How To Weight Train For Maximum Muscle Gain

By: Anthony Ellis

Weight training involves the use of equipment that enables
variable resistance. This resistance can come in the form of
"free weights" like barbells and dumbbells, machines that use
cables or pulleys to help you lift the weight and bodyweight
exercises like pull-ups or dips.

Free Weights vs. Machines vs. Bodyweight Exercises

For maximum muscle gain, the focus of your workouts should
consist of free weight exercises. Not machines or bodyweight
exercises. This is not to say that you should not use machines
or bodyweight exercises, but they should not be the focus of
your training. To get an effective, muscle blasting workout, you
must stimulate the most muscle fibers as possible, and machines
do not do this.

The main reason for this is a lack of stabilizer and synergist
muscle development. Stabilizer and synergist muscles are
supporting muscles that assist the main muscle in performing a
complex lift. The more stabilizers and synergists worked, the
more muscle fibers stimulated. Multi-jointed free weight
exercises like the bench press, require many stabilizer and
synergistic muscle assistance to complete the lift. On the other
hand doing a bench press using a machine will need almost no
stabilizer assistance.

Since machines are locked into a specific range of motion and
help to support the weight along that path, they fail to
stimulate the muscles that surround the area you are working
(stabilizers). This is a mistake. If your stabilizer muscles are
weak, then the major muscle group will never grow!

Free weight exercises like the dumbbell press or squat, for
example, put a very large amount of stress on supporting muscle
groups. That's why you will get fatigued faster and not be able
to lift as much weight as you did on the machine. But you will
gain more muscle, become stronger very quickly and have a true
gauge of your strength.

If you use machines in your program, they should be used to work
isolated areas and only after all multi-jointed exercises have
been completed.

Beginners should begin with a limited combination of machine
exercises, bodyweight exercises and mult-jointed free weight
exercises. Before increasing the weight levels, they should work
on becoming familiar with the proper form and execution of each.
Soon, bodyweight exercises will become insufficient to stimulate
growth and they will need to focus on more free weight
exercises.

Multi-Jointed Exercises

The exercises that work the large muscle groups are called
compound (or multi-joint) movements that involve the
simultaneous stimuation of many muscle groups. These compound
exercises should be the foundation of any weight training
program because they stimulate the most amount of muscle in the
least amount of time.

Here are the basic movements:

* Bench Presses (works the chest, shoulders, tricep) * Overhead
Presses (shoulders, tricep) * Pull-ups/Barbell Rows (back,
bicep) * Squats (legs, lower back) * Deadlifts (legs, back,
shoulders) * Bar Dips (shoulders, chest, arms)

I cannot overemphasize the importance of these exercises. Do not
start an advanced weight training program without them!

They will overload your entire skeletal and muscular system like
no machine could ever do, giving you and effective workout in a
very short period of time. If you can only do a few exercises,
then do these. They have been proven (and not just by me) to
encourage muscle and strength gain unlike any other exercises.

Lift Heavy Weight

To build mass, you must weight train with heavy weights. By
heavy, I mean a weight that is challenging for you -- not me, or
anyone else. To consider a weight heavy, you should only be able
to do a maximum of 8-12 reps before your muscles temporarily
fail. A weight is considered "light" if you can do more than 15
reps before muscle fatigue sets in.

Heavy weights stimulate more muscle fibers than lighter weights.
It's that simple. More muscle stimulation means more muscle
growth.

Don't Overtrain

Heavy weight training puts a huge strain on your body, so
adequate rest and recuperation after your workouts is essential.
If you are prone to train too often, several things happen:

You don't give your muscles enough time to recuperate between
workouts. If your muscles have not repaired themselves, you will
not be at maximum strength for your next workout. Rest is
essential. Other than eating, this should be your main focus.

You are setting yourself up for burnout or an injury. I know you
are motivated and excited about working out, but don't be
careless. You must pace yourself, you want to be able to keep
this up for a long time, not burnout before you reach your
goals. I only weight train 3 times per week, that's all. Anymore
than that and I would not give my body enough time to repair and
build new muscle.

