6 Ways to Naturally Boost Your Testosterone Production

Boosting your testosterone levels is one of the easiest ways to get bigger, leaner, and stronger.

That's why millions of guy take dangerous steroids, and millions more buy products that claim to be able to boost testosterone naturally (but do very little, in reality).

So, are there healthy, scientifically proven ways to increase your testosterone production without taking drugs or wasting ungodly amounts of money on fancy supplements? Absolutely.

There are six easy, healthy ways, actually. If you incorporate all into your daily routine, you can notice quite a difference.

#1 Eat the Right Vegetables

Research has shown that vegetables rich in a substance known as indole-3-carbinol, or "I3C," can positively alter estrogen metabolism in men (in this study, 500 mg of I3C per day reduced "bad" estrogens by 50%). This, in turn, helps maintain optimal levels of testosterone.

I3C occurs naturally in cruciferous vegetables such as bok choy, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, kale, kohlrabi, mustard, rutabaga, and turnip.

If you can work 1-2 servings of these types of veggies into your daily meal plan, it can help your hormones.

#2 Eat More Meat

Protein from meat is particularly helpful when you're weightlifting. Studies clearly show that meats increase testosterone levels and lead to increased levels of muscle mass.

One study had two groups of men, all comparable in health and build, follow a weightlifting program for twelve weeks. By the end of the program, all had progressed about equally in strength, but only the meat eaters enjoyed significant muscle growth and fat loss.

"Meat" doesn't only mean red meat, by the way. Fish, chicken, turkey, pork, buffalo, and so on all qualify as "meat" in this sense, although studies have shown red meat to be the most anabolic.

I eat two servings of meat every day (lunch and dinner), and when I'm bulking, I eat at least four servings of red meat each week (95% lean, or lean cuts of meat like filet or NY strip). When I'm cutting, I do one to two servings of red meat per week.

#3 Eat Enough Healthy Fats

Fats are the densest energy sources available to your body. Each gram of fat contains over twice the calories of a gram of carbohydrate or protein.

Healthy fats, such as those found in meat, dairy, olive oil, avocados, flax seed oil, many nuts, and other foods, are actually an important component to overall health. Fats help your body absorb the other nutrients that you give it, nourish the nervous system, help maintain cell structures, regulate hormone levels, and more. Research has shown that men whose diets are rich in healthy fats have significantly higher testosterone levels than those whose diets are lacking in this regard.

It's commonly believed that eating saturated fat, like the fats mainly in animal products such as meat, dairy products, and egg yolks., harms your health. Research is proving this claim to be untrue, however. In fact, recent research indicates the opposite may be true-that saturated fat may actually reduce your risk of heart disease.

The type of fat you want to avoid at all costs, however, is trans fat.

Trans fat is a scientifically modified form of saturated fat that has been engineered to give foods longer shelf lives. Many cheap, packaged foods are full of trans fat (such as run-of-the-mill popcorn, yogurt, and peanut butter), as are many frozen foods (such as frozen pizza, packaged pastries, cakes, etc.). Fried foods are often cooked in trans fat.

This type of fat is bad news, and eating too much of it has been associated with various kinds of disease and complications. It has no nutritional value for the body and thus should be avoided altogether.

#4 Chill Out, Man

This tip is pretty simple: reduce the stress in your life, and your testosterone levels will rise.

Your body reacts to stress by producing a hormone called "cortisol," which is highly catabolic (leads to the breakdown of muscle and fat tissue), and which can interfere with testosterone production. Cortisol also increases the appetite and may promote the accumulation of belly fat, which can become a vicious cycle if daily stress levels are high.

So, try not to sweat the little annoyances so much, avoid overtraining, take some time for yourself every day to chill out, and avoid conflicts by trying to treat others the way you'd like to be treated, and you'll not only be happier in life, but you'll make better gains in the gym (which leads to even more happiness-cool!).

#5 Get Enough Sleep

Many people work long hours and cut down on their sleep to make extra time for themselves at night. While I totally understand this and have done it many times myself, it's not a good habit to get into.

