Daily tip #27| Adding on muscle

Adding muscle and bulking up.. There is a lot of bad information around this subject, let me clear it up for you.






Let's start out with how much muscle you can add in a year.. 5 pounds. 10, if you are very gifted and a hardgainer. I hear teens all the time boasting about having added 20 lbs of muscle in a year from working out. It is laughter inducing. Teens, 16-22, grow fast.  In their teen time they are getting taller, adding on mass and getting stronger all as part of the normal growth process without lifting a single weight. They gain the 15lbs naturally, and the 5lbs from the actual work. 






Yes, 5 lbs. Adding on muscle is a very slow process, requiring focus and motivation and knowing what you are doing. Many people quit because they don't see the results magazines promise 'Add on 10 lbs of muscle in two weeks!'. But imagine, in 10 years you'll have 50 lbs of muscle on you, do you know how amazing it will look? A muscle machine! 






So, you've got an expectation of what to expect, now, how do you actually do it? Well, you lift weights, go home and sleep, right? Yeah, kind of, but eating is the most important part. Many people think lifting weights is the most gruesome part of body building. It is by far, not. It's the easiest thing. The hardest thing is nutrition, which is being taken for granted, by A LOT of people. 




Forget all sugar and salt. 6 meals a day. Enough protein, should be 1 gram for each pound of your weight (you weigh 180lbs, you need 180 grams of protein, daily). Do not order that pizza or pick up that coffee at starbucks. Coffee is great though! So grind your own coffee beans and have a homemade coffee! No sugar or creams on top though! 




There you go, information cleared up, and more information! I hope that I'm doing a decent job so far!




As always, never forget to:..


Drink a lot of water, not underestimate sleeping properly, stop making common mistakes and you'll be much happier!

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Daily tip #21| Push-ups.

Push ups along with pull ups are one of the main strenght developing exercises, they're so simple, yet effective. I'll explain what to do, and what not to.





Push-ups! Push-ups are great for your chest and shoulders. I think it's one of the most hated exercises, though, second is pull-ups and third is sit-ups.
     If you can't do a single push-up, don't worry, there are many variations to help you build up your strenght up for a pushup, and more. You can use a bench, or the side of your bed to do push-ups you can also use a chair, or the side of your bath, if all fails, or you're too lazy to go somewhere (that'll be fixed soon) do them on your knees. Your hands should be at chest level, shoulder-width (palms at your shoulders, but chest level) and your head should be tucked into your neck and level with your butt. If I were to take a photo and draw a line through your body, your body should be as straight as the line.
 


    Now, it is very important to activate and let your core (abs area) work. It'll help you, and make your core overall stronger. This exercise trains the triceps, shoulders, chest, traps, upper abs (not only completely) and it can also train wrists and fingers.

When doing push ups, it's important to keep your form as described above, and it's also important to not do them on your palms. Yes, that's right. Not on your palms. You should use your knuckles (fists) instead of your palms. Doing push ups on your palms will put a lot of your bodyweight onto your wrists in a not very well good manner. If you were to do push ups once a month, that wouldn't be a problem, but since you're going to start doing them often (throughout the day) you must use your knuckles. Using your fists on the ground might hurt the first few times, but bear through it, or go do push ups on the carpet. While using fists, you'll also be able to go down a little farther, meaning you'll have to hold yourself up from plopping to the floor harder than with normal push ups, which is great for getting a little bit more out of push ups.


 Do negative push ups too. What you do is, you go/lay under a bar holding yourself with your arms extended, and pull your chest up until it touches the bar, basically, a push up, only it's backwards and you're pulling yourself up. This one is important to do, if you are only going to do push-ups without these, you are not going to develop as much pushing power as you would of otherwise, and you're going to start having trouble with your rotatory blades. You should be able to do the same number of these as you do of push-ups.


There are many variations of push ups, too many to write them all here, but the basic one is plenty, unless you want to train your shoulders more, or your triceps.

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Daily tip #18| Do you really need a gym?

I see a lot of people using the excuse 'I don't have a gym near/ can't afford a membership' for not working out. This is just plain lazyness, I thought everyone knew you didn't need to have a gym to get ripped, in fact, I don't suggest going to a gym until you've been exercise for atleast a year an a half on your own.


So, maybe you really don't need to go to a gym? Can you do handstand push-ups? Okay, can you do one-handed push ups? Only a few right? What about handstand clap-push-ups? Then why are you not working on those, and instead using weights for money, when you have the necessary weight for free!?

I'll cover a few basic exercises which people underestimate.

If you can do 50 squats and lunges, do you think you've mastered it? You're still far from that. Let me give you some variations you could try.. Sumo squat, one leg squat, front lunge, back lunge, plyometric lunge, walking lunge, jump squat, and there's more. Let's say you can do 50 of those. What about in a row? What about with a 40 lbs backpack? I bet you'd only do 10. Work on it!

So you've got your legs workout sorted, now, the upper body.. Pull ups. This is solely the best exercise for developing core, and upper body strenght. Can only do 4? Don't do 4, do three sets of 2 ( split your max into half ) with a maximum rest of 1 minute. Do this six days a week. If you can't even do 2, hold onto the bar, quickly jump up and hold yourself at the top, VERY slowly lowering yourself down until your arms are extended (8-12 seconds) you'll feel what's it like to workout, so why spend money on weights? You could also do a pyramid set of pull ups. The way you do it is: 1p - 30 seconds - 2p - 30 seconds - 3p - 40 seconds - 4p - 50 seconds -... And on, and on, and on, until you can't do anymore (p = pull up). And yes, you have to do the pull ups all over again, on the first set you do one, rest, on the second you do two, rest, on the third you do three, rest.. What if.. You're feeling confident with your pull-ups. Get your school bag/backpack and pack all your books in it, or maybe fit as many 2 litre bottles filled with water as you can, you could also use bricks if you're not worried about getting the backpack a little dusty. It'll be pull-ups all over again.. Even a little weight added onto you can greatly decrease your max. Work on until you get back up to 10-12, then add more weight. You see what I'm doing? You'll build loads of strenght.



If you can do more than 8 reps of something, you're not developing strenght anymore, you're developing your endurance. Anything up until 8 will develop strenght. I do not recommend going too heavy with additional weights though (nothing to knock you back down under 4 reps).


You can combine all of these into one day. If you don't have time, or want to go further faster, you should do them through-out the day. For example, going through a hallway and you see a pipe? Knock out 10 pull ups ( you don't have to do your max everytime ) just make sure you're building the number of pull ups/push-ups/crunches you did throughout the day. Sitting on the computer? Randomly run out of the room and do a few sets. This'll help you build up strenght and endurance faster. You'll feel way better through out the day too, don't believe so?

I need some suggestions about my style of writing, I'm not sure if I'm laying out my experience and thoughts in a short enough manner, what do you think about the quality?

So there you go, after reading this, do you really need a gym? With proper nutrition and adding weight to these exercises, you can go very far and get ripped, basically spending no money on a gym. I suggest you only start going to a gym after you've been doing these for ATLEAST a year.

Always remember - it's better to cheat a day or two off than quit.

And as always (from now on)!

Drink atleast 3litres of water, sleep properly, and don't make common mistakes. Happy exercising for free!

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