to start with lighter weights, so you don’t overstress your muscles. After a week, you can quicken your pace and lift heavier weights. Read the rest of this entry →

If you’ve been hitting the gym daily to no results, odds are there’s something you’re not doing right. When done properly, chest workouts always get results. Whether you want to grow bigger or stronger muscles, or both, you can easily do so with the right muscle sets. Here are 3 tips to keep in mind to maximize the benefits you get from your chest workouts.

1. Work on your negative lifting. Most people assume the only thing they really need to work in is the actual weight lifting. Everything else is secondary, and can wait. This is not true at all. Releasing the weight you lift is just as important an exercise as the actual lifting. Do not let gravity help you lower whatever it is you’re lifting. If you do, you’ll miss out on exertions that could have helped you build chest muscles really fast. Read the rest of this entry →

Most people think that 6 pack abs come from training and this is where they focus their efforts. Unfortunately this is not the case. I have said this before: nobody can see the abs you are so desperately working if you have too much body fat. The goal, therefore should be getting your nutrition in order. Training your abs is the smallest piece of the puzzle.

A much bigger piece of that puzzle is how much time you spend on cardio. I know, it sucks. A fat belly sucks even more. The fastest way to get rid of total body fat is to concentrate some of your workout time on high intensity interval training.

And finally, the biggest and most difficult piece of the 6 pack abs puzzle; nutrition. If you fail at getting the proper nutrition, all of your other efforts will not matter. Get your nutrition facts on paper. Find out how many calories you need daily, learn your body fat percentages, learn what foods to eliminate from your diet, learn what to add to your diet, and keep track of your progress.

So lets recap…..the key to 6 pack abs is nutrition, cardio, and ab training, in that order. Although there are different opinions floating around about workout routines, supplements, sets and reps, all fitness experts, books, and programs agree on this one fact.

Have you ever wondered why 95% of the people who go to gyms to workout chest never get the ripped abs they’re after?

It’s not for lack of willpower or diligence – you’ll be surprised how hard these people work out. It’s because they’re misinformed. They sweat through old ineffective routines that didn’t work for people then and aren’t working for them now. Below are some tips to make sure you workout chest properly and efficiently. Read the rest of this entry →

It’s a fact. Chest training can do wonders for your appearance. Provided it is done correctly, a strong chest and back is equated with power and guaranteed to get attention. Because of this, many men exercise their chests more than any other part of their bodies.

Excessive chest training however can lead to overdeveloped pecs and make your body look out of proportion. Come on, we have all seen this often enough at the gym. A lopsided body just looks ridiculous. Chest exercises should only be a portion of a total body workout. If you’re trying to develop an impressive, muscular body, then you must train every muscle group equally.

When training clients on chest building, I recommend using the following exercises to get the most gains efficiently. These are by far, the most effective: Read the rest of this entry →

There isn’t a guy on this earth who wouldn’t love to have a 6 pack. Unfortunately, most of these guys are not willing to change their lifestyles and many are always looking for a quick fix. Regardless of sales pitches you read in muscle magazines, there are no potions and pills to help you get 6 pack abs. Don’t waste your money. I am sure I lost some readers here.

The very best way to get 6 pack abs, is through diet. Doing abdominal exercises will not eliminate fat around your middle. How many people do you hear complain about doing endless ab work with no results. Ab exercises will definately strengthen and tone your muscles, however those muscles you are tightening by doing 100 crunches a day, lay underneath all the fat.

First things first. You must get enough protein. Protein produces bigger muscle. If you work out regularly, you need more protein than the average couch potato. That doesn’t mean you must eat tons of it through supplementation; how much protein you need is determined by how much exercise you get. You want just enough to create more muscle. More is not better. Eating more than your body needs could slow muscle gain by lowering your energy reserves.

How much protein do you need? Read the rest of this entry →

How do you know when you have reached your muscle gain plateau? You’ve been consistently adding weight to your routine over the past month or two and now you can’t seem to get to the next level. You are still lifting the same amount of weight with the same amount of reps as the previous months and you just can’t add any more. You have definitely reached a plateau.