Research has shown that not sleeping enough reduces testosterone levels. In that study, young healthy men were restricted to 5 hours of sleep per night, and it decreased their daytime testosterone levels by 10% to 15%.

Studies have also shown that sleep restriction makes losing weight harder, and causes you to lose more muscle while in a caloric restriction.

So shoot for 7-9 hours of sleep per night (and that means asleep for that many hours-not getting into bed at midnight and waking up at seven).

Oh and don't worry about the whole "before or after midnight" thing. There is no scientific evidence that sleep hours after midnight are less beneficial than those before midnight, or that you should get to bed before midnight for proper sleep.

#6 Have More Sex

As one would expect, having sex increases testosterone levels, so now you can tell your girl that it's her duty to help preserve your health by putting out (hah).

Summary

These are six of the easiest, healthiest ways that you can increase your testosterone levels, and I recommend that you incorporate them all into your lifestyle. I did that a few years ago and have kept them in, and the differences in how I look and feel are night and day.

Do you already have some experience with any of these? Want to say anything else? I'd love to hear from you on my site, www.muscleforlife.com

Hi,

I'm Mike and I believe that every person can achieve the body of his or her dreams, and I work hard to give everyone that chance by providing workable, proven advice grounded in science, not a desire to sell phony magazines, workout products, or supplements.

Through my work, I've helped thousands of people achieve their health and fitness goals, and I share everything I know in my books.

So if you're looking to get in shape and look great, then I think I can help you. I hope you enjoy my books and I'd love to hear from you at my site, http://www.muscleforlife.com/.

Sincerely,

Mike

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Truth About Muscle Growth

Most people think that muscles are made in the gym. Well the truth is they are not. Let me explain, in the gym when we are lifting we are actually tearing muscle down. The muscles do not start to build (repair themselves) until we are at rest. Also they need the right nutrition to start this process.

We have to remember that muscles have a memory, and our body does not like to have the muscles any bigger than they need to be. When I say that muscles have memory I mean that they figure out the strength they need to get us through our day. For example I was a cabinet builder many years ago and I lifted material all day long most of it very heavy. The first few weeks I was doing this job I was sore every night and my arms started getting bigger. After some time had passed I stopped getting bigger, why you ask. The reason why I was not getting bigger is that my muscles figured out that I had all the mass I needed to do my job. Now the reason they do not continue to grow is easy, the body has to use more energy to maintain bigger muscles. Which explains why people tell you to lose fat not lean muscle mass. So in essence the bigger the muscles the more fat we burn in a day. This is also why it is easier in most cases for males to lose weight than females. This is also why it is easier to lose muscle mass, but so hard to gain it.

Let's start with what happens when we go to the gym. Once we start lifting heavy weights the muscle group you are working gets small tears in it which is called micro trauma. What the body does now is it not only repairs the damage that the gym did, but also adds a layer of muscle fiber to try to keep this from happening again. So as the extra layers build up we see the muscles getting bigger. You have to remember that our bodies have a survival mode they adapt and over come to stay alive. This process of adding extra layers of muscle to existing layers of muscle is one of those situations that the survival mode kicks in to prevent injury.

Nutrition is a big part in the repair of the muscles. One reason is if we do not feed the body atrophy will set in. Most of us think of atrophy being caused by not moving for long periods of time. For example being bed ridden, but there is another kind atrophy and that is from malnutrition. In this instance if we starve the body and there is no food or fat for the body to consume, than the body has to consume muscle to survive. An example of this is a person that suffers from anorexia; they have little muscle lift do to lack of food to feed the muscles. The key macro nutrient to feed the muscle here is protein. How protein works is that it is broke down in our system to amino acids which is what the muscles need for repair. The essential amino acids or branch chain amino acids or BCAA's are the ones that we are interested in, there are two other forms of amino acids that have different functions in the body. The BCAA help to build and repair our muscles. So it only makes sense that if we have micro trauma to the muscles, than the more protein we consume the faster and stronger the muscle repairs. As with anything, there are limits to how much protein to take in per meal. There is not an exact number of grams of protein is too much at this time. I usually figure that if you stay between 30 and 40 grams per meal you will be fine.

