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Doing Cardio While Building Muscle- Part 1

There is much debate and controversy on the subject of doing cardio while building muscle. Once and for all I am going to set the record straight. So without further adieu, here’s the real deal on doing cardio while trying to gain size and strength…

If you are a beginner who also happens to be a ripped ectomorph who has to fight for every ounce he gains (e.g. a classic hardgainer), I suggest that you lay off cardio almost entirely for at least 8-12 weeks. Get your training and diet down and pack on some size. In that time you should be able to gain at least 15lbs of muscle if not 20+. After you have done that you can add in some cardio. I would start with three weekly sessions of twenty minutes of moderate intensity cardio; no intervals. Use a bike to limit the amount of eccentric stress or pounding on the joints. And remember there are actually things known as real bikes that go outside, not just stationary bikes that people park themselves on to watch Oprah. Although, if you choose that route, get one with a well padded seat that will not lead to the death of your sex life.

If you are beyond the beginner level you should always be doing some kind of cardio on a regular basis, be it intervals, moderate intensity steady state, or low intensity, long duration steady state. Again, don’t limit yourself to machines indoors; get outside and drag a sled, run sprints, jump rope or play a sport. That’s a lot more fun anyway. I think everyone should be doing something like this at least three days per week for at least 30 minutes. It’s healthy and prevents a host of health problems, not to mention that it keeps you in shape and looking good.

Contrary to what many people believe, cardio can actually be of great benefit to those looking to get bigger and stronger. Not only does it improve the cardiovascular system and thus improve the quality of your weight training workouts but it allows you to eat more muscle building calories while staying lean. To pack on 20-30 pounds of muscle you have to eat an inordinate amount of food. Doing some cardio will help ensure that you don’t get fat from all the excessive eating.

The bottom line is that everyone but absolute beginners should be doing some kind of cardio type activity at least three times per week for thirty minutes. This will not inhibit size or strength gains in the least but may actually enhance them. You should vary your activities and intensities as much as possible. You can do cardio immediately after you train, although I prefer to do it on non weight training days or later in the day after training because I am usually too spent after lifting to give it my all on the cardio. Doing it on off days is usually a better option anyway because it serves as an active recovery activity and also gets you burning some calories on those days.

New Janurary Muscle Building Feature…

Hey! Happy New Year. I just wanted to let you guys know that we are going to be running a 3 part article series with our resident muscle building guru - Jason Ferruggia - that is all about doing cardio while trying to get bigger and stronger. It is really dynamite. If you want to get big and strong and don’t have Jay’s Muscle Gaining Secrets system - you’re crazy Seriously. Jason knows his stuff and his system gets my highest recommendation. Plus Jay’s ebook is really entertaining to read. He has a great story about how he got pick pocketed in Spain and how he ended up having an amazing workout as a result -weird? Yes. Entertaining? Yes.

In all seriousness if you want to gain 15 or 20lbs of muscle by March 2009 then you need Muscle Gaining Secrets (Naked Nutrition Approved).

Big Arms Before New Years

Just kidding But check out this article (This Note is from Mike)

Everyone who ever picks up a weight soon develops the desire for a set of massive arms. It’s nearly unavoidable. Within a week after their first workout most guys are start for searching the secrets of how to get huge arms during every spare moment they have. Nearly everybody loves to stretch their shirt sleeves or even cut them off. Unfortunately, many people go about their arm training all wrong. One of the biggest mistakes you can make when training for big arms is using the wrong exercises. Kickbacks and concentration curls will do very little to develop a set of impressive guns. If you really want to know how to get huge arms, use my top ten biceps exercises and your arms will be exploding with new growth in no time.

Biceps:
Close Grip Chin Up- This is the king of biceps exercises because it allows you to use the most weight and move your body through space. Any time you can move your body through space, instead of just moving your limbs, there is a higher level of neuromuscular activation which leads to greater muscular development.

Barbell Curl- As far as isolation movements go, this is the best one there is when it comes to building big biceps.

Dumbbell Curl- Another isolation movement that is nearly the equivalent to the barbell curl. The added advantage is that when you can no longer complete another rep you can stop doing them simultaneously and switch to alternate curls to cheat a few more reps out.

Incline Dumbbell Curl- The added stretch here makes this a very effective bicep building exercise.

Hammer Curl- These target the brachialis muscle, which, when developed, can add a great deal of mass and thickness to the upper arm.

Triceps:
Parallel Bar Dip- You wanna know how to get huge arms? Train your triceps hard. Although everyone focuses on the biceps, the triceps actually make up 2/3 of the upper arm and can really make your arms look enormous if you train them properly.

When it comes to proper triceps training, there is no better exercise than the parallel bar dip. Again, this is an exercise where you are moving your body through space instead of just moving your limbs. If you need proof of the effectiveness of dips you need to look no further than the incredible arm development of male gymnasts.

Close Grip Bench- This is another compound movement which will pack slabs of muscle on the triceps as it allows you to use a ton of weight.

Half Range Close Grip Bench Press aka Lockouts- This exercise is done by setting the pins in the power rack so that they stop the bar about a third of the way down from the top. This greatly overloads the triceps and allows you to use extremely heavy loads. The end result is that you will build huge horseshoe triceps.

