Health and Fitness: October 2013

Monday, October 28, 2013

Are You Scared You'll Eat All the Halloween Candy?

Well it's that time of the year when everywhere you look you see candy, treats and sugary temptations all about. If you are in the Zone - meaning on track with your healthy habits - this may not even faze you. But if you aren't look out! This seemigly innocent holiday is loaded with abandon and regret. Sure it tastes good for a minute or two and then you are fiddled with guilt and remorse wishing you could have more self control. Well don't worry it only lasts a few weeks right? However, you could let this type of snacking take over and it could last well into Thanksgiving and beyond. You'll end up crying in front of your mirror when the actual holidays come around and you are unable to fit into the new dress you just bought a few months back.
OK - I will not go on about this potential disaster any longer but rather give you some strategies of how to overcome the temptations.
Here are your 5 strategies on how to handle Halloween and even have a healthy one...
5 Halloween Strategies:
Strategy #1 Don't go down the candy aisle. I witnessed today while shopping that during Halloween there is no designated candy aisle - there is literally candy everywhere you turn. So take a breathe and focus on why you went shopping in the first place to buy chicken, eggs and some fresh vegetables - lots of them. Write out a list if that helps and don't buy off the list. If you don't feel that strong - give the list to your husband, neighbor or teenager (yes, some will) and ask them to go shopping for you. Enroll others help. Or munch on an apple before you go into the store - that will curb your sweet tooth. Also drink some water as that will reduce hunger. You'll end up making wrong choices if you shop when you're hungry.
Strategy #2 Give something else. You might be someone who loves to hand out candy to neighborhood kids so this strategy won't work. My husband and I lived in rural Malibu for many years and actually seldom had children come by on Halloween for their yearly trick or treat. We kind of got used to not having candy around because we didn't need it on that Hallowed Eve.
I grew up in a neighborhood full of children and Halloween was a major event. I remember coming home several times during the evening to unload my stash and go out again. My mother enjoyed seeing all the apples I brought home. (Yes, in those days apples were given often) and knew she'd be in the kitchen the next day making dozens of apple pies. There were 10 of us in my household - so, yes dozens of pies. The tip here is that you don't always have to give candy, try something else instead - be creative.
Strategy #3 Go out on Halloween. Go to a party, go out to dinner - distract yourself from the candy craziness. You don't have to be at home waiting for youngsters to appear at your door in order to enjoy Halloween. Remember it's really about not having the temptation around you. My husband and I went out last Halloween. While dining at one of our favorite restaurants we noticed everyone was having a good time. Customers, as well as staff, had some funny costumes on and the fun energy was contagious. We were able to enjoy a healthy meal as well as the festivities around us.
Strategy #4 Homemade Baking anyone? Why does everyone like baking or baked goods? They represent more love and less processing right? If you choose to bake your treat this Halloween make sure you use quality ingredients. I must admit I seldom bake - I have a sweet tooth so it's best that I don't have much of this kind of stuff around. One of the reasons I do what I do is to not only help a lot of people, but my dedication to my work also helps keep me in line and causes me to be focused on my healthy habits.
You could also try some new products on the market like Crunchies. They are a quick and healthy alternative to baked and heavily processed treats. Crunchies are simply dehydrated fruits and veggies which are colorful, taste yummy and good for your kids, too.
Strategy #5 Being a Responsible Kid. You can play and have fun like a kid but it doesn't mean you have to eat like one. Kids today are still encouraged by advertisers and peers to eat a lot of sugar and salty foods as well beverages loaded with caffeine. Join me on the mission to change that cultural trend. Munching responsibly, even during Halloween, is good for you and it also sets a wonderful example for the children (and everyone else) in your life. However, if you feel disciplined and strong enough, go ahead have a little of the forbidden treat - just a little - that's it. Learn to munch responsibly.
Have a Spooky Fun Time!

(c) Monika Klein
Monika Klein, BS, CN. is an award winning clinical nutritionist and weight loss expert. Monika is the "Compassionate and Practical Nutrition and Lifestyle Coach." Her company, Coaching For Health, offers life transforming weight loss and wellness programs, classes and products throughout the world. To learn more about Monika's services and programs, visit http://www.coachingforhealth.com.

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Fertility With PCOS

It is important to understand that success with fertility may be tied to getting to a healthy weight and then staying at a healthy weight. For many women with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) who want to have a baby, their excess weight often gets in the way of their fertility and can be a tough problem to tackle.
Once a woman becomes overweight or obese her body is no longer efficient in using the excess body fat for energy and it decreases her fertility. It then becomes more likely she will have a harder time getting pregnant or may not be able to get pregnant at all. Fertility is usually positively affected by losing excess weight. Just 5% loss of extra body weight can get a woman on the road to better health all around, and it improves fertility too. A baby becomes much more likely as she loses the extra pounds.
For some women with PCOS the difficulty with getting pregnant and having a baby is strongly tied to what is happening with their blood sugar. Uneven blood sugar is often at the core of these fertility problems.
Uneven blood sugar is caused by eating too many sweets, grains, starches or other carbohydrates at any one time. When a woman does this, her body wants to go into fat storage mode and at a certain point the body's response to sugar becomes abnormal and the insulin is no longer as effective at getting energy into the body's cells.
So in a way the body thinks that it is not getting enough energy to begin and continue a pregnancy. A woman's body is highly sensitive to whether she has enough energy of the right kinds to sustain her pregnancy. Being pregnant takes a lot of energy. So anything that interferes with the body being able to access that energy in a normal healthy way will also interfere with conception, staying pregnant, and carrying a baby all the way through to birth.
Another fertility problem when the average blood sugar remains too high for too long over a period of time is that it causes problems with blood flow in the body's tiny blood vessels where all the exchange of nutrients and waste happen. When blood sugar is too high this leads to a process where extra-large particles made up of sugars bonded to proteins form in the blood. These extra-large particles can really slow down the blood flow in these tiny capillaries and can interfere with conception and maintaining a pregnancy.
If a woman wants to improve her fertility in the face of PCOS weight loss issues, it becomes extremely important for her to keep her blood sugar in a healthy range and avoid those blood sugar spikes. Regulating blood sugar and losing PCOS weight should lead to improved chances with fertility success and having a baby.

Dr. Beverly Yates is an expert on weight loss and women's health, including PCOS weight loss. In addition to having two decades of clinical experience, Dr. Yates is an MIT-educated engineer, and has been featured on countless media including PBS, NPR, CNN, & NBC. For a complimentary free report on PCOS Weight Loss Tips and Secrets, go to www.PCOSWeightLossTips.com

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Build Muscle, Build Strength or Both?

When it comes to weightlifting and working out, each bodybuilder is different. Is your goal to build muscle, to get stronger, to have more energy, to have more endurance or to have better holistic overall fitness? While in the long term you probably want a combination of all of these goals, in the short term you have to tailor your workouts to achieve the goal most important to you right now.

When hitting the gym for the first time many would-be athletes are unaware of the differences in training styles and the results they provide. Many equate strength with size until they realize the bodybuilders with the biggest muscles aren't as strong as many of the smaller athletes.