The second most important part of muscle growth is rest. If you are moving around and using your muscles how can they repair themselves? The other thing to remember here is that when we are at rest (mainly during sleeping periods) this is when our hormone levels are elevated, such as growth hormone. So of course this is when we are going to have the best chance for muscle gain. It is usually when the protein has a chance to do its best work. Also the longer you sleep the faster the repair. So as you have always heard try to get at least 6 to 8 hours of sleep each night for the best results.

So this is why I say that muscles are not built in the gym. Yes, we need the gym to tear them down to build them back up, but they are made after the gym when we eat and sleep. As always train smarter not harder.

Health, Fitness, Bodybuilding and Nutrition

Owner/Operator of http://www.getmassmuscle.com/
Home of all your supplement and workout needs.
You can also follow us on Facebook and Google+ at Get Mass Muscle

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Build Big Shoulders

Many consider well-rounded and big shoulders to be the most impressive and muscular looking aspect of a well developed body, and I certainly include myself in that category. Shoulders tell a lot about a guy who works out and usually if their shoulders are in great looking shape then you know that person is doing something right in their training and aren’t neglecting body parts and just working the biceps for instance.

A man with big shoulders is to be able to lift heavy objects above his head, and I believe this is why the shoulder, or deltoid muscle, is so important to demonstrating and showing off your strength. It shows that you’re a strong guy who can not only pick heavy stuff (or people up) but actually lift them above your head!

To build big shoulders is rather simple and you need only a few exercises in reality, the most important being the military press, or the overhead press as it’s also known. It’s performed with a barbell and it’s a simple case of resting it on the top of your chest near your neck with both hands palms faced upward in the starting position, and simply pushing it up above your head and then lowered back down to complete a full repetition.

The military press develops all sides of the deltoid muscle, the front, sides and rear, and as a beginner you shouldn’t need to add extra exercises like the lateral raise which targets only your side deltoid muscles. Once you have developed a good base using the overhead press then feel free to add other isolation exercises to hit each head to their maximum.

Isolation exercises to build your shoulders are as follows:

The lateral raise (side deltoid)Front raise (front deltoid)Behind neck press (primarily the rear deltoid)

The important thing to remember is that having big shoulders contributes to the width of your physique which is crucial for the more slender or skinny guy out there. Creating the best illusion of width comes from having a small waist, big shoulders, developed lat muscles and a large chest. If you concentrate your training in to compound lifts which target all of your major muscle groups you will start to look wider in no time.

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2 Telltale Signs That Your Muscle Building Workout Worked

When we first embark on a muscle building regime, everything comes so easy. We gain a lot of strength and muscle size quickly and it seems as if we have developed a touch which would make even Midas jealous. Then, before we know it, it all seems to grind to a halt: Our beginner gains are over, and this is where the winners continue and the losers quit.

A tape measure and bodyweight scales, once able to reliably tell you on a weekly basis whether or not you were making progress will no longer be able to give you decisive proof, and over time it’ll only become less obvious and require more faith. At this point, how do you know whether you’re really making progress or your muscle building efforts are in vain? Here’s 2 pretty reliable ways to tell…

1: You ache in the days that follow

A muscle which aches in the days which follow a workout is a muscle which has been worked beyond its previous capacity. Anyone can make a muscle ache if they hammer out endless repetitions and sets, however. I’m talking about the muscles aching by performing reps-sets within the common muscle building range (i.e. the accepted range for hypertrophy, and nothing excessive compared to your normal routine).
Such muscle aches are often mistakenly thought to be due to lactic acid build up which normally accompanies high volume training. However, even with low volume and no lactic acid burns we can experience muscle soreness, because the soreness isn’t from lactic acid but from micro-tears in the muscle fibers, indicating sufficient workout stress and that desirable changes (increases in strength and mass) are likely to follow.
You will also notice that your muscles start aching more upon changes of exercise and stop aching so much after you’ve performed the exercise several times consecutively. That’s because the muscles are adapting to the movement and the effectiveness of the movement is waning and change should be forthcoming.

