Don’t be alarmed at the extra pounds of weight from weight training because it is well worth the effort.  For every 3 pounds of muscle you build, research shows you increase your resting metabolic rate by about 7 percent.  For example, if your body burns 1,200 calories per day (not counting exercise or any other movement), you would burn an extra 84 calories per day with those 3 extra pounds of muscle.  Many women have a difficult time outgrowing 2-3 pound dumbbell weights, because they are afraid that if they increase the weight they will bulk up.  If you are happy with the strength and appearance of your muscles, you can do a maintenance program with 5 pound weights.

However, if you want more strength, you could progress to 8 or 10 pound weights and still not bulk up.  Using heavier weights can increase muscle size, but it’s highly unlikely that you’ll get bulky.  Women don’t naturally have enough of the hormone, testosterone, required to build huge muscles, and even if you could bulk up, you’d have to use significantly heavier weights.  Another option to tone muscle is to increase your repetitions instead of increasing weight.  A high-repetition/light-weight program will develop muscle tone and increase strength and endurance without significantly increasing muscle size.

I like to tell my clients to not just go through the motion when lifting weights.  I use the word “squeeze” a lot to describe the contraction of the muscle you should be focusing on.  Think about the muscle you are working and squeeze or contract it as you are lifting.  You will get a lot more benefit for your efforts if you squeeze the muscle on the lift rather than just raising and lowering the weight without focusing on the muscle.

By: Daniel Novak

Exercises done correctly will build the lean muscle and increase your metabolism in the same way as performing exercises at a gymnasium, but without the time constraints and associated costs.  These exercises can be easily done in a bedroom, hotel room, a park, school yard, ceiling rafters in a garage or in a doorway and all you have to do is use your imagination.  There will always be a way to add more resistance to your workouts.  Please remember: It doesn’t matter where you are working out — at home, a hotel, or a park — always warm up properly before beginning your session, and cool down and stretch when you are finished.

Leg Exercises

Squats -  They build muscle in the thighs, shape the buttocks and improve endurance.   Position your feet about 13 to 17 inches apart or at shoulder width, keeping the back straight and your head up.  If you want you can use something that will give you some support, i.e.  a desk, bookcase, sink etc.  Now squat down to where the tops of the thighs are parallel to the floor, hold for a second and then stand up, but don’t bounce at the bottom of the movement, use a nice fluid motion.  Always exhale your breath as you stand up.

Lunges

Stand straight in correct posture; now stand with one leg forward and one leg back.  Keeping your abdominal muscles tight and chest up, lower your upper body down, bending your leg (don’t step out too far).  You should have about one to two feet between your feet at this stage, the further forward you step, and the more your gluteus and hamstring muscles will have to work.  Do not allow your knee to go forward beyond your toes as you come down and stop where your feel comfortable (try not to let your back come forward) then push directly back up.  Do all your reps on one leg then switch legs and do all your reps on the other leg.

Back Exercises

Chin-ups – Chin-ups are a great upper body workout, particularly targeting your biceps, deltoid and lat muscles.  Use a doorway chin-up bar, ceiling rafters in a garage or grab the moulding of your door frame, position your hands with an under hand grip and hang down stretching the lats, slowly raise your body until your chin reaches the bar level.  Pause a moment before slowly lowering yourself back to the starting position.  Don’t swing or use momentum to get your body to the top, just use the target muscles.  Doorway chinning bars remove from the doorway when you are not using them and can be put up and taken down in seconds.

Bent Over Row

Take up a position with your right hand and right knee braced on a sturdy bed or some other flat surface that will provide a good support.  Now pick up a dumbbell or something heavy that you can hold onto with your left hand.  Visualize your arms as hooks and slowly bring the dumbbell or object up to the side of your chest, keeping your back straight, then lower the weight back down to arms length, no lower, on extremes, safe form only please.  Concentrate on your back muscles.  Reverse the whole procedure and do the exercise now with your right arm.

