A Workout Routine For Muscle Growth
When building muscle, failure is a good thing.
I know that sounds weird, but, we actually want our muscles to go all the way to failure.
As always, if you are starting a new workout routine, it's best to consult your doctor before starting.
If you have never lifted weights before, don't just rock into the gym and go to muscle failure.
Start out slowly, or you could injure yourself.
You can always consult a professional Personal Trainer in your gym.
Don't be afraid to ask questions.
They are always happy to help.
Once you've established your work out, and you are able to do a good hard routine, you can begin to build muscle.
You want to go very heavy in your weight, only if your form is good, and low repetitions.
For instance, you can go for 6 to 10 repetitions.
By good form, I am talking about isolating each muscle group.
For instance, if you are a doing a bicep curl, you want to take every other muscle out of play except for the bicep.
You want ONLY the bicep to do the work.
The minute you start to swing the weight up by moving your upper body backwards, you are recruiting the lower back muscles to do the work.
You are also using momentum to do the work rather than forcing the bicep to do it.
Also, if you swing the arm forward, you are now using the shoulder muscle's to do the work of the biceps.
If you need to swing your upper body, or you recruit your shoulder muscle's for a bicep curl, then, that is a good indication that you need to lower your weight.
For muscle building, we want to go to muscle failure.
What this means is that by the 6th to 10th repetition, you physically can not lift the weight.
Using the bicep curl for an example (as above), you want to keep proper form, and don't recruit any other muscle.
So, in using your bicep, you want your bicep to fail, rather than using momentum or muscle recruiting.
When putting together a workout routine for muscle building, you want to choose muscle groups that go together.
For instance, back and chest, shoulders and triceps, legs and biceps.
So, by this model, you would do back and chest on Monday, Shoulders and Triceps on Tuesday, Legs and Biceps on Wednesday, then start over again on Thursday with back and chest.
Friday would be shoulders and triceps.
Then, take two days off.
The following Monday, you would do Legs and Biceps, and keep continuing like that.
You would choose three different exercises for each muscle group and do three sets each.
So, an example would be for shoulders and triceps.
Overhead shoulder press, then tricep dips.
Shoulder pulls with a bar, then tricep kickbacks with a free weight.
Side shoulder squeezes, then tricep rope pull downs.
Another muscle building technique is to go very, very slowly.
This forces us NOT to use momentum in lifting a weight.
I know that sounds weird, but, we actually want our muscles to go all the way to failure.
As always, if you are starting a new workout routine, it's best to consult your doctor before starting.
If you have never lifted weights before, don't just rock into the gym and go to muscle failure.
Start out slowly, or you could injure yourself.
You can always consult a professional Personal Trainer in your gym.
Don't be afraid to ask questions.
They are always happy to help.
Once you've established your work out, and you are able to do a good hard routine, you can begin to build muscle.
You want to go very heavy in your weight, only if your form is good, and low repetitions.
For instance, you can go for 6 to 10 repetitions.
By good form, I am talking about isolating each muscle group.
For instance, if you are a doing a bicep curl, you want to take every other muscle out of play except for the bicep.
You want ONLY the bicep to do the work.
The minute you start to swing the weight up by moving your upper body backwards, you are recruiting the lower back muscles to do the work.
You are also using momentum to do the work rather than forcing the bicep to do it.
Also, if you swing the arm forward, you are now using the shoulder muscle's to do the work of the biceps.
If you need to swing your upper body, or you recruit your shoulder muscle's for a bicep curl, then, that is a good indication that you need to lower your weight.
For muscle building, we want to go to muscle failure.
What this means is that by the 6th to 10th repetition, you physically can not lift the weight.
Using the bicep curl for an example (as above), you want to keep proper form, and don't recruit any other muscle.
So, in using your bicep, you want your bicep to fail, rather than using momentum or muscle recruiting.
When putting together a workout routine for muscle building, you want to choose muscle groups that go together.
For instance, back and chest, shoulders and triceps, legs and biceps.
So, by this model, you would do back and chest on Monday, Shoulders and Triceps on Tuesday, Legs and Biceps on Wednesday, then start over again on Thursday with back and chest.
Friday would be shoulders and triceps.
Then, take two days off.
The following Monday, you would do Legs and Biceps, and keep continuing like that.
You would choose three different exercises for each muscle group and do three sets each.
So, an example would be for shoulders and triceps.
Overhead shoulder press, then tricep dips.
Shoulder pulls with a bar, then tricep kickbacks with a free weight.
Side shoulder squeezes, then tricep rope pull downs.
Another muscle building technique is to go very, very slowly.
This forces us NOT to use momentum in lifting a weight.