Fat Boy Club

When  a personal trainer first asks a new gym attendee what their goals are, they most often hear replies such as: “Build muscle lose fat”,  “build muscle then lose“, “burn fat build muscle”, ”build muscle and burn fat”. So it seems that most people want to build muscle mass and also at the same time decrease their waistline and body fat percentage. In the next few paragraphs I discuss if it is really possible to do this or is it something that only professional bodybuilders and marketing companies believe is possible?

Is it possible to simultaneously to build muscle mass and lose fat?

The short answer is ‘yes’ however not without a great deal of difficulty, calculating calories and discipline but it can be done! To build muscle you need to take on excess calories than you work off throughout each leaving enough left to build muscle but not so much that they get stored as fat. With too many extra calories you shall increase your body fat and possibly muscle mass too, without excess calories you will never grow extra muscle. The secret is to consume sufficient calories to build muscle mass but not enough so that fat is built. There are

If you wish to avoid adding fat at the same time as building muscle then you really have to work out your exact calorie requirements and then stick to them. to work out your calorie requirements then use the following simple equation that provides an approximate answer:

Find out your body weight and you percentage body fat e.g. 200 pounds with 10% body fat.

Calculate your body’s lean mass.g. 200 pounds – 10% equals 190.

Take your lean body mass and times it by 19 e.g. 190 multiplied by 19 equals = 3610

This is then the amount of calories you approximately need to eat to gain muscle mass provided you are doing effective workouts too. Whilst this is a rough figure if you consumed 500-1000 more calories then you would certainly increase your muscle gains and put on some body fat. this number of course is only an approximate figure and it would be difficult to track the number of calories you consume in a day anyway.

So assuming you do not want to follow the above very tricky method what are the other options to build muscle and lose fat. Well most aspiring bodybuilders naturally opt for the second option which is much wiser and come highly recommended. First thing you need to do is build muscle then lose weight. This is often called doing a bulking phase and the a cutting phase. This is much easier as in the first phase you simply need to eat a lot and often. Therefore all you need to do really is to take on board more calories than the above total. This phase would usually last for 3-6 months after which you will likely have put on a good few kilograms in solid muscle and also a few kilos in body fat too. Now you star eating less food and do more cardio work so that you are burning off each day more calories than you are using.

Over the course of a few months you will maintain the same muscle mass and just burn off the excess fat. So in actuality looking at the results a year later you will have indee have built muscle and burnt fat but you will have achieved this by going through two stages. The long term affect is excatly the same only you use to distinct phases and it is a lot easier to do.

So if you do wish to build muscle and burn fat I highly recommend that you build muscle then lose fat in two separate stages. Expert author Tom Venuto has the entire process and more broken down into simple steps for you, read the ‘Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle E-book’ Review here for more information on how to build muscle then lose fat.

Just before I tackle the main purpose of this article which is to show how to build muscle vegetarian style I will briefly outline the different types of vegetarians. Vegans won’t eat dairy products or any other products of animals, pesco-vegetarians will cosume fish and other dairy products whereas lacto-ovo vegetarians will both consume milk and eat eggs but won’t eat meat. This is sufficient categorisation for now although there are several further types of vegetarians.

Why choose to be a vegetarian?

Well because of the nature of the food vegetarians do not eat, things like red meat and so on they have a lower risk of certain diseases including but not limited to hypertension, coronary artery diseaese, a variety of cancers and diabetes mellitus. As you may agree the reasons for changing to be vegetarian are compelling indeed and that is before we even begin to discuss the idealistic side of things such as being less cruel to animals, saving food for starving others, conserving the rainforest, becoming more friendly to the enviroment and such like.

Ok, so if I am vegetarian how on earth am I going to get adequate supplies of protein?

Well, the answer to for vegetarians is remarkably simple, soy. Soy in reality has higher levels of protein than beef and also contains all eight of the essential amino acids. Particularly good sources of soy include: seitan, miso, soy milk, tempeh, textured soy protein and of course tofu. These ingredients can form the basis of a good deal of tasty dishes. Another great supply of protein for vegetarians are beans, rice, seeds, legumes, nuts and even vegetables which together can pack together a wide variety of amino acids, so you should never go short.