2: You get stronger

As with muscle size gains, getting stronger will become a slower process with time, but the fact is, over the long term it’s likely to provide a much more microscopic view of what’s going on with your muscles than a tape measure or bodyweight scales. What I’m saying is, generally, strength gains will be much more noticeable to you than muscle gains, and although the connection between muscle size and strength isn’t as close as many think, it can be used as an approximate measure in the right context. The right context would be getting stronger within accepted muscle building rep-set protocols (i.e. bench pressing heavier this week with 7 reps 5 sets compared to the 7 reps 5 sets you did last week). If you get stronger in this context, chances are your muscles have gotten a bit bigger, too.

Conclusion…

Muscle building takes a lot of time so hang in there, be patient, take comfort from the above indicators and pretty soon the tape, scales and even mirror will confirm your progress, too.

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Build Muscle Power Without Bulk

Not every person lifting weights in the gym are doing so to achieve a powerful looking masculine physique. While there are many guys (and girls) pumping iron and taking all manner of supplements to primarily increase the size of their most prominent and visible muscle groups, others are lifting and eating in order to build pure muscle power, and these people don’t like nor want “bulk”.

Athletes that require speed and agility above brute strength look toward endurance training to suit their needs while football players, wrestlers, UFC fighters etc should all be looking to train purely for strength in regard to training their muscles.

Endurance training requires a low set range with high repetitions - for example 3 sets of 10 repetitions, perhaps even more repetitions per set depending on the individuals’ requirements. Strength training requires more sets and lower rep ranges, such as 5 sets of 5 reps.

The body is well equipped to add muscle to your frame without necessarily adding too much size or bulk. This is why often you will see slender guys in the gym lifting what seems like far too much for their frame, but then they handle the weight well and it’s a shock. It’s important to understand that muscle size does not always translate to performance and increased strength.

Adding size to your frame requires lifting weight and eating excess calories, where as adding strength only requires eating enough calories to supply energy for your workout but not so many that you put on additional body fat. Eating at maintenance will limit the amount of muscle you can build but you can still add substantial muscle mass to your frame without adding unnecessary bulk.

Another thing to note is that water and liquids make up the majority of your muscle mass and there’s a lot of guys walking around that look really pumped up from various supplements they’re taking such as the popular PUMP supplements used normally by the younger generations. Just because a muscle is full of water and liquid it doesn’t mean it’s more able than someone who trains hard and doesn’t fill their body with additional junk.

I have many articles on this site in regard to training for endurance and adding muscle without the bulk therefore I advice you to look at some below and learn some more about the topic.

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Deadlift Versus Leg Press

Often neglected the legs are an important muscle to train for numerous reasons that are beneficial to your overall muscle development. Without strong legs, you will find it increasingly more difficult to lift weight up to the initial starting position for upper body exercises, such as the barbell curl or standing overhead press.

Just because the legs are hidden under clothes most of the time and aren’t on show, doesn’t mean you should forget about them. A good heavy leg workout will increase the amount of testosterone your body is producing for a short period, and that can’t be a bad thing for any guy.

The 2 main exercises to develop your legs are the deadlift, which some regard as the king of all exercises, and of course the leg press. The deadlift is simple in that it’s just a matter of lifting up a barbell, standing up straight and then lowering it back down again in a controlled and safe manner. The leg press is usually performed on a leg press machine whereby you lay on your back and thrust your legs in to a weighted plate and push the weight up and away, and then lower back down bending your knees.

Comparing the deadlift versus leg press is relatively easy in so much as the deadlift works almost every muscle in your body while the leg press isolated mostly your legs and very little else. It is for this reason I would opt to perform the deadlift over the leg press when training your legs. Due to it involving numerous other muscles such as your biceps, triceps, shoulders, legs, glutes, forearms, traps and back, it is a far superior exercise and should be incorporated in to your workout program.