Worse, many first-time gym-goers show up armed with a workout from a bodybuilding magazine because some pro bodybuilder says that's how they train. Why don't those workouts give the newbie the same results? First, most pro bodybuilders use steroids and other illegal supplements to let them lift heavier and longer while recovering much faster between workouts.

Second, they've already built their mass before becoming a pro, so their current workouts are designed to maintain muscle mass and refine their physique, not add tons of lean mass. Notice how at big shows like the Olympia and the Arnold Classic most competitors are there year after year with only a couple of pounds' difference year over year, in spite of drugs, heavy use of supplements, etc.

If you spent thousands of dollars a year on even just the legal supplements, would you be happy only gaining 2 or 3 pounds of lean muscle mass a year? Sure, 20 - 30 years from now you'd have added 20 - 30 pounds of muscle, but are you willing to wait that long? Would you stay motivated and still be giving 110% to every workout 5 or 6 years from now? The biggest reason people stop working out is lack of results in a timely manner - the longer it takes to see results that less motivation most athletes have to continue lifting weights.

As such, your first step has to be defining your immediate goals... Which is more important, to YOU, right NOW? To build muscle? Get stronger? Increase endurance and energy reserves? Whichever you're targeting, you should start to see results within 6 weeks and have noticeable progress within the first 12 weeks. If not, either you're not working out and eating right consistently or you're following the wrong training style.

To build muscle and add lean muscle mass to your frame quickly, use moderate weights for higher reps - say 12 to 15 reps per set, 3-4 sets per exercise with 30 seconds or less between sets. Lift and lower the weights at a slow or moderate pace to increase your time under tension (TUT) to maximize the effect of your training. If you can complete every rep of the last set in proper form, increase the weight at your next workout.

To increase strength, however, time under tension is less important than the amount of weight you lift. While in a perfect world one-rep max (1RM) lifts would be perfect for building strength, the human body is too prone to injury to train that way, especially given the inherent weak links at the joints and muscle insertion points. To be safer keep your training to sets of 3-6 reps, and only then after sufficient warm-up sets.

In either case, using proper form and weightlifting technique is paramount - using poor form to lift heavier weights is a recipe for disaster that leads to long-term, possibly permanent injury. And while we all like to think we can recover from anything, even if you do eventually heal you'll have lost weeks, months or even years of gym time and results in the meantime.

If you can afford it, the best course of action is to hire a certified personal trainer, even if just for that first 3 months to make sure you've built successful habits and know what you're doing every time you pick up a weight in the gym. If you can't, at least keep an eye on what the personal trainers in your gym are having their clients do - while their workout routine may not be right for your goals, at least you'll be able to observe proper form when doing each exercise.

If your goal is to build muscle AND get stronger, use periodization - concentrate on one or the other for 4-6 weeks then switch to the other style for a similar period and continue alternating the two as your training continues. This lets you work toward both goals while keeping your body in a metabolic state of growth throughout.

D. Champigny is well known in the fitness world - he's a published fitness photographer, certified personal trainer, fitness author and publisher of the popular Flirting With Fitness website. For more help from Champigny, become a regular reader of his Getting Back In Shape blog at http://flirtingwithfitness.com/blogs/champigny/

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Weightlifting And Testosterone Beyond 30

If you've done any research into getting back in shape or hung around the gym for long, you'll already know that testosterone is a very powerful hormone our body produces, and that it's one of the major factors in building big muscles. But for aging athletes or those trying to get back in shape after 30, you need to know more about testosterone...

Weightlifting And Testosterone
Weightlifting and testosterone relate directly to each other in two ways. First, the higher your testosterone levels the easier and faster you can build muscle through your workouts. Yes, you still have to work out to see those gains, but at least you're rewarded more fairly for all that time you put in in the weight room.

The second relationship between the two is that heavy compound exercises can trigger your body to produce additional testosterone in response to the extreme effort. When your brain realizes that you're using almost all of your strength in a really heavy lift it signals men's testes or women's ovaries to produce more testosterone to help deal with what it perceives as a threat to your survival.

Testosterone Production Drops After 30 Years Of Age
If you're over 30 you've probably noticed it takes longer to build muscles than it used to. The good news is your body WILL still build muscle no matter how old you are. The bad news is your testosterone production has been dropping by about 2% every year since you hit 30. That is, if you haven't been lifting heavy weights regularly in the meantime.

Fortunately, you can still boost the levels your body produces if you start working out using an exercise routine designed around the big compound exercises. You should be including them anyway if you're trying to build big muscles, since compound exercises are the ones using the greatest number of muscles and the biggest ones in your body.

How To Increase Testosterone Levels
As we've said, the first way to increase testosterone production is heavy compound exercises. Four exercises stand out here - deadlifts, squats, bent rows and bench press. It's no coincidence that these four use the heaviest weights in your workout, nor that they use more muscles and joints than the other movements - those are the very reasons they work best to boost your levels.

Make sure every weightlifting workout starts with one or more of these exercises. Once your testosterone level increases it stays elevated for about an hour - so your smaller muscles like shoulders (deltoids) and arms (triceps & biceps) benefit from the increased growth potential as well as long as they're worked within that hour.

For additional help in boosting your blood-testosterone levels, consult your doctor or a certified nutritionist about the supplement tribulus. Tribulus is a dietary supplement that has been shown to help increase testosterone levels and is available in almost every health food store, supplements store or bodybuilding supply store. But just because it's so readily available doesn't mean it's safe for YOU - be sure to check with the doc before starting to take it. And remember that tribulus isn't a muscle-building panacea - increased testosterone levels still require effective weightlifting to build big muscles, no matter what your age!

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Weightlifting Nutrition - 5 Ways To Power Up Your Post-Workout Shake

You've hit the gym hard and need to make up your post-workout shake. As a serious weightlifter you know that your post-workout shake is as important as your weightlifting, and you understand the need for healthy nutrition when trying to build lean muscle. So let's look at five ways you can power up that shake to give you even more benefit...

Add More Protein
Since the most important part of your nutrient restocking is protein, let's add some more - but not more whey protein. Whey protein can only be absorbed at a certain pace and it clears the body in about 90 minutes, so adding more whey protein would just be a waste. Instead, add liquid egg whites. A cup (250g) of egg whites contains 0 fat, 0 carbohydrates and 28 grams of protein. Egg whites still have a very high biological value (BV) but stay in the system longer and digest more slowly, meaning you'll still be absorbing protein after the whey has cleared your body.

Use Chocolate Milk As Your Base
Instead of mixing your protein with water, juice or white milk, use partly-skimmed chocolate milk instead. Since you need protein, carbs and fats as part of your healthy nutrition and especially following your post-exercise shake, chocolate milk fills the bill nicely. One cup of 1% has 2.5 grams of fat, 27 grams of carbohydrates and 7 grams of protein, plus many brands add vitamins A & D as well. And once you add your whey protein and liquid egg whites you'll see the resultant nutrient breakdown is excellent for your recovery.