Alright so that is protein deficiency crossed off the myth list now how about vitamins and minerals like: zinc, vitamin D, calcium, iron and vitamin B12?

Well, supplements should be taken by vegans for this. Vitamin B 12 is found easily in dairy products making this no cause for concern for other types of vegetarians. A good meal replacement powder will see that you get adequate amounts of the other. Of course however many minerals and vitamins are easily available in the form of leafy green vegetables and fruit that you should not overlook if you wish to build muscle up vegetarian style. 

So, overall there are many health benefits to being a vegetarian and being a vegetarian need not prevent you from achieving your bodybuilding goals. Of course a key factor to your diet succes will be the ability to plan, however this is just as crucial for meat eating bodybuilders also. With the above guidelines in mind go ahead and build muscle vegetarian style!! 

There is advice floating around both on and offline about how to build muscle fast. As a personal trainer myself here are a few little known facts, building muscle tips and secrets that I personally consider worth your while contemplating on your quest to build muscle mass:

I often hear that you should train each muscle group just once a week. Whilst this may produce optimal progress for extreme hardgainers it is not true for most people. Of course you need to avoid overtraining but in life generally you get good at things by doing them  more often not less and this is true to some extent in bodybuilding too. Muscle groups should be trained no less than twice per week. In fact ideally you should push your body through periods of near overtraining an then drop off into periods of undertraining. This provides times when there is a lot of stress for the body to handle and other times when the body has more time to recover and build momentum for another push. Training plateaus can be avoided by doing this.

Ensure that your training sessions don’t exceed 45 minutes. If you think that is not long enough then either your routine is too long or you don’t workout intensely enough. 45 minutes will be plenty if you really focus on intensity and avoid distractions. If your training session lasts more than this then testosterone levels fall significantly because of the increased cortisol production which actually causes the body to eat muscle tissue plus store fat. exactly the opposite to what we want.

In an ideal world you should put your training sessions in to cycles. after a while a workout loses its ability to stimulate growth as your body has already adapted to it. You should change your routine before your gains diminish completely. You need to ensure that you don’t change your training sessions to frequently either. Doing so could confuse your bodies muscles overly so and stop it working its way into a nice groove.

Big gains are unlikely to occur for you if you don’t use the correct exercises. The right exercises are exercises that allow you to perform multi-joint movements and are know as compound exercises. The number one exercises being: bench presses, rows, squats, pull ups, shoulder presses plus any exercise that moves your entire body through air ie, not just moving individual limbs. If you use these exercises, with a few of their variations and correct muscle building nutrition then you can’t help but stimulate muscle mass growth. With those points in mind it is time to go hit the gym and get huge.

All bodybuilders want to increase their size at a faster rate. Fast gains is the name of the game , no-one likes waiting. So it is very frustrating that it takes months or years to build muscle mass. However we are able to decrease the time it takes to build muscle. So here are 10 hot tips that show you how to build muscle up fast. They are here:

1. The Overload Concept. This basically means that you have to increase or improve the workload you do every workout. make sure that you are always stretching the limits of your muscles in some way to ensure that they continue to be stimulated. By placing ever increasing demands on the body we can force it to continually grow and adapt to the new demands each workout in order to build muscle fast.

2. 8-12 is the best rep range to be aiming for. This rep range has been proven to build muscle for size fastest. Doing reps in the range of 3-6 may certainly increase strength it is not the most productive for increasing size. If you are doing over 15 reps whilst your muscles will increase in endurance they won’t increase in size as much because a different type of muscle fibre is being stimulated.

3. 6-9 sets should be the maximum done for any particular bodypart per workout. More than that can lead to overtraining. This will keep your workouts shorter and sharper and avoid the body releasing catabolic hormones which actually don’t help you build muscle. In any case try to keep your workout down to 45 minutes so it is nice and intense.

4. Consume enough calories. You must support your muscle growth with an excess amount of quality calories. Excess calories are needed for muscle to grow. Quality calories are needed and can be gotten from rice, breads, pasta for carbs, fish, lean white meat for protein and fresh leafy green fruit and vegetables for vitamins and minerals.

