Etebooks offers strategic ideas for building muscles #building muscle

7 Reasons Why Your Muscles Stop Growing.  How To Get Muscle To Grow Again

Have ever wondered why your muscles stopped growing after a few months of training even though you are training very hard? Here are 7 reasons why your muscles stopped growing and how to get your muscle to grow again. 

 You are training too hard  Every time when you train your muscles intensely, you are actually breaking down your muscles. So your muscles need to recover from the damages you inflicted on them. So train each muscle group only once or at most twice a week. 

 You are training too long  Keep your workout intense but do not workout more than an hour each time. After 45 minutes of intensive training, your cortisol level will increase. This hormone is known to destroy muscle cells. 

 You are sleeping too little  You need to sleep more for good muscle growth. Your muscles grow when you sleep. So sleep more than 8 hours a day and watch those muscles growing fast. 

 You are abusing alcohol  Alcohol is known to break down muscle mass plus many other body destruction ability. 

 You do not change your workout routine  You must change your workout routine every 6-8 weeks. Your muscles adapt to your routine and stops growing. 

 You do not progressively overload your muscles  You must try to increase your reps or weight every time you next train a particular muscle group. Otherwise, there is no reason for your muscles to grow. 

 You do not eat sufficient protein  If you want to build bigger muscles, you must eat more protein. Protein is the building block for your muscles. It is recommended that you need 1 gram of protein per pound of your body weight equivalent. If not enough protein is consumed with your normal diet, do supplement with protein shakes. 

There you are, the 7 reasons why your muscles stopped growing even though you are training hard. There are many more methods on how to grow your muscles bigger but these 7 reasons and how to overcome them will be sufficient for an average bodybuilding beginner

7 Reasons Why Your Muscles Stop Growing.  How To Get Muscle To Grow Again

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 Etebooks Offers The Ultimate Muscle Meal Plan

With this article, I just wanted to share with you one of my special muscle meal plans that I love. Surprisingly, it actually comes in the form of a salad, but it is killer!

I know the ladies will love this idea, but for all of you guys out there that think eating a salad makes you less of a man… Well, you haven’t tried my ultimate “salad on roids” yet!

Keep in mind that this salad is not low in calories. It’s not low in fat. It’s not low in carbs.

And guess what…that’s the whole point! It’s not low in anything, but it sure as hell is HIGH in everything under the sun that’s good for your body… just about every vitamin, mineral, antioxidant, and phytonutrient on the planet! And that means your body will receive all the nutrition it needs to maintain optimal hormonal balance, function at it’s highest capacity, keep your appetite satisfied for hours, and prevent any unwanted cravings.

Keep in mind that last point… when you fill your body with all of the nutrients it needs on a daily basis, you pretty much totally eliminate cravings! This happens because your body is satisfied and doesn’t need to crave any more food, because it has all of the nutrients it needs.

I’ve experienced this myself. Years ago, I used to crave sweets ALL THE TIME. But now that I eat the balanced diet that I do these days, I can’t say that I’ve had a craving in at least 5 years! No joke.

Alright, here’s the special muscle meal plan recipe:

The Ultimate Muscle Salad

approx 1-2 cups spinach leaves
approx 1-2 cups mixed leaf lettuce
shredded carrots
1/2 of a ripe avocado, diced
2 hard boiled eggs, diced (preferrably organic, cage free)
3 Tbsp chopped pecans
1/4 cup dried cranberries
 top with homemade dressing made of balsamic vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, and Udo’s Choice Oil Blend (3/4 of total liquid should come from the vinegar)

Mix it all together and you’ve got one delicious and ridiculously nutritious salad. For an extra shot of antioxidants, wash it all down with some homemade iced green/white/oolong tea lightly sweetened with the natural sweetener Stevia or a little touch of raw honey.

Alright, now let’s look at the approx macronutrient breakdown:

Prot: 23 g., Carbs: 48 g., Fiber: 12 g., Fat: 45 g., Calories: 650

Now before you throw your arms up in disgust and call me crazy for recommending such a high fat, high calorie meal, keep in mind to scale back the portion sizes for your own caloric goal. The portions above are simply the portions that I use considering that my maintenance caloric intake is around 3000 calories/day. If your maintenance is 2000 calories/day, then scale back the portions accordingly.

Also, I don’t care about the high fat content of this meal… because every last gram of the fat in this meal is VERY healthy… from the pecans, the olive oil, the Udo’s oil, the fresh avocado… and yes, even the fat from the eggs is good for you! 

