I was told that if I wanted to lose weight, I should gain 10lbs in lean muscle, then loose 20lbs in fatness. 1. Does anybody know a good exercise routine using weights to gain muscle? I've never lited weights before. 2. What is a good powder to take? For weight gaining. *I was told creatine was bad. It gives you power and energy to make lifting easier. However, I was told that it degenerates the muscles in the long run. Thereby causing the muscles to develop a dependency on taking creatine to function properly. As such, lifting after no longer taking creatine would be more difficult than lifting before you ever took it. Developing muscle would be more difficult after no longer taking creatine that it was before starting. Is this true? Are there any good links about creatine facts? *I was told that the only thing you really need to take is protien powder in order to build lean muscle mass. There is protein powder, weight gainer powder, and meal replacement powder. Can somebody give a logical explanation of the diferrences between the three? I was told that as long as I was eating my own meals, all I would need to take is the protein powder. I went and got hemp protein powder with fiber. Not sure what the difference is between the one without fiber. Would this allow me to put on muscle mass as long as I eat good healthy meals?
do this: 1. sleep regularly for 8-10 hours at night 2. when you wake up, go jog for 1hr 3. don't eat foods with fat or cholesterol 4. try swimming
Instead of building muscle mass, it might be more advisable to go in for strength training as well as training for flexibility.
1. Which is better for my situation between hep with fiber and hemp without fiber? 2. What is the difference between protein powder and weight gainer powder? I will be eating a meal no matter which I take. 3. What is the truth about creatine? I would like the burst of energy to motivate me to lift more, however, I am weary of the warnings. 4. It is true if one is not using muscle, they will atrophy. Is it true that they will atrophy significantly faster if one has used creatine to build muscle in the past, bust stopped lifting and using creatine?
I swim sometimes. I also do alot of dance practice, so I get all the aerobics I need. I am working on flexibility big time. I have not really started to produce results as I don't know any decent routine. I heard this book was good: "The Genius of Flexibility: The Smart Way to Stretch and Strengthen Your Body". What is the difference between strength training and building muscle mass? I went to some of those strength training classes that invloved lots of aerobics integrated into it. I stopped because I found out it was unhealthy to loose weight I don't have muscle mass. Because the weight that I will loose is muscle mass. My plan is to go back to those classes after I have built my muscle mass, and attend them in order to stay fit in muscle while getting my aerobics at the same time, and maintaining my desired weight. MY GOAL My goal is gymnastics. Not necessarily all those tricks, but to have the balance, flexibility, and strength of a world class gymnist.
Aerobics cannot make you lose muscle mass; only inactivity does that. Muscle responds to stimulation. You can use training to improve muscle weight and strength Building muscle mass is unnecessary to improve overall fitness. Improving muscle tone may be easier to do and maintain.
Lixluke, You want to avoid powders for the simple reason that they are not natural foods. Not only do they taste yucky, they are they hard to digest and most people take enough to put the body under extreme stress, weakening their vitality. The 'cure' is worse than the disease. A lean, healthy, hard body takes years of focus to develop. Eat only clean nutrition-dense foods, gets lots of sunshine and varied exercise and eventually you will be rewarded.
Whoa... wait a minute. No. It's not. Making lifts easier? The fact is... the more weight you can lift with what you got, the more muscle you build. It's that simple. And if you are looking for an exercise routine.. make sure it includes squats and/or deadlifts. If you do your research on those two lifts, you'll see why. The first two reasons? Testosterone and maximal muscle recruitment. http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=998224 Read this thread and do that routine. Don't go about pulling a routine from "Muscle and Fitness" or other garbage magazines. As for powders... I take ON Whey only. But, it's only a protein supplement and works best only pre and post workout... only. It's not a food you take at every meal.
I read through that link. Those exercises look pretty good. I'll read it more thoroughly, and probably make a routine with it. 1. What is your opinion on creatine, and weight gainer powders? 2. What is the difference between protein powder and weight gainer powder? 3. Everybody here seems to admonish against taking any powders, and just eat healthy. What are the benefits of taking taking powders? I don't intend to use whey either way as it comes from cows milk. There is a protein powder from goats milk called, Goatine, but it is very expensive. Hemp protein seems to be just as good as any yes? The Hemp I have seems to be a meal supplement for extra protein. Not necessary for lean muscle gaining. I spoke to a guy that has a very good cut. He uses recommended Cytogainer. If I do decide taking weight gain powder is a good idea, I will likely go with that. If creatine is good too, I will add it as well. Everybody seems to think it is OK to do aerobics and strength training at the same time to loose pounds while gaining muscle mass. However it seems to also make sense to build the muscle mass first doing minimal aerobics at dance practice while doing regular body building at the gym. Then, once I gain the lean muscle mass pounds, to go ahead with the aerobic strength training plus spinning and dance practice to burn the fatness. Probably because building muscle mass first increases resting metabolic rate. That is why you do not burn the fat first to loose wieght, and then go ahead to gain the muscle mass. You gain the muscle mass first, then burn the fat to loose the fat weight. What would you say is a good idea in terms of increasing my muscle mass, and decreasing my fatness?
