The Path of Least Resistance is the Path of Pain

Remember this statement for the rest of your life, it’ll serve you well:

“The Path of Least Resistance is the Path of Pain”

What does it mean and how will it help you?

It’s simple. After 30 yrs of life experience I have come to the conclusion that it’s an unbreakable law of nature that living for short-term pleasures means living for long-term pain. On the flip side, if you can overcome your desires for instant gratification and keep your eye on what you want in the long-term, you can have anything you want!

Caving into short-term desires is taking the path of least resistance. Having the mental toughness to say no is harder, but will give you long-term success and happiness. This requires STRENGTH. Let’s take a look at an example that we all know well.

If I want to transform the shape of size of my body, I must push against RESISTANCE. In doing so, I sculpt my body.

If I want to transform my life in any way, I must also push against RESISTANCE. In doing so, I sculpt my character.

What would happen if I took the path of least resistance here? NOTHING! I could skip my workout, or I could go to the gym and do a half-assed job. But since INTENSITY is the key to a productive workout, it would have no transformative effect on my body.

In life you can always just take the path of least resistance. Sure you’ll feel good in the short-term, but your life will suck and you’ll NEVER be able to accomplish anything worthwhile.

Check out some examples of this. In the left column is the area of life. In the middle is Path of Least Resistance, and in the right is the Path of Resistance.

 Finances | Living Beyond Your Means & Debt Vs Security & Possibly Even Wealth

 Physically | Tasty Food Anytime You like But Being Overweight & Unhealthy Vs Healthy, Vital, Lean, & Energetic

 Training | Optional & Easy With No Results Vs Mandatory, Hard, But Effective And Transformative!

 Relationships | Not Taking Time With The Most Important People Which Leads To Deterioration Vs Taking Time To Nurture Those Relationships, Which Causes Them To Further Grow & Flourish

You see, nature has set the game of life up beautifully in my opinion.

How?

Just like your physical body grows in response to a high level of resistance, YOU grow as a person in response to overcoming resistance/challenges in your life.

Ultimately I believe that every problem has a purpose. As such then there are no problems, just challenges. A problem is a random obstacle that has unfortunately come your way. A challenge is meaningful and has purpose.

Think about it. If you were to overcome the challenges in your life right now, wouldn’t you have grown as a person as a result? I have no doubt that you would have. This is because nature would have required you to push outside of your comfort zone and forced you to enlarge your skills/abilities, or just become a bigger and better person.

Perhaps the purpose of life is to continually grow; to become more. If so, the game has been masterfully designed because there is no such thing as a challenge-free life. The trick is to understand and embrace the challenges in your life as opportunities for growth in disguise.

But doesn’t taking the more resistant path require self-discipline?

Yep! And that’s great too because discipline is freedom.

Discipline is often associated with a lack of freedom, but this is totally and utterly wrong. Discipline = Freedom.

If you have no sense of discipline, you can never really choose what you want for your life. For example, a guy wants to get rid of his gut and decides to do something about it. 2 weeks later after the motivation has worn off, he lacks the discipline to keep going until he reaches his goal. A person like this is going to be blown about by the winds of life for all his days. He simply doesn’t have what it takes to chart his own course in life.

In contrast, the person who has discipline can CHOOSE whatever he or she wishes for their life because they KNOW it’s going to happen sooner or later. How do they know? Because they JUST DON’T QUIT. This is total freedom. The freedom to master your own life and choose whatever it is you really want.

Developing discipline not only brings freedom, but a sense of accomplishment, confidence, equanimity, and happiness.

This is the total opposite of what you’re fooled into believing by taking the path of least resistance. You’d think you’d be happier by taking the easy option, but you never are. Allowing yourself to be seduced by the short-term pleasures of the world always ends in misery.

Losers always take the easy option. Winners NEVER take the path of least resistance. Step up!

I’ll leave you with a quote I love from Og Mandino,

“I am here for a purpose and that purpose is to grow into a mountain, not to shrink to a grain of sand. Henceforth will I apply ALL my efforts to become the highest mountain of all and I will strain my potential until it cries for mercy”

Mark

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Using Muscles Workout Routines to Gain Faster Muscle Mass

If you're avoiding the gym on purpose because you feel intimidated and out of place among those people who have really huge muscles, don't be! Truth is, gym have all the right equipments needed for you to gain those muscles, without really needing to invest in any of them personally for your own home.

