16 Muscle Building Tips

Tip 1: Choose a workout that's right for you
There's no such thing as a magic workout that is best for muscle building. If there was, everyone would be using it! Try different muscle building techniques for yourself and see what your body responds to.

Tip 2: Quality is better than quantity
This is the #1 muscle building tip we ever give out. Many beginners make the mistake of thinking "If I train harder I'll get bigger". Not true. Doing the right amount of sets, strict form and the exercises you do are much more important than how often and how long you train.

Tip 3: Eat, eat, and keep eating!
Eating makes up about 80% of the muscle building puzzle. If you're not eating enough complex carbs, protein and excess calories every day you'll find it hard to build muscle. In order for you to gain muscle you need to eat more calories than you burn.

Tip 4: Eat carbs straight after your workout
Eating carbs (in the form of food or supplements) induces an insulin spike. Insulin is the most anabolic hormone in the body. Having a good serve of carbs straight after your workout puts your body in an anabolic (muscle building) state.

Tip 5: Get plenty of rest
Rest is another important part of muscle building. When you train you're actually breaking down muscle tissue (that's why you looked "pumped") in the gym). The actualy repair and building process takes place while you're resting and asleep. If you don't get enough rest you're limiting your muscle growth potential.

Tip 6: Avoid overtraining
Overtraining is counter productive and easy to aviod. There's no reason anyone should overtrain.

Tip 7: Perfect your technique
Using correct technique in every exercise you do is also very important for muscle building. Exercise "cheating" like swinging weights up and shortening range of motion only limits the effectiveness of the exercise.

Tip 8: Use supplements
It's hard to get all the protein, carbs and amino acids you need for optimum muscle growth from food alone. Some people say they don't need supplements, but most people will benefit from them.

Tip 9: Vary the intensity of your workouts
When you train using the same workout, on the same days, with the same exercises your muscles get used to it and stop growing. In order to beat plateaus and keep growing you should always keep changing your workouts, rep ranges, exercises, rest times etc. Not only will this keep you growing, but also stop your workouts from getting boring.

Tip 10: Increse the weight, but dont sacrifice technique
Never sacrifice good technique for heavier weights. Look at it this way, why are you in the gym, to build muscle or lift heavy weights? You will build more muscle with good technique and lighter weights the bad technique with heavy weights.

Tip 11: Learn how to squat
The squat is without a doubt the best muscle building exercise there is. Many novice lifters tend to shy away from squats because they cannot get the technique right and end up hurting their back. You need to continually perfect your squat technique. Use the mirrors in the gym, your friends, a personal trainer or whoever's there. Once you get the technique down packed you can use squats to build some serious muscle.

Tip 12: Don't try and build muscle and lose fat at the same time
Pick one or the other, you're either cutting (buring fat) or bulking (building muscle). It's very hard, if not impossible for some people to do both at the same time. Start bulking until you ht your target weight or your body fat gets to high, then strip it off and get ripped!

Tip 13: Drink plenty of water
Water is nature's miracle supplement. The benefits of drinking a lot of water are limitless. Water helps to build muscle by transporting nutrients throughout the body and helping deal with your high protein diet by flushing the kidneys. Drinking water is also good for overall health.

Tip 14: Free weights vs machines
Wherever possible you should always train with free weights (barbells and dumbbells). Machines often restrict your range of motion and the many smaller "stabilizer" muscles are not worked. Free weights are always better than machines.

Tip 15: Track your progress
There are several ways you can keep track of your progress. You should keep track of your body weight, measurements, workouts and diet. This way if you are not meeting your goals you can go back over what you've been doing and make improvements. And when you find a good combination of diet and training that works you have a record of it.

Tip 16: Always keep and open mind
Finally, always keep an open mind about other training techniques. Many people let their ego get in the way when it comes to trying new methods of training. Always listen to what experienced lifters have to say. You might find some of their training techniques backward or wierd but they usually have some merit.