The leg press could be used once you’ve been training for some time simply to vary the exercises or further exhaust your legs after a deadlifting session to ensure maximum stimulus to the muscle fibres. Training with the leg press alone and not performing the deadlift is a route you do not want to consider, but many guys do for an easier but a far less effective and inferior workout.

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How To Make Mountainous Traps Out Of Molehills

Nothing completes the powerful look like big traps. If you want to improve your upper trap development and have tried shrugs and haven’t gotten the results you’d like then don’t abandon shrugs just yet because I have something for you that’ll help supercharge the effectiveness of shrugs, so the exercise starts to pay dividends for you.

When we look at how our muscles develop, it can become obvious there is often gaping differences between the speeds at which certain muscles develop. Quads and biceps usually develop fairly quickly, while the traps are oftentimes slow to develop for most people. Why is this? And what can we do about it?

Building muscle is all about time under tension. This simply means the amount of time your muscle spends under tension of adequate weight (building muscle requires adequate time under adequate tension). Let’s consider the fact an average dumbbell curl will take maybe 1 second on the concentric and 2 seconds on the eccentric, that’s 3 seconds. Now consider how long the average shrug will take… probably less than 1 second for the entire up and down. That’s a lot less time under tension.

If we did 12 shrugs for 3 sets, that’d be 1 second x 12 reps x 3 sets = 36 seconds.

Compare this with the dumbbell curl scenario we’ve just mentioned, with the same rep and set scheme we’d get 3 seconds x 12 reps x 3 sets = 108 seconds.

That’s a vast difference.

Yet, many people who follow set-in-stone repetition and set schemes for all of their exercises condemn themselves to low time under tension for certain muscles which lack a large range of motion.

What’s the answer for shrugs?

Without doubt, the best solution is to go for more reps, more sets, or both. Mix it up. You can even try shrugging more slowly from time to time, but it seems to be that people get best results from shrugging very heavy weights in a more explosive manner – at least on the concentric. Case in point: Top strength coach Charles Poliquin ranks the Power Snatch as the best traps builder, and this movement is as explosive as they come.

Be sure that you use a lot of weight – the upside of limited range of motion muscles sometimes means they can handle much more weight – but be sure to not sacrifice your already limited range of motion in shrugs by using a weight you simply can’t perform full range, quality reps with.

Give higher volume a go for a month or two with different shrug variations to keep it fresh and see what kind of results you get. I’m betting they’ll be very favorable.

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Leg Presses: A Machine Alternative For Long-Legged Squatters

While squats are undoubtedly the greatest exercise for building lower body strength, particularly the quads, it’s fair to say that squats aren’t a well-loved exercise for many people. Some people do have a legitimate beef: For people with long legs and a short upper body, squatting can be awkward. The immense forward lean to retain balance not only places the lower back under considerable pressure, but it also makes it almost impossible not to drive up from the toes, instead of the heel.

The fact is those with normal proportions (or better yet, shorter legs and a longer back), have much better balance and will get much more out of squats, particularly in so far as hitting the quadriceps. That’s not a cop out, that’s just common sense and I don’t care what anybody says.

If barbell squats are difficult for you and your quadriceps training is suffering, you could try the leg press machine which will enable you to handle much heavier weight without balance issues or lower back pressure.

This is how to use the leg press machine:
1.    Take your position on the leg press machine, butt firmly in place, back firmly against the rest to provide a stable, spine-free pressing position, and place your feet close together on the foot platform, toes pointing straight forwards or near enough, and feet quite low on the platform to target quadriceps (higher will add glute involvement, taking away from quadriceps).
2.    Press the weight up and release the break lever and then use hands to grip the handles to the side for stability.
3.    Slowly lower the weight until your knees are bent almost to their maximum range, then press back up with the whole of your foot – keeping your heel in contact at all times. Keep your knees going in the same direction as your toes are pointing to maintain a safe and stable pressing position, as you would do for regular squats.  As with all exercises, a smooth movement is important to avoid injury.

