Unfortunately, even the most precise application of cutting edge training and diet techniques can leave you feeling disgruntled and looking de-muscled. To make physical improvements on a regular basis, you need to eliminate all sources of error in your routine. In fact, the difference between success and failure is so small that if you’re making just one of the nine mistakes listed below, you could be severely limiting your body’s progress. Take a critical look at your routine to identify which of the following errors you’re guilty off, and then take action.

Mistake: Using the same weights, week after week. When is the last time you made some really big gains in the strength department? So often we fall into a pattern, continually choosing the same weight for an exercise instead of challenging ourselves by trying to move up. While getting stronger isn’t directly equated to building bigger muscles, it’s certainly linked. If you don’t build up to lifting a considerable amount of weight for plenty of reps with perfect form, you’ll never develop impressive size.

Corrective action: Continually doing the same weight, same sets, and same reps week after week, even when you aren’t making progress isn’t the optimal way to train. Instead, you need to incorporate the concept of periodization into your training. You should cycle periods of strength training if you have a bodybuilding-styled training and strength endurance training routine. You can do one month of each to increase in the areas you are falling short in.

MISTAKE: Using weights you can’t manage properly. While becoming stronger is important, poundage at all costs is a definite progress killer and can result in an injury that takes you out of action. There are a lot of people who use weights they can’t handle with good form. Impeccable exercise form — no yanking, no dropping, no heaving, no excessive ranges of motion, no blasting into a repetition, is pivotal to training safety.

Corrective action: Cut back your working weights by 10 percent, tighten up your form, and then gradually build your weights to gain the strength or growth you’re looking for.

Mistake: Not allowing adequate recovery time between workouts. Rest generously between workouts. I know a lot of bodybuilders minimize their recovery time and maximize their workout frequency. This sometimes leads to inadequate results. Remember muscles grow between workouts, not during them.

Corrective action: For a change, try weight training on just three days each week, and concentrate on other areas while resting on the other four days. Try dividing your overall program or split your training into two parts to see which works best for you.

Mistake: Avoiding the hard exercises. The major muscle builders are exercises such as squats, deadlifts, bench presses, military presses, dips, rows, and pull-ups. These are the ones you have to become very good at.

Corrective action: You don’t need to move the equivalent of a Volkswagen or anything. Take it slow — give yourself a chance to become accustomed to certain movements, and quit “wussing” out in your workouts by switching your tire shuffles to just regular shuffles.

Mistake: Not giving 100 percent. If you’re loafing in the gym or chatting your training partner, or flirting, you’ll never get far in the strength and growth department. While you don’t have to train until you literally drop, you still have to train hard.

Corrective action: Concentrate on the exact moment you find yourself in and put everything you have into every exercise . Don’t do the exercises half-heartedly or lazily go through the motions.

Mistake: Neglecting your health. Without good health, you can’t train consistently. Without training consistency, you can’t make notable progress. Without good health, your body can’t recover optimally. Good health is at the bedrock of transforming your body. Don’t wait until you no longer have your health before you appreciate it.

Corrective action: Look after yourself so you minimize your chances of getting injured or ill. Avoid harmful activities and environments. Over-training can make you sick, as it helps to suppress your immune system. Take care of yourself and then you can take care of your training goals.

Mistake: Sticking with a plan or exercise that’s not working. Too many people find a program in a book or magazine, and then stick to it with the fervor of a religious zealot, despite their better judgment. While you don’t want to use this as an excuse to stop doing the more difficult exercises, if an exercise is seriously causing you pain or is not working the intended area or muscle, there’s a problem.

Corrective action: Personalize your program, finding what woks best for you. There’s probably no single workout that works well for everyone. Even good programs have to be fine-tuned to fit the individual.

Mistake: Selling yourself short. Setting limits on yourself is the surest route to failure. Don’t expect the impossible, but believe you can achieve a lot. Set your sights high, and you’ll be pleased with the results.

Corrective action: Set realistic but challenging short-term goals. Give your absolute best effort to reach those targets, and then set new goals. Be driven. To measure your progress toward those goals, write them down and keep a training journal, recording all your results. As the weeks go by you need to be able to see and feel small but gradual improvements.

Mistake: Treating nutrition as a “nice-to-do” rather than a “need-to-do.” Nutrition may be last on this list, but it should be first when it comes to your workout plan. The road to results is littered with people who failed to reach their destination because they mistakenly thought that working out was the only prerequisite while completely ignoring their nutrition. What you eat, and when you eat it, is a huge factor in working out. And what you consume must be high in quality to provide the abundance of nutrients needed to recover from hard training.

