Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Why Some Muscle Building Programs Aren't Working for You

By Caleb Lee

Many muscle building programs are experiments or self discovered by weight lifters, which worked for that specific person who discovered it.

However, in some cases these muscle building programs don't work. Why?

These are 4 major reasons why some muscle building programs aren't working:

#1: Not Using Free Weights

By this, I mean you have to be working many muscles at one time. This will give your body benefits of having stability and coordination between muscles. However, muscle building programs like to incorporate machines into their workouts. Workout machines tend to focus on one muscle. This is bad because it will take forever to work many muscles, and you do not develop any real life application. Free weights can help you to work many muscles at once. Doing compound exercises like Squats and dead lifts can benefit you in saving time, working many muscles at once, and also gaining stability and coordination between muscles.

#2: The Program is Not Efficient for the Every Day Person's Time Constraints

A program developed by the usual gym rat you would see at the gym working out every time you went there would not be a good fit for someone only having an hour to workout. Your workout does not need to be long and strenuous; rather it should be short and sweet. Using fewer reps and sets with a larger amount of weight can give you the best benefits in a short amount of time.

#3: Where is the Resistance?

A good muscle building program should have a high amount of weight, while using less reps and sets. Programs using 50% of your one rep max are a waste of time. Your target should be to life around 80-85% of your 1 rep max. If you use less weight, you will see slight improvement until the improvements will stop. Its like your body will have become immune to lifting such a small amount of weight.

#4: More Recuperation During and After Workouts

During and after work outs, resting is important for your muscles to build. Instead of rushing to your next workout to get done faster, plan in more time and rest longer between exercises. This will give your muscles time to refresh and prepare for your next work out and put less strain on them.

When you are done with your workout, make some time to rest and take a nap. You just put your body through hard work and now it needs time to cool down and rebuild. At night, make sure you are achieving 8+ hours of sleep, if possible. Relax anytime during the day and make sure to keep a low stress environment, which is best for fast muscle growth.

If you want to hear more tips to having a good muscle building program, check out: DoubleYourGains' 3-5 Beginners Strength Program. - 16650

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