How do you make sure you don’t get to these frustrating plateaus?

Change it up! If you don’t alter your workouts, the plateaus are most certainly guaranteed. Reaching a plateau means that your body and muscles have adapted. As your muscles get stronger, fewer fibers are needed to lift the same load. If you can’t increase the weight, these fibers get lazy and you must do something to shock and stimulate them. A successful muscle gain routine will have variation.

Change the order in which you do your routines, vary your exercises, lower the weight and do more repetitions, or try to do your lifting more slowly.

Another cause of reaching a plateau may be over training. Too many people work the same muscle groups daily and do not allow for rest. It is imperative for muscle gain that no muscle group be trained on consecutive days.

Did you know that wearing weight belts inhibit the strengthening of your lower back and abdominal muscles?

For anyone starting a muscle gaining routine, it is important to start with light weights. Mastering technique and form should be first priority. Never use more weight than you can handle.

For example, so many beginners doing bicep curls with the barbell, try to lift so much weight that they actually rock forward and swing the bar up. This is the wrong way to work those biceps. I see this every day. It is important for beginners to start with light weights and focus on proper technique in order to see results within a few short weeks. If six hard working weeks later, you are not seeing the muscle gains, you may want a trainer to keep an eye on your form.

How do you know how much weight you can handle?

If you start with a weight and are fatigued quickly, say less than 6 reps, drop the weight. If you choose a weight and can do over 10 reps right away, you should increase the weight. The first step is to get to 10 reps with a weight that will fatigue your muscles. Stay with this weight until you can complete several sets of 10 reps. It is now time to increase the weight. Again, you should only be able to do 10 reps in the beginning, working up to several sets of 10. Once again, increase the weight. When training, I usually increase the weight load by ten percent each time.

I can’t stress this enough: proper form and technique are the key to reaching your muscle gaining  goals.

A healthy diet, rich in protein is just as important as lifting for muscle weight gain. After spending all those hours at the gym, building muscle, your body must replenish good quality proteins quickly to repair and rebuild muscle. Do not let your protein levels become depleted.

You must have adequate protein in your diet for maximum muscle weight gain. Ideally, protein should be consumed within 90 minutes after a high intensity workout in addition to including it in every single meal including snacks.

You need to consume 1.5g of good quality protein per pound of body weight. So if you weigh 200 lbs, for example, you need to eat about 300g of protein a day.

To keep your body in an anabolic state to promote muscle, add various protein sources to each meal such as animal protein (lean red meat, poultry, fish or eggs), nuts, beans and vegetables.

Drink your milk. Milk is often overlooked and is actually a source of complete protein and excellent nutrition for muscle weight gain.

Finally, supplement with a high quality whey protein powder, one that is quickly metabolized by muscle tissue. Look for protein products that have at least 50g of protein per serving, include BCAA’s and are low carb.

Bottom line: in order to gain good quality muscle, you must train right, eat several times a day, and pay close attention to the quality of your calorie intake and mix of proteins, carbs and fats.

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What you see in the mirror does not count.

Focusing only on limited objectives such as getting the biggest chest or the biggest biceps is the worst muscle gaining error and can create anatomical imbalances. Thousands of people spend hours doing endless bench presses and curls to build up the muscles they see in the mirrored walls at the gym. You see these people every single day. What they are refusing to hear is that while they are focusing all of their efforts on these exercises, they are creating an unbalanced tightness in the front of the shoulders which is just asking for rotator cuff issues.

Another example: Everyone in the gym seems concerned about their abdominal muscles but nobody is working the back extensors that work opposite of and support these abs. That’s why you may see guys with six-pack abs and lower back problems.

Loading on the weight doesn’t matter if you are sacrificing form.