How about the carbs? Well, out of a total of 48 grams, you’ve got 12 grams of fiber. That’s a pretty good ratio. Also, the healthy fats and protein in this meal will slow down the carbohydrate digestion, giving you a healthy glycemic response and steady controlled blood sugar.

Alright, so you’re probably also wondering why there isn’t a larger amount of protein. After all, protein is all the rage with bodybuilders, right. Well, actually 23 grams isn’t too shabby, especially considering 14 grams of that comes from the highly bioavailable protein from the hard boiled eggs. Also consider that this meal has a whole lot of healthy fats, which increases the utilization of your protein. This happens because your body does not need to use your protein for energy, and can instead use it for muscle building or maintenance, and all of the other various functions that amino acids are needed for in the body.

Overall, with this meal plan, you’ve got a great mix of healthy fats, good fibrous carbs, quality protein, and a huge diversity of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and other trace nutrients.

The Ultimate Muscle Meal Plan

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Etebooks Offers The Science Of Muscle Building

Bodybuilding involves more than just lifting weights. It pays to have an understanding of human kinetics. How do muscles work?

Muscles develop by making them work. Muscles can only work when the body is in motion. They work extra when we are in full motion. Thus, to develop the muscles to the maximum, we must make them work to the best of our abilities. Hence, the bodybuilding principle of No Pain, No Gain.

You cant grow your muscles by doing nothing. You have to move around a lot. The only thing that will grow in points of inertia, if you remain stationary, is your weight. If you want muscle growth and power, you must work your body methodically. Muscle training is called a workout. 

Muscles can be toned (or conditioned) by regular activities like brisk walking, jogging, and doing other slightly heavy works. But toning muscles will not grow them in size and beauty. You have to do more lots more  to have stunning muscles. You have to workout. By the very term workout, you can have a good idea of what it takes to grow muscles.

Bodybuilding procedures using weights and other heavy-duty activities are the best-known muscle growers so far. You have to devote your life into this if you want extra visible muscles on you. You also have to do away with vices like smoking, drinking liquor, eating junk foods, etc. 

Muscles grow in size only when they are moving. Try to be still in front of a mirror and youd see no sign of any bulking muscle taking shape. Now, clench your fist hard, and muscle evidence will show at least on your forearm. This simple principle illustrates the potential of muscles being developed through repeated and graduated motions. As muscles are subjected to repeated exertions that gradually increase intensity, they grow and toughen.

The more intense the muscle activity, the better and faster the muscle is developed. Hence, a systematic muscle development program incorporating increased muscle stimulation builds more muscles effectively. If your exercise features no such system of increasing efforts and challenges to your muscle strength, your muscles can only grow so much. Some exercises do form muscles, but only to a certain extent. The muscles built only become regulating muscles that enable you to perform normal tasks effectively. But they cannot exceed in performing beyond such tasks. 

On the contrary, a fully developed muscle does not only allow you to do normal tasks; it is calibrated to reach its full potentials  far beyond what regulating muscles can do. Bodybuilding helps you develop your muscles to the extreme.

The Science Of Muscle Building

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Etebooks Offers The Perfect Rep Range For Building Muscle

No matter what you read or who you talk to, everyone has their own opinion of what the “perfect” rep range should be to allow for maximum muscle stimulation and growth. In this article Im going to clear up the confusion once and for all and teach you the truth about choosing the most effective rep range for optimal muscle-building results. 

Sets that utilize heavy weight and low reps are without a doubt the most effective means of stimulating muscle growth. For every set you perform in the gym, you should utilize a rep range of 5 to 7. This means that for every set you perform, the weight should be light enough that you can complete 5 reps in good form, but heavy enough that you cannot complete more than 7. What’s so special about 5 to 7, you ask? Well 

1) Each set will only last between 20-30 seconds. 

Maximizing your muscle gains is all about intensity and efficiency. By utilizing a lower rep range, your sets will only last a short period of time, allowing you to generate 100% mental focus and effort. Training with 100% intensity is critical to stimulating muscle growth and it is much easier to maintain this level of effort for shorter periods of time. You will not have to psyche yourself up for marathon sets lasting minutes on end, but rather for a short burst of all-out effort lasting only several seconds. 

2) Muscle stimulation will be maximized. 

Our bodies are made up of 2 main types of muscle fiber: slow twitch and fast twitch. Slow twitch fibers cannot generate large bursts of power and are utilized during prolonged activity. They have a high tolerance for endurance exercise but do not have a very high potential for increased growth. Fast twitch fibers on the other hand produce large bursts of power and are utilized during short, explosive movements. They contain a large amount of mitochondria (an area in the muscle cell where energy is produced) and have the highest potential for increases in both size and strength. By utilizing a rep range of 5 to 7 you will tap into these extremely responsive fibers and this will result in the greatest amount of muscle growth and strength gain possible. 