Chest Exercises

Push-Up – The push up is used for building chest, shoulders and arms.  Lie face down on the floor with your hands about shoulder width apart and keeping your palms turned slightly inward.  Now push-up until your arms are straight, lower and repeat for repetitions.  To make it more difficult elevate your feet.  Try placing the toes of your feet on a stable, elevated surface such as a bench, chair or a stair.  Straightening your body, position your hands on the floor at shoulder width, lower your body until your chest touches the floor at the bottom, and then return to the starting position in a nice fluid motion.

Dips

This exercise can be done between two sturdy chairs or other surfaces that provide stability.  The dip is another great upper body exercise.  It’s a compound movement as well and involves working all the muscles that the push up works.  Keep your head up and body as vertical as possible.  For the beginning of the movement, start at the top (arms fully extended) and lower yourself until your upper arms are parallel to the seat of the chairs, hold and then push up to the top of the movement until your arms are fully extended again.  Keep looking straight ahead and don’t bounce at the bottom of the movement.

Adding Weight

Although the simple weight of your own body is enough resistance to provide an effective workout we need progressive overload (added resistance) to become stronger.  So all we need to do is add some weight wherever we can find some.  Because there are no metal plates and fancy machines to use it doesn’t matter because the body doesn’t care where it is as long as it’s receiving resistance of some kind.  You can use heavy books clasped in your hands.  You can buy some cheap weighted dumbbells or ankle weights.  A weighted vest will also allow you to add resistance for both chin-ups and push-ups.  Try to buy one that will let you remove and add weight as you see fit.  Also a backpack filled with books can be perfect for most of the exercises and is a cheap alternative.  How about a couple of buckets and fill them with a certain level of water? As you get stronger fill them with more water.  This is perfect because depending on the exercise, all you need to do is to increase or decrease the amount of water in the buckets for the required amount of resistance.

To wrap things up…

We know that using free weights and machines are the fastest and most efficient way there is to gain lean muscle and strength, but by performing the exercises in this article you’ll find that they will provide you with the same benefits as going to a gymnasium but without the ongoing costs and time constraints.

By: Daniel Novak

This means splitting your large meals up and eating about once every three hours.  Not only is this good for your metabolism, but your body will use the foods instead of storing them as fat.  Your six meals per day should consist of mainly complex carbohydrates and protein.  You should aim for at least thirty grams of protein per meal.  High protein foods include lean meat, chicken, fish, egg whites, cheese and milk products.  Complex carbohydrates are found in brown rice, brown bread and potatoes.  Stay away from foods high in salt and sugar

Should I be using supplements, and when should I be taking them?

If you can afford supplements you should be using them.  The basic three you should be considering are protein, carbs and creatine.  Whey protein supplements are the fastest known way to deliver quality protein to your muscles.  This makes shakes particularly effective after your workouts, when your body is craving protein for muscle re-growth.  There are three key times that supplements should be taken.  First thing in the morning, after your workout and before bed.  If your diet is up to scratch you shouldn’t need supplements at any other time.  Don’t use supplements to replace meals.  Supplements are supplements, not meal replacements.

Am I training hard and not smart?

The biggest mistake the new lifters make is thinking that the more they workout the bigger they’ll get.  This couldn’t be further from the truth! Two basic rules you must remember when it comes to weight training.  First, quality is better than quantity.  Second, compound exercises are the kings of building muscle.  Compound exercises require at least two joint movements.  Big compound exercises are the squat, bench press, wide grip pull up and seated row.  These movements recruit many more muscles fibers to use to move the weight.  This means more muscle groups are worked, the exercise is more challenging and the potential for growth is much greater.

Generally you should be doing three compound exercises for one isolation exercise.  For example your back/biceps workout might consist of wide grip pull ups, seated row, bent over row and standing bicep curl.  You might think this is not enough work for your biceps? Wrong.  Your biceps are worked heavily in all over these exercises; the bicep curl just finishes them off.  The length of any training session should not exceed one hour.  And you only need to train one muscle group once per week.  This means a split routine should only need to be three days per week.  In fact, most professional bodybuilders only train four times per week.  Remember, it’s quality not quantity.

Do I get enough rest and recovery time?