Never sacrifice proper form for added weight. When you use too much weight you compensate by throwing the bar, relying on momentum which will not help you. I was recently asked to observe a bodypump class and I couldn’t believe how many people were using so much weight, the bar was all over the place. In many instances, the weights were controlling people to the point that they were losing balance and certainly losing form. This is a huge muscle gaining error.

All movements in weight training must be slow, controlled and steady. Good form and a slow pace ensures that you achieve the full range of motion including slowly returning to the resting position. This is important to exercising the entire muscle.  So while you may think you are impressing people with heavy weights, you are not going to see the muscle gains that you expect.

Lowering the weight and going slower will enable you to sustain the load throughout the entire range of the motion and will exhaust your muscle much faster, which is the ultimate goal. That, along with proper rest between workouts along with good nutrition, allows for optimal muscle gain.

More is not necessarily better

I see many guys at the gym every single day, working the same muscles over and over. When it comes to muscle gain, more is definitely not better. Muscles respond to optimal overload and then rest.  If you have trouble getting though workouts, your muscles are sore prior to starting and you are not making the muscle gains you were expecting, you are most likely over working those muscles and it may be best to scale down the workouts. Too much training can actually cause muscle loss.

You should never do the same workout two days in a row unless doing low intensity workouts such as yoga and not working your muscles to exhaustion.

Gym owners, trainers, and bodybuilding magazines, will continue to convince people that machines are the same if not better than free weights to build up muscle, claiming that muscles react to any type of resistance regardless. Don’t be a sucker for machines.

The Facts:

Machines oftentimes force you into unnatural body motions creating damage to your muscles.

Most machines have nothing to do with using the most important movements to build up muscle.

Machines have limited opportunity to vary your routine and they isolate your muscles. Free weights on the other hand, stimulate more muscles as you are forcing your body to stabilize the weight.

When using free weights, even the smallest change you make between lifts and workouts can help with muscle gain. Many people who do the machines, do the same routines, with the same amount of weight since they started lifting and wonder why they are not making progress. A routine should be changed after just three weeks. Why is this one important rule so difficult for people to understand? Read the rest of this entry →

Many people can somehow fit the gym into their busy schedules several times a week. Some of us must go to the gym to stay motivated. But what about those that just can’t seem to squeeze in the extra time it takes to get there and back?

If you are strength training to gain muscle fast, working out at home can still give you the results you are looking for. Unfortunately, bodybuilding magazines have made weight training so complicated, making you think that it takes 6 different exercises to work just one muscle group. As I mentioned in the past, you can get a total body workout with just six muscle movements using basic dumbbells or barbells in a short period of time.

Thirty minutes, at least three times a week will help you gain muscle fast  naturally.

To gain muscle at home using weights, start off with lower intensity, high volume workouts and gradually push toward heavier weights and lower repetitions. Eventually you will need to shake up your metabolism and change it up. Increase weights, drop reps or decrease weights, add reps or change the exercises slightly.

6 Key Movements For Maximum Muscle Gain

Supplements may help you perform better, but they will never be a replacement for working hard, discipline, perseverance and a nutritious diet. By adding vitamins to your daily diet, you will gain more energy for your workouts along with living a healthier lifestyle.

Here are some of the best supplements in my opinion:

Protein Shakes

Buy products that are based on whey and egg white protein where one serving has 20-40 grams of protein. A nutritious meal is still better than a shake so don’t consume more than one or two per day.

Amino Acids

The amino acids that have muscle building ability are the L-forms. You will want to add them to your nutrition plan as you work toward your muscle building goals. I found L-arginine to be the best amino acid on the market. It will help you to become stronger and healthier. It really works.

L-carnitine is an amino acid that will help you lose weight faster if this is your goal. L-leucine, L-isoleucine, L-valine work together to give you more energy during workouts and will deliver the rebuilding blocks for tired muscles after serious muscle building workouts. They are delivered to your muscles as an energy source within 20 minutes of your workout.

