Building Muscles

Body Building Muscles| How to train and build big shoulders| Deltoids| Seated shoulder press with dumbbells

When you train at home you can get brilliant results even though you might have limited weights and equipment. The deltoids muscles are similar to triceps and are made up of 3 muscles, the lateral muscle, medial muscle and the posterior muscle. They are often called heads. To keep it simple it is the front, middle and rear deltoid muscles. You can build big shoulders if you stick to basic exercises.

The most common exercise is the shoulder press. Shoulder presses are known as a compound exercise. This means you will be working several muscles instead of just one. Using dumbbells is one of the safest ways of building up your deltoids. There are a lot of people who are very concerned when any exercise is done over the head. They fear doing damage to the rotor cuff joint. This is the shoulder joint. A straight bar, if it is not used properly, can give you problems, and that is why dumbbells are so good for building shoulders.

Lift the dumbbells to your shoulders as you will see in the first photo. The weights will be about ear level.

Push the weight straight up. You can see the position where I have the weights half way up.  I prefer to not quite straighten my arms so I can keep full pressure on the deltoid muscles.

Push up fairly slowly, hold at the top for the count of 2 and then lower slowly.

Never just drop the weight down. Be in full control of the weights.  The resistance against gravity is what causes the muscles to grow.

Use about 50% of your one rep max (I explained this in the last post when doing triceps.) and do 5 sets of 12 reps. The great thing about seated shoulder presses is they work all three heads/muscles.

Deltoids will give you that broad shoulder look so it is very important to train them. Like all muscles you should not train them more than 2x a week. Have at least a 48 hour break so the muscles can repair and grow.

Bodybuilding Muscles| How to train and build huge arms| Basic triceps training| Overhead extensions

The triceps are sometimes called a three-headed muscle because there are three bundles of muscles, joined together at the elbow. They are the long head, lateral head and medial head. In simple terms,  they are called triceps.

The triceps muscles make up 2/3rds of the size of the arm. Many people love to train and build biceps but you really need to focus on triceps if you want to have big looking arms. The bicep pulls the arms up from the elbow and the triceps straighten the arms. If you want to train at home with limited equipment you can do simple overhead extensions.

You can see from the photo that you are lifting the weight over your head. This is one of the basic exercises that will do everything that you need to build big muscles. Lower the weight down behind your head. There are loads of opinions about the position of the elbows. The elbows will be parallel with the ground and about eye level. The width of the elbows is where there is a lot of conflicting information. Some people claim you need to keep your elbows as close to each other as possible while others will claim you should have wide elbows.

I believe you need to be in a comfortable position. Not too wide and not too narrow. The secret is to feel the muscles lifting the weights. This is so important for muscle growth. You lift the weight from behind the head straight up so the weight is now above your head. Lift the weight deliberately, in other words not too quickly. Once the arms are straight, flex (this is contracting the muscle or making the muscle) as hard as you can. Hold it in this position for the count of 2 and then slowly lower the weight. You do not want gravity to take over and the weight drops to the starting position. If you lower the weight fairly slowly with total control you will get the most from the rep. This is a full rep.

I would do 5 sets of 12 reps fairly light weights when you just start. You will get fairly stiff from doing this exercise and that is normal. DO NOT go too heavy to prove you are strong. You will be very stiff if you do and probably will be out of action for up to 10 days. I would say load up with about 50% of your one rep max that you can do. That means if you just did one rep and you can manage 20kgs with a lot of effort then you should use around 10kgs for this exercise.

Body building Muscles| How to train and build a massive body| Training Ages

There is a lot of conflicting thought about how old a person should be before they start training. I think a lot depends on where you get your information. I like to use common sense and will always go with what makes the most sense regardless of what others might say. Bones take time to mature and harden. Some youngsters bones mature quicker than others and that could be anything from 14 years old. I like to play safe and so I think the best time for a young person to start training with heavy weights is around the age of 16. Before the age of 16 I suggest people do body weight exercises and if they do use weights, they should be very light with lots of reps so there is no chance of them doing damage. Once the bone ends are hard you can go for it. On the other end of the scale provided your doctor believes it is OK for you to train there is no limit, and I hope to be training in my 90’s.