As Absane said, if you're planning on building muscle and general strength, squats and deadlifts are exercises that you absolutely should do, whether you're a man or a woman, whether you want to have huge muscles, or just look good and trim. Those are hugely important exercises for the reasons he mentioned--large scale muscle recruitment and it boosts your testosterone, which helps build muscle and trim fat. Like Absane mentioned, deadlifts and squats boost testosterone, so I do those at the beginning of the week. I lift pretty hard, for about 45 minutes and then I do cardio for about 15 minutes, Monday through Friday. I break my routine into different muscle groups. Monday I do back exercises with deadlifts. Tuesday: squats, crunches Wednesday: chest Thurs: shoulders Friday: arms This way on any given day I can give my total focus to a small group of muscles. Like I said, I'm hardcore and I do most of my exercises to failure (meaning I'll do as many shoulder presses/bench presses/chin-ups/whatever it is until I can't anymore). Of course, I don't always lift to failure, and neither should you. You should do warmups, as well, but I'm sure you know a little about that, or you'll learn about it anyway. If you're lazy, it's likely you won't have to be hardcore to gain 10 lbs of muscle. If I'm correctly guessing that you don't lift weights at all and you're not very active, you should gain weight quickly--provided that you lift consistently. However, be advised that after the first week of lifting weights, you are going to hurt. Your muscles will be sore as hell, especially a day or two after you started doing squats or deadlifts. In other words, start slow. Work your way up and then you can be more hardcore. My routine works well. I'm 6 feet tall and weigh about 195 lbs. My normal weight (without lifting weights at all) is 160 lbs, albeit, I wasn't fat, because when I weighed that much I was running quite a bit. So now I'm about 35 lbs more than I used to be, and I'm guessing about 30 of those pounds is muscle mass. I've been measured with those body fat calipers at 12.4%, which is normal, and from what I know, close to ideal. Here is an excellent link that shows you how to perform all of the exercises you'll need to know in order to gain those 10+ lbs of muscle. In other parts of the site, there's a lot of information about MaxOT training, bodybuilding and supplements. They try to get you to buy a lot of things, but if you just stick to this part of the site, you'll be good. It is very specific about how to execute the exercises and shows you many of the different phases with captioned pictures. http://ast-ss.com/training/exercises/eow-intro.asp I, like Absane, use ON (Optimum Nutrition). I'm somewhat wary of using those no-name brands. But I've heard some of those no-name brand whey protein powders are the same products as the brand name ones. I should do more research on that, because you can save quite a bit. I normally buy protein on Ebay and get a 5 lb tub for $35-40. But ON has worked very well for me. A while ago, Absane recommended mixing steel cut oats with shakes and I've been doing that ever since. I blend half a cup of steel cut oats with a scoop of protein, a cup and a half of milk, a teaspoon of creatine, and whatever else I can to put in there. Sometimes peanut butter, sometimes fruit, ginger, yogurt, flax seed--anything to make it interesting and more nutrient dense. It's a really important thing for me, because being the big guy I am, I eat a shitload of food. This is convenient, because it's cheap, I can put it down the hatch very quickly and it helps give my body the nutrition it needs. Food is expensive--if I didn't make these shakes, I would be eating a lot of other shit that's expensive and not even as good for me. I highly recommend that you do something like this. Fashion for yourself a shake that will help your body recuperate and give it fuel.
Of course strength training will cause you to build muscle mass. Training for flexibility is a good recommendation. I don't know the specific ways that it helps, but I'm pretty sure it helps prevent injuries. Yes, it can. If you're very much into bodybuilding, it does begin to cut into your ability to build and maintain muscle mass. Eventually, you have to make a trade-off. You have to choose whether you want to be really strong or have a really good cardiovascular capacity. I go more into the middle. I lift for strength, but I do cardio every day. I could be stronger if I stopped doing cardio, but doing cardio is too damn important if having giant muscles isn't that important to you. There are too many benefits to have a good cardiovascular system to give up. Helps your brain function (there's even evidence that cardio can stimulate the production of actual new brain cells, as well as stimulate new interneural pathways), helps create "feel good" chemicals, helps keep you trim, and I also just plain enjoy cardio exercise. No way I'm giving that up. I strive for an optimal balance between brute strength and cardiovascular capacity. It can help you lose fat though. Everybody should do squats and deadlifts. I guarantee if you started doing those exercises you'd be stronger, you'd feel better, and you'd have a more attractive body (of course I'm assuming you don't do those exercises). I bet it would be damn hard to not gain muscle if you started doing those exercises and began reaping those benefits.