When you workout you’re not building your muscles, you’re breaking them down.  The reason why you looked “pumped up” when you’re in the gym is because your muscle tissue is swollen and damaged.  Your muscles actually grow when you are resting.  So in simple terms, no rest equals no muscle growth.  So take it easy when you’re not working out.  Ease up on the cardio.  And make sure you get plenty of sleep.  Sleep is the body’s number one time for building muscle.  This is also why it’s important to eat before bed, so your body has the fuel to repair muscle in your sleep.

Simple isn’t it?

By: Daniel Novak

•Eat protein first thing in the morning – After a good night’s sleep, your body is in a catabolic state.  That means your body is burning your muscle for energy since your glycogen store is low.  So eat quickly digestible protein such as whey protein the first thing in the morning even before you brush your teeth to prevent your muscle wasting away or catabolism.

•Eat protein between your meals – To keep protein flowing in your bloodstream so as to feed your muscles continuously throughout the day, take casein protein in between your meals.  Casein protein is slow to digest and as such will continuously release protein into your bloodstream to feed your muscles for many hours in between your meals.  In this way, your muscles will be constantly receiving protein throughout the day.

•Protein before/after gym workout – It is a known fact that eating fast to digest protein such as whey protein before your workout will promote muscle growth as your muscles are being fed as you training to build muscles.  Then take whey protein again after your workout along with some carbohydrates to repair your muscle cells after you have damaged them during your workout.

•Protein before bed – Since you will be going without food for many hours when you sleep and muscle building is at its optimum when you sleep, you must encourage your muscle to grow by eating casein protein before you sleep.  As casein protein is slow to digest, it will continuously feed your muscles for as long as seven hours when you sleep and thus encouraging your muscles to build and grow.

So now that you know when is the best time to eat protein and to encourage building muscles, follow these tips and see your muscles growing like you have never seen before.

By: Daniel Novak

If you are looking for the best weight gain supplement for you, take into account your diet and exercise routine before making a decision.  Weight gain supplements can be very beneficial when used in conjunction with the proper diet and weight training routine.  The major part of your calorie and protein consumption should come from the foods you eat.  Substituting a weight gain supplement for a meal is never a good idea.  Your body needs the natural nutrients found in lean meats, poultry, fish, vegetables, and carbohydrates.  Weight gain supplements can be used effectively as a weight gain aid when they are used to supplement your diet, not replace part of it.

A diet consisting of large amounts of protein, fats, carbs, and high in calories is essential to any weight gaining effort aided by weight gain supplements.  Training with weights is necessary if you want to build new muscle tissue, and a weight gain supplement can be used after a workout, in between meals, or as a snack but should never replace a meal.  Protein is a major component of any diet designed to add body weight.  Lean red meats, fish, poultry, and eggs are excellent sources of protein.  Several small meals per day containing large amounts of protein are crucial to your weight gaining effort.

The question of what to eat to gain weight is not as complicated as some believe.  Along with plenty of protein, fats and carbohydrates are a big part of any weight gaining diet.  By avoiding sweets and empty calories, you will give your body the fuel it needs to add body mass and build new muscle tissue through the nutritious foods you eat at regular intervals during the day.  If you are finding it difficult to stick to a weight gain diet, try eating five or six smaller meals per day instead of three large ones.  Keep in mind that a piece of chicken and a baked potato is always better than a shake, bar, or pill.  If you should decide to use a weight gain supplement, make certain you consume adequate amounts of food each day in addition to the supplement.

Weight gain supplements can give you added protein and calories and may be especially helpful if used immediately following weight training.  Always be certain your diet contains all the required elements and use weight gain supplements wisely.  Learning what to eat to gain weight is a relatively simple task.  Increase your calorie intake and make certain you are eating healthy, protein rich foods.  This combined with weight training and plenty of rest should allow your body to bulk up effectively and help you maintain your new body shape.

By: Daniel Novak

1.  Stimulus – exercise is needed to make the muscles work, use energy and cause microscopic damage to the fibers.

2.  Nutrition – after intense exercise the muscles need to replenish their stores of fuel.

3.  Rest – it is during the rest or recovery phase that the muscles repair the microscopic damage and grow.

Muscle size increases due to hypertrophic adaptation and an increase in the cross section area of individual muscle fibers.  Intensive exercise impacts more on the strength influencing fast twitch type II fibers, therefore the increase in muscle size is accompanied by greater strength.

