Speeding Up Your Metabolism

    
          To get that sought after ripped physique you have to get your body fat percentage between 8 - 10 %.   So in order to burn fat you have to find ways of speeding up your metabolism. Speeding up your metabolism helps you burn more calories which will make your body access fat stores to provide your muscles with energy.
         When it comes to weight loss supplements and fat burners there is a lot of choice on the market and it's not always easy to pick what's best for you. When picking a weight loss supplement and fat burner there are 3 categories that you should be looking at :-


         1. Thermogenic Metabolism Boosters


         2. Fat Mobilising Transporters


         3. Whey Protein Powders




        Thermogenics - A 'Thermogenic Fat Burner' is a nutrition supplement that provides the fastest results and the most powerful way to target fat. Thermogenics are formulations of specific ingredients ( usually in capsule form ) which speed up your metabolism functions, which leads to burning more calories which will cause your body to access body fat stores to provide the extra energy needed. In giving you a dramatic energy and motivational boost, you can train harder and longer which will turn yor body into a fat burning machine. 2 -3 Servings a day to be taken on an empty stomach are the usual recommendations for 'Thermogenic Fat Burners'. Also to maintain the long term effectiveness of Thermo's it's best to 'cycle' them by making sure you have consistent 'off ' breaks.




        Fat Transporters - ' Fat Transporters' or ' Fat Mobilisers ' are an alternative for those who prefer to avoid the stimulation of Thermo's. The amino acid called L-Carnitine is the key active ingredient in this category. There are different forms of L- Carnitine including L-Carnitine Tartrate, L-Carnitine Base but the most effective is L-Carnitine Fumerate. L-Carnitine is naturally found in your body and the foods you eat. It is mainly used to transport fats from your bodies fat stores into your muscle cells for use as energy.
       To 'turn on' optimum fat burning and weight loss by supplementing your diet with L-Carnitine, you will increase the bodies reserves of this essential fat moving nutrient. L-Carnitine will also give you increased feelings of energy and exercise endurance, plus will improve your recovery. As with Thermo's, L-Carnitine is best taken twice a day on an empty stomach because there are some foods that will block the effect it has on the body.




        Whey Protein - An excellent fat loss tool is Whey protein. As you'll know, if you are into your nutrition, all protein foods are Thermogenic. Protein foods cause your body to burn calories to digest them, which therefore boosts your metabloism. You can take advantage of this calorie burning effect plus provide impoortant building blocks for lean muscle preservation by regularly taking a Whey protein shake.
        Another benefit from taking a Whey protein shake regularly is that the amino acid L-Phenylalanine is present, which keeps your appetite under control by promoting feelings of fullness. The reasons bodybuilders and fitness models drink a lot of Whey protein shakes when dieting is because it contains naturally high levels of  L-Phenylalanine. 2 to 4 servings a day is best for maximum fat loss benefits. Also Whey powder is an ideal additional source for breakfast and post workout meals as these are the most important times of the day to eat protein for a bodybuilder.

For The No.1 Bodybuilding Customized Fat Loss Program CLICK HERE 

Lose Body Fat Without Losing Muscle

Important Dieting Tips

Without going into specifics on actual dieting techniques, I will give some good general guidelines on how to lose body fat without losing muscle that are often overlooked, or simply not known. Here goes.


1. If you have a lot of weight to lose do NOT try and do it all at once. The maximal time I have trainees do fat loss diets are 12-16 weeks. And 16 weeks is the MAX. If you are not at your goal within 16 weeks, take 4-5 weeks and reefed. This does not mean eat all you want for the 4-5 weeks, it means add calories and perhaps carbs if doing a low/no carb diet and get your diet a bit over maintenance. This will allow your metabolism to rebound give you both a mental and physical break from dieting.


2. Crash dieting (extreme caloric restriction) rarely works. All it does is shut your metabolism down a very short time after you start the diet, and/or catabolizes a lot of muscle. Aim for a 400-600 calorie a day restriction, and along with reasonable cardio you will create a decent deficit. If you are already doing as much cardio as you can or care to, you may need a bigger caloric decrease. This all varies a LOT between people of different bodyweights and bodyfat compositions as well as the individuals metabolism. So while the suggested number will work for many people, it will not work for all.


