Building Muscles

Day 13 - Food

Day 13

6:45  coffee and large glass of water.
7:00  protein shake with banana
7:15   coffee
10:00  cottage cheese with a banana
10:30   coffee and coke zero
12:30  oats and protein powder
13:00  coke zero
16:00  protein shake with apple
17:00   coke zero
18:30  chicken and roast vege
19:00   coke zero
21:00  chicken and roast vege

Not a bad day today with the eating. I still think the quantity is my biggest problem. I hardly drank any water. I am going to have a full on go from next week to be very strict.

You cannot have a great looking body unless you eat right. I can tell you that no matter how well you train if you do not eat right you will fail. I am living proof of this. The kind of training I have been doing over the last 14 days is great but the measurements are not moving much and that is all down to the food. Losing fat and gaining muscle is a combination of food first and training second. Make sure you use that as you training plan.

Body Building Muscles| How to train and build big triceps| Kick backs

How to get the most from your arms doing kick backs

I always do triceps push downs as I have found them to give me the best workout.  Every now and then it is important to change what you do so you can stimulate the muscle to grow. It also does a lot for how you feel about yourself when you feel the muscle working to its maximum intensity. That muscle burn that comes from an exercise that you are not used to doing seems to make you think you have trained much harder. I love the feeling.

Kick backs really gives me the most intense burn for the following reason. You raise the weight behind you and at the top of the rep you flex in order to hold the weight up. If you actually flex even harder then what is required to hold the weight up it almost doubles the intensity on the triceps. 
It is a wonderful exercise but not one that I would do all the time as I would lose the feeling of an outstanding workout. It would just become a normal workout as the arms would not take too long to adjust to that kind of training.

I did 5 sets of 10 reps

You do not have to do too much in order to have a brilliant workout. If you are mentally focused and you make each rep count 5 sets is more then enough. 

Body Building Muscle| How to train and build rounded chest| Incline bench press

How to get a full rounded chest when you train

We would all like a full rounded chest. This comes from doing incline bench press. Flat bench press normally works the whole chest and for me is about the best exercise a person can do. I do like to do incline bench press from time to time because a variation to your chest training often stimulates the muscle to grow quicker. The higher you make the bench the further up the chest you train. You can imagine if your sat upright then you would not train the chest but actually train shoulders. As you come down lower then the chest works more and more. I find that about a 30 degree bench gives the top part of the chest a fantastic work out.

Today I did incline bench press for my chest training. I kept is simple and did 5 sets 12 reps

It was a great training and my chest really felt like I had given it a good workout.

Bodybuilding Muscle| How to train and build big biceps| Big guns

How to get the most out of curls when training biceps

I love curls. They are a simple exercise which I think are about one of the most effective. The only problem with them is people tend to use too much weight. This causes a problem. It means they have to cheat in order to lift the weight. The minute you cheat you lose out on the intensity you place on the actual muscle. A lot of your training then is a waste of time.

I like to occasionally do hammer curls as my main exercise. Hammer curls are a great exercise. They help you to build forearms mainly but they also have a huge effect on the way you train your biceps. They  hit the biceps from a different angle. You can have an amazing workout for your whole arms just by doing hammer curls.

I did 5 sets of 12 reps.

I made sure I did not swing the weights in any way at all. When you do alternate dumbbell hammer curls it is very easy to swing the weight especially when you start to get a bit fatigued. Keep your form right to the very last rep. The rewards are more than worth it. 

Day 12 - Food

Day 12

7:30  coffee
8:00  2 cups coffee eggs, bacon, baked beans, mushrooms and tomato
10:15  energy drink
11:45  protein shake with banana
14:30  coke zero
15:00  protein shake with banana
17:30  chips
19:45  Nuts and raisins and figs

I know that chips are not meant to be very good for you. That is the common thought. They are really bad for you if you do little or no training. Many years ago there was a body build here in the UK called Bertil Fox. He was amazing. Some of his favourite food was ordinary fish and chips. His claim was that he got protein from the fish, carbs from the chips and the fat that is also necessary from the way they are cooked. I would not suggest you overdo it but having chips occasionally will do you no harm. I think I over do the chips by justifying the fact that if it was OK for Bertil then it is OK for me.