This will deplete the muscle’s energy stores and cause microscopic damage to the muscle tissue.  During recovery, these stores of glycogen and phosphocreatine will replenish from carbohydrates and creatine ingested as food or supplements.  Amino acids supplied in the diet will trigger the protein synthesis that repairs the damaged muscle and lead to the creation of bigger muscle fibers.

To achieve continuous improvement you will need to keep reaching for higher levels of training intensity otherwise the improvement process will grind to a halt.  Fortunately, this is relatively easy to plan for provided certain basic principles and rules are clearly followed.  Subsequent articles in this series will examine these principles in detail.

By: Daniel Novak

The reason you are able to perform at a higher level is the weight lifting has increased your muscular strength, and therefore your ability to tolerate more intense exercise.  Weight lifting also gives you nice after effects to your metabolism.  By adding muscle to your body through weight lifting, you likely will increase your metabolic rate.  If you increase your metabolism you increase the amount of fat burning enzymes in your body.  This means you’ll burn more body fat even at rest! What a great bonus!

When you lift weights you should find the right weight that allows you to do 8-12 repetitions of the same movement with the same weight.  If you are able to repeat it more than 12 times the weight is too light for you.  If you can’t do at least 8 reps the weight is too heavy.  This 8-12 repetition practice is called a set.  A beginning weight lifter should only be doing one or two sets of any weight lifting movement at one time.  Beginners often forget to breathe when they lift weights, which is dangerous because it can elevate your blood pressure.

You should concentrate on inhaling on the eccentric or lowering phase of the lift and exhale on the concentric or lifting phase of the lift.  When weight lifting, you should always work your largest muscles first.  Smaller muscles get tired faster.  If they tire too quickly they can’t help you work your large muscles.  The first things you are going to work are your chest, back, shoulders and thighs.  Then you do weight lifting exercises for your arms, abdominals and calves last.  If you’re new to weight lifting, I would suggest picking 6-8 exercises that covers all the major body parts above.  Perform these exercises 2-3 times per week making sure you allow at least 48 hours between workout sessions, so your body has time to recover.

Good Luck!

By: Daniel Novak

High repetitions burn fat while low repetitions build muscle.

Progressive overload is needed to make muscles bigger.  Meaning that you need to perform more reps than you did for your last workout for that particular exercise.  If you perform the same amount of reps at each workout nothing will change on you, also if the weight doesn’t changes on the bar nothing will change on you.  You need to become stronger.  Definition has two characteristics, muscle size and a low incidence of body fat.  To reduce body fat you will have to reduce your calories; the high repetition exercise will burn some calories, but wouldn’t it be better to fast walk to burn these off?  Better still; use the low reps to build muscle, which will elevate your metabolism and burn more calories (less fat).

Vegetarians can’t build muscle.

Yes they can! Strength training with supplementation of
soy Protein Isolate has shown to increase solid bodyweight.  Studies have shown that athletic performance is not impaired by following a meat free diet, and people strength training and consuming only soy protein isolate as a protein source were able to gain lean muscle mass.

Strength Training will make you look masculine.

If it is not you’re intention to bulk up from strength training you won’t.  Putting on muscle is a long hard slow process.  Your strength-training regime coupled with quality food will determine how much you will bulk up.  To bulk up you also require more food.  Women don’t produce enough testosterone to allow for muscular growth as large as men.

By working out you can eat what ever you want to.

Of course you can eat whatever you want, if you don’t care how you want to look.  Working out does not give you an open license to consume as many calories as you want.  Although you will burn more calories if you workout than someone who doesn’t, you still need to balance your energy intake with you energy expenditure.

If you take a week off you will lose most of your gains.

Taking one or two weeks off occasionally will not harm your
training.  By taking this time off every eight to ten weeks in between strength training cycles it has the habit of refreshing you and to heal those small niggling injuries.  By having longer layoffs you do not actually lose muscle fibres, just volume through not training, any size loss will be quickly re-gained.

