Have You Reached A Muscle Gain Plateau? For Those People Interested In Gaining Muscle

A muscle gain plateau is something that many bodybuilders experience not long after making really good progress with their muscle gains. It’s basically when your muscle gains start to decrease and then stop altogether, despite the fact that you appear to be doing everything correctly. Sometimes, your muscles will even shrink. This is only for those people interested in body building!

What is actually happening is that your body has gotten used to your workout and will no longer react in the same way anymore.

Luckily, there are some ways to break through the muscle gain plateau and get back on the road of steady gains.

Free Weights Versus Machines

The plateau is more common if you use machines than if you use free weights. Free weights have a whole range of other advantages anyway but because they work other important secondary muscle groups (aside from those you are targeting) then this can help you break through the plateau.

Mix Up Your Workout

As mentioned earlier, your body gets used to the workouts that you give it. This is just one example of the body adapting. The same thing happens with cardio and many other things in life.

What you need to do is shock the system and give it a different workout to the one it was expecting. An easy way of doing this is to simply do your existing routine but in reverse.

Inadequate Rest

Many times a plateau is created simply through overtraining. All that may be needed is a little bit of rest. Try taking one or two weeks off and not doing any muscle building at all.

Not only is this beneficial for recovery but it will also shock your body too, a similar effect to mixing up your workout.

Leg Training

If you’re neglecting your legs then it’s a great way to break the plateau. Many people ignore them but find that when they work them out (or work them out harder than before) that they can break the plateau.

Nobody knows the exact reason for it. Some people will theorise that it has something to do with the legs being the largest muscles in the body and that they can therefore deliver the biggest shock to the system. Whatever the reason, it works!

Correct Diet

Are you paying close attention to your diet? Are you eating the correct quality and proportions of protein, carbs and fats? Many people neglect this and are amazed that they can make good muscle gains, only to be disappointed when they quickly reach a plateau.

Supplements

Some people find that creatine, glutamine and other supplements are beneficial for breaking through a muscle gain plateau. I advise trying all of the above things first before resorting to supplements.

Exercise for Fat Loss

If you go to any online forums on fat loss, you will find heated discussions on the proper exercises to lose fat. You will also find that people take extreme sides: some say that high intensity interval training (HIIT) is the only way to lose fat, while others swear by LSC (long, steady cardio).

But as in any area of life, extremism is not healthy.

The ideal would be to combine both high intensity, short duration exercises with lower intensity, long duration exercises. In this way, you develop both the anaerobic and aerobic systems, and you lose fat while exercising (long term cardio) and also afterwards, thanks to the high intensity exercise that speeds up your metabolism for hours on end.

So you should always try to combine the best of both worlds. But this is not as easy as it sounds. A lot of fitness enthusiasts overdo the high intensity exercises and end up with severe injuries. Others overdo the lower intensity exercises, running for hours and hours, while injuring themselves due to the repeated stresses on the joints from long, steady cardio.

A good rule of thumb is to do two high intensity sessions per week, and about three lower intensity sessions per week. You should consider your lower intensity sessions as active recovery from the high intensity exercises.

Of course, these recommendations will depend on your fitness level, age, and weight. Develop and adjust according to what your body tells you.

As for exercise selection, there are many ways to keep your workouts interesting. For high intensity exercises, you can try sprinting, kettlebell swings, weightlifting with short rest periods, sprint swimming, sprint cycling, boxing, and any other activity that gets your heart pumping hard.

As for lower intensity exercises, you can try walking, jogging, long-distance swimming, cycling, and any other activity that you can do for a long time without getting excessively tired.

But before you put on your running shoes or go out for a bike ride, you should know that you are missing a major form of exercise that is essential for fat loss. Do you know what you are missing?

Resistance exercise!

Most gym-goers think that weights are only good for bulking up, and are completely useless for losing fat.

Yet this is far from the truth! In fact, weights are essential for fat loss.

Why? If you just do cardio and follow a strict diet, you will lose fat, but you will also lose muscle. At the end of the day, you will end up feeling weak and tired.

But if you add resistance exercise to your fat loss arsenal, you will be able to keep all the muscle you have while losing mainly fat. As a result, when you begin to lose the fat, you will be pleased to find muscle underneath the layers of fat rather than bones!

If you are a newcomer to exercising, or you haven’t exercised in a long time, you might even gain some muscle while losing fat if you perform resistance exercises on a fat loss routine.

In conclusion, you should try to combine many forms of exercise into your fat loss routine:

• High intensity cardio to speed up your metabolism and mobilize fat stores.
• Long term cardio to burn fat while exercising.
• Resistance exercises to maintain the muscle you have, so that your metabolism doesn’t drop significantly. Maintaining muscle will ensure that all of the weight you lose is fat, and that you end up having an aesthetic physique once you lose all the fat that you need to lose.