Corrective action: Feed your body five to six times a day. Cut down drastically on unhealthy fats like margarine, fried foods, foods that contain hydrogenated oils and enrich your diet with healthful fats like virgin olive oil and oily fish such as salmon and mackerel. Eat generous daily helpings of vegetables, fruit and unrefined grains. If your diet is lacking in variety, take a daily multivitamin to ensure that you’re getting adequate amounts of the vitamins and minerals that are essential for enhancing your body.

From: The Nassau Guardian

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Nutrition helps the body with the internal elements that the body needs to build good bulky muscle in a short period of time. We all are aware of the fact that the right nutrition at the right time can work wonders for the body and this is the reason that many people are running behind any diet regimen or nutrition tips that promises them with prompt results.

Bodybuilding is all about a concentrated long time effort to build muscles and this process can get hampered if your body does not get the right nutrition. Here we are going to look at the nutrition tips that will provide you with the nutrition that will really help you to gain more muscles.

The basic logic behind this revolutionary nutrition regimen is that it banks not on the type of food that you eat, but the time they are absorbed by the body. This is really important as you need to when your body absorbs the nutrients from the foods you eat. So you will learn about the foods that you have to take and the timing of the food so that your body can use it to its advantage.

The timing of the consumption of food holds a lot of importance if you are trying to build muscles. People often tend to eat a lot and then burn off the calories through a rigorous iron pumping session. Now this is something that does not help in the long term and this is why you need to eat the right amount at the right time while going through your usual bodybuilding exercise regimen.

Recent researches have tried to find out the implications of protein and carbohydrates in an anabolic muscle building regimen. Analysis of the nutrients have provided some surprising results and based on these results the researchers have tried to answer the two major queries- what are the nutrients that one should consume before or after the workout sessions and what are the specific benefits of consuming the nutrients at a said time?

Well, you need to take a combination of Creatine, whey protein and carbohydrates. This is definitely going to provide you the nutrients that the body needs and you need to take the cocktail just before your weightlifting session. You need to repeat the same cocktail intake after completing your workouts to provide the maximum benefits to the body. This definitely points to the fact that it is the timing that matters the most rather than what you take.

One hour prior to and after the weightlifting sessions is considered to be the best time to consume the nutrients as your body fully utilizes the same to build lean muscles. The carbohydrate and protein is completely used by the liver and turned into lean muscles just after grueling workout sessions and this timing is generally the one hour mark after the workout.

The amount of the nutrients that is recommended to make the cocktail is whey carbohydrates (75-100 g), protein (30-50 g), and creatine monohydrate (3-5 g). Try out these tips and see your muscles growing like never before!

Are you looking for free free bodybuilding tips? Visit http://www.bodybuilding2000.com/ today!

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The type of home exercise equipment a person buys should depend on their fitness goals and what kind of work out they enjoy. Although it is somewhat stereotypical, many men opt for weight training and bodybuilding, while the majority of women focus on cardiovascular fitness. For optimal health, a balance of weight training, body building, and cardiovascular activity is the best strategy, but for your first piece of home exercise equipment, you should select something you are familiar with and enjoy. A lot of guys will opt for the bench press, which gives them a bar and weights, in addition to the bench, allowing them to do a variety of lifts like curls, squats, and other bodybuilding lifts. However, if a traditional bench press set take up too much room, a small bench and a dumbbell set can be just as effective. Not only can you do a mock bench press with dumbbells, you can do many other weight training exercises that focus on specific muscle groups.

There is a thought that if women begin lifting weights to get in shape, they will over do it and develop huge bulging muscles. However, most women do not have the ability to do this, especially not overnight. Many women who use weight training find that they get more toned and they actually slim down to a certain extent. Overall, having more tone muscles give a person a much healthier and attractive appearance.

However, maintaining good cardiovascular health is important too. Some of the most popular home exercise equipment for cardiovascular health is the exercise bike and treadmill. The elliptical has also become very popular in recent years. Many people decide to buy a bicycle for their home exercise equipment as a way of getting out of the house and doing something. However, there are many times of the year that weather conditions do not permit one to ride a bike, or make it undesirable.

Whatever you decide to get for your first piece of home exercise equipment, make sure it is something you will use. Many people will spend thousands of dollars on home exercise equipment thinking that it will give them the motivation to work out, but if you are not inclined to workout, buying a lot of home exercise equipment will not help. However, getting home exercise equipment you enjoy will help make it a little easier to workout and help you get into a solid routine.