5. Consume more protein. Protein repairs and builds muscle so is definetely required. If you don’t have enough protein then you won’t be able to build muscles fast. You can get an approximate calculation of the protein you need by:
Lean Mass Body Weight in kg times 2.75 = Each day this is your protein intake target

To workout your lean mass weight you need to know your percentage body fat. This can be undertaken at any gym or an easier way is to eat one gram of protein per pound of your bodyweight.

6. Take on fat! This is solid advice as increases the amount of anabolic muscle building hormones released by the body. Steroids are used by some people to do this naturally however a good bodybuilding diet will also help do this.

7. Liquids. A great deal of chemical reactions in the body, such as those responsible for muscle building, require copious amounts of water in order to take place. It is therefore wise to take on board more muscle than usual. This should not be overlooked if you really want to build muscle fast.

8. Limit the number of aerobic workouts you do. This is because cardio workouts release the catabolic hormone that actually can lead to muscle tissue being broken down, the exact opposite of what you want. It will also at the same time reduce the number of calories that your body has that you wish to preserve so that you can be building muscle as whilst you are resting.

9. My favourite: Sleep. Your muscles can only grow and repair themselves during periods of rest and sleep is clearly a key rest period. Before going to sleep take a protein shake. Starving your body overnight is the last thing you should be doing if you want muscle growth. During sleep growth hormones are released, your muscles experience increased blood flow and your metabolic rate slows down. All of these are ideal conditions for building muscle fast.

10. Be committed. Don’t give up on your goals. You are going to turn into Mr. Olympis overnight however by following the previous guidelines you will notice increase in muscle mass especially over a three month period. The above tips are practiced by many experienced bodybuilders and I assure you they really do show you how to build muscle up fast.

Normally bodybuilding articles talk about how to build muscle up, diet, training workouts, muscle building nutrition and so on, however whilst these are all really important there is one things slightly different I would like to introduce to you and your muscle building armoury. It is known as the reticular activating system (RAV).

The RAV works together with the visual componenet of our brain and diverts our attention to specific things that our sub conscious has programmed into it, to be important to achieve our goals. This sub-conscious thought pattern that we have is literally what makes us notice, hear and take action on the things that we do on a daily basis.

Neuroscientists have now proven this and as such it proves the vaildity of positive thinking and the law of attraction. If you have never heard of the law of attraction before it is basically the asumption that ‘what you think about, you bring about’ or ‘thoughts become things’. Now in the past this was thought of as being a bit to new agey for the majority of people however there is an increasing acceptance of this mental approach worldwide.

Now it doesn’t really matter if you adopt the neuro-scientists point of view about it or the new age approach to this as it will still work. Therefore by reprogramming our subconscious mind it is possible to activate our RAV which in turn will ensure that we take the correct steps to achieve our goals as we will simply be recognisiing the most effective way to get there more easily. Some people will come across strange co-incidences that will help there progress which is not uncommon and often gives this ‘law of attraction’ an unearthly feel whereas the truth is those things were probably there waiting to be found all along!

So what use is any of this to a bodybuilder? Well think now about your present ongoing thought patterns. Exactly what thoughst do you have running through your mind on a day to day basis. Are they thoughts like ‘losing weight is too difficult’ or ‘I never grow muscle fast’ for if they are then that is exactly what your RAV system is choosing for you to notice and act upon on a daily basis. It is therefore your sub conscious thought patterns that you need to change to positive muscle building patterns such as: ‘muscle gains come quickly and easily’ or ‘I am getting ripped fast’ and so on.

How can you change these patterns? Here are a couple of things to try:

1)       Visualisation: first you need to set aside 5 minutes or so each day to do this. Simply shut your eyes and visulaise in your minds eye precisely how you want your body to look. Large biceps, huge chest muscle, enormous thighs and so on, ensure that you can see as clearly as possible this vision and keep it in your minds eye with a sense of strong self belief.’

2)       Speak out aloud clearly and confidently simple statements like: I am extremely fit and healthy, I am huge and muscular, I am growing more and more each day and so on.

