Workouts To Build Muscle

Building muscle strength requires a good understanding of the science involved in the growth and strengthening of muscle tissues. Most of the traditional approaches of muscle building are more inclined towards spending a lifetime in the gym. This not only is impractical for those who are muscle building for health and not for professional competition, it's also a pretty big killer of social life. Building muscle strength and muscle mass is the result of a balanced routine that not only looks into how you should be exercising but also your diet.

A major misconception about muscle building workouts is that you can build muscle by the sheer effort of hitting the gym and eat just about anything, or in another perspective, pairing a low calorie diet with a vigorous workout routine. Both theories have their own share in harming a person's well being instead of adding strength of any kind.

For starters, when you're building muscle mass, you are actually increasing your body size. Not only are you aiming to strengthen the body muscles, you are also aiming to increase the number of muscle fibers as well. And for all this your body needs calories. Hence the food has a vital role to play. Cutting back on the caloric intake means you don't give your body the necessary calories to actually build the muscle mass. While you build muscles, you actually need to be eating more calories than you can consume in a day.

Another function that the calories you are supposed to get from your food play is to get you through your workout. The muscle building exercises aren't the weight loss exercises you commonly see on television. Weight loss exercises aim to burn the excess fat stored in the body and strengthen the heart muscle. Muscle building workouts on the other hand are anaerobic in nature. They focus on getting the body in a state of oxygen deficit where it builds up such a high demand for energy which cannot be completely fulfilled by the circulatory system. Hence the muscles are forced to turn to anabolic modes of energy generation, where they burn stored glycogen in the absence of oxygen to form lactic acid. This is a short spur of energy and causes a burning sensation in the muscle tissue being worked. The lactic acid causes a tear in the muscle which is the stimulus the muscle needs to grow greater in both strength as well as mass. This is why when you lift weights; your goal should be to lift the maximum.

There are different workouts that help build different muscles, here's a list of the most commonly used ones;

Chest:

Flat Bench Press

Incline Bench Press

Flat Bench Dumbbell Flyes

Incline Dumbbell Flyes

Back:

Deadlift

Lat Pulldown (or weighted pull ups)

Seated Cable Row

Bent Over Barbell Row

Bent Over 1 Arm Dumbbell Rows

Biceps:

Standing Barbell Curls

Preacher Curls (with dumbbells or barbells)

Seated/Standing Dumbbell Curls

Triceps:

Triceps Press Down

Dips

French Press

Legs:

Squats

Calve Raises

Shoulders:

Seated/Standing Military Press (with barbell or dumbbells)

Lateral Raises

Shrugs

• Emma Bullock
• 04/07/2009, 11:59 AM
• 0 Comments