Angled Bar Pushdown- I prefer the angled bar to the straight bar for pushdowns because it is much less stressful on the wrists and much more comfortable to handle heavy weights with. This is a highly effective isolation movement which is pretty easy on the elbows; a rarity for isolated triceps exercises.

EZ Bar Lying Triceps Extensions- This is another highly effective isolation exercise for the triceps. Unfortunately, this exercise can lead to elbow problems. For this reason it should be used less frequently than the others and the reps should be kept a bit higher; preferably in the 8-15 range.

Stop wasting your time with any arm exercises that are not on this list, immediately. Use those listed above and hit them hard and heavy. You won’t be asking anything else about how to get huge arms if you do that.

For specific set, rep, rest and frequency recommendations as well as months of workouts and other priceless information that will show you exactly how to get huge arms, check out http://www.ferruggiasmusclesecrets.com/

One Exercise for a Bigger Stronger Body - No Joke

When people ask me how to gain weight the first thing I ask them is if they do deadlifts. If you are trying to get big but aren’t including deadlifts in your program you are simply wasting your time. There is simply no more effective exercise than the deadlift

From your neck to your calves, nearly every muscle in your body gets activated and receives a powerful growth stimulus from deadlifts

Not only is the deadlift the most effective mass building exercise there is but it is also the most basic and has the greatest carryover to the real world. There aren’t many times in life where you would lie down on your back and press a weight overhead like you would during a bench press. But hardly a day goes by when you don’t bend down and pick something up off the floor. And that is what you do when you deadlift. So it trains you for real life situations and helps to prevent the oh-so-common lower back problems that plague hundreds of thousands of adults

But the bottom line for all skinny guys and aspiring mass monsters is that if you want to know how to gain weight, you gotta learn how to deadlift

Although the deadlift works the entire body from head to toe, it is especially effective at building huge traps, upper back muscles, spinal erectors, glutes, hamstrings and forearms. Plenty of puffed up bodybuilders have the big pecs and biceps but a deadlifter stands out from the crowd, looking powerful and intimidating with the mountainous traps and thick, ruggedly muscled upper and lower back

To perform a proper deadlift, stand directly over the bar with your shins nearly touching it and feet approximately 8-14 inches apart. Squat down by breaking at the hips and pushing your glutes back. Keep your back tightly arched, chest up and head in line with your spine. Your upper body should be at a 45 degree angle in relation to the ground. Grab the bar with a vice grip and begin to pull up and back. As the bar passes your knees, drive your hips forward powerfully, push your chest out and pull your shoulders back to lockout the weight

When you lower the weight, be sure to begin by pushing your glutes back before you squat down. After the bar clears you knees, squat down while maintaining a tight arch in your lower back, allow the weights to touch the floor and repeat

Remember- a lot of deadlifts lead to huge, muscular physiques. If there was only one thing I could teach you about how to gain weight that would be it. Now get to the gym and start pulling some big weights.

Big Strong Legs - Peroid

If you have been around the Iron Game for a while, there is one name that comes instantly to mind when people discuss leg training. That name is Tom Platz. “The Golden Eagle” is widely regarded as having the most massively muscular legs in the history of bodybuilding. His thighs measured a whopping 35 inches and were shredded to the bone. Tom’s muscle building program that created those unforgettable wheels revolved around one exercise and one exercise only; the barbell squat. If you want to add some serious mass to your legs you had better familiarize yourself with this exercise in a hurry.

Since the quads typically have a very wide variance of muscle fiber types you can use a great range of reps in your quest to build pillar sized legs. Often times, Tom and other lifters with notoriously huge legs, would go as high as fifty reps per set on squats. When I was young and painfully skinny, high rep squats were one of the most effective discoveries I ever made and helped me and my brother pack on size faster than anything we had ever tried to date. The old 20 rep squat programs from the golden era of the Iron Game made a massive man of many a skinny boy. For over 15 years I have used high rep squats with hundreds of clients, and without fail they have always gained enormous amounts of size and strength; not to mention several inches of raw mass on their thighs.

Although high rep squatting leads to massive and rapid gains, I usually recommend starting with a few heavy sets in the 4-8 range first. Sometimes I even add in a set of 10-15 after the heavy sets, and finally finish with one all out set of 20 (and sometimes 30-50). When you use this rep scheme you ensure that you hit all fiber types and stimulate the greatest amount of muscle growth possible

Another note that needs to be added here is that high rep squats shouldn’t be done until you have mastered squat technique with several months of low rep training. You need to build the strength, coordination, endurance and stability needed to safely complete picture perfect low rep sets of squats first before you can move on to the high rep sets

Beginners should squat three times per week, intermediates twice and advanced lifters should probably only squat once every 5-10 days, depending on a variety of factors and how much running and other extra curricular activities you participate in

When putting together your muscle building program, be sure that squats are the focus of your lower body training; if not the only thing you do. Once you have mastered “the king of all exercises” you can then begin to think about adding in stuff like lunges, step ups and glute ham raises. Until then, and until you have gained significant size and strength from a steady diet of squats, I expect you to be spending a lot of time in the power rack.

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