3. If you are not weighing and logging your food at least some of the time, you are simply guessing about your diet approach. Guessing is fine I guess, if you want haphazard results. The average person is simply not good enough to “eyeball” their food and get it close enough. If you absolutely will not do this you had best ensure you eat the same basic things daily so if you are not getting the results you want, you can make changes at least off of a known quantity.


4. Be creative with your food and think outside the box when it comes to seasoning and food choices. So many people get stuck eating the same things that taste the same way day in and day out that it is no wonder they quit their diets. There will have to be sacrifices made, that is for sure. But you don’t have to make it so Spartan that the entire time dieting is an exercise in depravation.

For more information on the most complete cookbook and nutrition guide for bodybuilding 

CLICK HERE.

5. Take your morning body temperate FIRST thing in the morning for 4 days in a row BEFORE starting a fat loss diet. This means BEFORE EATING and BEFORE ANY activity. Morning temp should be 97.5-98.1. If it is a bit lower that is fine. If it is consistently 96.5 or below, you should either postpone the diet until you get it back up by eating a bit more and if at all possible having your thyroid checked. Trying to start a diet with a severely slowed metabolism will make the diet a very difficult task. At 96.1, your metabolism is already slowed 15-25% for most people and to get at a number well below maintenance with your metabolism that dampened already will require a very low caloric and nutritional profile for YOUR body. Please take into mind that SOME people have a naturally lower basal body temperature, so what will appear as low for a normal person will be the norm for a person with the low body temperature type metabolism. These people are not the rule but the exception. Trying to diet with an already crippled metabolism rarely works and the calories and nutrients end up having to be so low that muscle is usually sacrificed. Continue to monitor temperature while dieting. If your body temperature plummets, you can bet your metabolic rate has also plummeted. Careful measurement can tell an experienced person when to either drop calories, or discontinue the diet for a short time to get metabolism back up and running correctly.


6. If you are not getting stronger while dieting—at least by small increases you likely have something out of balance with the workload, cardio, or caloric deficit/macro- profile. There is simply no reason to not be able to get at least a bit stronger unless you are at 8% or below, or are extremely advanced. Low and intermediate level lifters should be able to still make strength progress until about 8% or so bodyfat.


7. If you are dieting and do not do resistance training, you are much more likely to catabolize muscle tissue when losing weight. ANY type of resistance training including bodyweight exercises is better than none.


8. Unless you are doing circuit type training for overall conditioning and strength, using weight training to burn extra calories is misguided. People often go on cutting diets and increase their volume and frequency to “use more calories”. This is a very poor way of burning calories and the opposite of what should be done. Most people can use the same training volume they use when massing, others need to reduce it a good amount. Doing high volume/high frequency routines when dieting is a chief cause of muscle loss.


9. Train for strength when dieting. You are not likely to gain much muscle if you are on a cutting type diet opposed to a recomp. So doing hypertrophy specific type workload is not your best bet. A 10 x 10 may work well for size gains and some strength gains when massing, but is not likely optimal on a cut. Lower, to mid volume work with an emphasis on strength will allow neural gains to continue to occur thus allowing you to get stronger while dropping bodyfat.


10. Step diet when going to very low levels of bodyfat, or if you are a person who’s metabolism slows fast. Many people can start a diet at a reasonable caloric deficit and keep going a full 12-16 weeks and still drop fat the entire time at the same caloric level. Other people need to slowly adjust calories downwards every 4-6 weeks or so to keep bodyfat coming off.


11. If it “appears” that fat loss has stalled do NOT panic and drop calories drastically or increase cardio drastically. Most people’s bodies lose fat cyclically and also, at different stages of fat loss the ‘appearance” of bodyfat reduction “looks” more dramatic than at other stages. Wait at LEAST two weeks of no scale or mirror improvement to drop calories or increase cardio. This rule may not apply to people doing contest prep.


12. Fat loss does NOT come off most people in the areas they are usually most concerned about in the initial stages of a diet. For guys it typically comes off the extremities first and the waistline last. For most girls, upper body fat is lost first and lower body fat (thighs/butt) is the last place the body pulls from. Putting a tape measure around your waist for guys, and legs/butt for girls every week to measure fat loss will usually lead to a very frustrated dieter. As a trainer I have people tell me frequently they don’t think they are losing much weight during the initial stages of the diet, but after getting pictures or seeing them in person I point to their arms, legs (for guys) and face upper chest area and all of a sudden they notice all the separation and less fat in these areas that they failed to see before. People tend to just focus on the areas that they want to reduce while not understanding that the body sees the major fat storage areas as “survival” fuel and gives up that part of the bodies stored fat last.