Chances are, those who make you feel really uncomfortable were probably just like you once, at some point of their life. Instead you should consider making friends with them to learn some of their muscle building techniques! After all, they'll know a thing or two about building muscles since there are obvious results now.

Many of them will have different views and tips on the easiest way to get bigger. However, bear in mind that you should not just follow everything you hear from them, after all, everyone have a different disposition, your genes and body type should be taken into consideration for the most effective muscle workout routine to gain muscles.

In this article I'm going to share with you some of my tips that I often tell others. Like I've said before, do not just follow blindly. Try to incorporate some of these tips inside your muscle workout routines to have the maximum effect when performing muscle gaining exercises and the body that you've always wanted.

Free weights are an incredible exercise routine that you should not do without in your workout routine. While strength machines have their advantages, they're fixed and they will always work the same muscle group if you perform the same exercise at the same machine. The point here is not to make you choose free weights over machine, instead you should view this as a how to incorporate free weights into your muscles workout routines. The advantage of free weights exercises is that it allows you to reach and strengthen more muscles group than a machine can possibly do.

One of the worst advices you can hear is to exercise the same muscle group everyday, not only it does not help your muscle to grow; you'll end up being a lot more injured and lose a lot more mass tissues than if you just left them alone.

Muscle tearing is part of your muscle gaining process, it happens when you exercise a muscle group. However, can you imagine the consequences if you just tear them down everyday without ever giving them a chance to recover? Mass muscles tissues loss is to be expected, therefore the best way to do so is not to work the same group everyday, instead allow a 2-3 days rest period while you start on your other groups. Allow your body a chance to take over and repair while you sleep and rest.

One simple way to do so is to exercise your whole body instead of just focusing at one specific area. From your chest to your shoulders, biceps to abs, your back to your legs, there are plenty of room to improve and to work on! Also, who says working out is boring and repetitive? You can make a difference and make it fun for yourself! Find different exercise methods for each different area of your body and try them out, rotating them between sets and see how your muscles feel performing different method of exercise.

Lastly, do not compromise your form for speed or simply for completion. Truth is your workout session will be the most productive when you work each rep in a controlled, smooth motion that contracts the muscles group the exercises are meant to. Not only it speeds up your muscle building process, it keeps you away from harm's way as well!

Getting a proven muscles workout routines [http://www.bestwaytogainmuscle.org] can help saves you the trial and error needed in finding the best way to build muscles. Understanding how your own body works and develop a highly customized workout plan can be difficult without knowing some body building basics! Therefore, get the essential muscles building information here [http://www.bestwaytogainmuscle.org]!

Vince Delmonte Workout - 5 Muscle Building Workout Tips

The Vince Delmonte workout program aims to show skinny hardgainers how to gain weight and build muscle, often where they have failed to previously.

Below are my five muscle building tips that every hardgainer should be utilizing in order to gain muscle mass, and I've shown how each one relates to the Vince Delmonte workout program.

Eat More Calories...Much More

The biggest reason most skinny guys and girls fail to gain muscle mass is their insufficient calorie intake.

In order to gain weight and build muscle you need to be consume a much larger amount of calories per day in order to achieve your goals.

As a general rule of thumb, you'll want to multiply your current bodyweight in pounds by 24 to achieve your daily calorie goal. For example if you weight 150 pounds you should be aiming to consume (150 x 24) 3,600.

This is a simplified formula, and there are other factors to consider. The Vince Delmonte workout shows you how to measure bodyfat and necessary caloric intakes accurately, for your specific circumstances.

Follow An All-Body Workout Program

In addition to an adequate diet, the need to follow a proven all-body workout program cannot be overstated.

Many hardgainers are wrongly advised to split their workouts into upper body and lower body, often resulting in them only working out one body part once per week.

The Vince Delmonte workout shows you how to organize and plan your workouts to get the maximum benefit to your muscles. By performing 3 or 4 all-body workouts per week, you are guaranteeing that your muscles are being stimulated sufficiently for massive muscle growth. The goal here is to stimulate as much muscle as possible each time you hit the gym.

Compound Exercises

In addition, compound exercises are the best way to stimulate multiple muscle groups and fibres and get the most muscle building bang for your buck.

Free weights exercises like Squats, Deadlifts and Bench Press, work a larger number of large muscles, as well as forcing you to utilize minor stabilizing muscles. This all in turn results in faster muscle gains, and a more efficient workout time...meaning you spend less time down the gym.