Creatine

Creatine is a natural substance in the muscle tissue. A body makes about 2 grams of creatine per day with ninety –five percent stored in muscle tissue. Taken properly, it can give you more strength and stamina in your muscles during intense muscle building workouts. It allows for better recovery between sets and workouts. When added to a weight training program designed to add mass supplementation produces greater gains in strength and fat-free muscle-mass over time.

There is much controversy over this supplement however, because of its side effects such as bloating and weight gain.

You’ve been committed to building your body, now it’s time to get serious about understanding the role nutrition plays in increasing overall strength. Your diet is a large part of becoming healthy and strong.

Some things you should know about nutrition for muscle building:

Your body must receive food in the right combination of protein, carbohydrates, fat, vitamins and minerals in order for it to consume calories and burn fat and rebuild itself after exercise.

Most experts believe that you must eat 6 meals a day. From The Abs Diet, by David Zinczenko, “The more frequently the body is exposed to times of deprivation, the more it will store fat and jettison lean muscle tissue.” Never go too long between eating and never overload your system with too many calories at each sitting. Read the rest of this entry →

by Vince DelMonte

So you think you have heard everything there is to know about muscle building? If you have read everything, tried everything and heard everything about muscle building but still resemble the silhouette of a Calvin Klein model instead of a buff fitness model than I promise these next three ‘little-known’ muscle building tips will accelerate your muscle gains immediately! Read the rest of this entry →

By Vince DelMonte

So you think you know everything about building muscle? If you have read everything, tried everything and heard everything about muscle building but still resemble the silhouette of a Calvin Klein model instead of a buff fitness model than I promise these three ‘little-known’ muscle building tips will accelerate your muscle gains immediately!

1. Body Weight Training

This was once a popular muscle building technique but is very commonly ignored. Why? Perhaps because most body weight training is simply hard and can put a dent in your precious ego! As far as I am concerned, if you can not work with your own body weight than you have no freakin business using external loading such as barbells and dumbbells.

It’s incredible how many attempt to use heavy weights with a microscopic range of motion but can’t do a set of push ups, a squat to the floor or even one chin up. Don’t get me wrong, there is definitely a place for external loading with heavy weights but not until you have the ability to master the following bench marks: Read the rest of this entry →

Do not think for a minute that doing bicep curls and having huge biceps is key to eliminating that huge waist.

Do not think for a minute that working your chest muscles forever will pack on the muscle gain you want.

Do not think that crunching and crunching, involving very little muscle mass will melt off the fat around your middle.

Do not think for a minute that lifting too much weight in bad form or lifting too little weight on machines will help you with your muscle gain goals.

None of the above will do any good. Believe what you want to believe about machines at the gym…..they are in no way as effective in gaining muscle mass as the following movements.

Fast Fact: A certain number of men find themselves obsessed with going to the gym, even giving up jobs or relationships. They may never be happy with how they look no matter how huge they get. They experiment with dangerous supplements. If this sounds like someone you know, they may be suffering from the male equivalent of anorexia called muscle dysmorphia.

6 key movements for maximum muscle gain:

Squats

Squats use just about every muscle in your lower body in one movement the most challenged muscles being the quadriceps. The exercise also works the gluteals and hamstrings. The lower you go, the more the muscles are engaged.

Deadlift

This movement also uses almost all of your lower body muscles with the emphasis on the gluteal and hamstring muscles. It also works your abdominal muscles and trapezius as you pull your shoulder blades together.

Lunge

This movement again uses the same muscles as the squat and deadlift, however it also stretches the hip flexors which increase the flexibility of your muscles and keeps them strong. Push It can be a push up, bench press, or shoulder press. All of these exercises use your chest muscles along with the front shoulders. All use the triceps to straighten the arms.

Pull

Lat pull-down, rowing exercises, pull-ups, are all a form of pull movements. The two major upper back muscle groups used are the “lats”, shoulder joint muscles and the “traps”, shoulder blade muscles. In these exercises, your biceps and forearms are also used.