Add A Teaspoon Of Ground Cinnamon
Without getting too technical, the sugars in your shake cause a rise in insulin - and that insulin is necessary to transport the nutrients to your muscles. But if you've been reading up on healthy nutrition, you know that too much insulin over an extended period leads to Type 2 Diabetes. Amongst many other health benefits, cinnamon helps to regulate your blood sugar levels - not a prevention, but one step towards keeping your body in balance. Of course, it helps that most people love the taste of cinnamon - how long since your last cinnamon bun?

Take A Fish Oil, Krill Oil Or Omega-3 Supplement
There's been a lot of press lately about all the benefits of supplementing with Omega-3, an essential fat your body needs for a myriad of bodily functions. In this instance, it helps with both the nutrient absorption and the health of your muscle cells, so don't skip this vital step. Don't add it to your shake, just use your post-workout shake to wash down the capsule.

Add A Vitamin D-3 Supplement
Chances are you already knew that Vitamin D helped build healthy bones and teeth, right? But did you know that Vitamin D helps with the absorption of some nutrients? Include a Vitamin D-3 (the most common form of it) supplement when you take your Omega-3 to make sure your body can most easily use all the great nutrients in your post-workout shake.

These 5 low-cost steps will go a long way towards powering up your post-workout shake and help you get the most from your weightlifting session. Try and drink it within 30-60 minutes of your workout to take advantage of the maximum-uptake window - the sooner the better. As with any supplementation, make sure your doctor has approved the ingredients for your particular use, in case any pre-existing conditions would be affected, and barring any issues you'll be on your way to your healthy nutrition goals while maximizing the results from your time in the gym!

D. Champigny is a certified personal trainer and publisher of the Flirting With Fitness website and online magazine. You can get more health, fitness, exercise and nutrition tips from him on his Getting Back In Shape blog. For more info on building muscles, visit his Muscle Building blog as well.

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Weight Lifting Basics

When you first decide to build muscle it's important to have a firm grasp on the weight lifting basics. Effective weight lifting to build muscle requires a basic understanding of how lifting weights, proper nutrition and sufficient rest work together to create the metabolic state needed to add lean muscle mass and get stronger.

Weight Lifting Basics: Physiology
To understand how your muscles work and what it takes to build muscle you need to know, in general terms, what the muscle is made of. Think of a tube or sheath filled with liquid that has cables running through it. In each muscle, that fluid is sarcoplasm - a mix of water and other elements including the glycogen your muscles need for energy and the amino acids to repair damages to the muscle itself. The 'cables' running through it are your myofibrils - collections of thousands of protein chains that contract as the muscle moves.

While the two work synergistically, doing higher repetitions with a medium weight does more to build the amount of sarcoplasm, resulting in bigger muscles with less strength gain. Lifting heavier weights for fewer repetitions causes growth in the myofibril sections, giving you better strength gains with (usually) smaller muscle growth. If you main goal is to get stronger you'll focus more on how much weight you can lift with proper form for 6 or fewer repetitions per set, while you'd be using a more moderate weight so you can complete sets of 12 - 15 repetitions if your main focus is to build muscle size. If you want to do both, you'll either need to rotate back and forth between the two workout styles, or use reps schemes in the 8-10 reps per set range.

When you lift weights using either style, you're creating micro-tears in the muscle. Your body will repair these tears and make the muscle a little bigger and stronger in case it meets that same stress again. If you're not increasing the amount of weight you lift over time, there's no need for the body to keep making the muscle bigger and stronger, so your gains plateau - this is why weight lifting is also referred to as progressive resistance - you have to be continually working the muscles a bit harder than before to see continuing gains in muscle mass and to keep getting stronger.

For weight lifting purposes there are 7 major muscle areas - legs, back, chest, shoulders, triceps, biceps and abdominals (abs). Each area can be broken down further as you progress with your exercises, but when first starting out just make sure your routines include exercising all 7 areas.

Weight Lifting Basics: Proper Nutrition
In order to repair the damages from working out your body needs sufficient carbohydrates and proteins along with some essential fats. Carbohydrates contain the sugars that are converted to glycogen, and are most necessary pre-workout for the energy to exercise at your peak levels and post-workout to replace the glycogen levels you depleted while working out.

Protein is necessary for the repairs and improvements to your muscles and must be made available throughout the recuperation process. Since it can take from 48 hours to a week for this process, depending on your conditioning and the amount of work performed in the gym, boosting your daily protein intake every day is necessary compared to someone who isn't lifting weights.

There is an optimum-uptake window for your nutrients that lasts about 60-90 minutes after each weightlifting session, so be sure to get an abundance of both carbs and protein as soon as you can right after each workout. Unlike protein, however, you do not need to keep your carbohydrate intake higher on the days between gym visits - overindulging in carbs on your off days usually leads to a layer of fat hiding all your new shiny muscles!

Weight Lifting Basics: Sufficient Rest
It's very important to realize that without proper rest and recuperation you're pretty much wasting your time in the gym, especially as you get older. Your body needs time to fully heal and rebuild its energy levels between workouts. Understand right from the start that muscles are 'torn down' in the gym and rebuilt during rest periods on the days you're not in the gym. As such, getting 7 - 9 hours of sleep is a MUST if you want to get optimal results for your time and energy expenditures.

Further, when first starting out you need at least 1 - 3 days off between the days you hit the gym. Anything less and you're tearing down muscles that haven't fully recovered yet, thus limiting your own muscle and strength growth. Forget the routines you see in the magazines where the top bodybuilders do 5 or 6 workouts a week - they have very superior genetics and a huge existing mass of muscle and STILL need steroids and other synthetic anabolic hormones to recover from a schedule like that. For most people, especially those first lifting weights, those routines would quickly lead to overtraining - a situation noted for fatigue, muscle loss and injuries both acute and chronic.

Take your time, learn proper form for each exercise and follow these weight lifting basics and you can enjoy a lifetime of better health and fitness, adding lean muscle mass and building strength throughout your lifetime. And don't forget to share your exercise activities and these weight lifting basics with your spouse and kids - make fitness a family affair in your household starting today!

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The Benefits of Lifting Weights at a Slower Tempo

Ever notice some of the biggest bodybuilders in the gym doing reps in what appears to be slow motion and wondered what they know that you don't? Let's take a look at the benefits of lifting weights at a slower tempo...

Weightlifters and bodybuilders have known for some time now that heavier weights build strength while higher repetitions build muscle mass faster. One of the reasons for the latter is the additional damage done to the muscles by the increased time under tension (TUT). So it only makes sense when working out to build muscles fast that you would make each rep last as long as possible while still using enough weight to create the necessary micro-tears that lead to muscle growth.

Building Muscles Faster
In the short term, the biggest benefit to lifting weights at a slower tempo is building muscles faster. Your body repairs the muscle damage from lifting weights and increases your muscle mass to better handle the load in future, so you want to ensure you've done as much damage as possible while not going beyond your body's ability to fully recuperate before your next workout.

In a balanced muscular environment you're stronger on the negative portion (lowering the weights) of each exercise than you are on the positive portion (raising the weights). Therefore, to work both parts equally you need to increase the time under tension more during the negative than during the positive movement - aim for twice as long lowering the weights. If you're new to lifting weights use 3 seconds to raise the weights and 6 seconds to lower them for each rep. If you've already built a lot of lean muscle mass working out over an extended period of time, try doing reps with a 5-second ascent and a 10-second descent.