By eating more protein I can build bigger muscles.

Building muscle mass involves two things, progressive overload to stimulate muscles beyond their normal levels of resistance and eating more calories than you can burn off.  With all the
hype about high protein diets lately and because muscle is made of protein, it’s easy to believe that protein is the best fuel for building muscle, however muscles work on calories which should predominately be derived from carbohydrates.

If I’m not sore after a workout, I didn’t work out hard enough.

Post workout soreness is not an indication of how good the exercise or strength training session was for you.  The fitter you are at a certain activity, the less soreness you will experience after.  As soon as you change an exercise, use a heavier weight or do a few more reps you place extra stress on that body part and this will cause soreness.

Resistance training doesn’t burn fat.

Nothing could not be further from the truth.  Muscle is a
metabolically active tissue and has a role in increasing the metabolism.  The faster metabolism we have the quicker we can burn fat.  Cardio exercise enables us to burn calories whilst exercising but does little else for fat loss afterwards.  Weight training enables us to burn calories whilst exercising but also helps us to burn calories whilst at rest.  Weight training encourages muscle growth and the more lean muscle mass we possess, the more fat we burn though an increased and elevated metabolism.

No pain no gain.

This is one myth that hangs on and on.  Pain is your body
signalling that something is wrong.  If you feel real pain during a workout, stop your workout and rest.  To develop muscle and increase endurance you may need to have a slight level of discomfort, but that’s not actual pain.

Taking steroids will make me huge.

Not true, strength training and correct nutrition will
grow muscle.  Taking steroids without training will not make you muscular.  Most steroids allow faster muscle growth through greater
recovery, while others help increase strength which allows for greater stress to be put onto a muscle.  Without food to build the muscle or training to stimulate it nothing will happen.  Most of the weight gain seen with the use of some steroids is due to water retention and is not actual muscle.

Strength training won’t work your heart.

Wrong!! Strength training with short rest periods will increase your heartbeat well over a hundred beats per minute.  For example, performing a set of breathing squats and you can be guaranteed that your heart will be working overtime and that your entire cardiovascular system will be given a great overall body workout.  Any intensive weightlifting routine that lasts for
20 minutes or more is a great workout for your heart and the muscles involved.

I can gain muscle and lose fat at the same time.

Wrong.  Only a few gifted people with superb genetics can increase muscle size while not putting on body fat.  But for the average hard gainer, they have to increase their muscle mass to its maximum potential and then cut down their body fat percentage to achieve the desired shape.

Use Free Weights instead of Machines More Often

Machines will have its uses, but for a start, concentrate on free weights.  That means work almost exclusively with barbells and dumb bells.  Free weights recruit many stabilizing muscles for balance and control.  That means you will work a lot more muscle parts other than the intended ones.  That will give rise to little bumps, striations and definitions all over your body instead of one huge lump of muscle on your intended muscle.  Because of the extra stimulant created, your muscles grow faster too.  Why else do you think all professional body builders almost exclusively use free weights?

Compound Exercises Instead Of Isolation Exercises

Use as many compound exercises as possible to your workouts.  Compound exercises are exercises that involve 2 or more joint movements.  Because they utilize more joints, that means greater muscle mass are involved.  Greater muscle mass means heavier weights.  Heavier weights means greater muscle gain.  Some excellent compound exercises are the Squat, Deadlift, Chin ups, Dips, Bench press, Barbell Press, Lunges, Bent-Over Barbell Row…etc.

Train with Intensity

You must train intensively like a mad man for your muscle to grow.  Try to do more reps or add more weight than the previous session or your muscles will think, “Ah…  we’ve done that.  Nothing new, so no need to grow bigger and stronger.”  Because of this, it is important that every time you train hard, you give your body time to recover as it has suffered strains and actually sustained many small scarring.  Your muscles grow when you rest, especially when you sleep and not in the gym.  So sleep at least 8 hours a day.  Also, do not train everyday or work the same muscle group more than once or twice a week.  If your training was vigorous enough, do no more than an hour per session.  Try not to do cardio work on the same day as your weight lifting work.  In fact, during the muscle building phase, you should do less cardio work as aerobic exercises burn muscles.  You can increase your cardio work when we come to the cutting phase, to lose fats and gain rippling definition.

