5 Weight Lifting Tips I Wish I Knew as a Beginner
If you’ve grown tired of your flabby countenance, not to mention feeling awful all the time because you fill yourself with junk food and live a sedentary lifestyle, then perhaps you’re finally ready to lay down the remote, pick up some weights, and start turning your excess baggage into toned, tightened muscle mass. Of course, you’re not going to snap your fingers and look like Arnold Schwarzenegger circa his Mr. Olympia years.
It’s going to take time, effort, and probably money to trim down and bulk up. And you’re going to need some help along the way. Luckily, there are plenty of trainers, forums, and even body builders at your local gym that can offer you pointers along the way.
Here are just a few basic tips to get you started on your journey to a muscular physique.
- Diet and exercise go hand-in-hand.
If you think you can continue eating your regular diet of fats and sugars simply because you’ve added exercise to the daily schedule, you’d better think again. The thing you have to ask yourself is how committed you are to reaching your fitness goals.
If you want to build muscle bad enough, you’re going to have to adopt a diet plan that works hand-in-hand with your exercise regimen to help you get there.
Without proper nutrition you’re either going to injure yourself or derail your progress in some other way. At the very least it will take you a lot longer to bulk up if you’re eating the wrong foods.
- Clear your schedule.
While you probably don’t need to devote hours each day to building muscle (unless you’re training to go pro as a body builder, a strongman, or a fighter of some sort), you should consider that the pursuit of physical perfection will require some commitment of time. This means setting aside an hour or two each day (or at least several days a week) for a weight-lifting regimen, along with supplemental exercise.
If you only lift once a week, for example, you’re not going to make much headway.
- Make a plan.
Building muscle is a process, one in which you will gradually move up to heavier and heavier weights in order to stress muscles and force them to repair themselves, getting bigger and stronger along the way, provided you play your cards right.
This means you’ll have to create a plan, setting goals for size and weight and plotting the steps that will help you to reach them.
- Consider supplements. It’s not always enough to change your diet when you have specific fitness goals in mind. When you’re building muscle, in particular, you may need to increase your caloric intake while simultaneously narrowing the types of nutrition you’re ingesting (more protein than carbs, for example).
This can be difficult to accomplish unless you relish the prospect of force-feeding yourself until you feel ill. In this case supplements may be able to help.
For one thing, you can add protein shakes between meals to get the targeted nutrition you need. But you should also start taking a supplemental cocktail of vitamins and minerals that are designed to complement the type of physical activity you practice.
A couple other great supplements include formulated pre-workout and post-workout drinks, post-workout being of premier importance. Also, amino acids such as the supplement called Xtend, and creatine. Hardcore lifters could also try a nitric oxide supplement such as NO Xplode, but personally it makes me feel sick when i’m focusing more on conditioning.
- Be patient. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and your body won’t be, either. But it will take a lot less time than building a city.
You just need to be patient and stick to the program in the meantime. Once you start to see results, signing up with Fitness19.com (or another gym), changing your diet and your schedule, and paying for supplements will all be worthwhile.
You just have to remember that every single step gets you closer to your goal.
Tags: beginner, bodybuilding, exercise, fitness, newbie, noob, tips, Weight Training, weightlifting, working out, workout
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