13. Avoid stimulant fat burner supplements. These almost always produce an increase in stress hormone chemicals, primarily cortisol. High cortisol levels make it difficult for the body to burn fat, and tell the body to catabolize muscle tissue. There are plenty of non-stimulant based fat burning supplements that increase the rate of fat burning without promoting a stress response. Things like forskolin, TTA, and some of the mild thyroid boosting supplements along with ALCAR and other products that increase mitochondria output. Green tea has been proven to boost fat burning up to 4% by itself and has a wide variety of health benefits. Caffeine in reasonable quantities is acceptable even though it is technically a stimulant—just don’t go overboard with it.


14. Make sure you are getting a high dose of EFA’s (essential fatty acids) DAILY! This will help the fat come off faster, reduce overall protein needs a bit (difficult mechanism to understand so you will have to trust me on this) and ensure you remain healthy while dieting. 6 grams a day of fish oil should be a minimum.


15. If you are doing a diet that has a reasonable amount of carbs in it you can do HIIT cardio. If you are on an extremely low carb, or no carb diet you are better served by doing low intensity cardio. High intensity cardio requires glycogen for fuel. If you are already depleted on carbs the body will catabolize muscle to fuel your high intensity cardio sessions. You can bypass this to a certain degree by doing a PWO feeding after your HIIT sessions, but this is not really an option for the way many diets are laid out. BOTH methods work for fat loss—don’t let anyone tell you different. But they work by entirely different mechanisms and diet composition needs to be taken into account when planning cardio.


16. High impact cardio such as running is much more likely to result in muscle catabolism as the same degree of intensity done with low impact. Running while dieting is a poor combo for most people.


17. Once at a low caloric/nutrient level in the final stages of a diet it is often a better idea to increase low intensity cardio than to reduce calories.


18. When adding mass at least 1.5 grams per lb of bodyweight is needed for optimal mass gains. When dieting you can go as low as 1 gram per lb of bodyweight for guys, and .75 for girls. Going below this number is a primary reason why people lose muscle when dieting. If you are losing a lot of muscle when dieting, you are simply doing something or many things wrong.


19. Calories are NOT calories. You can gain fat while being on an under maintenance caloric level by simply having your macro nutrient profiles screwed up. I read a very well conducted study recently where they took over 1500 people and put them on a diet that was 1000 calories below maintenance levels and the primary macro-nutrient was fructose. The vast majority of the people actually GAINED bodyfat while eating 1000 calories less than maintenance levels. The scale weight went down, and when they tested body composition they determined the people had lost a lot of muscle while actually storing more bodyfat. Without going into diet details as this is not what this article is for, the simple take home message is carbs are not your friend on a fat loss diet. That is not conjecture, just basic physiology.


20. EFA’s and BCAA’s can be extremely helpful in muscle mass retention on a fat loss diet. That is an article unto itself. Do some research!

Hope this helps some people with their fat loss goals!

Iron Addict

Never Get Bored With Your Diet Again. For Loads Of Muscle Building Recipes CLICK HERE

Dumbbell Bench Press - Exercise Explained Video Series

 CHEST EXERCISES PART 3

          Series of videos explaining how to perform bodybuilding exercises. In part 3 we are going to explain the dumbbell bench press. The dumbbell bench press is a more effective exercise for building muscle mass on the chest than the barbell press. Using dumbbells will help build the middle and outer pectoral muscles because they give a more free range of motion than a barbell, so this exercise is more popular for the serious bodybuilder.
   
          Dumbbells are more difficult to balance than a barbell, so the shoulders and triceps which are used as stabilizers will develop much better. Also using dumbbells instead of a barbell allows for a greater stretch at the bottom and more efficient peak contraction at the top of the movement.

          To execute the dumbbell bench press, lie flat on your back and hold the dumbbell's at arms length over your chest. Make sure your upper back, hips and butt are pressed hard into the bench so you don't arch your back and move around on the exercise. Also keep your feet flat on the floor.