Bodybuilding Muscle| How to train and build Quads| Big Thighs

How to get results training your legs with Bulgarian split squats

I found out about Bulgarian split squats quite a few years ago. I am so pleased that I have a very open mind. It is easy to dismiss things because they are not in line with how we think or what we believe.

A Bulgarian split squat is not quite like a squat which is a brilliant exercise. In some respects I think a split could be even better. I almost always end up stiff the next day after doing them.  They really seem to hammer my inner thighs, gluts, and hamstrings along with quads.

They are hard to do so you will not go very heavy, unlike a normal squat.  I think that could be a reason why a lot of younger people will not do them because they don't look very impressive in the gym doing a light weight and battling to do them.

I did 5 sets of 8 reps.

This was a fantastic workout and I would advise anyone wanting to train legs really well to give them a go.

Body Building Muscle| How to train and build legs| Hamstrings

How to take care of your hamstrings

In all running sports people run the risk of tearing a hamstring. I watched the scrum half of South Africa limping off the field with a severely torn hamstring in the game against Italy. This did not happen in the first few minutes of the game but a long way into the game. That shows that just because you have warmed up does not mean that you cannot still do damage.  Strengthening your hamstrings are really important if you want to play sport and of course to have good looking legs. There are several exercises you can do and they all work reasonably well.

The one I find to be the very best is deadlifts. I do however know that they put a lot of stress on the lower back. I have a very good friend who is a chiropractor that specialises in sports injuries. He advised me to do deadlifts sparingly because of my age as they can cause premature lower disc wear. I like to substitute deadlifts for good mornings as they do a great job and are far less taxing on the back.

Today I did 5 sets of 10 reps of good mornings.

It was a good training session and I could really feel the hamstrings had worked well.

Bodybuilding Muscles| How to train and build massive calves| Standing calf raises

How to get the most from your calf training

Calves are known to be the hardest of all muscles to build. Some people will never have huge calves but that does not mean you should not train them. If you are persistent you can make a big difference to them even if they will never be competition size. There is nothing worse than seeing a person who had a well built upper body but legs that are small. Make sure you do everything in your power to keep your body in proportion.

I would love to do seated calves but do not have the right kind of equipment so I just do standing calf raises. I am also very fortunate that I have sizeable well defined calves.

I did simple 5 sets of 12 reps quite light just to make sure they are not neglected.

Day 11 - Food

Day 11

7:15   coffee
7:45   water and coffee
9:00   protein shake
10:30  water
12:00  oats and 2 eggs
14:15  coke zero
16:00  protein shake
19:00  pork chops and chips
20:00  coke zero
21:00  2 slices of toast with jam

The day was not too bad.

Body Building Muscle| How to train and build massive shoulders| Alternate dumbbell shoulder press

How to get the best from a shoulder exercise

Many years ago I trained with an absolute monster of a guy in Zimbabwe. He owned a large farm and we used to train in one of his barns. He introduced me to alternate dumbbell shoulder presses. His name was Brian Courtney and he was huge, with shoulders that looked like they could carry the world on them. He never really went too heavy. He worked out slowly and made sure that his body and shoulders moved very little. The deltoids had to do all the lifting.

It is amazing how good the workout can be when you do it properly and forget trying to impress with how much you can lift. I had an absolutely amazing workout because I did them with shrugs. When you superset with shrugs the whole shoulder feels like it is on fire. If you go too heavy with the shrugs you can end up with a bit of a headache after your training as it really works the traps as well as the muscles up into the back of the head.

I did 5 supersets of 12 reps each.

It was a great workout.