Is your bodybuilding progress a bit slow? Try some of these tips!

Bodybuilding Progress
One of the biggest questions I get asked is ‘how do I speed up my muscle gain progress?’. The answers vary depening on many factors but I thought I would compile a list of the most important bodybuilding tips.

# 1 - Eat More Protein
If you aren’t making the muscle gains that you would like you can almost always bring it back to a poor diet. Bodybuilding needs a high quality, high quantity protein diet. Get this protein from fresh foods like free range eggs, chicken, beef, milk, whey protein, etc.

# 2 - Hit the Gym LESS
Thats right - less! Muscles grow when you are resting so if you haven’t made progress in a while it might be because you are working out too much. Try taking a few days off between workouts and see if it makes a difference.

# 3 - Sleep
Sleeping is more important than people think when it comes to making muscle gains. Sleep is the body’s repair time and it mends broken tissue, etc. almost only at this time. Sleeping in the afternoon is a good way to boost your down time.

# 4 - Technique
After a poor diet the next worst thing you can do is have poor technique. The whole idea of weight training is to stress certain muscles so that they damge and then grow to counter that damage (putting it crudely). If you use poor technique, you are targetting the wrong muscles and taking the stress off of one muscle group and putting it onto many muscle groups.

Get a professional bodybuilder or gym assistant to check out your lifting technique as often as you can. They won’t mind.

# 5 - Compound Vs Isolation Exercises
I always say that using free weights and compound motions is the best way to make big gains. However, if you have a laggin muscle group like your shoulders or your biceps then you need to find some good isolation exercises to really hit those muscles hard. However, stick to the compound motions as your primary exercises.

# 6 - Remember the Big 6
Here at RMO we have 6 Big exercises that we use as the basis for our bodybuilding training.

• Deadlift
• Squat
• Military Press
• Bench Press
• Chin Up
• Dip

Working with these exercises and these exercises alone will bring you massive muscle gains. Don’t forget them!

# 7 - Intensity
Part of a good workout is keeping a good intensity. I have been talking about this over at Real Women’s Fitness.com and it seems to be something people are not very familiar with. Keep your workouts short and intense with good lifting technique. Don’t muck around for two hours and a medium pace. Keep it short and to the point.

# 8 - Stretch
Stretching helps muscles to recover and faster recovery means bigger muscles quicker. It also means one is able to increase the volume of work we do and the frequency. Stretch before, during and after a workout.

# 9 - Mix It Up
I always talk about this so listen to me! Change your workout order and rep range every week. Never go into the gym and do the same amount of weight, sets, reps and exercises that you did last week.

Changing your workout keeps your body guessing so that it is forced to adapt to new things. Adaptation means bigger muscles and more strength. Keep changing.

# 10 - Drink Water
Keep your body clean and fresh with huge amounts of water. It assists your kidneys in precessing the large protein molecules and thus leaves your body with more energy to do other things. It will also keep your free of illness and thus in the gym more often during the year.

Does anyone have any other tips?

Tags
gym bodybuilding tips top 10 exercises muscle gain workout protein

Have you tried the Atkins Diet? Do you think it’s a healthy weight loss program? Find out.

The Atkins Diet
For a long time I have wanted to write a post or a series of posts on this weight loss program diet. Partly because I have always been interested in it. Partly because I support it. And partly because I think this weight loss program can be dangerous to people’s health.

So, this post will not be a “how to” of the Atkins Diet, it will be a critique of its elements. I will pay particular attention to the Atkins Diet’s effect on:

• weight loss progress
• health
• long term weight loss
• hype and popularity
• success/failure stories

What is the Atkins Diet
If you haven’t heard of the Atkins Diet by now then you have probably been living under a rock. It has been popular with celebrities, some bodybuilders and has had huge publicity on the television.

The popularity seems to be two-fold, however. Some people are talking about it because they believe it is the best weight loss program out there. Others (usually health professionals) are talking about it because they want to educate people on it dangers and problems.

How the Atkins Diet Works
Basically, the Atkins Diet is a low carbohydrate diet that departs from the traditional western philosophy about foods and what we should eat. Dr. Atkins thought that our excessive reliance on carbs caused insulin problems and thus resulted in depression, mood swings and weight gain.

The Diet consists of four stages, starting with complete (almost) elimination of carbs from the diet so that the body enters a state of ketosis. This is the biggest fat burnings stage. Carbs are very slowly added back in over the four periods but never up to the levels prior to the diet.

The idea is that protein is the main food type consumed and in doing so one stays full during the day and thus does not snack as well as burning fat for energy as there is no sugars or carbs in the body to utilize for energy. So one is not as afraid of fats during this program and eats:

• meat
• fish
• eggs
• some oils
• some tiny amounts of vegetables
• cheese

Weight Loss Potential and Potential Problems
On paper, the Atkins Diet seems like a great idea for weight loss. Cut out carbs and sugars, eat only protein and a few vegetables and watch the weight strip off. Some people have even argued that it has health benefits as humans were designed to eat more meat than we think.

However, the problem I have with this weight loss program is that the weight loss seems to be temporary. This is the annoying truth of most weight loss programs on the market today. The fat that is lost due to the initial period of extreme dieting comes back almost as soon as that period is finished. It has even been suggested by one research group that the weight lost during the Atkins Diet is mostly water and thus quite useless.

The up-side to this diet is that I know it works in the short term. I have used it more than once and got some results. However, as aforementioned, the weight loss was temporary.

Dangers
One thing I noticed when I went on this diet is that I lost a lot of energy and wasn’t able to train as hard as I usually did. This is a big issue for me and most of my readers.

The other down-side is that I got a cold during the diet which suggests to me that my immune system was not as strong as it usually is on a diet of meat, fruit and vegetables.

There is also an on-going law suit in the USA where the Atkins Diet is being blamed for a few peoples chronic heart disease.

Conclusions
The diet plan has both advantages and disadvantages. If you are prone to illness or a lack of energy I would steer clear of this one.

However, I dont see the harm in a short two week use of this plan if it is for a good reason. Perhaps losing weight this way is better than the alternative (staying fat and eating junk) for some people. I really do urge everyone, however, to study any plan as radical as this one in length before experimenting with it.

Does anyone have any success stories with this weight loss program?