Good advice This is tricky. Certainly you're not advising him to go run for an hour without eating first. Running for an hour requires a tremendous amount of energy--energy your body is extremely low in when you first wake up. When you first wake up, your glycogen levels are almost entirely depleted. That makes sense because you haven't eaten in 8-10 hours. First thing you should do before you do anything that consumes a lot of energy is eat! However, then you have the problem of running on a stomach, which is full of breakfast. It's really not good to run on a full stomach. So I really would recommend against running in the morning. You could get away with a light, brisk jog, for maybe 15-20 minutes or so, but I definitely wouldn't recommend running for an hour before or after breakfast. There's gotta be a better time to run. For example, many people sag in the midafternoon. It has something to do with the circadian rhythm. If you could somehow schedule it in that time, it would help get the oxygen pumping and give the old metabolism a good slap in the face! Don't avoid fats completely. Fats give you long-term energy and help you feel sated. There's nothing evil about fats, but do try to minimize intake of saturated fats, oils that have been heated to high temperatures, and especially trans-fats. The fat in peanut butter (natural peanut butter--not Jiff and the like) is good for you, so is vegetable oils like conola, fish oil, extra-virgin olive oil, flax seed oil and many other vegetable oils. Cholesterol is something you generally want to avoid though. However, I've heard in my nutrition class that your cholesterol levels have more to do with your genetics than the amount of cholesterol you actually ingest. Ohhh yeahhhh..
bodybuilding.com I wouldn't take weight-lifting advice from sciforum members anymore than I'd take car advice from doctors. Go to the specialized sites and you'll get much better information. I'm not saying everybody here is ignorant, but you'll get a lot more information if you go to a bodybuilding forum.
- Eat no refined carbohydrates - Eat highly complex cabs when you can-- whole wheat / oats, and eat them before noon. - Eat LOTS of protein - Eat moderate amounts of fat - Eat fruits only before noon, and no veggies after 7:00pm - By reducing your available carbs as the day goes on, you train your body to naturally wind down as the day progresses - Do your weights first, aerobics last - Try to work out before 5pm - Confuse your muscles, never do the same workout more than once a week - Drink lots of water... and then drink some more - Find a good / organic multi-vitamin - SLEEP! Get lots of sleep. - Don't make excuses-- do some kind of activity six days a week - Find a partner, good friends make good work-out buddies ~String
and that would lose you 10 lbs if you do the math. if you want to lose weight then cut out your saturated fat consumption. up your protein intake for amino acids. high rep workouts on a low weight to gain lean muscles. combined with plenty of cardio. if you want tight lean muscles then high reps low weight workouts with cardio are vital. for big bodybuilding muscles you need the opposite. lower reps with higher weight. but if you can manage then over 12 reps each set with high weights is fine. protein intake is the key to any form of muscle building routine. whey protein is the common pupular trend right now and it is good. but casein protein is even slower to digest and fuels your muscles for much longer periods after consumption than whey. many hardcore bodybuilders use casein powder. but the real stuff tastes like soap to me. but there is always ways to improve the taste. like adding milkshake powder. or fat free yoghurt. no creatine is not bad for you. (monohydrate). aslong as you drink plenty of water during the day and workout its fine. it is very effective with energy level and stamina increase. i dont suggest taking protein supplements or creatine if your just going to sit around and not stay hydrated. i take monohydrate caps daily along with whey and casein protein. creatine does not directly build any muscle int he first place. protein builds muscle and only protein. you dont need to take protein powders. you can gain muscle purely fromt he protein intake from foods alone. but i suggest taking as many different sources of protein as you can. variety is key, you can get many types of proteins with different acids, amino acids are the key factor. the more different types of protein you take the better your results. the difference is that protein powder is for building muscle because muscles are made of protein, apart from water protein is the main content of the human body. weight gain powder is not mainly protein based, it contains fat usualy to gain bulk. this is not ideal for gaining lean muscle. and meal replacement suplements contain vitamins minerals and nutrients that the body needs and are not for building muscles. you can get all in 1 powders also. fiber is a much needed part of your diet, but hemp protein is for vegans, because most protein comes from animal products that are on the market (not all), its a substitute for vegans. dont just rely on powders for protein. and dont just rely on food for muscles, because without the workouts and hard labour you will get nowhere. its no walk in the park and you must always remember to stretch, its the basic rule you must always follow. always stretch or dont bother working out atall. take roughly 1 gram of protein per KG of your bodyweight per day. if you intake anymore you will most likely pass the remaining protein out through your urine. unless you are seriously pumping some iron then it will be used. and most people dont understand this but listen carefully to this next part. just before you go to sleep take in protein, your muscle mass builds up and repairs during the night when you are sleeping, your body needs protein during sleep. i will give you a quick guide ok. wake up. eat breakfast. fruit, oats, milk,(meal 1). an hour or 2 later eat again, 3 slices of brown bread with tuna. (meal 2). an hour or 2 later eat lunch, chicken with rice and peas, (meal 3) an hour later drink a protein shake (meal 4) have a workout for roughly 1 hour or mor. straight after drink another protein shake (meal 5) an hour or 2 later eat dinner, lamb, potatoes, veg, (meal 6) just before bed drink another protein shake, or have a protein bar. everyday switch up the meals to keep a balenced diet. eat pieces of fruit and veg in between meals. always keep hydrated. over 10 glasses of water per day. roughly around 15 i would say. most people say 7 glasses of water is ok, yeah it is ok if your a coach potatoe but not if your an athelete or bodybuilder. peace.