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More often then not here’s what I find in deltoid bodybuilding workout and why I feel these programs are ineffective and incomplete for complete deltoid development. Most of the time the workouts consisted of raises and presses and nothing much more and the worst part is that all exercises targeted the middle and front deltoids and included no exercises for the rear delt. The result of this type of workout is strength imbalance in the shoulders and that makes them less stable.

That loss of stability is bad for a lot of reasons but mainly because you increase your risk for injury in an area that’s already highly susceptible to injury. Dislocations and rotator cuff injuries are common for bodybuilders so it’s important to do everything you can to prevent them and training your rear delts in your bodybuilding workout is one such way.

What may bother you more then the added susceptibility to injury is that not training your rear delts will also result in decreased strength in important lifts such as the bench press, the shoulder press and practically every other upper body lift.

If you’ve hit a plateau in your bodybuilding workout and you’ve noticed that your upper body lifts have plateaued I would strongly recommend you start training your rear delts. You plateau because you can only lift as much as your shoulders can support and if you notice your rear delts are at the bottom of lifts like the bench press and the shoulder press.

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It’s crazy but as personal trainer I can’t tell you how many people I’ve talked to who complain about having a weak body part/ muscle and when I ask them if they’ve ever trained that weak muscle at the beginning of their bodybuilding workout I usually get a blank stare in return…

You know the look a deer gives when it’s about to get hit and run over by a mack truck.

That’s exactly what will happen to your weakest muscles if you train them at the beginning of your bodybuilding workout… They’re going to get run over by a mack truck!

You see most of my clients are guys and as guys we have a natural tendency to only want to train our strongest muscles. Sometimes it’s just to impress the ladies at the gym (it’s all good) and sometimes it’s just to boost our own ego and look at our biggest muscles in front of the mirror at the gym.

Any way you look at it, you have to realize that you have a weak muscle and it’s going to need special attention if you want it too keep up with the rest of your muscles.

I should also mention that we all also have strong muscle groups… muscles that basically grow sometimes by just looking at them! I’m not saying you have to stop working those muscles out but you should pay more attention to your weak muscles if you want a well proportioned body.

One of my clients is this guy with a HUGE barn door back. I have a big back but this guy has a wider back then mine but he has puny and skinny arms which makes him look kinda silly if you ask me…

Sure enough when I asked him for the past few years in his bodybuilding workout he’s been working out his back first and then his biceps right after.

Guys if you’re working out your back and then you hit your biceps, your biceps are already “tired” from the back workout because your biceps are an ancillary muscle to most back exercise. Basically your biceps help out your back (more if you’re a beginner) when you’re doing your back exercises and by the time you get around to your biceps workout your biceps are already exhausted and that’s how NOT to get your muscles to grow.

If you have a similar problem, I recommend that you move your biceps to the beginning of your back/biceps bodybuilding workout and train your biceps while they’re fresh and they can move a maximum amount of weight. I guarantee you’ll see better results.

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One of the questions I receive most often from my personal training clients that are looking to add some muscle with a bodybuilding workout is:

How many sets should I perform per exercise and how many reps to set the stage for muscular growth?

The answer I always give is 3 sets per exercise (after your warm up) and there’s also a certain number of reps I plan on using for each set.

The first set of your bodybuilding workout is usually what I call a feeler set and usually ends up in the 10-12 rep range. I don’t try to go too heavy here. #1 I’m trying to feel how this particular exercise is going to target my muscles today. #2 I’m trying to get as big a pump going as possible with the extra reps.

With the second set of a bodybuilding workout I’m still trying to go for a massive pump but now I’m also trying to move more weight. This set is always in the 6-8 rep range and is a little trickier then the other two because you’re trying to both build strength with the lower reps and increased weight and you’re also still trying to focus the strain of all the weight into your targeted muscle for a huge pump.

The last and 3rd set of a bodybuilding workout is to build strength plain and simple. This set is usually 4-6 reps. I usually try to pick a weight that I’ll be able to move for 6 reps. Very rarely do I shoot for four reps but on the rare occasions that my body feels real good and not at all susceptible to injury I go ahead and max out for four reps.

Well that’s it… those are my sets and reps recommendations for a bodybuilding workout designed to make you the biggest guy in your gym. Give it a shot and let me now what you think.

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There are no exceptions.

If you want big muscles, you’re going to have to move massive amounts of weight and iron every time you’re in the gym doing a bodybuilding workout.

You’re not going to get big curling 25 pound dumbells or benching 135 pounds. Unless you’re warming up of course.

You get big and you add tons of muscle to your frame by pushing your body to the damn limit every single bodybuilding workout.

In order for you to get bigger you’re going to have to get stronger and in order for you to get stronger you’re going to want to limit your bodybuilding workout sets to about 4-6 repetitions per set.