Either way, limit your sets to 7 or 8 reps or you won't be able to use enough weight. Aim for four sets of 8 reps with 30 seconds or less rest time between sets. If you get all 8 reps in on the final set, increase the weight used for your next workout. Assuming you follow a healthy diet and get enough rest between workouts, you'll be able to see the benefits of lifting weights at a slower tempo within 3 - 4 weeks as you start to build muscles faster than ever before.

Fewer Injuries From Lifting Weights
Of equal or possibly even greater importance is the fewer acute and chronic aches, pains and injuries that can happen from this style of lifting weights, especially in older weightlifters and bodybuilders. Extended time under tension workouts are done using relatively lighter weights than traditional weightlifting or powerlifting, so less strain is placed on your spine, ligaments and tendons, potentially causing less damage to them from the repeated stress of workouts.

As with any exercise program, especially those involving lifting progressively heavier weights, it's important to clear it with your doctor before starting and to maintain proper form during EVERY set of EVERY workout. Don't be one of the fools that puts their body into dangerous positions while lifting more weight than you can reasonably handle - lifting weights at a slower tempo prevents you from using momentum during your reps, so make sure you adjust the weight load accordingly.

Now that you know that building muscles faster and fewer injuries are the potential benefits of lifting weights at a slower tempo, it's easy to see why those big bodybuilders and weightlifters are moving in seeming slow motion, isn't it? Increase your muscles' time under tension starting today and be one of the big guys the new weightlifters wonder about down the road. In no time YOU'LL be one of the people singing the praises of lifting weights at a slower tempo too!

D. Champigny is a certified personal trainer and publisher of the Flirting With Fitness website and online magazine. You can get more health, fitness, exercise and nutrition tips from him on his Flirting With Fitness website and by following FlirtingWithFitness.com on Twitter at http://twitter.com/FlirtingFitness.

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Are Fitness Pros Making Weightlifters And Bodybuilders Wimps?

If a powerlifter or bodybuilder from the 1970's or 1980's walked into the average gym today they'd be horrified. Watching the people exercising would make them think they were in a foreign country, one where their strength athletes were either sadly lacking in muscle education or, quite simply, wimps.

Back then, they knew that you needed to tear down your muscles to make them rebuild bigger and stronger - just as bodybuilding and powerlifting athletes do today. What's different today is the expectation of what the body can survive and recover from, and just how to push your body to those limits safely.

These days fitness pros, bodybuilding magazines, gyms and even certified personal trainers will tell you the optimal workout, whether for muscle mass or strength training, ranges from 30 minutes to an hour. They'll tell you that you can't lift heavy enough and go any longer than that, and that if you're not exhausted after an hour your weights are too light. They'll tell you that weightlifting for more than an hour produces too much cortisol that destroys your gains.

Really?

Dane Fletcher, editor of the Primal Muscle blog, recently posted this about Arnold Schwarzenegger and his early training:

... if you've seen the pictures of Arnold when he arrived in America, you can tell he sure didn't have full physique balance and development. His calves were small, and his shoulders weren't incredible either. He adjusted his training, opting for 6-days-per-week training sessions, allowing every muscle group to be hit with 90 to 120 minutes of training, TWICE per week. This is a huge step up from even what today's pro bodybuilders (given their advanced access to pharmaceuticals) are using for volume training. Arnold knew how to work!

How Often Do You Lift Weights?
That's right - to build his huge muscle mass Arnold Schwarzenegger trained 6 days a week, week in and week out. As you can imagine, his workouts weren't with little pink dumbbells either - having started his weightlifting career in Europe as a competitive powerlifter, Schwarzenegger never used light weights. Yet no one can assume he wasn't able to recover fully with only one day off per week - no signs of overtraining in the fantastic body he built, and no one that could defeat him in the Olympia most years!

How Long Are Your Weightlifting Sessions?
Pay careful attention to the math in Dane's quote - in 6 days Arnold hit each bodypart twice, meaning he was training at least 2 bodyparts per day to get the whole body in every three days. So 90 minutes to 2 hours of weightlifting per bodypart means being in the gym for THREE TO FOUR HOURS per day, 6 days a week. Compare that 18 - 24 hours of training per week to today's recommended 2 - 3 hours per week, and you may realize why you haven't been growing at the speed bodybuilders did back then, whether you're on the juice or not.

And what many people don't realize is that while Arnold Swarzenegger was the pinnacle of bodybuilding in those days, the weight training regimen of the other pros, and even serious amateur bodybuilders, was much the same. And not as much has changed today as you might think. If you train in a REAL gym (as opposed to today's 'Butt-Floss and Hairspray gyms'), watch the biggest, most muscular bodybuilders and strongest powerlifters that train there. Seldom will you see them in there for less than two hours per session, or 60 - 90 minutes if they're training on a twice-a-day split.

Can you build lean muscle in three 90-minute weightlifting sessions a week? Sure. Can you get stronger doing 3 short powerlifting workouts per week? Of course. But don't look at the physiques of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ronnie Coleman, or the strength of Andy Bolton or Derek Poundstone and expect to match them, or even come as close as your genetics will allow, with those 'wimpy workouts'.

Instead, lift heavy, lift often, eat big and sleep a lot!

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Are Your Sleeping Habits Preventing Maximum Muscle Growth?

Your workouts are progressing nicely, you're doing everything right in the gym and exercising with proper form using higher reps and heavier weights regularly, but still your muscle growth is slow and painful, at best. Is a lack of sufficient sleep your problem, or at least a big part of it?

The Process Of Building Muscles
Think about the process of building muscles - exercise, nutrition and recovery. You tear down the muscles in the gym, creating the micro-tears that force the body to rebuild bigger and stronger. You fuel your body with the proteins, essential amino acids, vitamins and micro-nutrients it needs for the anabolic process of building muscles. And when you sleep, your body balances your hormones and uses that nutrition to heal and build muscles - your muscle building is almost completely accomplished while you sleep.

So even if all goes well in the gym - you're using scientific principles and the latest research to craft your exercise routine, never miss a workout and spend a small fortune on protein and supplements - if you don't get enough rest & recuperation you won't be getting the full benefits of your training regime. Yet getting enough sleep is completely within your own power...

Getting Enough Sleep
Sleep deprivation runs rampant in today's society, so you may think you just don't have enough time to get 8 hours of sleep a night. But the truth is you have the same 168 hours a week that everyone else has, and 8 hours of sleep a night only uses up 56 of those hours. So that lack of sleep that's preventing you from building muscles faster is actually a lifestyle choice, not a fact carved in stone. And like any lifestyle choice, you have the power to change it right away.

What stops you from getting enough sleep? For most, television, computer games and/or Internet social media sites burn up hours uselessly and keep them up later than is prudent. Each is fine in moderation, but study after study show people are spending HOURS a day at these pursuits. If you're watching TV for 2 or 3 hours a day and not getting 8 hours of sleep, the answer is pretty obvious, isn't it?