          When using dumbbells, turn them in slightly at about a 35 degree angle, not straight across like you would hold a barbell. Then in a controlled manner, lower the dumbbells to your outer chest and armpit area.
          When lowering slowly bend your elbows below the level of your chest placing the dumbbells in line with your chest and shoulders. Don't let the dumbbells go any lower than your chest level. Then drive the dumbells back up and lock your arms straight overhead, with the weights only a couple of inches apart. Make sure to keep the dumbbells balanced and under control at all times.

In these videos heavy weights will not be used as the emphasis is on explaination and correct form.

For information on building more muscle with less weight CLICK HERE

Build Muscle Fast

           When I first started training, I didn’t know any better so I went to the gym and did all the machine exercises and isolation movements that I saw everyone else doing. I figured these would all lead to fast muscle gain and I would be huge in no time.


           My dad knew a steroid-using Italian guy named Tony who owned a gym and competed in several bodybuilding shows. He asked Tony if he could write me a program and Tony obliged. I was bursting with excitement and thought this would be the difference maker in my training. I met with Tony at his office one day, and in a scene that could have been straight out of an episode of The Sopranos, he interrogated me about my muscle building program. I gave him a piece of paper with my workout on it and he took a long, hard look at it.


          “Here’s whatcha gonna do. And I don’t wan any a’guments. You do dis and you’ll grow. Ya undastand me?”


          “Yeah, definitely. No problem.”


          He pulled out a legal pad and scrawled out my new training program. It was loaded with all of the exercises that all the top name bodybuilders in the magazines were always shown doing. Stiff arm pullovers, concentration curls, leg extensions, cable flyes, you name it—they were included.


        I took my new program, thanked Tony, and left. The next few weeks would surely be an amazing time for me, I thought. The growth that I was about to experience would be dramatic, I just knew it.


       But nothing happened.


       You know why? Because those exercises suck, that’s why. Sure, the volume was too high for my limited recovery ability at the time, but if he had me doing the right exercises, I might have experienced some kind of gains.


      Choosing the right exercises could ultimately be the difference between lightening fast muscle gain and absolutely no muscle gain whatsoever. No matter how well thought out your workout plan is, if you use the wrong exercises, it will be completely useless. Even a bad training program will yield some results if you are using the right exercises. For these reasons, exercise selection is one of the most important components of any muscle building system.


      So how do you choose the best exercises?


      The best mass building exercises are always multi joint, free weight, compound exercises that use as much muscle mass as possible and allow you to use heavy weights. This includes movements like squats, deadlifts, chin ups, dips, overhead presses and rows. If you are desperately seeking fast muscle gain, the last thing you should ever waste your time doing is using machine or isolation exercises during your workouts. These exercises are great at producing that burning feeling that so many people love and can often lead to a great pump, but they do very little to pack on massive size or build real world, functional strength.


      For a very unique, scientifically advanced rating system which gives you a complete list of the best exercises on the planet, proven to lead to insanely fast muscle gain and mind blowing strength, CLICK HERE now.

By Jason Ferruggia

     Jason Ferruggia is a world famous fitness expert who is renowned for his ability to help people build muscle as fast as humanly possible. He is the head training adviser for Men’s Fitness Magazine where he also has his own monthly column dedicated to muscle building. For more How to Build Muscle Fast tips, check out http://www.musclegainsecrets.com

 

Bodybuilding Mistakes

   
         Below I've listed some of the bodybuilding mistakes that so many beginners and intermediate bodybuilders seem to make and then wonder why they're not progressing or making good muscle gains.



        Not Having A Plan - Having no plan is one of the worst, if not the worst approach to bodybuilding success. How are you going to achieve the body you want if you have no plan how to get there? You must have goals and a purpose to your training or you will be like a ship that has set sail with no destination. So decide what you want to achieve in bodybuilding, wether it's just for a better physique, you want to compete or even one day become Mr Olympia.
        Make a plan, write down your goals and give yourself a realistic deadline. Make sure the plan is suited to your level of training, it's no good copying Phil Heath's training regime if you've only been training for a couple of months. Copying Phil Heath will probably not work for 95% of  bodybuilders. Phil Heath and most of the other pro bodybuilders are on another level and have taken the right steps to get there. Finding a routine that packs on muscle for you is what it's all about and remember what works for someone else might not work for you. There is no one size fits all in bodybuilding. So my advice would be to seek the advice of a professional or someone who has been at the level you are at and get them to help put a strategy together that suits you.

