My Own Muscle Building Guide

Years ago, many years ago , and going back to a time when I was at the tender age of 16 years I started a hobby that goes by the name of bodybuilding.

I was a fanatic and training at the gym five days each week while living the full bodybuilding lifestyle for three years. Pumping iron, as they called it back then, is healthy if you leave out the artificial stimulants. I am happy to say that my three years of building muscle were some of the best and healthiest years of my life.

musclebuilding


Sharing Muscle Information

I have a younger brother who caught the gym bug one year after I did. He plied me with questions on workout routines, protein supplements, and muscle growth formulas.

I trained him for weeks. Taught him all I knew. The tips and down to earth methods I gave him are listed here.


Your building muscle path is unique and you are an individual. This is not meant to be advice but is shown to you on this blog as a record of one brother helping another.



Tips that Fast Tracked Little Bro

1. PROTEIN. Getting enough protein is essential to build muscle. I used whey powder and made a shake with it. Whey suited me as it is easily digested.


Some of the heavier proteins used to sit and feel like a heavy brick in my stomach. I lost the feeling of lightness. This is a good sign when feeling these things as it means one is tuning into their body.


2. QUALITY SLEEP. Going to the gym was breaking down muscle. Sleep was building it back up. Sleep is regeneration. Back in those days I wanted my muscles to be bigger and stronger than the day before.

Living a discliplined life helped. Going to the gym and pumping iron five days each week for 50 weeks of the year is a discipline.

Before going to bed at night I made sure my mind was clear. This means no worry or depressing thoughts. Negativity only interrupts sleeping patterns.


3. WORKOUT FORM. From working out so much I had the opportunity to see many others do the same. The most common mistake I noticed is poor workout form.

A good example is doing standing barbell curls to target your biceps for muscle growth. Here is the proper form, or way, to do it. You are standing tall with your back straight, that is good posture, shoulders stationary. Gripping the barbell tightly with both hands you curl the barbell up to your chest and back down again.

But what I saw many do is to bend their back and swing their hips for extra momentum to squeeze more barbell repetitions out. This action relieves muscle stress on the biceps putting it onto the back muscles.

Useless! Barbell curls are designed to build up the biceps. You have to isolate the biceps to make the muscle grow. Using back muscles in a body swinging motion defeats the purpose.

Use good workout form. Your ego might suffer a little bit but your muscles will love you for it.


4. BARBELL GRIP TIP. Muscle strength has a lot to do with how well you can grip things. Often during a workout you sweat a lot. The sweat causes you to lose grip on the barbell lowering the number of repetitions you are able to perform.

At 16 years of age I didn’t have much money. What I did have was initiative. There were some old bicycle tires in the shed. I grabbed a knife and cut one up taking out the black inner rubber tubing.

I then cut this rubber tubing into , about the length and width of my palm, two squares one for each hand. Back in the gym I placed these rubber patches over the barbell where my hand gripped. It worked like a magic charm!

No barbell slipping out of my hands meant more repetitions. More barbell repetitions ( more reps we used to call it, more reps! more reps! ) meant bigger muscle mass and better muscle definition.


5. CUT OUT REFINED FOODS. Inside the first two months of my bodybuilding career I cut out all refined foods. I was strict on this one.

No chips, no cookies, no chocolate, no ice cream! I know, I know. It is not for everyone. But at 16 years of age when you dream of being the next Mr Universe there is a lot you will do to achieve it!


6. INFORMATIONAL MAGAZINES. I did a lot of reading gradually increasing my knowledge on sports nutrition, workout routines, building muscle mass and health in general. Some of the developed physiques in the magazines gave us a boost of inspiration.


7. BASIC ANATOMY.Did you know the upper arm has two primary muscles the biceps and the triceps? The thing is the triceps , which is the back part of the arm, make up two thirds of the bulk of the arm mass. If you just trained your biceps and forgot about the triceps muscles growth in the arm area would be slow. See how basic knowledge of anatomy is required for your gym training?

I know one guy who trained for two years before he stumbled onto this fact. What do they say? Hindsight is a beautiful thing.