When you want to stop, or should you get into trouble at any time, always be aware of where the break lever is so you can lock the weight at the drop of a hat.

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The 2 Most Vital Muscle Building Exercise Categories

The task of selecting the best muscle building exercises is simply summed up by many as ‘choose the exercises which allow you to lift the heaviest weights’. This may make sense, and it is true in part, but there’s a massive piece of the puzzle missing here which will be explained in this article to hopefully talk you out of taking an inferior path in your training. It’s important you understand the importance of the 2 main categories of exercise and how and when to exploit them – or you won’t get anywhere near as big and strong as you could.

Bench Press

Category 1: Compound exercises

Usually praised as the ‘best’ type of muscle building exercise, ‘compounds’ incorporate more than one muscle group into the lift. Therefore, a compound movement such as the bench press which heavily involves the triceps, deltoids and pectorals (and many more muscle groups) allows you to handle far more weight than would triceps extensions, deltoid raises or chest flys. This is because you are getting the benefits of the combined strength output of all these muscle groups.

 Compound exercises work the body as a system which tends to make compound exercises more effective for overall strength and muscle gains. However, one has to remember that the load is effectively being shared between each of these muscle groups to varying degrees – a fact many people overlook entirely.

 And therein is the big problem with compound exercises… you really don’t know how much of the current potential of each muscle group you’re truly using because you’re always limited by the weakest muscle group involved in the lift. Some muscle groups may be capable of far more weight but are in fact being held back due to a weak muscle group – a runt in the litter!

 In fact, one simple slogan which you absolutely must subscribe to (because it’s absolutely true) is ‘you’re only as strong as your weakest link’.
With compound exercises, you have limited ways of targeting the weaker muscle groups holding your overall lift back, so you have to think beyond compound exercises and break your training up into more precisely targeted exercises, which brings us to…

 Category 2: Isolation exercises

The antithesis of compound exercises is isolation (not to be confused with isometric!), which involve one primary muscle group to effect movement. Isolation exercises are best used to fill in the gaps the compound exercises can’t. You can use them to directly target weak muscle groups for strength purposes, to improve your compound lifts, or purely for aesthetic purposes. They really are invaluable and don’t let anybody kid you otherwise.

 An ideal bodybuilding/strength program will make the very best use of both of these exercise categories. It is an absolute fact that the very strongest and biggest people in the world did not get where they are by either banging away strictly with compound or isolation exercises but by smartly using a mixture of both. I strongly suggest you do the same.

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Top Strength Coach Says EZ Curl Bars Do Not Build Biceps

Along with dumbbell curls, barbell curls are the most common method of building the biceps with free weights. In fact, many people prefer barbell curls which are more effective for performing cheat curls when loaded with heavier weight. As anyone who has curled will testify, barbell curls with a straight bar can feel a little awkward and when a person tries curls with an EZ Curl bar, they often don’t go back to using a straight bar.

EZ curl bars are cambered bars which allow the palms to be placed in a more neutral position as opposed to absolutely supine making the movement more comfortable. But, does it make curls more effective? According to respected strength coach Mark Rippetoe, author of the ever-popular Starting Strength book, no. In fact, he goes as far as saying EZ curl bars just “don’t work”. I’m sure you now want to know why, so this article will reveal why.

Not every curl (underhand, overhand or hammer/neutral grip) hits the biceps optimally!

When your palms are completely supine (upward), your biceps muscle fibers are in their prime pulling position – hence the reason why they go rock solid when flexed when your palm is turned towards you. The more you turn your palms away from you and flex your biceps, the softer your biceps go because the fibers are elongated and more bunched up.

The more prone (overhand) your grip, the more of a mechanical disadvantage your biceps are in when performing curls.

Therefore, the further away from supine your grip becomes, the more emphasis is placed on the brachioradialis and brachialis elbow flexors and the less on the biceps brachii.

And… that’s precisely what an EZ curl bar does: Forces the grip into a less supine position!