Go through these everyday. Usually 30 days is all that is required in order to over ride the previous thought patterns. Following that, keep doing them in order to continually reaffirm your new beliefs and thought programming.

If you don’t believe that this stuff works then I suggest that you take a look at a few sportsmens autobiographies or sports studies books, I gaurantee that you will find these processes talked about in depth, particularly visualisation which is an amazingly productive technique that should get daily usage!

Ok with these positive thoughts and feelings in mind, go build muscle mass!

As we are all aware a good muscle building diet is critical to build muscle up. What is also important is the timing of your meals. Around two hours prior to your workout is when I recommend you eat your meal.This should provide plenty of time for digestion so that you don’t start your session when you are feeling bloated or full and lethargic.

In an ideal world this preworkout snack ought to be something that you are used to and that you know won’t make you feel heavy and bloated as you want to be feeling your best to give your all in the gym. Make sure it contains slow burning energy such as that found in rice and oatmeal and that you consume the protein part first. If you don’t eat protein first then you are putting yourself at risk of becoming tired. This happens because both the protein and carbohydrate cause the body to release certain chemicals that affect the brain. Protein stimulates the release of tyrosine which signals your brain to be alert and energetic as opposed to the carbohydrate which stimulates the release of tryptophan and instructs the brain to make you feel tired. Therefore always eat the carbohydrate second.

If you really want to know how to build muscles quickly then great advice is to drink a protein and carbohydrate shake about half an hour before you workout. This will really boost your energy levels for your gym session. Ingredients might include whey protein, maltodextrin, wxymaize or dextrose. The total drink should have around 25 grams of protein and about forty grams of carbs. Doing this will raise your insulin levels which is one of the bodies strongest and most effective muscle building hormones. Furthermore it will also cut down the amount of cortisol that is produced by your body which has a negative impact on muscle building.

Remember working out when you are already hungry and tired is not a good thing, you certainly won’t be breaking any personal bests. Always try to keep fruit or meal replacement powders or bars to hand should you ever not have time for a proper solid pre-workout meal.

If you are a regular coffee drinker then try and switch your coffee for a green tea which contains less caffeine but has lots more health benefits. One more thing, don’t forget to keep taking on board the water all day. Ok bear those things in mind and you’ll be hitting the gym in peak mode for an awesome muscle stimulating workout which you will be able to grow from because you will have had the correct muscle building nutrition.

Normally bodybuilding articles talk about how to build muscle up, diet, training workouts, muscle building nutrition and so on, however whilst these are all really important there is one things slightly different I would like to introduce to you and your muscle building armoury. It is known as the reticular activating system (RAV).

The RAV works together with the visual componenet of our brain and diverts our attention to specific things that our sub conscious has programmed into it, to be important to achieve our goals. This sub-conscious thought pattern that we have is literally what makes us notice, hear and take action on the things that we do on a daily basis.

Neuroscientists have now proven the vaildity of positive thinking and the law of attraction through various skeptic proof experiments. If you have never heard of the law of attraction before it is basically the asumption that ‘what you think about, you bring about’ or ‘thoughts become things’. Now in the past this was thought of as being a bit to new agey for the majority of people however there is an increasing acceptance of this mental approach worldwide.

Now it doesn’t matter if you take the neuro-scientists approach about it or the metaphysical approach to it because it will work either way. So by reprogramming the software of our mind like this it is then possible for us to identify an pick out more clearly the paththat we need to take to reach our goals faster. Some people will experience beneficial co-incidences that will significantly aid there progress, this is from uncommon but often gives this ‘law of attraction’ a slightly magical feel whereas in reality those things were probably there all the while anyway!

So how is this of any use to a bodybuilder? Well consider now your present thought patterns. What is it precisely that you are saying to yourself on day to day basis. Are they thoughts such as ‘losing weight is impossible for me’ or ‘My muscles won’t grow’ for if they are then that is precisely what your RAV system is selecting for you to notice and take action upon on a day to day basis. It is therefore your everyday sub conscious thought process that you need to alter to positive muscle building thought processes such as: ‘muscle mass come quickly and easily’ or ‘I am getting huge fast’ and so on.