3) Maximum resistance can be used. 

By performing only 5 to 7 reps per set, you will enable your muscles to handle heavier amounts of weight than you could with a higher rep range. Building muscle is a byproduct of building strength, and training in a lower rep range is the most effective way to accomplish this. Since your strength will shoot up much faster using 5 to 7 reps per set, so will your muscle size. 

4) Lactic Acid production will be kept to a minimum. 

Training in the range of 5 to 7 will also decrease the amount of lactic acid that is secreted within the muscles. Lactic acid is a metabolic waste product that is produced as the body burns carbohydrates for fuel. Lactic acid accumulates in the muscle tissue at increased rates the longer you exercise. By limiting the amount of lactic acid production you will decrease muscle catabolism and create an environment in the body where greater amounts of energy can be generated. This will translate into greater power output and maximum strength potential. 

Okay, so we’ve established that a rep range of 5-7 is the absolute most effective means of stimulating muscle growth. However, this does not apply all the time or on every single lift. There are a few select muscle groups that should be stimulated using a slightly higher rep range. These are the calves, abs, forearms and upper traps. These muscle groups are predominantly made up of slow-twitch fibers, and therefore will respond better to higher reps. For this reason, a rep range of 10-12 should be utilized for these muscle groups. Again, this means that the weight should be light enough for you to complete at least 10 reps, but heavy enough that you cannot complete more than 12. 

Summary: 

Perform 5-7 reps for the chest, lats, biceps, triceps, shoulders and thighs.

Perform 10-12 reps for the calves, abs, forearms and upper traps.

The Perfect Rep Range For Building Muscle

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Etebooks Offers The Most Powerful Muscle-Building Tool Available

The bodybuilding debates will never end. The endless arguments over how an effective muscle-building program should be structured will most likely continue until the end of time. Just scour the Internet message boards, flip through any muscle magazine or talk to the sales rep at your local supplement store. No matter who you talk to or what you read, it seems that everyone is an expert these days. 

If everyone is an expert, confident in their own ideas and beliefs, how can the average beginner possibly know who to listen to? He or she is instantly confronted with endless questions that seem to have no clear-cut answer. 

How many days should I train per week? How many sets should I perform for each muscle group? What type of rep range should I be using? What are the most effective exercises for stimulating muscle growth? How long should my workouts last? 

These questions go on and on until he or she is eventually led to believe that building muscle is an infinitely complex process involving rocket-science precision and an intimate understanding of human physiology. I mean, thats what takes to build muscle, right? Wrong! Believe me, there are answers to these important questions, and if you are willing to put in the time and effort you will most definitely find them. But thats not what this article is about. 

You see, amidst all of the confusion and endless debating, the majority of lifters end up losing sight of the big picture. Beyond all of the specific workout principles, such as rep range and exercise selection, remains one crucial principle, a principle that lies at the very heart of the muscle growth process. If this principle is not given full attention, or even worse, completely ignored, building muscle becomes next to impossible. 

The bottom line is that muscles grow as they adapt to stress. When you go to the gym and lift weights, you create micro-tears within the muscle tissue. Your body perceives this as a potential threat to its survival and reacts accordingly by increasing the size and strength of the muscle fibers in order to protect against a possible future attack. Therefore, in order to continually increase the size and strength of the muscles, you must focus on progressing each week by either lifting slightly more weight or performing an extra rep or two. In doing this, your body will continue to adapt and grow to the ever-increasing stress. 

Building muscle is all about building strength! 

So what is the most powerful muscle-building tool available? Quite simply, it is a pen and a piece of paper! 

Every time you go to the gym you must write down exactly what you accomplished and then strive to improve upon it the following week. If you arent always getting better, then youre either staying the same or getting worse. Every week you should have an exact plan of attack ready to be executed. You absolutely cannot afford to start throwing weights around aimlessly without a clear-cut goal in mind. 

The specifics of building muscle are important to understand and implement, but regardless of what style of training you're currently using the ultimate deciding factor between success and failure is progression. You can sit around all day obsessing over specific principles, but the bottom line is that if you arent getting stronger every week, you absolutely will not be getting any bigger. Examine your training approach closely. If you have'nt been paying laser-like attention to the amount of weight you've been using, the number of reps you've been performing, and then striving with every ounce of your energy to improve upon those numbers each week, you are completely ignoring the very foundation of the muscle growth process. If you want to see the best gains in muscle mass and strength that you possibly can, a pen and a piece of paper is the most important tool you could possibly have in your arsenal.