Therefore, to build the actual biceps brachii a more supine grip is preferred. This also holds true for curls with dumbbells – the more supine throughout, the better it hits the biceps brachii.

For sure, the EZ curl bar will build the biceps and overall upper arm size, but it’ll never compare to a straight barbell for building the biceps brachii – so I recommend you do most of your curls with a straight barbell.

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Tricep Pushdowns

Do your Tricep Pushdowns in the following way and you’ll be well on your way to thicker arms.

In recent months it’s really hammered home to me that when hitting the triceps, both the NEGATIVE and STATIC strength should be emphasized.

Watch the video to get a visual of what I’m talking about and I’ll explain all afterwards.

 Face a high pulley and grasp a V-bar attachment with overhand grip. Position the elbows to the side and keep them locked in there.

 Now extend the arms FULLY. Do this pushing movement under full muscular control ensuring that it’s actually the triceps doing the work. Feel the muscle here, not the weight.

 At the bottom when the arms are fully extended and the triceps are in the fully contracted position, pause for a brief second before starting the negative/raising.

 Return SLOWLY until the forearm is parallel to the floor, no higher is required.

 Once you go higher than parallel you enter the weakest range of motion for this movement. So you’d have to use a lighter weight to hit the same number of reps. And what for? You won’t be recruiting any extra muscle fibers or stimulating more growth. In fact, with the decreased overload, you’ll stimulate less growth. Parallel is high enough.

 Roughly speaking, use a 2-1-3 cadence. 2 (down) 1 (hold) 3 (up). More importantly remember to push down under full muscular control of the triceps, pause briefly at the peak contraction point, and raise a little slower than you pushed down.

TIP: As far as the handle is concerned, use a V-type bar as opposed to a rope. You definitely aren’t as strong with the rope as you are with the bar. The rope means you have to divert a portion of your strength to stabilization; try it and experience it for yourself.

Also, don’t get this confused with the ‘McManus Pushdown‘, which is finisher move for your triceps using a much lighter weight.

Stay Motivated!

Mark

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Why Some Bodybuilders Are Better Off Not Training To Failure

After doing just a little research a new trainee will see that most people promote the principle of ‘training to failure’. Failure is the time at which the nervous system simply can’t take anymore at a given weight and crashes, causing your muscle contraction to come to an end. Training to failure would seem to make sense in that you are pushing yourself to the limit.

And, as we’re constantly being told, pushing ourselves to the limit is the only way to make the best gains possible – anything else is stopping short or copping out. However, for some people, is there more to be gained by not training to failure constantly?

For some people, I truly believe training to failure too frequently causes negative central nervous system effects that will hinder progress. I think this for a few reasons. Here’s why…

Everybody is different. Not only physically but mentally, and both are interconnected. Now, it’s well known that even mental stress can affect muscle and strength gains negatively. And training to failure causes mental stress – plus, a lot of physical stress.

Some people can cope with physical and mental stress better than others; this is just how it goes. By not training to failure regularly, some people will be leaving a lot of potential gains on the table, while another group of people who attempt to train to failure regularly will cause themselves too much physical and mental stress and hurt their progress.

Trainees should experiment with training to failure regularly, sporadically, and stopping short of failure for certain periods and see what progress they observe to get a better picture of which training intensities work best for them.

It’s also worth mentioning that some people would get better results from training to failure regularly, but they underestimate how long it takes them to recover fully and could in fact benefit by training the same muscles to failure still, but training them less frequently. I’ve had some of my best results in strength and size by training my body parts very hard once a week.

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Why Regularly Changing Muscle Building Exercises Is Critical

It’s incredible to think that even today some people still scoff at the idea of changing exercises regularly in order to continue building muscle. “Why would you need to, do the muscles have little brains which know what you did over the last few weeks?” they ask sarcastically. Others say it’s merely psychological – that on some level you become bored of what you’re doing and begin to put less and less effort into it and sabotage yourself because you desire change. What really happens when you don’t change exercises, if anything?