Correct Technique And Form

Everywhere, everyday, you will see people using wrong form and technique when training with weights.  This not only compromises your growth, it will also make you susceptible to injuries.  Wrong form occurs usually when people try to lift weights that are too heavy, whether out of vanity or ignorance.  As a guide, always lift with strict focus on the muscle you intend to build for that particular exercise.  Feel it contract and extend.  Lift the weights deliberately and slowly.  Never ever swing your weights up especially when doing bicep curls or the military press.  Lower the weights slowly, taking about 3 seconds instead of letting gravity pull the weight down.  You must fight gravity to stimulate the muscles, if not, half of your effort is going to waste.  Another common mistake is when people arch their back when they are doing their bench presses.  By arching your back, you are using your spine to press the weight up.  Your back must be pressed against the bench at all times for the exercise to be effectively working on your chest! However you MUST arch your back when doing squats and deadlift.  With some exceptions, as a general rule, if you can lift a weight in good form for more than 10 reps, it is too light.  Conversely, if you can’t lift it more than 5 times in good form, it is too heavy.

To Grow Fast and Huge, You Must Perform Lower Body Exercises!

This is what most people don’t realize.  Your lower body makes up 60-70% of your musculature.  If you don’t train them, not only will you look spider-legged, your entire body will not grow as quickly and as large.  Don’t think that you can hide those skinny legs in your pants! Most people do not train their legs because squats, dead lifts and lunges can be very grueling exercises.  But it is precisely because of such intensity that you will produce more growth hormones when you sleep and overall muscular development is stimulated.

EAT and EAT Correctly

Losing weight and building muscles cannot happen at the same time although there are methods to do so and will be too technical to describe here.  To lose weight, you must have a caloric deficit.  To build muscles, you must have more calories, period! So do not be afraid to eat.  Have plenty of protein, moderate complex carbs and some good oil like Omega, olive, flaxseed, fish etc., especially immediately after a workout.  That is when your body is most nutrient hungry and will absorb whatever you eat very quickly.  The longer you delay eating after a workout, the less effective it will be.  Even better, take quick absorption protein shakes and high glycemic carbs during this time.

The carbs will induce insulin production almost immediately and shuttle the protein to your muscle cells very quickly.  Eat about 2 gm of protein for each kg of your bodyweight or 1 gm per pound of your body weight.  Spread your meals evenly throughout the day about 3 hours apart.  It is advisable that you have supplementation of Creatine, Protein, Multivitamins and L-Glutamine.  Yes, you will probably gain weight, but a lot of it will be muscle weight because muscles are heavier than fats.  You may also gain some fats because of the extra calories consumed.  Don’t worry, it is a happy problem because the more muscles you have, the easier the fats are to shed when you come to the cutting up phase to get those rippling definitions.  Easy isn’t it? Now that you know the facts, the rest is up to your determination.

By: Daniel Novak

If it works, well we will decide if we are gonna do it.  These are the majority of the average Joes.  They want to grow big muscles and be strong and muscular but are reluctant to make the effort to include the squat in their workout routine.  Even if they do, they will do it haphazardly and will give up before they achieve their objectives.  Then the excuses will flow.  “Squats are too hard on my knees” or “Doing squat will stunt your growth” or “Squats are for my back” or “I just want a well toned body.” Excuses from sour grapes.  That is why average joes just remain well…  average.  We will debunk those excuses later in this article.

Finally there are those that are always saying “Omigosh! What happened?” Needless to say, these people are the ones oblivious to what is happening around them.  They will walk leisurely on a treadmill reading a book at the same time when others are raising their heart rates to improve endurance and burn fats.  They are the ones doing dumbbell curls after dumbbell curls when others are doing bench presses, dead lifts and squats.  They are the ones who ask the champions why the champs are growing biiger muscles and getting fitter all the time whereas they are at the gym longer, more regular and yet not achieving any result.  They will take note of the advises and the next time you see them, they are back to what they were doing.