The Vince Delmonte workout focuses on compound exercises in order to get you muscle gains as fast as possible, with particular reference to the "big basic" exercises such as Squats and Deadlifts (as mentioned above), since these get you moving as much weight as possible each workout session.

Change Up Your Workouts To Prevent Stagnation

Many skinny guys and girls fail to change up their workouts on a regular basis, meaning that they often see initial gains, which tend to trail off after a few weeks. The main reason for this is that your body is getting used to stress which is being placed upon it.

The Vince Delmonte workout takes the approach that in order to see consistent muscle gains you need to make your body keep "guessing". By changing up your workouts regularly, through rep and set numbers, and exercise variations, you keep your muscles "on their toes" and continue to see sustained muscle growth over time.

The Vince Delmonte workout provides you with over a year's worth of workout routines, and the advice on how to best use them and change them to fit your own circumstances. This enables you to build your own workouts in the future.

Understand and Harness Your Natural Hormones

Many people tend to overlook the role that your natural hormones play in helping you to gain muscle mass. By understanding them, and learning how to use them to your advantage you can see impressive muscle gains, without resorting to pills, potions and of that other junk.

The Vince Delmonte workout shows you the role your hormones play in everyday activity and how best to use them to your advantage and get an edge on the competition.

From sleeping patterns to what you eat, Vince shows you how to maximize the positive muscle building hormones in your body, and minimize the existence of the negative ones - since these can really sabotage an otherwise sound workout and nutrition program. He also shows you how to maximize your testosterone levels by choosing the exercises that increase them substantially.

Check out my site for a full in-depth review of the Vince Delmonte No Nonsense Muscle Building workout, where I actually take you inside for a sneak peek ==> Vince Delmonte Workout Review.

Weight Gaining Fast - 3 Tips on How to Gain Weight Safely

Do you need to put on some more pounds in a hurry? Gaining weight can be a frustrating experience most times for those who are underweight. Trying various methods of eating and exercising and not getting results can be discouraging. Are you worried that you're doomed to be labeled as skinny or scrawny for the rest of your life? If you're looking into weight gaining fast, there's no need to worry. There are ways for you to accomplish your goal and in a safe manner.

Be committed. Being underweight is not just about body image; it can also affect your health. You're putting yourself at a greater risk of developing a weakened immune system or other serious medical conditions. So, by committing yourself to putting on weight and getting in good shape, you're doing yourself a huge favor. By doing it the right way, you'll be enjoying the benefits of a being a happier, healthier person.

Balanced diet. First of all, make sure that you're eating the right kinds of foods. Scarfing down fatty junk foods or sugary sweets might seem like the quick way to gain weight, but it's certainly not the healthiest. Focus on getting enough of a balanced diet so that you're getting all of the nutrients you need. Protein is especially important for gaining weight fast since it helps you build up muscle tissue.

Exercise. You can't rely on food alone to help you put on weight. That doesn't mean that you should run out and buy a whole bunch of supplements. These will wind up costing you quite a bit of money and aren't guaranteed to be effective. Save your money instead and take up exercising.

If you're not used to physical activity, then start out by walking or doing some light weight lifting. Trying to lift 50 pounds or run 5 miles right away will only earn you a trip to the hospital. Even though you're in a hurry to look and feel your best, you still need to exercise caution and be patient when it comes to weight gaining fast. One mistake can set you back weeks or even months if you're not careful.

Working out at home or at a gym will help you get started, but how will you know which exercises will help you get the results you want? You could look through plenty of health and fitness magazines or watch fitness videos, but you really need a workout plan that is tailored to your needs. Spending tons of time searching for the right workout will prevent you from weight gaining fast. If you get so caught up in looking for the perfect routine to help you put on weight, you'll be missing out on valuable time that could be spent exercising.

Looking for a quick but safe way to add weight and build muscle at the same time? Not sure where to find one? To find out more on the perfect plan to gain weight fast click here on www.unique-review.com/build-big-muscle.

The Sunshine Vitamin That Can Save Your Life & Boost Your Performance

I’ve been taking the “Sunshine Vitamin” for over a year now. It’s cheap, effective, and you should be including it in your daily supplementation schedule A.S.A.P.

In fact, as you’ll soon see, it’s really more of a hormone than a vitamin.

I’m going to show you some videos today of doctors talking about the beneficial effects of Vitamin D on everything from flu to cancer, and even athletic performance!

The unfortunate fact is that most of you are probably deficient in this vitamin at least during some part of the year.