Here, a young person was asking me on YouTube to supply him with a training program to do heavy weights however he is under 16. I sent him some body weight exercises to do and this was the response I received and how strongly I feel about people who are too young training with weights.

The young mans message:-

Hey I know what you said about doing pull ups and body weight exercises but! I'm a member of a pretty decent gym now and I have thought about what you said about needing to develop fully and I've taken it on board. I don't mean any disrespect but I am going to do regular weight training during the week now to build up for next season.

So my problem is building a programme to help me build muscle and increase size. Like I said before trials for county are coming up and there are quite a few big people in my age group so I really want to be able to match them physically. (Reduced for the post and to keep his identity safe)

My response

I admire your dedication and how keen you are to win. There are not many people around who want it so badly. My problem is I cannot change science. Until a person is about 16 their bone ends are still soft and doing heavy weights can do a lot of damage. It might not affect them now but certainly will when they are older. It is like using steroids. You get away with it now but in the future you suffer with “bitch tits”, shrunken testicles and a host of other problems. I am really sorry but I cannot change the facts. I know there are a lot of people who will justify the truth to suit what they want but I cannot in good conscience help you knowing that I could be doing you a lot of harm in the future. It would be irresponsible. I am sure in your good gym there are some personal trainers who will help you but I cannot. I will promise you this though, when you turn 16 come back and I will do everything in my power to help you get what you want.

Bodybuilding muscles 101| How to train and build Massive muscles| Rest

I know when you just start training you can get a little over enthusiastic about your training and try to achieve too much quickly. Muscles take time to grow. They have to be fed properly but more importantly they need rest. It was quite a shock to find out that muscles grow when they rest and not when you are training them. This was something that I found hard to believe as I have always thought the harder you train the bigger the muscles get while you train.

When you are lifting weights blood rushes to the muscle and this gives you the pump that you will often feel when you workout. An hour or so later the blood has left this muscle and it has lost that great pumped feeling. What has happened while you were training was the blood was pushed into the muscle. This causes the muscle fibres to become enlarged and this is when micro tears occur in the muscle tissue.

If you do not give the muscle proper rest then the growth cannot happen. I once had it explained like this, imagine you have a building and it is hit by an earthquake. You need time to go through every part of the building to re-enforce the building so it can withstand any future earthquakes. If you do not have the time to do the repairs properly and you have another earthquake too quickly then the whole building falls apart and you will end up with rubble. This is exactly how it happens with bodybuilding when you want to build big muscles. If you do not have enough rest you will get little or no growth.  The ideal rest time for muscle building is between 48 hours and 72 hours. The 48 hours being the minimum so the muscle can repair and grow. It is important that you feed the muscles with protein in your diet. After 72 hours you will find that the muscle will very slowly go back to its original state if it is not worked.

It really is common sense. Learn to understand your body and work with it not against it. If you do this it will serve you well.

Bodybuilding Muscles 101| How to train and build a lean muscular body| Food

There is so much information about food on the internet and in body building magazines, that it can be very confusing. I have just seen on TV that a Doctor for the Australian cricket team is saying that a high fat, low carbohydrate diet is the healthiest way to eat. I am sure he has loads of proof to confirm his claims but then so do those who claim you should have a low fat diet.

I personally would rather go with common sense. I think that a balanced diet is the answer. My grand parents ate meat with home grown vegetables and they were really healthy. He was still farming and riding his horse at 75 and lived to the age of 92.

My Oupa (grandfather) aged 91

I think that we need to limit the amount of fat we have. There is fat in most sauces you put on your food, in the meat we eat, in the eggs we eat and loads of other things. The amount of protein you have for the day should be gauged against your body weight. There has been a lot of research and the common ground seems to be around 1.5 gms per kg body weight. i.e a 70kg person will then have a total of around 105 gms of protein for the day. I know there are body builders that will go as high as 2.5gms per kg. Protein does make your kidneys work a lot harder the more you have. That is why high protein diets have become so unpopular.