Reading that confounded book on the treadmill.  They actually expect changes to take place by doing the same things.  How is that possible? Then they will say, “Ah…  but you are just lucky to have good genes!” What nonsense!  To build muscles fast and big, you must SQUAT! The squat is often touted as the king of exercise and is grouped together with the dead lift and bench press, collectively called the Big Three for power and muscle mass building.  If you want to build big muscles and enjoy a symmetrical physique, you must squat.  Period.  In most gym, the squat rack is there collecting dust.  Why? Because most people think that their legs will be hidden by their pants.  Why bother? How dead wrong they are.

Wait till you see them in their shorts or swim wear.  You will see Spiderman ..er ..I mean spider legs.  Another reason why people avoid squatting exercises is because the squat work on many major muscles and is grueling work.  When you perform squats correctly, you will huff and pant, wheeze, head spinning woozily, see stars, sweat profusely and your entire body will be screaming for you to stop.  Of course the exercise is brutal!  You are working out about 75% of your entire muscular structure including your shoulders, traps, back, gluteus, hams, calf, abs and many other synergistic muscles in a single exercise, isn’t that supposed taxed your strength, endurance and your cardio health?

Isn’t that the best exercise? Isn’t that why the results from squats will be astounding?  As an added bonus to building big muscles , you will be burning fats like crazy since the squat, given the intensity placed on your body, your metabolism zooms straight up! If your body fat ratio is high, it will help you lose body fat.  And because of the degree of difficulty, squats also force your body to release higher amounts of growth hormone , resulting in new muscle growth in all areas of your body.  In addition, squats will cause a spillover effect, enabling you to gain strength in all of your other lifts.  Awesome!

It just befuddles me why, with all these benefits, people are avoiding squats like a bubonic plague.  As for the hard gainers, squat will pack on pounds after pounds of muscle on your entire body! So hard gainers, you must squat to grow big!  If you squat with the correct form, heavy weight and sheer intensity, you will see good results in just weeks.  Not just your lower body.  Your entire frame will take on a different form.  A total body transformation.  Guaranteed!

You must know that since squats are performed with heavy weight, so correct form and techniques are critical and cannot be compromised.  Anything less, you may sustain serious injury.  However, when you adhere to the proper technique, you will be very safe and will enjoy all the benefits that come with the squat.  Don’t cheat yourself and substitute squats with leg presses.  They are of a different class!

Debunking Excuses!

It’s bad for the knees – In fact, it’s on the contrary.  Just like the muscle tissue in your body strengthens when exposed to stress, the tendons, ligaments and other connective tissues in your body will also thicken in response to weightlifting.  That means, it actually improve knee health when you squat.  It also strengthens all the muscles around your knee and thus providing your knees with support when the muscles are strong and less stress is placed on the knees on your day to day activities.  I know.  I used to suffer from knee pain until I started squatting and now, my knees are in perfect health that I can even play competitive soccer.

Knee problems only occur when you squat improperly like resting at the bottom of the movement or letting your knee protrude over your toes.  It’s bad for my back – For the same reasons about strengthening your tissues, squats also exercises your lower back.  When done in correct form, it actually builds strong muscles on your lower back and not only correcting you from bad posture that results in a bad back, it may even give you a healthy strong back.  Again, it will only hurt your back if done in poor form like bending forward or doing it with a rounded back instead of arching it during the movement.

It will give you high blood pressure and bad for the heart -
Sure, your blood pressure will rise as your heart will beat faster from the exercise.  That is only temporary and not dangerous unless you already have those problems in the first place.  Other than that you are actually exercising your heart and cardio vascular system to strengthen it.  How can that be dangerous? Don’t most exercises elevate heart rate and increase blood flow? Then they should ban the treadmills and close all swimming pools! Do you buy that nonsense?  So, now that you know that squat is the king of bodybuilding exercises, are you the type that makes things happen or are still contend to be wondering what the heck happened?

By: Daniel Novak