Contrary to popular belief, you do not grow while working out,
you only grow when you are resting.

Below is an example mass workout. I did 4 heavy sets for 4-8
reps each.

Wednesday (legs, abs)

* Heavy Squats, leg extension superset * Seated Calve Raises, 4
strips sets * Crunches (4 sets of 20)

-------

Friday (chest, shoulder, triceps, abs)

* Flat bench press, incline dumbbell flyes superset * Shoulder
press, side raises superset * Tricep pushdowns * Reverse incline
leg raises (3 sets of 20)

------

Sunday (back, biceps, abs)

* Wide grip pull-ups, latbar pulldown superset * EZ bar bicep
curl, incline dumbbell curls superset * Crunches (4 sets of 20)

Nothing fancy, but effective.

About the author:
Former "skinny guy" Anthony Ellis is the author of Gaining
Mass!This unique program designed to help people gain weight and
build muscle, is currently being used in over 90 countries Click
here for more information http://www.fastmusclegain.co
m

Questioning The Obesity Myth

By: Sussy Harlet

The Fleshiness Myth: Why United States's Obsession with Weight
Is Hazardous to Your Health. Gotham Books, New York, 2004. At a
June 2, 2005, press conference, Dr. Julie Gerberding, the
director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
apologized for the mixed messages the populace has been getting
approximately the dangers of fleshiness. Acknowledging that
flawed data in several CDC studies had exaggerated the risks of
, Gerberding was responding in part to critics such as Saint
Paul Campos. Campos rightly sounds the alarm over bad skill, and
his volume The Myth (reissued in May 2005 as The Diet Myth) was
prominently featured in a recent Scientific American cover
clause.

The Bible and controversy provide an object lesson in
skepticism. Campos is not a checkup professional but a lawyer;
he makes a point of mentioning this, implying that his status as
an outsider to the issuance aids his judgment. It is important
to remember, however, that lawyers do not seek the truth;
instead, they advocate for one side. In this case, Campos is
advocating on behalf of those who believe that the efforts to
portray fatness as unhealthy and unacceptable ar driven by
debris scientific discipline, hatred of blubber people, and a
profit-hungry dieting industry. He also believes that the
time-honored free weight loss recipe of watching what you eat
and exercising doesn't work. Campos charges that "almost
everything the government and the media [] saying close to
exercising weight and weighting control [is] either grossly
distorted or flatly untrue." The whole field is rife with "dust
," Campos writes, and former Operating surgeon Full general
Jacques Louis David Satcher was "brainsick" in his efforts to
curb US's .

It is certainly true, as Dr. Gerberding admitted (and Patrick
Johnson explains in this publication), that assorted estimates
of 's death toll were consistently overdone. While Campos and
other critics can gloat in vindication, the fact is that is only
the latest in a long list of world threats that have been by a
sensationalist news media (and, to a lesser degree, by the
medical checkup community). The dire warnings, publicity, and
hype surrounding West Nile virus, ebola, flu, anthrax, Mad Cow
disease, and even AIDS, to name just a few, all far outstripped
any reasonable threat. And confusing and contradictory medical
examination information is hardly novel, as William Baarschers
describes in his in this exit.

About the author:
Sussy Harlet http://www.productdepot.net

How To Indulge And Win The Battle Of The Bulge During The

By: Joey Dweck

If you are trying to lose weight, the holidays literally are the
heaviest time of the year.

So how do you eat, drink and be merry while you're counting
every single calorie? By getting a buddy who will help you make
the right choices bite by bite.

Scientific studies have shown that people who diet with partners
are much more likely to lose weight and to keep it off. And
there's no more crucial time to have a buddy on your side than
from Thanksgiving to New Year's.