I try to match the amount of protein I eat with about an equal portion of carbs. The main thing to remember is that if you put in more then you use you will gain weight. If you want to lose weight cut back on the carbs. If you want to gain weight just increase the carbs. I personally like the idea of eating small meals often. Eating this way helps you to curb overeating as you get a meal about every 2.5 to 3 hours throughout the day. I will be talking a lot more about food in later posts.

Bodybuilding Muscle 101| How to train and build a fit healthy body at home| Patience

People are often very impatient and would like instant results. I think this is because nowadays you can get takeaways that are instant or within a few minutes, clothes that fit quite well straight off the peg, information from the internet with the click of a few buttons and a lot more. A lot of people would like to gain muscles in the same way. This is not possible. There are however many people out to make money by promising instant muscle growth. They use a verity of things like gimmick equipment, miracle pills, super supplements, fancy named protein powders and special training methods. 

What is the truth? Muscles take time it is as simple as that. I can remember Arnold saying that if you gained 5lbs of lean muscle in a year you can be very happy. This was in his book Arnold’s Body Building for Men.

I personally think you can do a bit better than that but I do not believe you can get 20lbs of muscle in a year. Maybe up to 10 lbs. Remember I am talking about people being all natural in their body building. I am totally anti steroids and the like which might help a person a bit quicker but has really bad after affects.

The following are required to have an awesome body; the right mind set, the right food, the right amount of rest, patience and the right kind of training for your body type.

Bodybuilding Muscles 101| How to train and build a big body| How a muscle grows

The muscles we have are necessary to combat gravity. If we lived on the moon we would have much smaller muscles. Muscles are designed to overcome resistance. Gravity is resistance. The human body works a bit like an engine but with a difference. If you took a 10 horse power (hp) engine and gave it the work of a 20 hp engine it would wear out and eventually fail. The human body is different. If you took a 10 hp body and gave it 20 hp work it will adapt and become a 20 hp body. You can see now why bodybuilders get bigger and bigger. They give their muscles resistance and this forces the muscles to adapt and grow. There is a lot more involved but I want to keep it as simple as possible. You can see that by adding weight to your workouts your muscles will have to work harder which will force them to adapt and grow to suit the load.

A muscle is made up of bundles of fibre which is wrapped in a sheath of tissue for strength.  The strength of a muscle is dependant on 3 things. 1) The number of fibres in the muscle. 2) The number of fibres that work with any given contraction. 3) The strength and thickness of each individual fibre.  That is the reason why some people are stronger then others...they have more muscle fibres per muscle or they have learned to use more of the fibres in each muscle.

When you lift weights you cause micro tears in the fibres which grow back bigger provided you give them enough rest and the right kind of food. (Protein) The right kind of food will be covered in later posts. In simplicity muscles grow because of resistance. There is a limit to how big a person will get regardless of how much training we do. Genetics plays a massive part. Muscles grow slowly so be patient and never, never try to rush the process using steroids or other drugs that have massive negative after affects.

Body building muscles 101| How to train and build massive muscles| Mind Set

Before you start to lift weights you need a starting point. This has to happen in the mind. You have to understand that "what you think about you will bring about". If you think it is going to be really hard to build muscle because you are naturally a thin person, then for you it is going to be really hard. If you are overweight and feel that losing weight is very hard, then for you it will be very hard. Unless there is a medical reason, you will always find that a thin person thinks thin, and a fat person thinks fat. If you had to reverse this thought process you would find a thin person gaining weight easily and a fat person losing weight easily.

What you believe is what you will achieve.

This has been proved over and over with guys like Mohamed Ali who believed he was the best, and sure enough, he ended up as the best. There are questions about how good his skills actually were in comparison to the people he fought. I personally think guys like Floyd Patterson were better boxers, Sony Liston was a stronger boxer yet Ali always seemed to always win when it counted.