"There are no secrets to success. It's the result of preparation, hard work and learning from failure.    - Colin. L. Powell

         Not Keeping Records - Not keeping records is another one of the biggest bodybuilding mistakes that you can make. If your not keeping records how will you know if your improving or just staying the same? If you have set a deadline and you are not progressing at the rate you should be , it's better to find  out sooner rather than later.Wether it's a few notes or a full on training diary with body measurements,  body fat % , body weight and training sesssion breakdowns, keeping records is one of the most effective ways to progress and acieve your bodybuilding goals.
         My advice would also be to take a photo of yourself about once a month and you should be able to see the changes over a period of 6-12 months. Sometimes it's hard to see changes in your body if your looking in the mirror every day so it's easy to get discouraged.
        To keep motivation high seeing photos of yourself a month apart will be easier to see the muscle mass gained, definition, fat loss etc.

"You must have long term goals to keep from being frustrated by short term failures."  -  Charles C. Noble

          Sticking To The Same Routine - Sticking to the same training routine week in, week out, will not help you in packing on muscle. At the beginning many training systems will work but eventually the muscle building effect on your body will start to wane. You should introduce change to your training regularly. Usually about every 8 - 12 weeks. To keep on adding muscle to your physique, variety is the key. The best way is to adjust the weight you are lifting or the number of reps for the exercise rather than completely changing your exercises. Being familiar with your limitations you can maintain good technique and reduce the risk of injury.

'Enjoying success requires the ability to adapt. Only by being open to change will you have a true opportunity to get the most from your talent.' - Nolan Ryan

         Incorrect Technique - One of the biggest favours you can do for yourself is learn the correct technique for each bodybuilding exercises you are performing. Incorrect technique can seriously hinder your progress and lead to muscle tears, joint injuries and muscle imbalances. There are many things that can go wrong because of all the different variations on exercises. Speak to a professional or research the exercise on the internet. It's worth finding out the correct techniques for your long term success.

          Overtraining With Muscle ' Crossover' - Are you aware that when you perform chest exercises you are also giving your shoulders and triceps a thrashing? And when you are doing some back exercises you are working your biceps too? The list of muscle crossover exercises goes on. So when putting together a training plan it's easy to miss out on the fact that you may be training some bodyparts excessively by hitting them 2 or 3 days in a row. One of the biggest complaints you hear in the gym is shoulder pain - which alot of the time can be put down to overtraining. To get your training plan correct can be quite a science and priority should be given to a training sequence that avoids overtraining and injury.

 For information on the 'The Best Natural Muscle Building System' CLICK HERE

Flat Bench Dumbbell Flyes - Exercise Explained Video Series

CHEST EXERCISES PART 2

          Series of videos explaining how to perform bodybuilding exercises. In part 2 we are going to explain the flat bench dumbbell flyes. Flat bench dumbbell flyes use minimal tricep involvement and allow you to isolate the pecs. Were bench pressing is more of a mass builder for the chest, flyes are more of a shaping exercise.


           To execute the flat bench dumbbell flyes start by lying on the bench with your arms straight above your chest and your palms facing each other.

            Keeping your elbows slightly bent, work the dumbbells down in a wide, arcing movement until your upper arms are parallel with your body. At the bottom of the movement pause for a second and then raise the dumbbells back to the starting position.


           Remember to inhale on the lowering of the dumbbells and get the feeling of a good stretch at the bottom of the movement and exhale on the raising of the dumbbells and flex your chest muscles at the peak of the movement

          To prevent momentum from taking over always keep the arcing motion slow and controlled.

In these videos heavy weights will not be used as the emphasis is on explaination and correct form.

For information on building more muscle with less weight CLICK HERE

Robert Downey Jr Workout

         To play Sherlock Holmes in Guy Ritchie's new movie, Robert Downey Jr needed to become ripped and lean. Downey's trainer, Brad Bose explains how they did it.

 

          To get Robert lean and ripped they worked on high volume, low intensity workouts to build up his muscle endurance and cardio levels. Bose says that he didn't want Downey Jr to become massive, more that he wanted him to become strong and fit enough to do the stunts in the movie. To accomplish this they used a machine called The Vortex Perfect Storm, a free-standing multi-gym that has loads of attachments for cables and resistance.
         