Your Simple Solution
If you believe you can't get 8 hours of sleep a night, or that it's not important to get enough sleep, you're kidding yourself. Your entire day and your health is massively impacted by your sleeping habits. And, of course, that includes your efforts to build muscles - both the energy and endurance you need for your workouts and your muscle-building process are dependent on your body setting enough sleep. The problem until now is that you're doing everything you want to do without limitation and then setting your sleep time by what's left over - by default as it were.

Instead, set your bedtime based on when you have to get up. If you have to get up by 7am for work tomorrow, be in bed and ready to sleep by 11pm tonight. If you're planning to sleep in until 10am tomorrow, start drifting off to sleep by 2am. It's a simple solution that helps you get enough sleep to benefit your whole life and help you build muscles more quickly - and you'll find your stress levels drop and your general mood improves as well.

Just remember no one else can make these changes for you - like everything that's important in life, YOU have to make the decision and put in the effort to improve your life and live a fit & healthy lifestyle!

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Fitness Resolutions: Don't Ignore The Other 10 Months Of The Year

Year after year, losing weight and/or getting in shape top the list of New Year's resolutions. Yet for most, their weight loss or fitness goals are the same, year after year - with little or no progress in between. So what's the issue that's holding people back from getting healthy?

Obviously there are a myriad of reasons, but the biggest one is self-sabotaging goals. Most resolutions are broken in the first month or two each year because they involve sudden drastic changes in habits that took years to form. If you say you're going to eat better, start weightlifting regularly or do cardio 3 times a week starting January 1st and then don't, your resolution has crashed and you're back where you started. At this point most people accept that they've failed and go back to their established patterns.

That's an emotional decision, not a logical one. The whole rest of the year still stretches out in front of them, so there's still a lot of time to adapt - but that just doesn't happen. They go into the following year with the same goals, while their sub-conscious knows they've already tried and failed. Does that sound like a recipe for success to you?

What if, instead, your resolution was to adopt healthier habits throughout the new year? For example, if you want to lose weight your first step might be to improve your food choices when doing your weekly food shopping. This small step can have a major effect just because there's no unhealthy snacks in the kitchen when you're watching TV at night. Then the next month you could start taking a walk each day in place of an hour in front of the TV or computer screen. Maybe in month 3 you'd reduce your carbohydrate intake some, and replace some of your simple carbs with healthier complex cares. Already you'd be feeling better, have more energy and most likely seeing your weight start to drop as you burn off some fat.

None of these are big steps - each is one you could easily see yourself completing, right? And if you slipped up the odd time, your journey isn't over nor your progress lost - you just get back to forming your new, healthier habits. Pretty easy to see you'd be a lot more likely to lose weight this way, isn't it?

It's the same path to success in getting back in shape, too... Start eating better, start walking an hour a day, replace that hour every other day with workouts in the gym or an aerobics or yoga class, and then continue to refine your goal as you go along. At first, your motivation comes from your decision. Then, it comes from your results. And as your results grow, so will your motivation and commitment.

You CAN do it. You can lose weight, reach your fitness goals and achieve any of your other goals. Just don't put too much pressure on yourself to do it all at once. Break your goals down to smaller steps so you can build success habits throughout the year. Losing weight and getting in shape will benefit every aspect of your life - it's well worth putting in the time and effort.

And remember, you don't have to wait until January for your New Year's resolutions - today is just as good a day to start the year right!

Fitness publisher and certified personal trainer D. Champigny is on a mission to help the aging population get stronger, get fit and live a healthy lifestyle right through their senior years, and help bodybuilders and weightlifters get better results more safely. To stay up-to-date with the health, exercise, nutrition and weight loss tips Champigny shares across his numerous fitness sites and blogs, follow Flirting With Fitness on Facebook and Google+ today!

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Who Will YOU Stay In Shape For?

If your goals, ego or business required you to be in great shape, you'd already be lifting weights regularly. If that's not the case, why not start weightlifting for the longevity and health benefits? After all, don't you OWE that to the people you love?

One of the most powerful reasons preventing people from hitting the gym and lifting weights regularly is that they simply aren't emotionally involved in their health and fitness. While they'll tell you they know they should be lifting weights and doing cardio, they'll excuse their lack of exercise and poor body condition by saying they don't have time to hit the gym often.

We all find time for the things we most want to do, so really they're saying their health and fitness isn't a priority for them. If you're one of those people who just can't muster up the motivation to lift weights, be healthier and stronger, have more self-confidence and look a heck of a lot better, maybe your answer comes from thinking more about the people you love - your parents, your spouse, partner or girlfriend/boyfriend, your children and friends who are dear to you...

First, you already know that these people want you to be healthy. They don't want to see you in pain or feeling sick. And unless you're in a very bad relationship they want you to be happy, self-confident and looking your best, right? Weightlifting not only builds muscles - it strengthens your whole system and your immune system, and helps you ward off the negative effects of daily stress. It can also help you burn off bodyfat, making everything you do each day easier on your heart.

And not only do these people want you to be healthy and happy, they want you to stay around a lot longer too. No one wants to see those they love die young, and everyone hates seeing loved ones die at ANY age unless that person was ill and in incurable pain...

And what about you? Don't you want as many happy and healthy years as possible with those people you love? And don't some of them count on you - for love, friendship, maybe even support? Chances are you don't want to check out early and leave them stranded, either.

You know that lifting weights conditions your body and strengthens your immune system - now let's look at how cardio exercise, whether in the gym or outside, can greatly extend the length of your life...

In an article that Marc Ransford published on the Ball State University website, the Director of the Human Performance Laboratory, Dr. Scott Trappe is quoted as saying that a person's Maximum Oxygen Uptake (VO2 Max) is "a better predictor of mortality than many better-known cardiovascular risk factors".

The article goes on to discuss the results of a study of life-long endurance athletes who are active in cross-country skiing and/or cardio exercise - a study of men in their 80's and 90's whose VO2 Max was found to be the same as untrained men 40 - 50 years younger! "Based upon the VO2max findings, the lifelong exercisers have a 50 percent lower all-cause mortality risk compared to the untrained men" says Trappe.

So weightlifting and cardio exercise can not only make you stronger, healthier and happier, it can also help you to live that way longer - but only if you get started and keep at it. So now the only question is who will YOU stay in shape for?

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Summer Fitness - Built Or Guilt?

Next summer people will be shedding their clothes and flocking to lakes and beaches or gathering around pools. What will best sum up YOUR fitness shape at that point - built or guilt? If you've ever spent a summer out of shape you already know how bad it can get...

For the ladies...
When summer comes along, will you be strutting along the boardwalk in a thong bikini, confident and proud of your body, or at least know you could get away with a thong if that was your style? Or a short backless sun dress by the pool? Or will you be hiding your body and envying the fit and sexy look of those women who just reek of fitness? If you're 'twisting by the pool', will your butt stop shaking when you do, or jiggle along merrily on it's own?

For the men...
Ever since you were a kid you admired the fit guys walking along the beach, by the pool, or anywhere else men take their shirts off outside. And you couldn't miss the stares those same guys got from females of all ages who would actually turn and watch them walk by, could you? Those guys might have been big and muscular or thin and sporting 6-packs - but what they had in common was a high level of fitness...