Arnold Schwarzenegger used his mind so effectively that he beat better-built bodybuilders. He did not even have a proper 6 pack compared to other bodybuilders, yet his mind was so strong that he would come out on top. Having a winner’s attitude gave him an energy that propelled him on to great success.

In order for you to get what you want more quickly, firstly you will have to know how you want to look. Get a proper mental picture of that. Every day you have to see yourself in that condition. The more you do this, the easier it will become for you. The body certainly does respond to what you believe, and the results will be a lot quicker if you believe you have a body that can adapt quickly to change.

Body Building Muscles 101| How to train and build big muscles| Basic exercises

I thought it would be a good time to share with you the basic exercises you need to do to get a foundation. Often people try to get information from top bodybuilder’s sites on the internet, or from bodybuilding magazines. They generally give great advice but mainly for people that already have a good foundation.  I am going to stick with very simple basic exercises.

Chest - normal flat bench press. These are great because they work the whole of the chest muscles. The common name given to them is pecs

Shoulders - simple shoulder dumbbell press. These are also a basic exercise that works all three of the shoulder muscles (front, middle and rear). They are called deltoid muscles.

Back -  lat pull downs. You will need a lat pull down machine to do these. If you do not have a machine you can do bent over rowing which works just as well. These are the muscles under the arm going down to the waist and are called lats.

Biceps - standing bicep curls. These are one of the very best for the biceps.

Triceps - triceps push downs. You can use the same machine that you use for lat pull downs. If you do not have a lat machine then doing overhead extensions works just as well.

Abs - crunches. These are about the best exercises that a person can do for the stomach.

Quads - squats. I like to do a half squat. That means I only go down till my thighs are parallel to the floor. If you want to do a full all the way down squat then that is a personal choice.

Hamstrings - good mornings/ deadlifts. I do these because I have no other way of training them. If you have a leg bicep machine they are brilliant too.

Calves - calf raises. I use my squat stand to do standing calf raises. If you do not have a calf machine or a squat stand then you can do one leg dumbbell calf raises.

These are the main muscles you need to train and build to get a wonderful looking body. Doing basic exercises is really all you need for the first few years. Once you have a great foundation then you can look to doing some of the extras to help with the final sculpting.

Bodybuilding Muscles 101| How to train and build a V shape| Body building terms

 

 

There are a lot of body building terms that can be very confusing when you are new to lifting weights.

Equipment  - Most of the terms say what they mean.

Bench - this is the seat that you sit or lie on to do your exercises.

Squat stand - this is the stand that people use for squatting

Lat cables - this can be a machine or a system for doing lat pull downs or seated rowing

Plates - this is a common name for weight discs. They vary in size

Dumbbells - this is a short bar that has weights attached at each end with just enough room to hold it in your hand

Barbell - is a long bar that you attach weights/plates at each end for exercises like bench press, squats, bicep curls and a load of other exercises. (You can do almost all of the various exercises with dumbbells that you can do with a bar bell)

These are the basic tools needed for training at home or in a gym. Some gyms use a lot of exercise machines however it is my opinion that they do not work as well as free weights. Machines are designed for the average movement in an exercise and can put various joints under stress because you have to move the way the machine is designed. Free weights allow you to alter angles etc which obviously put less stress on your joints and muscles.

Lifting Terms

Rep - this is short for repetition. It is the movement from the start of an exercise to the end of the movement. e.g. Bicep curl exercise – You start with the weight at arms length at the bottom. You keep your elbows still at your side and bend the arm till the weight comes up to your chest. At the top you hold for a second and then slowly lower the weight back to the starting position. That is one full rep.

Set - this is what a number of reps put together are called. If you do bicep curls and you decide to do 10 reps. for the biceps then that will be a set of 10 reps. you might want to do that 5 times. That will then be called 5 sets of 10 reps, bicep curls. It is often written (5x10 bicep curls.) I.e. 5 sets of 10 reps for each set. These are the basic terms you will find throughout the internet when people explain training methods.