Build Muscle Workouts

While kettleballs have been around for over 100 years in countries like Russia, their use was not widespread until recently. In America, kettleball training is simple exploding, thanks to some very unique benefits that you can achieve with kettleballs. For anyone looking for muscle weight gain, kettleballs make a versatile entry in your workout routine.

Kettleballs resemble mini bowling balls with thick, large handles. They come in varying weights from around 4lbs to 70lbs, but the heavier weights aren’t often used, as kettleball training is more focused on conditioning, explosive strength, and movement, instead of sheer strength.

The incredible aspect of kettleball training is their versatility. In one short workout you can achieve many different objectives. Some of the many benefits you’ll get from kettleball training include:

• Strength improvement
• Explosive power increases
• Improvement in your level of conditioning
• Increased joint flexibility and range of motion
• Anaerobic conditioning enhancements
• Core strength increases
• Balance and stabilization improvements

But wait, I've saved the best for last: kettleball training can boost your metabolic rate for almost a full day after a workout is over, making kettleballs ideal candidates to add to your muscle workouts and shed fat.

Kettleballs do have drawbacks, however, but they can be overcome. The one cited most frequently is that kettleballs only work for upper body and core conditioning, and not your lower body. To make up for this you’ll need to pair your kettleball session with a good lower body routine, or maybe even a quick high intensity interval training (HIIT) routine.

Keep in mind that ketteballs will work best in interval-based workouts, so traditional strength training routines aren’t the best fit. However, if your goal is to build muscle up and you pay attention to advances in fitness science, you’re likely already aware that traditional body building exercises aren't the most appropriate option.

With the many advantages that kettleballs offer, they should be added to your workout routine, provided that your workout already emphasizes recent discoveries in fitness science and is a good fit for your body type and goals.

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If your goal is to get 100% better at something, what would be the best way to approach it? I can think of two ends of the continuum. The approach you select will be somewhere along this continuum: doing one thing twice as good (or 100 percent better), or performing 100 activities 1 percent better. I think that most people try the first approach, but the latter is much easier to implement.

Taken a step further, to make each of these 1 percent building blocks more effective, you could also focus on things that occur outside of your workouts. So you concentrate on changing your habits and making incremental improvements that will stack on top of one another to bring you massive benefits.

So here are 5 minor lifestyle changes you can make to amplify your muscle workouts.

1) Replace Traditional Cardio with High Intensity Interval Trainign

Aerobic activities have a negative impact on muscle gaining because it burns glycogen and branched chain amino acids (BCAA). Instead, focus on interval training for fat burning, e.g. a 400-meter sprint followed by a 400-meter recovery jog, repeated 3 more times.

2) Increase Total Time Under Load

Rather than concentrating on the number of repetitions, concentrate on the total time your muscles are under load. Try spending 2 seconds on the negative contraction, 1 second at a neutral contraction (bottom of the exercise), and 1 second on the positive contraction. Lengthening the negative is an easy way to overload muscles and promote muscle weight gain.

3) Increase your Sodium Intake

Sodium increases amino acid absorption and carbohydrate storage while also improving the muscle's receptiveness to insulin. Just do in it moderation!

4) Mix up your Total Time Under Load

One really easy way to add variety to a workout, confuse your muscles, and build muscle up is to switch up your repetition tempo by adding an explosive day once per week, or an explosive set once per workout. It looks like this: 2-second negative contraction, 1-second neutral, explode as fast as you can on the positive contraction and repeat.

5) Try Something New

If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got. Commit to yourself to read a new (as in current and scientifically backed) exercise book every six months. You’ll pick up new approaches and new tips to add to your workouts.

Technorati Tags: body build muscle, build muscle up, exercise build muscle, muscle weight gain

I bet you've heard it over and over again: it's not possible to build muscle up and melt fat at the same time. You've been told that building muscle requires an increase in calories, while fat burning involves a decrease in calories. This conventional wisdom is partially accurate, but the beliefs are being tossed on their ears with research into interval-based workouts. The fact is, you can achieve muscle weight gain while you burn fat provided that you add interval training to your sessions.

Interval training isn’t new, but it’s more widely understood, accepted, and used these days. Whereas traditional aerobic activities were considered the only reliable ways to shed fat, and the only acceptable workouts for endurance athletes, high intensity interval training (HIIT) has proven to be beneficial to athletes in all fields, and for folks with wildly varying goals.

Old school aerobic activity is referred to as "steady state," meaning that you work up to a fixed intensity level and maintain that level for the duration of the session. During the training session, your body obtains half of its fuel by burning fat, and gets the rest through your oxygen system, and by cutting into your muscle and glycogen stores.

HIIT sessions, on the other hand, involve brief high intensity intervals followed by moderate intensity rest periods. HIIT sessions are muscle sparing and are quick, but are killer. A fifteen-minute HIIT session can raise your resting metabolic rate for almost day, enabling you to keep burning higher levels of fat for up to a day.

In addition to this, because your muscles consume calories during every minute of the day, the more lean mass you have, the more fat you burn, even while you're sitting still. Because HIIT not only spares your muscle, but also helps you build muscle, your future fat burning ability is increased, which makes it a great addition to your muscle workouts.

The bottom line is that regardless of your fitness goals, HIIT workouts can help you increase your overall fitness level in very short sessions. But even better, if your goals include muscle gain and fat burning, adding HIIT to your workout schedule is a no-brainer.

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You're looking to build muscle up fast and you want to accomplish it yesterday. You've likely been told how much hard work it will take, and you're preparing yourself to get to the health club four or five times per week for more than an hour per workout.

I have good news for you. Conventional wisdom is dead wrong.

With a scientifically-constructed workout, you can achieve better results in fewer than ninety minutes per week. By better, I mean that you can build muscle up just as quickly as with the extended workouts, but you also get quite a few additional benefits:

• You will achieve muscle weight gain quickly and burn fat at the same time
• You can use more calories as a result of a 15-minute anaerobic workout than in a 60-minute aerobic workout
• You will increase your explosive power
• You can increase your anaerobic threshold and your overall fitness level
• You can increase your joint strength and flexibility
• You will increase your core without doing core-specific exercises

These techniques are not secrets, but aren't widely used. These short workouts are based on intervals, which is nothing new. Intervals have been used successfully for quite a few years. But how you apply those intervals will determine your success. That's why it's vital that you choose a proven routine if you want to build mass through muscle workouts.

The two primary types of interval training you'll focus on are Tabata training and high intensity interval training (HIIT). HIIT sessions are generally used for the cardio workouts, and 15 minutes will replace 45 to 60 minutes of traditional aerobic activities.

Tabata training is just one form of strength training using intervals and compound exercises that will have your muscles melting in 20-second sets. You can also generously sprinkle in bodyweight exercises, sports-specific exercise, kettleball training and more to keep your workouts fun. But prepare for hard work -- you can't build muscle up unless you put forth maximum effort during your workouts.

But these types of workouts aren't for the faint of heart. You must already have a base level of fitness before you try them, and your joints must be healthy to start. Anyone over the age of 60 should seriously consider getting checked out before attempting interval training. When you're ready, put your game face on and get to work. You'll love the results!

Technorati Tags: body build muscle, build muscle up, exercise build muscle, muscle weight gain