Will the same be true of you next summer, or will you hide your upper body under a baggy t-shirt? Will your legs flow out under your trunks, quads, hams and calves rippling as you stride, or will you be hiding chicken legs under long board shorts or even track pants?

Getting ready for summer...
The thing is, there's no reason that YOU can't be 'built' for summer - unless it's already summer, in which case you can make major changes to your body by the next summer. If it's fall or winter, there's no rush - you can start exercising and eating better gradually and build up your routines and refine your nutrition as the weeks and months go by.

If it's already spring and you want to be in great shape by summer then you have to take your fitness efforts to a whole new level fairly quickly - but it's important that you realize it CAN be done! Keep your goal in mind, be diligent in your nutrition, and get as active as you doctor says you're able to - walking, inline skating, jogging, weightlifting, aerobics - there are numerous fitness levels so pick the one best suited to your current fitness level.

And as long as you have access to the Internet, you're not alone. There are numerous online communities with people looking to lose weight, looking to build muscle and/or just generally trying to live the fitness lifestyle. If you're worried you might not have the motivation to stick with it, consider joining one of the 30-day or 90-day fitness challenges online.

Sail into summer confident in yourself and your body, in great shape at best or at least much better shape than enjoy currently. You've taken the first step by reading this article - now follow through and bring your fitness level up both for a sexier body and, more importantly, for better health!

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Wicked Weekday Warrior Women

There's long been this macho image of the Weekend Warrior - men in there 20's, 30's 40's and beyond who sit at work all day then go home and sit in front of the TV all night on weekdays, then come alive on the weekends playing hockey, football, tennis or what have you. Well step aside guys, because the new heroes are the Wicked Weekday Warrior Women!

Weekend warriors have always been easy to spot on Mondays - sore, injured or just plain tired out. They seldom, if ever, hit the gym through the week, so their muscles aren't conditioned for the weekend strain, and with no cardio or aerobics work their energy runs out quickly and takes days to recover. So every Monday they wear their injuries and bruises like a badge of honor, not realizing nothing could be further from the truth.

But walk into any gym these days and what you WILL see is women working out, training furiously with free weights. And not light 'girlie' workouts either, but real routines using serious weights! They know that this type of training is the only route to the firm, sculpted bodies they want - and to the energy levels and endurance they need in their everyday life.

When you consider all they have going on outside the gym - many are single moms, others work all day then come home to fix dinner for their families - and add in the time and effort they put into their weightlifting, they can only be described as Warriors. It takes strength, guts, perseverance and a warrior mindset to make it through their daily grind. And just as often they're at aerobics, yoga, pilates, Zumba or similar classes on the days they don't work out, or they may be out running.

Another sign of the mental toughness of their warrior attitude is that these women work out like mad, yet seldom will you hear them complain about it - they understand the necessity of staying fit and healthy. Their strength, health and energy give them the self-confidence to face everything life throws at them and plow on through it with a smile. And heaven help the poor fool who tries to act condescendingly towards them in the gym - you can be sure they won't try it a second time...

While you may encounter some of these women in fitness, bikini and physique competitions, they aren't the big muscular women you see in major bodybuilding shows. Women genetically don't produce enough testosterone to build big, bulky muscles, so that requires steroids and other pharmaceutical enhancements. Instead these women learn all they can about proper nutrition and eating habits and focus on staying healthy and maintaining their proper bodyfat levels.

And the results of their gym workouts and healthy nutrition really stand out - they're carving Wicked bodies that attract the eye in or out of the gym. Their skin glows with health, their hair shines and their muscles reshape them over and over again as they walk. Bench presses and flyes keep their chests high while deep squats and deadlifts keep their butts firm and round - results any women loves!

If YOU are one of today's Wicked Weekday Warrior Women then hat's off to you - you're not only benefiting you and your family, but you're a fantastic role model for women of all ages. If you're a woman considering getting back in shape, explore the free weights section of your local gym and get advice from one of the women lifting serious weights there (Just don't disturb her during her set.)

And if you're a weekend warrior who happened to find yourself in a gym, stop doing cheat curls in the squat rack and move aside - there's bound to be a Wicked Weekday Warrior Woman waiting to do some serious work!

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Skip The 'Macho' And Go Straight To Maximum Muscle Building

From the earliest days of commercial gyms, young men have flocked to the iron game to combat their insecurities and weaknesses - if you're old enough you'll remember all those Charles Atlas ads on the back of comic books suggesting fitness and strength to keep bullies from 'kicking sand in your face'. So it's no wonder that to this day macho posturing often precludes maximum muscle building.

Even many of the greatest pro bodybuilders started lifting due to real or perceived inadequacies or because they were being bullied or teased and felt the need to be bigger and stronger and display a more 'manly' persona. Nimrod King, former Canadian bodybuilding champion, was moved to Canada at the age of seven. While Nimrod was a common name in Africa, he quickly became the victim of abuse from his new schoolmates because of his name. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the best-known bodybuilder of all time, was bullied by his older brother & his father, who referred to Arnold as his 'daughter'. The result? By 19 he was a European powerlifting champion.

From those days til today, unfortunately, that macho posturing still exists in most gyms - and now both women and men practice it and fall victim to it. One of the most common examples revolves around doing squats...

Let's take a look at the dynamics of a proper squat: After placing hundreds of pounds on the bar you position yourself under it so that it rests where your back and shoulders meet your neck at the top of your spine. Then keeping toes, knees and shoulders in a vertical line, you squat down til your hamstrings touch your calves and rise back up again. Now think of the physiology - all of your nerves run up through your spine to eventually reach the brain stem.

So unless you've already built up an inch or two of thick muscle at the top of your back, you're putting hundreds of pounds of weight on one of the most delicate - yet important - areas of your body. When you consider that spinal damage is a leading cause of paralysis and that the neck-back tie-in is a common site for arthritis, you realize that padding the bar where it makes contact with the area is a wise idea - and bar pads made just for this are readily available. Yet gyms and the online weightlifting forums are full of slurs against their use and nasty comments about those who use them.

But that's not the worst of it... What's worse is the drive to use as much weight as possible, regardless of range of motion or proper form. The need to brag about how much one curls leads many to swing up the weights using momentum and an awful lot of 'body English'. How often have you seen someone twist their body through unnatural and dangerous positions just to curl a weight that's obviously too heavy for them? Or overload the bar and then only do the top 6 - 12" of a squat?

And how many athletes, including powerlifters and pro bodybuilders, have been hurt while trying to set a new one-rep max? None of this is what building muscles is all about... Yes, strength training will help build muscle, but unless one is truly genetically gifted it's a minor growth at that. To truly build maximum muscle mass your workouts need to incorporate full range-of-motion reps, done with increasing intensity.

How do you increase that intensity? Not by struggling and cheating your reps due to an overly-heavy weight load. You do it by slowing down your movements, by adding more controlled reps, by shortening the rest time between sets, by adding in new exercises, by changing your exercise routine regularly and by combining any two or more of these progressions.

So when you hit the gym for your next weightlifting session, stay safe, be smart and work in your own best interest. Be sure your brain is engaged throughout every exercise, take your time and ignore the comments of the immature and insecure. Keep your maximum muscle building goals front-of-mind and work out in a controlled, disciplined and intelligent manner. Rest easy in the knowledge that you're building maximum muscle mass while they're just feeding their bloated egos.