The Most Powerful Muscle-Building Tool Available

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Etebooks Offers Muscle Gain Visualization Tips

We now move into an area that is far too neglected by mainstream health and fitness professionals, the mind.  Most books or courses concentrate on the physical side of weight gain and completely neglect the mental side of things. 

Visualization can play an important part in gaining weight and maintaining a healthy lifestyle.  Gaining weight can be difficult for many people who dont use their minds to help in the process. 

Visualization is a powerful technique that can help you make lasting lifestyle changes. Just by “day dreaming”, you can significantly improve your chances in achieving your goals. 

Visualization is a great weight gain tool and its as simple as visualizing your body as you want your body to look like. This mental image of yourself is then transferred to your subconscious mind, which in turn starts to work on your body, shaping it in accordance with your mental image. 

This means that if you program your subconscious with a mental image of yourself as a more muscular person, through persistence your mind will accept this and aid your body to conform to this mental image.

Once your mind is programmed with the proper mental images, it will start to work in assisting you to gain weight. I can’t stress enough how important it is for you to believe in your visualization goals. You have to let go of your past failures and refuse to entertain any negative images that come into your mind. 

If you can visualize your body at its perfect proportions, the subconscious mind will work to make it become a reality. It will then begin to positively reinforce your body into aiding the metabolism and eating habits. 

Programming your mind into believing that you can gain weight, and to visualize yourself with your perfect proportions is of the greatest importance. 

Try to think of a different image of yourself, then let your subconscious do the work for you. If you think of your body as being out of shape all the time, then the subconscious mind will find ways to make it so. 

The sub-conscious looks after all of all your vital functions, it is the cause of all your good and bad habits, and also regulates the muscles of the body (The muscles are controlled by the sub-conscious) and body-fat composition on the body.

Try to visualize your body as lean and as muscular as you would like, and your mind will work on that image. The mind can be a great partner in gaining weight. 

Relaxation

Relaxation the best way to reach the sub-conscious and will slow down the mind, turn off the exterior world so as to tune in to one’s inner self. The best times for these sessions are in the morning and late at night right, just before going to sleep. 

Perform two sessions, one in the afternoon (Primary) and the other before going to sleep (Secondary) but once a day is quite sufficient. Sessions usually last 20 minutes, which isn’t time consuming especially when taking in the benefits received. 

It has been stated that one of these sessions is equivalent to 2 hours of deep sleep and upon waking you will feel revitalized and full of energy. Believe me instead of worrying about time constraints; you will be looking forward to the next session. 

When you begin your relaxation sessions, make sure you won’t be disturbed – lock the door, take the phone off the hook and loosen all clothing. Now find a comfortable position, whether it is lying down or sitting in a comfortable chair. 

Sitting may be preferable as you may fall asleep if you become too comfortable. You want to be conscious and not asleep in order to tap into your sub-conscious mind. 

Try to exhale all the air from your lungs completely and then breathing in through the nose.  Take ten seconds to fill the lungs with air (not to capacity, but comfortable) hold for ten seconds and then exhale slowly through the nose for another ten seconds.  

Each one of these breathing cycles should last for 30 seconds, complete five cycles and after each cycle you will be feeling more and more relaxed.  

Having reaching this calm relaxed state, start your visualizations.  Put together images that power your emotions. Make them alive and colourful. Make the scenes as real as possible and imagine yourself as muscular and toned as possible. 

Picture yourself ten weeks from now on the beach, walking briskly and confidently to your favourite spot, your breathing is normal and relaxed. You smile to yourself; you could keep walking like this for miles without feeling fatigued. 

You lay your towel out and begin to take your clothes off revealing a muscular, toned, well conditioned body. You have just bought a brand new swimming suit which just weeks before would have been lying in your closet waiting to be used. 

Glancing around you notice the beach is busy, you catch the eye of someone of the opposite sex, they smile at you and you smile back. You walk confidently to the water and swim a couple of hundred yards with no problem or fatigue. 

Or try this:

Visualize your family and friends complimenting you about how good your body looks. Try to view the scene as it is happening this instant – in the present, not in the future. 

Using these visualizations you can construct in your mind any scene that desire. See yourself exercising, socializing, in the company of friends. Try and hear people complimenting you about your new muscular body, and watch their admiring glances. Make the mental image as real as possible. 

 Remember set a goal for your ideal weight

 You must want to gain weight

 Visualize yourself at your ideal weight

 Use positive images at every opportunity 

Practice these sessions on a daily basis and over a period of ten weeks youll be on your way to become more fulfilled, happier and muscular.

Muscle Gain Visualization Tips

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