"During the holidays, you can use all the help you can get,"
says Alan Gettis, a nutritionist and clinical psychologist in
River Edge, N.J. "I urge my clients to get a full-time
year-round a buddy, it could be a husband or a wife, a neighbor
or a friend. I But don't wait for the first feast to find a
buddy, says Susan Holmberg, a nutritionist and behavioral
therapist in Oradell, N.J. "Once you start overeating, you don't
want a "Buddy," she says.

Buddies give you moral support and help you identify bad eating
habits and patterns because they have been there, too, she says.
"You may want to have more than one buddy," she says. "You can
have one on the phone and one who exercises with you and goes to
parties with you. You can make deals with your buddy where you
both go to the party but only one of you goes through the buffet
line or where you agree to split one meal."

Buddies also are like therapists and coaches, who listen to you
and keep you on the right path. "Your buddy should be a person
you can share your feelings with and rely on in a pinch without
fear that your feelings will be used as ammunition against you,"
Gettis says.

Holmberg says that using a "Buddy" is particularly helpful to
people who may be reluctant to change because those who sign on
can choose a either real-life buddy, someone in their
geographical area they can meet and exercise with, or select
someone to work with solely online or via the phone. "Sometimes
anonymity is good," she says. "You are much more likely to try
it if you don't have to meet the person."

Gettis points out that with a "Buddy", "you can find someone
with similar goals, and both of you can support each other."

Buddies also take on active roles, getting you to stop a bad
habit and replace it with a healthy one. Gettis likens the
process to a marathon, where the runners are tempted to give up
before the 26th mile because it is so difficult to stay the
course. "The 18- to 19-mile mark is the crucial one," he says.
"During a marathon I was once in, I came upon two guys running -
one was hurting, and the other was encouraging him to keep
running. I followed them for two to three miles, and the one
kept saying, 'Leave me.' The other kept saying, 'I'm not going
to.' And I thought, 'What great friends!' Then I heard the one
hurting say, 'What's your name?'"

Perhaps the most important role that buddies play is helping
plan strategies and then making sure that you make them work.
"They can teach you to take baby steps and to change your
environment," Holmberg says. "For instance, they may suggest
that you keep sneakers in your trunk or put on your gym clothes
as you leave the office so you don't have an excuse not to
exercise. They can call ahead to the party to check on the menu
and give you a low-cal recipe to bring so there's at least one
thing that you can eat."

Holmberg says that some of the changes are so simple that people
overlook them. A buddy may, for instance, suggest that you get
at the end of the buffet line so there is less food available or
help the host wash dishes because if your hands are wet, you are
less likely to nibble on the last remaining crumbs from the
serving dishes. "If you are asked to bring dessert, your buddy
may remind you not to make chocolate chip cookies because the
last time you ate a dozen cookies before you brought them to the
party and nibbled the chips while baking and suggest that
instead you make something like a pie that can't be nibbled
because it is cut only when served."

Buddies also can help you practice being assertive, not
aggressive to make significant changes in your diet and your
lifestyle. "By being assertive, you attack the task," Gettis
says. "By being aggressive, you attack the person. You need to
stand your ground and in a firm but angry voice say: 'I really
would appreciate it if you would not bring home anything
fattening. You may have had good intentions, but I'd feel better
if you didn't do it again.'"

So don't wait until you're boxed in by back-to-back parties and
surrounded by wall-to-wall goodies to find a buddy. Make an
early New Year's resolution to do it now, long before the
marathon feasts begin, Gettis says. "You have to be realistic,
so don't count on losing 10 to 12 pounds during the holidays.
Don't say you'll lose 10 pounds during the holidays, and don't
gain 10 either. And get someone to be your buddy for all 12
months of the year. You have nothing to lose - but weight."

Copyright Weight Loss Buddy Press 2005

About the author:
Joey Dweck is the Founder & CEO of WeightLossBuddy.com a website
committed to 24/7 support, expert advice, and helping people
find a buddy(s) who will support their effort to lose weight,
and live a healthier lifestyle. And it's all Free. Sign up for
the Free 4-Part E-Course "Losing For Good"
http://www.weightlossbuddy.com