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What A Certified Personal Trainer Does, And Doesn't, Know About You

Most people who are serious about weightlifting or bodybuilding will hire a personal trainer at some point. Personal training helps in a lot of ways, so let's take a look at what your new certified personal trainer already knows and what you need to tell them about yourself.

When a man or woman gets certified as a personal trainer they learn a lot about body composition, weight loss, nutrition and, of course, the effects of weightlifting on the body. So just by looking at you they have some clues as to your current state of health and your nutritional habits. What they can't tell is what medical conditions you have. But then again, unless you've been to your doctor recently neither can you.

Medical conditions like high blood pressure (hypertension) and diabetes are often present with no external indications, so you need to have a recent checkup and pass that information on to your person trainer. The former affects the type and intensity of exercises you should be starting with while the latter will affect your nutrition plans. By not knowing about these and/or not telling your certified personal trainer you're risking complications and even possible death. That's why you so often hear about the necessity of having a full physical with your doctor before beginning any exercise program, including personal training.

A good trainer also knows a lot about maximizing nutrition to see that you get the right number of calories and the correct balance of macro- and micro-nutrients to safely and effectively lose weight or build lean muscle mass. But what they don't know when first starting with you is your personal metabolism - that is, the rate your body burns through it's fuel. Your body type and body composition will provide some clues, but it will take a bit of time for your certified personal trainer to observe the results of the diet he or she proposes for you.

If you're considering personal training you can speed up that process by keeping a food diary for a couple of weeks before you start. That will give your trainer a better starting point, as they'll know roughly how many calories you've been consuming to this point and what type of food you've been eating. This makes it much easier for them to evaluate what changes to make to help you lose weight or build muscles more efficiently.

Another thing your certified personal trainer needs to hear from you is any history of chronic aches and pains you've endured, whether they are currently affecting you or not. This helps them to evaluate any weaknesses in your current condition and to design a workout program for you that lessens the chances of aggravating any existing injuries. This may not seem like a big deal to you but remember that all progress stops if you need to take a few weeks off training to allow your body to heal from a serious injury.

And finally, you need to describe your current lifestyle openly and honestly with your trainer. As part of their personal training certification they've learned the importance of sufficient rest and recovery between workouts and the physiological effects of stress on the body. Your workouts need to be tailored to match the stress levels already existing in your daily lifestyle and the amount of effective sleep you're getting each night. The better your sleeping habits and lower your stress levels, the more intense workouts you can safely perform and the better and sooner you can see your desired results. Conversely, if you're in highly-stressed situations regularly or aren't willing to get 7 - 8 hours of sleep a night, your exercise load needs to be lessened, even if you think you could be handling more weight or longer sessions.

You're going to be investing a lot of effort into working out and eating right, and personal training will help you maximize your returns from those efforts. Just be sure you're open and honest with your certified personal trainer so you can work harmoniously to achieve your weightlifting and/or bodybuilding goals.

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Body Building Schedule - How to Organize Lifting Sessions

Body building requires a lot of time and effort on your part, so you always want to get the maximum muscle gains from each visit to the gym. So it's important to understand how to organize your lifting sessions. If you don't, you probably won't get the optimal results from your body building schedule.

Take the standard full-body workout, done 2 or 3 times per week. To maximize your results from your weight lifting you want to put most of your efforts into the biggest muscle groups, since that is where your greatest muscle gains will come from. And because they're your biggest muscles, you need to hit them when your energy levels are highest - at the beginning of each weight lifting session.

That gives you the order the exercises are to be performed in:

Legs
Back
Chest
Shoulders
Triceps
Biceps
Abs

Since the goal in body building is to build lean muscles proportionately, the bulk of the exercises performed at each weight lifting session should be compound exercises. A compound exercise is one that focuses on one main muscle group, but rather than isolate that group it also involves 2 or more of your joints and 1 or more additional muscle groups to a lesser extent.

This lets us organize our weight lifting session even further by adding in the exercises for each bodypart:

Legs - Squats
Back - Bent Rows
Chest - Bench Press
Shoulders - Overhead Press
Triceps - Lying Triceps Extensions (skullcrushers)
Biceps - Standing Barbell Curls
Abs - Weighted Situps

Be sure to check with your doctor and get the go-ahead before starting any exercise program, and discuss the specific exercises you'll be doing in case any existing conditions would be compromised. And whenever possible, always train with free weights. The machines in most commercial gyms may look enticing and you may be able to use heavier weights, but most have the weight traveling along a fixed path.

Because it's the machine, not you, keeping it to the proper path, your supporting muscles aren't involved. This builds 'gym strength', not functional strength. When called upon to use those major muscles outside the gym you stand a much better chance of being injured, since your smaller supporting muscles haven't developed equally on those machines.

There two other factors that enter into body building you'll need to discover to organize your weight lifting sessions, but both are dependent on your own personal physiology. First is the number of sets and repetitions you'll perform for each exercise. Your rep scheme should be based on the type of results you want - lower reps with heavier weights to build strength vs. higher reps with somewhat lighter weights to build muscle mass. Then you can set the number of sets once you know how many reps are in each set.

Second is the number of days per week you'll work out. If you're doing full-body workouts you'll want to hit the gym 2 or 3 times per week, always on non-consecutive days. If your body heals quickly after each workout you may want to go Monday - Wednesday - Friday, while if you find that's too much and you're staying sore between workouts you might want to hit the gym on Mondays & Thursdays.

If you're not doing full-body workouts but doing some type of split-routine instead, again you'll have to figure out what works best for your own body. In any case, by paying attention to what works for your own body, you'll soon know how to organize lifting sessions to meet your body building schedule and goals, getting maximum muscle gains from every weight lifting session you do!

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Nutrition For Lifting Weights

Lifting weights is great for building muscles, but it's really only 1/3 of the task - and you won't build much muscle from lifting weights if you don't cover the other two areas too. Just as important are your nutrition and getting sufficient rest between workouts.

Ask even the newest weightlifter and they can probably tell you all about lifting weights, what reps & sets mix to use and what every piece of equipment in the gym is for - but very few can give you informed information about nutrition and what they should be eating to grow those big muscles they're so fervently working towards.

In the 1960's and 1970's bodybuilders would eat a healthy, nutritious diet in preparation for, and during, their contest season and then 'bulk up' during the off-season. The idea was to ensure you ate as much as you could, regardless of the quality of food, in the hope that their body would have all the nutrients it needed at any given time to build maximum muscle. So they would put on 30 - 50 pounds of bodyweight, only to then diet off the extra 20 - 40 pounds of fat included in their extra mass.

Nowadays, though, it's understood that one can build maximum muscle mass while staying fairly lean, with little extra bodyfat to burn off at competition time. No longer do they consume massive amounts of pasta and white potatoes, but instead they've reduced their carbohydrate intake, upped their protein intake and replaced the simple carbohydrates they were eating with complex carbs like steel-cut oats, sweet potatoes (yams), brown rice, etc.