How can these thought patterns be altered? Here are a couple of things to try:

1)       Visualisation: first you need to set aside 5 minutes or so each day to do this. Simply close your eyes and picture your body in as much detail as you can exactly what you want it too look like. Large biceps, huge chest muscle, massive quads and such like, ensure that you can see as vividly as possible this vision and keep it in your mind with a sense of strong self belief.’

2)       Speak out aloud clearly and confidently simple statements like: I am extremely fit and healthy, I am huge and muscular, I am growing more and more each day and so on.

Go through these everyday. For most people just 21-30 days is all that is required to over ride the old thought patterns and to start operating on the new ones. Following that, keep doing them in order to continually reaffirm your new thought patterns.

If you do not believe that this works then read a few sports books, autobiographies of famous sportsmen or sports science books and I guarantee that you will find techniques such as these mentioned in them especially visualisation, which is an immensely powerful tool that you should be using daily!

Ok with these positive thoughts and feelings in mind, go build muscle mass!

“Can I build muscle mass at home or do I need to go to a gym” is a frequently asked question?. ‘No’ is the resounding answer. There are pros and cons to working out at home and in a gym. You can easily build muscle home.

Working out in a regular gym allows you access to all sorts of new and different types of equipment, you can get professional advice easily as well, plus it is likely to be much safer. However working out in a gym can be quite annoying at times if you have to que up for a piece of equipment or the other people working out there are not really as motivated as you are and are sat chatting about the latest television series or whatever.

As regards working-out at home, there are many benefits to this: no fee (my favourite), no hassle travelling there and parking, workout with your shirt off, you can play your own music, no queing for equipment and you don’t have to worry about what other people are thinking about you when you are shouting at the bar for motivation.

The negatives are the intial outlay of money at that is required to purchase the equipment although this will likely last a for ages and can be sold again second hand, you may also incur the wrath of your housemates/partner if you use up too much room.

Working-out at home allows you to build muscle mass at your convenience and if you go by the following how to build muscles fast at home guidelines you should not have a problem working-out at home:

1)Find a suitably large space, such as a garage, basement or spare room. You should always have a solid ground floor which means that a ground floor is a much safer option. Good vetilation is going to be useful too. Water proof your garage if that is where you workout as this will stop water making your weights rust.

2) Anything easily damaged should be removed. Ample warning is provided byt youtube where a guy doing barbell curls unfortunately lets his barbell nudge his large fish tank with a barbell just a little too hard! humourous to view unless it is your tank. A permanent location will avoid problems like this, imagine putting a barbell through a plasma tv screen or dropping a weight disc on a laptop computer, not fun.

3) Buy the following training equipment: a normal weights bench, squat stand, a workout mat, a pull up bar and a set of cast iron barbells and dumbells. There are some great innovative pieces of equipment out there so take a look around but make sure you buy very sturdy equipment that will last, don’t skimp on quality as it is going to take a lot of hammer!

4) Create a decent program. Top quality muscle mass building exercises can be done with that equipment. Bench-presses, pull-ups, squats, dead lifts are all must have multi-joint exercises which should be used followed by exercises such as: barbell curls, upright rows, shrugs, lunges, shoulder presses, lateral raises and bent over rows are also great to include.

5) Consider the dangers. As you are going to be working out solo then get a friend around to help you if you want to perform any heavy one rep maximums as this will help keep you safe. Always ensure weights are securely locked on to the barbell. most weight benches let you insert a pin at the bottom of your lift when the barbell is at the height slightly above your chest, ensure you insert this as if you cannot make the lift it can take the pressure for you, do the same in the squat stand too.

So, by following the above ‘how to build muscle home guidelines’ you can have a great workout, build heaps of muscle mass and all in the convenience of your own home.

We all know that very close to the top os bodybuilders shopping list is a large set of impressive biceps. Naturally they are one of the most visible and eye catching muscles that will win you lots of praise. so, how come then so many bodybuilders still have no real bicep size even after months or years of bicep training.

Well, it may be of interest to you that this small muscle is often very poorly trained. By that I mean that many people go about building biceps muscle in completely the wrong way.