Yes. The objective is to lose weight, and at the same time gain strength and energy. I suffer from pretty severe cronich fatigue. I plan to do a few detox cleaning fasts next 2 week or so. Yes tight lean muscle is my goal. My ultimate goal is to lose weight for the physical traits of a gymnist and a marathon runner. My goal is to be slim, and lean. I'm assuming you are saying that the strength training aerobics is fine. It is where we do step aerobics with dumbells. Absane has a link to a plan that seems pretty good. Would it not make more sense to gain pounds in lean muscle mass first in order to increase my resting metabolic rate? Such as following Absane's plan. Then after I have gained my lean muscle mass, to do spinning to lose weight while doing the strength training aerobics to maintain my muscle. Kewl! I think I will take the creatine to give me the energy to work out while I am doing my muscle mass weight gian routine. Then I will discontinue using it when I am ready to do my fat burn routine. Thanks! This is the exact information I was looking for. I had no clue that is what weight gain powder is. Yes. Or folks such as myself who are avoiding any meat/dairy/cooked/processed products. Here is my plan: Make soy milk using raw soybeans and water. Blend it with hemp protein (w/fiber) powder, raw almonds, raw flax seeds, raw sunflower seeds, raw carob powder, raw fruit juice(banana, apple, strawberry, grape, other), creatine. Drink this as a shake in the morning before working out. Then drink as a shake at night w/o the creatine before sleep. During the day drink lots of raw green drinks. Drink raw fruit juices seperately as the fruit juice enzymes will eat nutrients from green drinks. Eat some raw organic meal during the day. The shake should allow me to gain the muscle mass weight I need.
you wont hear people speak about this much but cissus is perfect for you, its the closest thing you will find to a miracle for what you need. its true name is cissus quadrangularis commonly known as veldt grape. its perfect for you, increases muscle mass, reduces fat, high in vit C/carotene/calcium/photosterols. they have done intensive studies on this in cameroon. most people dont even know of this substance, its from africa and asia. i suggest that you go and get some. a gymnast has a very different body to a marathon runner. a gymnast has well built rounded muscles simular to a martial artist who also lifts weights. a marathon runner is very slim with hardly any muscle mass, personaly i would go for the gymnast build not the runner. i have not read the plan, gain lean muscle mass before what exactly?. hmm as a personal trainer, i have never seen anybody gain lean muscle mass without losing any weight. to gain lean muscle you need high rep workouts and cardio combined with stretches. and if you perform the above you lose weight. so i cant see how somebody can gain the lean muscle while not losing the weight, doesent make sense to me. use creatine to help with building your muscles and increasing your workout performance. dont take it on days when your not lifting weights. on my workout days i take 3 caps before a workout and 3 after. each cap contains 700 mg. no problem, i personaly do not use weight gain supplements. but i know many body builders who do. i also know people who eat 7 raw eggs per day, ang again i personaly do not lol. why are you avoiding dairy and meat? i understand the cooked and processed products. but whats wrong with dairy and fresh lean meat? turkey/tuna/skinless chicken are perfect for building muscle and healthy too. sure i see no harm in that, its personal choice. but personaly i think that would taste bad. taking the creatine before you sleep wont do much, take protein before you sleep, but leave the creatine for before and after workouts. also take protein before and after workouts. peace.