So what should your nutrition look like for lifting weights? First you need to know the total number of calories you'll need, and that varies from person to person, even if you're lifting weights together. The calories you need are based on your metabolism more than your gym sessions, so start with what you're currently eating - after all, your current caloric intake got you to your current weight and is maintaining it, right?

Start by dropping soda and alcohol from your routine and replace those calories with protein sources. Carbs and protein each contain 4 calories per gram, so it's a straight swap. Replace your remaining simple carbs with complex carbs - most of your carbohydrates should come from sources like the steel-cut oats, brown rice and yams mentioned above plus vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, tomatoes and apples.

Do not try to lower your intake of fats, just make sure they come from healthy choices like fish oil, krill oil, eggs and nuts. It's especially important to make sure you're getting enough Omega-3 and Omega-6 from your fats, on a ratio of 2:1 or 3:1 - getting your fats from the sources mentioned will go a long way towards meeting those goals, but you might want to consider an Omega-3 supplement as well.

At this point you're getting your carbs and fats from healthy sources, and that just leaves your protein. The are a great number of protein sources readily available. Some of the best are milk, eggs (especially egg whites), salmon, tuna & other fish, chicken, lean red meat, etc. Fortunately there is enough variety that you can easily vary your diet to keep it interesting while staying compliant with good nutrition practices.

You won't need to count calories and be very vigilant for long - repetition week after week will make eating this way a habit before long and you'll be able to maintain your eating habits automatically then. But make sure you DO stick to your new eating patterns long enough for it to become habit before you ease up at all.

From that point on, your nutrition for lifting weights depends on your personal goals. If you want to maintain lean muscle mass while burning off bodyfat, lower your daily carb intake by 10%. If you want to build more lean muscle, up your daily protein intake by 10%. In either case, note the effect it has and adjust your levels accordingly. Continue adjusting your nutrition as you go along, keeping the changes small and noting the effects. Healthy nutrition for lifting weights really is that simple, so there's no reason to let poor nutritional habits sabotage your efforts in the gym!

Fitness publisher and certified personal trainer D. Champigny is on a mission to help the aging population get stronger, get fit and live a healthy lifestyle right through their senior years, and help bodybuilders and weightlifters get better results more safely. To stay up-to-date with the health, exercise, nutrition and weightloss tips Champigny shares across his numerous fitness sites and blogs, follow Flirting With Fitness on FaceBook and Google+ today!

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5 Keys To Building Maximum Muscle Mass

Building muscles quickly and achieving maximum muscle mass based on your genetic potential is not an art, it's a science. And some of the most important key steps are simple to implement. Here are the 5 most-important steps for muscle-building success...

1) Get Enough Sleep
It may seem strange to see getting enough sleep at the start of the list, but it's one of the biggest differences between natural bodybuilders with bulging muscles and the bodybuilders that train week after week with little or no gains. When you lift weights, you create minor tears in your muscles that need to be repaired and your body responds by building the muscles bigger and stronger in anticipation of further heavy lifts. But most of this repair is only done when the body is at rest.

As a result, if you don't get enough sleep, 7-8 hours a night, you're not fully repairing the muscles after each workout. And if you don't recover fully you're obviously either preventing or at least delaying your mission to build maximum muscle mass.

2) Eat Enough Healthy Food
Most serious bodybuilders eat fairly clean - just not enough. Most of today's obesity epidemic comes from people over-eating poor food choices, especially excessive simple carbs. If you started your bodybuilding to burn bodyfat, you gave up all or most of that and watched your bodyfat levels drop and drop. But now that you're trying to build muscles and have your maximum muscle mass, you need to get back to that caloric intake using only healthy nutritional choices.

But that's not just true for those who became bodybuilders to lose weight - it applies to every bodybuilder. You need more protein than those who don't lift weights, but most bodybuilders also need a lot of carbs as well. Not enough to start adding fat again, but enough to fuel your body throughout your day and night. If your body doesn't have enough carbs and/or bodyfat it will cannibalize your proteins, including your current muscle mass, for the energy it needs.

If you're eating healthy choices with the right balance of protein, carbs and healthy fat, how do you know if you're eating enough? Forget the charts and calorie recommendations they publish for bodybuilders - those are averages and YOU aren't average, right? So slowly increase your intake until you notice a bit of added bodyfat, then tone it down a touch. Your body will only store bodyfat once it's used all it needs, so that's the ONLY way to know how much is right for you, with your genetics, your activity level and your current bodyweight. And every time you've gained another 10 pounds of muscle, test your intake again so you know how much more to eat each day.

3) Exercise Effectively
Every bodybuilder looking to build maximum muscle mass exercises regularly - but only a small percentage of them exercise effectively. There are many ways to improve your muscle-building workouts - starting with the fact that strength training and muscle building are two different strategies with different workouts required. If your goal is building maximum muscle mass, always keep your reps in the 10 and up range, using as much weight as you can while still maintaining perfect form and going fairly slow on each rep.

Two principles rule when the goal is building maximum muscle mass - Time Under Tension and Slow Negatives. The former refers to how long each set lasts because the longer you keep the muscle under constant tension the greater the damage you're doing, creating those micro-tears that lead to muscle building. The latter is simply science - those micro-tears occur on the negative stroke of each exercise. So for maximum effect from your workouts use a 1-2 cadence for each rep - lift in 1 second and lower in 2, or lift in 2 seconds and lower in 4 seconds.

4) Improve Your Workouts
How many bodybuilders have you seen at the gym doing the same workout week in and week out, never making much progress, never building much lean muscle mass? Bodybuilding relies on progressive resistance... Both your overall workout and the weights you're lifting need to progress regularly. Change up the exercises and order of them every 4-6 weeks. Start each new cycle with 3 exercises per bodypart, then each week add 1 more per bodypart. Start back at 3 exercises when you go into the next cycle. And anytime you get all your reps in for your last set of an exercise while maintaining proper form, raise the weight a bit at your next workout - just don't sacrifice safety and good form to cheat up a weight you're not ready for yet.

5) Supplement Intelligently
You aren't building maximum muscle mass if you're not using supplements, but you don't need to rush out and break the bank taking every new supplement that comes along. You'll see an awful lot of talk about whey protein, and it IS important - but only after your workouts. The rest of the time, especially before bed, use casein protein instead. Whey protein is absorbed very quickly and clears your system in about 90 minutes, so it's perfect for right after your workouts. Casein protein absorbs more slowly and stays in the system for about 4 hours, so it continues to deliver needed protein much longer during the crucial overnight rebuilding period.

Also look into creatine, l-glutamine and a nitrous oxide booster - each can help you build bigger muscles and/or give you more energy for better workouts. And, of course, take a multivitamin daily along with additional B, C + D-3 vitamins. These not only aid in the muscle-building process but help with your overall health as well.

Before going on to any more advanced concepts or experimental programs, make sure you have these 5 basic keys in place - they unlock almost all the secrets to building maximum muscle mass and getting the most out of your workouts and genetics!

D. Champigny, the Success Lifestylist, is well known in the fitness world - he's a published fitness photographer, certified personal trainer, fitness author and publisher of the popular Flirting With Fitness website. For more help from Champigny, add him to your circles on Google+ today!

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