Here a number of guidelines will be put firmly down that will ensure that you can grow big biceps in the shortest possible time. So here is out brief biceps guide how to build up muscles fast .

1) When doing your back routine you will already be working your biceps very hard indeed. Therefore concentrate on progressing on these exercises and you will automatically get bigger biceps.

2) Don’t punish your biceps too much. This is suprisingly easy to do because of the back workouts so don’t do more than a max of 4 sets for your biceps.

3) Choose the appropriate exercises for your goal. The number one bicep mass builders are underhand pull ups and rowing movements. Standing barbell curls will be the only option if you really do feel the need to do more sets. Steer clear of shaping exercises like seated concentration curls which are designed as exercise to shape and carve already large muscles. if that doesn’t sound like you then other exercises will be more suitable.

4) Ensure the rep range is between 5-7 to maximise muscle size improvements. Track your progress with a training log to monitor your progress. This allows you to set targets for each workout which is both motivating and ideal to review your progress. Next up muscle building nutrition.

5) Are you getting enough calories inside you. You need to be taking on enough calories to ensure that you can support the muscle growth you want. Eat between 5 and 7 times each and everyday with meals containing fruits, fish, pastas, rice, lean white meats and so on. These are the types of food that will provide qulity nutrional calories that will boost your growth.

6) Get plenty of rest. You’ve probably heard before that your muscles do not grow whilst you are pumping iron they grow when you are at rest. So, don’t you think it is only just common sense to give them plenty of rest. If you are not then your attempts to build muscle will be wasted.

So there we have it, our brief muscle building guide to biceps. Check you are following those guidelines and you may just boost your bicep size and build up muscle mass quicker than you expected. Go hit it!

As you have already gotten past the headline you probably know what a hardgainer is. If you are not aware of the term that basically it kind be defined as some one who has immense difficulty putting on weight in the form of fat or muscle! Often this may be due to that person having an overly speedy metabolism.

Metabolism or metabolic rate refers to the rate at which your body burns up the calories it has taken on whilst performing the natural reactions of the body. If your metabolism is particularly slow then it will be easier to put on fat tissue as you are not burning up as many calories at rest as someone with a faster metabolism.

For supporting muscle gains we should be trying to creat a surplus amount of calories, this is difficult for hardgainers as they rapaidly use up their calories even at rest. So, how can hardgainers counter this? Here is our how to build muscle guide for hardgainers:

1) Keep the cardio workouts to a minimum. Cardio workouts will increase the speed at which your body consumes calories both at rest and also uses up calories during the exercise itself. You must avoid this if you are trying to create a surplus amount of calories.

2) Eat double! You need to take on board heaps of calories. To do so, double the portion of food that you would normally consume. Buying extra large bowls, plates and cups will help you not to forget this.

3) Eat 5-7 meals per day. This is critical to build muscle mass. Your digestive system is only capable of absorbing a certain amount of nutrients at any given meal therefore it is wise to spread the meals out to maximise the bodies capacity and ensure the body is never short on energy. consuming 2-3 meals/snacks a day is said to slow down the bodies metabolic rate which is true but that does not mean it is something that you should do. Why? Because your body may slip into starvation mode and release muscle building inhibiting chemicals.

4) Take supplements. Make use of the fantastic meal replacement powders and protein drinks that are readily available nowadays. These include huge amounts of exactly the ingredients you should be getting. The best times to take them are immediately before and after a workout when your body has the highest demand for them.

Stop performing exercises like concentration curls and stick with classic compound mass building exercises. Your sessions need to involve: dead lifts, pull ups, squats and bench presses. These are the best and quickest method to build muscle mass in the right places fastest.

6) Stop doing so many sets. Growth can be stimulated in only 40 minute sessions consisting of only 3 sets for each body part and as few as 10 sets a session. More is generally worse for hardgainers! ignite growth then shoot out of the gym and keep your calories available for growing.

7) Drink loads of water. It is crucial for many important reactions in the body so don’t forget to do this. Consume liquids regularly.

There we go, give those muscle building tips a try. Wait for the results and see what they are after a couple of months before you judge them. Go for it, if not now when? I hope you found our how to build muscle fast tips useful.