Over 60 million Americans have a gym membership, and experts believe that number will increase in the upcoming years. Yet many people who visit a gym don’t take the right steps to promote their fitness journey. This causes them to waste both money and time.
If you’re looking to put on muscle, there are a number of things that you should be doing. There are also certain habits that you should avoid.
Keep reading for a bodybuilding guide that’ll help you gain muscle while staying safe.
Stick to the Basics
If you go to a modern gym, odds are you’ll have access to a huge number of different exercise machines. Although these can be great, don’t underestimate the value and importance of using simpler workout tools, such as barbells and dumbbells.
If you’re getting started on your fitness journey, these simple muscle-building tools are all that you need. They’ll allow you to build a general and solid foundation. Once you have that base, you can then move on to more complex machines.
Practice Compound Movements
Another problem with modern gym equipment is that many machines target a specific muscle, as opposed to a region of your body. This forces you to do more work and also limits how fast you build strength. As a general rule, compound movements will help you build muscle and see results faster.
Try to do exercises and use machines that target multiple muscle groups. Deadlifts, squats, and the bench press should have a regular place in your workouts when you first get started.
Find a Program and Stick to It
When you first get into an exercise routine, it’s easy to become discouraged when you don’t see results right away. Yet understand that as long as you have a solid workout program, you will see results. You need to be patient.
Don’t go to the gym and do whatever you feel like that day. Follow your plan or workout routine, and make sure that you know what you’re doing. If you’re unsure what to do, don’t be afraid to ask a personal trainer or fitness expert for help. Check out this guide to learn how cycle therapy can give you the results you want.
Take Breaks
Although you should be eager and motivated to work out, make sure to give your body the rest it needs to recover. If you’re not taking breaks every few days, you can cause more harm than good to your muscles. Many beginners work out too much, which leads to muscle strain and other pains.
Taking breaks allows your muscles to recover and strengthen. This also helps you notice results!
Eat the Right Foods
If you’ve been visiting the gym for a while but aren’t seeing results, take a close look at all aspects of your life. You can do everything right while working out, but if you aren’t eating the right foods, your body won’t have what it needs to bulk up.
Make sure you’re consuming plenty of lean proteins throughout the day. If you find it difficult to gorge on chicken or fish, consider adding a protein shake into your daily diet. You also need to eat enough complex carbohydrates, as well as plenty of fruits and vegetables.
Practice a Healthy Lifestyle
Working out and eating healthy foods is only part of the battle. To gain muscle mass and see the results you want, you need to make sure you practice healthy living in every aspect of your life.
Smoking and the excessive consumption of alcohol can both have detrimental effects on your body. They can also limit the results you see when you work out. Avoid smoking, and if you are a smoker, try to quit. Limit drinking to moderate amounts once or twice a week if you can’t avoid it altogether.
Achieve a Caloric Surplus
If you do feel that you do everything right but have problems bulking up, try to calculate your basal metabolic rate, or BMR. This will let you know how many calories you need to consume to see results.
If you go to the gym often and have a fast metabolism, you need to eat more food than you may be used to. This can be difficult for some people. Try to eat four or five smaller meals throughout the day, as opposed to two or three massive meals.
Pay Attention to Form
When you exercise, you need to make sure that you practice proper form. If you don’t, you won’t impact the target muscles as much, limiting your muscle growth. You can also cause serious injury to yourself if you aren’t careful.
To get an idea of what constitutes a correct form, do some research online or watch some exercise videos. You can also work with a personal trainer to help coach you.
Increase the Weight With Time
Whenever strength training, you should use enough weight where, by the time you finish the set, you feel unable to do more repetitions. On the other hand, don’t use too much weight, as that can prevent you from doing the exercise.
After you master the form of a particular exercise, begin to try it with more weight. This will help your muscles grow.
Follow This Bodybuilding Guide to See Results
When you first embark on a fitness journey, it can seem like an impossible mission to see results. Yet by following this bodybuilding guide and staying consistent and patient, you’ll be amazed at what you see when you look in the mirror.
Do you have any other bodybuilding tips? How about exercise safety tips? Make sure to tell us down below in a comment!
If you found this article to be helpful, make sure to check out some of our other blog posts to read more guides and tips.
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