Your muscles are controlled by the central nervous system which controls the motor units which pull on the limited bunches of muscle fibers they’re hooked up to in certain patterns, which creates movement. Muscle building is a very taxing business for the body, and the central nervous system doesn’t like it, as it seeks to impose a constant state of homeostasis (no change).

Movement patterns certainly are engrained and recognized by the central nervous system. How else would a person be able to learn coordination to walk, lift a cup to their mouths or play the piano – and become ‘rusty’ (i.e. lose some of their effectiveness) at some activities in which they haven’t performed in a long time? Or, how is it the central nervous system fails to adapt quickly when you overdo something/over-train? That’s homeostasis.

Once the central nervous system identifies a frequent movement pattern and an outcome it sees as a threat to homeostasis (i.e. muscle building) it clamps down on positive adaptation by limiting your ability to progress on this movement. You will see your strength and speed slow or stop, and even your coordination deteriorate and become far more injury prone.

This is a temporary situation – the exercise isn’t useless forever, it’s just not going to be as beneficial to you as others will be for a while.

And the methods which tax the CNS the most cause the body to fight for homeostasis quicker, which is why the heavier you lift, the more quickly the exercise becomes ineffective and the more regularly you need to change in order to continue making progress – you’ve hit the CNS hard and it’s fighting back hard.

For the heaviest lifts of 1-3 reps, changing exercises every 2-3 weeks maximum will ensure you don’t get stuck as often. The best thing you can do is to learn about all of the different muscles and the positions in which they are best activated, and create a list of many different exercises for each body part and rotate them in a formulaic manner. The idea is to circumvent homeostasis, and the most effective way of doing this is to change the exercise/movement entirely on a regular basis.

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Trap Bar Shrugs

Developed traps look AWESOME.

Train them in the fashion I’m about to illustrate and you’ll be well on your way.

This article revises and replaces a previous shrug tutorial article on this site. I now advocate a slight flexion at the elbow joint.

By the way, the form here applies to all variations of the shrug: barbell shrugs, dumbbell shrugs, cable shrugs, or trap bar shrugs.

Watch the vid first and I’ll explain all below…

 The first point before anything else is the cadence. Traps are best worked rather slowly. We’re talking 1-2 seconds on the positive and 2 or even 3 seconds on the negative.

 Feel the muscle here, not the weight. Raise and lower the weight slowly, smoothly, and under full muscular control.

 I now recommend a slight flexion at elbow joint as you perform the positive portion of the rep (raising). This will make it a little easier to get into the point of maximal contraction. I’ve been employing this method in recent months to great effect.

 Keeping a smooth motion, raise the shoulders up to the point where further elevation is impossible.

 Lower slowly and under control while at the same time extending the arms – fully straightening them.

 Make sure you lower the weight right down to the lowest point possible. It should feel like it’s “hanging” on the traps at the bottom.

You’ll note in the video that I am ensuring the weight is lowered to the lowest point on the negative, and raised to the highest point on the positive. Do the same and see some real trap growth!

Let me know how you get on

Your Buddy,

Mark 

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Why Are Prisoners So Buff?

Ever hear this from someone? “Why Are Prisoners So Muscular?”

It’s usually in response to advising them on how much protein or food they need…

“Well if that’s true then why are prisoners so buff?!”.

I want to respond to this because it’s a question that’s put to me now and again in real life and on the web.

There are a few points to be considered here. Chief of all is this…

THEY’RE NOT!

You’re watching way too much TV.

Very few prisoners in real life are buff. Most are actually quite skinny.

But in order to portray a criminal in a movie or on TV as “tough”, they often cast muscular guys to play the role.

They might be dangerous, but they ain’t big.

But for the very few who are big, you can bet that they were training BEFORE they ever landed in prison.

So their impressive physique was already there before they were incarcerated.

There is also the issue of drug use.

If you think that steroid use isn’t happening on the inside of prison walls, you’re living in cloud cuckoo land. It happens.

Hopefully that’s that cleared up!

So yes you DO need that much protein. You DO need a good diet. And above all, you DO need to…

Train With Intensity!

Mark

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