         'We'd do interval work on the Perfect Storm, targeting his major muscle groups from lots of different angles, then end the workout with a climb on a Jacob's Ladder – an inclined climbing treadmill – to improve his cardio,' says Bose. 

          Although Downey looked awesome in Ironman, he was new to this level of fitness.  It takes many weeks and months at a low body fat level to really create a shredded detailed physique.  Carrying on from the exercise and fitness he achieved for Ironman, Robert Downey Jr took it to the next level.

         When someone loses as much body fat as quickly as Downey did for “Ironman,” their skin does not conform to the new musclular physique right away.  In “Sherlock Holmes” he actually looks more toned, especially in the fight scenes, than he did in “Ironman.”


          For Iron Man 2 Downey Jr had to bulk up by adding 20 pounds of muscle in the three months leading up to the film. To achieve this physique Downey Jr trained in some pretty old school and unusual methods while eating a high-protein diet of 2,500 to 3,200 calories a day. In addition to Yoga and Wing Chun Kung Fu, he did 90 minute strength and fitness sessions with Bose three or four days a week.

            
         Robert Downey Jr Workout For Iron Man 2

• Indian Clubs 
• Meels
• Wheelbarrows 
• Fire Hoses
• Sled 
• Truck Tire With Sledge Hammer
• SUV Tires
• Bamboo Bars
• Bands

          For more information on workouts and how to achieve 'The Lean Hollywood Look'                

CLICK HERE

          Indian Clubs -  Bose likens the 'Indian Clubs' to weighted juggling pins. "Back in the early 1900s, they were quite popular," he says. "They were the main attraction in of a lot of Strongman shows, where they would use these five- and 10-pound big wooden clubs and swing them around at high speeds and do unusual movements. It's a great workout for shoulder and arm development, and actually pretty good on the joints, because it's rotational movement."


          Meels - Bose says meels, which look like oversized Indian clubs, were used to train horse riders in ancient Persia  who had to carry large, heavy swords. " I learned how to train with them by contacting a couple of experts . Alot of it's crazy. But it's fantastic for shoulder work," Bose says.
 
          Wheelbarrows - Bose specially adapted a wheelbarrow and welded it to hold up to 650 pounds. "Then I made an obstacle course with cones and had Robert wield it in figure eight formations through the cones," Bose says. The workout targets the chest, shoulders, and back. "It requires an immense amount of strength and skill," Bose says.
 
          Fire Hoses -  "I filled fire hoses with water and sand – one of each – and asked Downey to whip them around. He would almost do squats while whipping the fire hoses up and down," Bose says.

            Sled - Bose filled a sprinter's sled with 50-pound weights and tied it to the end of a heavy, 50-foot rope. "Robert would stand stationary and then pull it to him, drop it, then sprint 50 feet away again. He would pull, run, and pull again," Bose says. The full-body exercise especially targeted the glutes, lats, rhomboids, biceps and triceps, as well as the torso, abs, and core.
 
           Truck Tires and Sledgehammer - Bose bought giant truck tires and had Downey beat the tires with sledgehammer "like you'd beat a drum. Then we'd swing them overhead and pound the tires. That builds shoulder stability," Bose says.
 
          SUV Tires -  Downey flipped and threw SUV tires like a discus. "Again, this is pretty advanced stuff," Bose says. "It's not like the average person should do this, because it puts a lot of torque on the spine... You get very powerful in your abs."
 
          Bamboo Bars -  "We put rubber bands on bamboo bars then attached kettle bells to the rubber bands on the bar," Bose says. "It's like having a snake in your hands that's trying to wiggle its way out of your hands while you're trying to move it up, down, and around."
 
          Bands -  Bose attached bands to a piece of stationary equipment called the Perfect Storm. Using the bands, Downey did swimming motions -- like breast stroke and back stroke. "It gives the muscles a polished look," Bose says.

          Downey also used kettlebells and a War Machine, which is a portable, patented pulley training system that uses body weight as resistance (no relation to the Iron Man 2 character of the same name). "If there was one thing you could have in your brief case, it would be probably a War Machine," Bose says.


            For more information on workouts and how to achieve 'The Lean Hollywood Look' check out www.visualimpactmusclebuilding.com