Using Exercise to Help your Weight Loss Results

When you are trying to lose weight you will want to do more than just watch what you eat. While eating the right foods is a major part of achieving good weight loss results, you can’t forget the importance that exercise has on weight loss. When you exercise you burn calories, speed up your metabolism, and build muscle. The more muscle you build, the more calories your body will burn naturally. There are many ways to fit exercise into your day so that it doesn’t feel like a chore. The easier you make it on yourself to exercise, the better your chances will be of doing it every day and not burning out on it. There are several ways that you can fit exercise into your daily lifestyle that won’t take a lot of time or effort.

You will want to add an exercise into your life that is reasonable, of you make it too difficult or choose something that you know will be hard or time consuming to fit into your lifestyle, then you will only be setting yourself up for failure. Try adding in a short walk at first. If you can get a neighbor or a friend to commit to walk with you then you will have someone else counting on you. You will also have someone to visit with on your walk which will make it an enjoyable experience that you will look forward to.

You will want to make sure to start an exercise program that is appropriate for your current health and energy level. If you set your new routine above your current level then you will find it too hard to live up to and you will give up. By starting out at your current level you will feel as if you can keep up with the routine. As time goes on you will gain more energy and be able to increase your workouts to more difficult ones.

In the beginning you may want to seek the help of a personal trainer. They can show you simple exercises that can be done at home without spending a lot of money on fancy equipment. Anything around your home can be used in an exercise routine, but for someone starting out it can be confusing to know where to start. A personal trainer can show you routines and exercises that will target certain parts of your body. They will also explain how much cardio you should be getting compared to resistance training. If you feel overwhelmed and as if you don’t know where to begin then you should really consider having a consultation with a professional trainer.

Which Fitness Equipment is Best for Six Pack Abs?

If you want to achieve one of those perfect midsection’s then you can do so without spending a lot of money on expensive equipment. As more and more people find themselves looking for less expensive means of achieving those six pack abs, more companies work to provide them with less expensive options. When you begin to look at ways of obtaining six pack abs, you will want to consider the less expensive choices out there since many of them can provide you with the same results as the more costly pieces of equipment.

Exercise Ball: The exercise ball is an excellent piece of equipment, it’s affordable and effective. You will want to select a ball that is the right size for you and make sure that it is inflated to the proper size. The great thing about the exercise ball is that it allows you to easily switch positions to work out all areas of your abdomens. You can use it as you watch TV or listen to the radio in the comfort of your own home. When you are done with it you can put it back in the closet so that it is out of the way. It provides you with a low impact workout and allows you to target train. It is also very easy on your back where other ab machines can cause you back pain or injury.

Power Wheel: The power wheel is another simple piece of workout equipment that is inexpensive and portable. You can use the power wheel to workout your abs by attaching it to your feet and getting on the floor as if you were going to be doing push ups, then you pull your feet in toward you. This will target those abs and is a less strenuous exercise which is also low impact for your back.

Ankle Weights: You can also use ankle weights to increase the workouts for your abs. You will strap the ankle weights onto your ankles and lie down on your back. You will then lift your legs as you do crunches. The great thing about ankle weights is that they are convenient and give can give you great results.

Vertical Knee Raise Machine: This is another space saving piece of equipment that will fit easily into your home and help you to achieve those six pack abs. It is also helpful at working out your arms.

When you purchase one of these pieces of equipment you will be given the choice of getting a helpful DVD which will help you to learn about all of the ways that you can use them to maximize your workouts.

How to Get Six Pack Abs

Everywhere that you look you will see advertisements for ways to achieve six pack abs. You will see advertisements boasting of amazing results in magazines, on TV, posted on buses, and on benches. These advertisements are on such items as creams, pills, belts, drinks, and various equipment. A lot of people want to see these amazing results on themselves so they wind up spending a lot of money on these products only to be disappointed after not seeing the results that they had been promised.

The truth is that there is no fast and simple way to get those six pack abs. They can’t be bought and you can only earn them through exercise and by working out. Not only will you have to do crunches, but also other types of exercises that will target the different areas of your abdominal muscles. You can purchase inexpensive equipment which will help you to get your six pack abs in a healthy way. When you purchase this equipment you will want to get any DVD’s that come with the equipment to help you learn how to use each piece in the correct manner.

Before you begin a workout routine to start obtaining your six pack abs, you will want to get yourself a training DVD or obtain the assistance of a personal trainer. There are several types of exercises out there which will each target a different area of your abs and you will want to learn how to do these correctly. By doing exercises incorrectly you can be doing a lot of working out for little to no results. You also risk the chance of hurting your back. Before you begin to work out your abs you need to be educated on how to do each exercise the right way. If at any time your routine begins to feel as if you are experiencing an abnormal amount of pain then you will want to stop immediately and make sure that you have been doing it correctly.

Along with exercise to achieve your six pack abs, you will also want to make sure that you are eating right and doing things to help you to burn fat. There are some diet pills that can assist you with this but you will want to make sure that you are using pills that really work and that don’t have negative side effects. This is why it is important to take the time to research any diet pills that you are considering taking.