This is the ideal rep range for increasing mass and strength. You usually want to do 3 sets per exercise and I would recommend you do 2 sets at 6 reps and then do your last set at 4 reps to really emphasize increasing your strength.

You’re not going to increase your overall muscle mass unless you start to lift heavier weights.

It doesn’t matter which exercises you are doing so long as you are getting stronger and you are gradually increasing the weight you use for every single exercise you use in your workouts.

So there you go… you want to get bigger? Start moving more weight in your bodybuilding workout.

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Start off with a decent warm up…

On days that I hit chest I usually warm up with some kind of machine press movement but since this is a bodybuilding workout for your home gym I’m going to start off with some elevated push ups.

You do elevated push ups the same way you do regular push ups only you elevate your legs by placing your toes on top of a bench or a chair or pretty much anything that’s a couple of feet off of the ground. This places additional stress on your upper and middle chest and is a great way to target your chest in your home gym.

Once you’re warmed up you can proceed to your first exercise which will be you guessed it the bench press. You’re going for three sets of 4-6 reps. We’re not messing around here… this is the portion of your bodybuilding workout where you’re focusing on getting stronger which will in turn make you bigger.

Once you’re done with those sets it’s time to get really serious… You’re going to do a compound set which is basically two exercises back to back and we’re going to take it up a notch by incorporating some pre-exhaust into this set as well. Yeah pretty much you can kiss your chest good-bye for the next few days if you do this bodybuilding workout right…

On the front half of this compound set you’re going to do flat bench flyes and on the back half you’re going to do incline bench press. If you don’t understand how compound sets and pre-exhaustion work check out this post here located at your home gym.

OK you’re almost home only 2 exercises and 6 sets to go…

Exercise number 3 is flat bench dumbbell presses and I want you to squeeze your chest at the top while holding the weight up there for a second and squeezing your lats together. 3 sets of 8 reps big guy.

Finish up your bodybuilding workout in your home gym with some elevated push ups. Yes the same ones you warmed up with… This is a great exercise for detailing your chest while working out at your home gym.

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This bodybuilding routine isn’t for sissies so if you don’t like pain go read Mens Health or something… this shit is for guys that want to get huge! If that’s not you don’t come around here no moh!

Let’s get on with it…

In this last post I gave a brief description of a bodybuilding workout with compound sets in case you’re too lazy to read that a compound set is basically two different exercises performed back to back for one really long set… that’s what we’re going to do to abuse your shoulders into growth!

The first half of the set: dumbbell side lateral raises. Pound out 10 reps.

The second half of the compound set: behind-the-neck barbell presses. Choose a weight that you think you’ll be able to handle for 6-8 reps.

3 sets and before you even begin to think about starting this set make sure your shoulders are thoroughly warmed up. Your shoulders are easily injured and this is a taxing bodybuilding workout so don’t mess around with your workout.

I usually follow up the compound set with 3 sets of 10 reps of some dumbbell shoulder presses and then I follow that up with some machine presses.

This bodybuilding workout is stacked with pressing exercises because that’s the best way to pack on slabs of muscle to your frame. Nothing changes the way you look more then the width of your shoulders. This workout is sure to help you pack on some size.

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We’re going to build a huge chest by utilizing two old-school Joe Weider principles of pre-exhaustion and compound sets in this bodybuilding workout. I’m not really sure if compound sets are actually a principle or just a training technique but either way I know the combination of these two works like crazy to blow up your muscles…

A compound set just means you’re going to do one really long set of two different exercises back-to-back with no break in between. So you’ll do one set of something for 10 reps and then we’re going to follow that up immediately (without a break) by another exercise for 6-8 reps.

The pre exhaustion principle works like this…

So we’re going to be doing 2 exercises back to back for one compound set… the first exercise in a pre exhaustion compound set is always some type of isolation movement followed by a compound movement or a multi-joint movement.

Ok so let’s build a big chest with a pre exhaustion bodybuilding workout.

Here’s the bodybuilding workout I challenge you to try if you want to build a huge chest:

1st compound set

Incline dumbell flyes (10 reps) followed by incline bench press (6-8 reps)

2nd compound set

Flat dumbell flyes followed by Flat bench dumbell presses

3rd set (regular set)

Weighted dips (go heavy pussy!)

4th set

Cable flyes (so all the chicks at the gym can see your chest popping out of your damn shirt)

A couple of notes regarding this pre exhaustion compound set bodybuilding workout: Go heavy but don’t be stupid… your muscles will be severely weakened by the isolation movements at the beginning of your pre exhaust compound sets.

There you have it… build a rock hard chest with this bodybuilding workout.

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