Twist

Works the external and internal obliques. Some lower back muscles along with the most important six-pack muscle also assist in the bending and twisting. No machines in the gym can come close to mimicking the above exercises with the exception of the back extension (dead lift) and pulling machines. Bottom line: skip them; most machines found in the gym prevent you from doing the most useful muscle gain movements. Movements that our bodies were designed to do.

The 5 Worst Things you Can Do If You Want To Build Muscle & Get A World Class Body

No doubt about it, everyone wants a flat washboard stomach and Vince Delmonte’s training is some of the best out there.

Stop listening to all those people at the gym telling you different things. Stop buying every muscle building and ab supplement in fitness magazines that turn out to be junk.

Learn how to change your body naturally and get fast abs-

Right now, Vince Delmonte is offering free 10 part video lessons on getting a flat, washboard stomach. With this FREE email course, you will learn about his NEW “Ab Shredding System” that can help you melt off the last 10 pounds to the first 100 pounds.

Discover… Read the rest of this entry →

Building bigger muscles isn’t at all that difficult. You must train right, eat lots of protein and stick to high quality foods. The problem is that most body builders don’t realize just how much food they must eat to reach their muscle gain goals.

When you start adding huge amounts of protein and calories to your diet, it is important to know that your body is digesting it. If not, all of this extra food will do nothing to help you gain muscle.

Complete digestion and assimilation of protein and other nutrients is needed for muscle gain and to obtain this you must have the right combination of enzymes. The digestive enzymes in particular break down the food you eat allowing these nutrients to enter the bloodstream.

Bottom Line

You may be eating to promote muscle gain, however if there are not enough enzymes for proper digestion, you may not see these gains as you should. All the food will pass through your body unused. If you are over the age of 25, it becomes even worse. Research proves that as we get older we have lower quantities of natural digestive enzymes.

If the enzymes are not there, all of this won’t matter.

You are doing everything you were told to do to gain muscle: working hard at the gym, eating all of the right amounts of food daily including sucking down protein shakes, and you are still not seeing the results you were hoping for.

So, what can you do to ensure the proper amount of enzymes?

Supplement with a high quality digestive enzyme. This will guarantee that your body is actually using all of that protein you may be loading up on. It is critical that this condition be met in order to achieve significant muscle gains.

Finally start seeing results and start packing on muscle in the fastest time possible naturally.

If you want to build muscle, you are going to need some great muscle building routines. Below you will find three of my favorite muscle building routines that are very effective at pumping up your muscles.

First is the bench press. This is a great routine that focuses the attention on the muscles of the upper body. It includes your chest, ribcage, front shoulders, and the back of your upper arms. Always use a spotter when you are doing the bench presses, because otherwise you risk accidents that could seriously injure you. Always use a weight that challenges your muscles with every rep. This is a routine that should always be used for weight training, fitness training, and professional body building.
Read the rest of this entry →

If you want to build up muscle and have a rock hard body, then you will need to work out regularly. Below are six great tips on how to build up muscle in your body quickly.

First, do each set to complete exhaustion. The last repetition should be so difficult that it is not physically possible for you to do another until you have had a small break.

Increase the amount of protein you take in each day. Protein is the building block for your body to repair muscles and build muscle. If you do not eat a lot of protein, your muscle mass will not increase.
Read the rest of this entry →

Many people want a great build muscle workout, but aren’t sure which exercises they should be doing. While there is no workout that is going to achieve optimum results for everybody, there are a few exercises that will be great for muscle building for most people. Below are some of the best build muscle workout exercises you can do to plump up those muscles.

The good old fashioned bench press is a great exercise that works several muscle groups. It is great for building up your chest, the front part of your shoulder, and the backs of your arms. Make sure that you use enough weight so that your muscles are completely exhausted after a maximum of twelve reps. You should be able to do at least eight reps using the weight you choose. This ensures your muscles are being properly challenged so they can grow. Make sure that you always have a spotter for this exercise so that you can avoid serious injury from occurring.
Read the rest of this entry →