I’ll talk about dosage at the bottom of the article.

First up, check out Dr. Prendergast talking about the positive effects on flu (including bird flu), asthma, and cancer. At around 3mins 45 secs he says, “16 major cancers would all be diminished by 90% by supplementing with vitamin D.”

Dr. John Cannell here talks about how people on more than 5000 IU (international units) of Vitamin D per day don’t get sick. That’s been my experience so far too.

Here’s a short clip called “The Real Story on Vitamin D”

As you heard from Dr. Cannell above and also from this page on Dr. Mercola’s website, the recommended dosage is about 5000 IU per day.

In Ireland we’ve had about 10 really sunny days this summer and the rest of the year ain’t that great, so I take 10,000 IU per day.

You won’t need this supplement at all if you live somewhere where it’s sunny all year round. And if you only get good summers, you won’t need it during those months. However, if you’re summers aren’t great, it may be a good idea to take it year-round.

Don’t buy anything until you read this: You specifically need to buy Vitamin D3 as Cholecalciferol capsules.

This is the brand and strength I take: Healthy Origins Vitamin D3. You get 360 capsules for $27, which is less than 30 bucks for a whole year’s supply!

I searched MyProtein UK and was surprised to see that they stock it too here (is there anything they don’t sell?). They only sell 2500 IU capsules, but it’s a very cheap way to start supplementing and see what you think – £7.99. At their website they also say, “There is also some evidence to suggest Vitamin D levels are associated with the maintenance of power and strength by potentially increasing the size and number of fast twitch fibres.” I don’t know where they got that from to be honest but it’s worth bearing in mind.

For your overall wellness and long term health, I want you to seriously consider getting some Vitamin D in your life, guys. There’s not much point in having large muscles and being ripped to shreds if you end up getting sick.

To health, energy, youthfulness, vitality and all that good stuff!

Mark

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Top 5 Reasons To Eat Red Meat

I don’t think anyone is going to be shocked when I say I love red meat. Nor will it come as a surprise if I say it’s a healthy, nutritious food, and should be included in everyone’s diet, especially those wishing to build muscle.

Here are 5 reasons to include some delicious red meat in your diet:

1) Protein. You get a high quality, complete protein to supply your hungry muscles with the fuel they need to recover and grow! Meat is typically 20-25% protein, so for every 100g you chow down, you get about 25g protein.

2) B Vitamins. Red meat is rich in B vitamins, including vitamin B12. These are needed for supporting a healthy metabolic rate, immune function, and good skin and hair among others. B vitamins are important for emotional as well as physical well-being with a deficiency being linked to depression.

3) CLA (Conjugated Linoleic Acid). Animal and human studies have shown CLA to be beneficial in regards to combating various cancers, heart disease, inflammation, hypertension and more. Try to get grass-fed beef if possible. (UK CLA supplement | US CLA supplement).

4) Stearic Acid. You would think from what some people say that the fat in red meat is 100% saturated. In fact, you’ll find sites on net that say just that! (Be careful where you get your info)

Beef fat is about 50% monounsaturated fat, 90 percent of which is oleic acid. This is the same healthy fat found in olive oil and will typically contribute to a lower LDL and higher HDL cholesterol.

About a third of the saturated fat in red meat is stearic acid, which also increases HDL cholesterol but typically has no effect on LDL.

There is also about 4% polyunsaturated fat, which typically lowers LDL and has zero effect on HDL cholesterol.

Lowering LDL (more specifically the VLDL) and raising HDL cholesterol is the ideal scenario for heart health. People on low-carb diets, which include red meat consumption, often experience this. Additionally, their triglyceride levels plummet. For a more in-depth discussion of this see my other articles on dietary fat and heart health including, “Saturated Fat, Not Guilty As Charged!“.

5) Testosterone Production. Fat is needed for the production of testosterone. Don’t be surprised to see people on low-fat diets walking around with low-levels of enthusiasm, vitality, and all-round “spunk”. And what better way to ensure that you are getting enough fat in your diet than eating a nice juicy steak?

I could go on here by the way; there’s creatine, iron, ALA, and zinc to mention but a few further benefits. But you guys know the drill by now, eat your meat!

Now I want to know something. Do you eat red meat daily? Weekly? Let me know below.

Also, let me know about your whole egg consumption while you’re at it!

Stay Motivated! 

Mark

P.S. At MyProtein right now they have a ‘Buy 1 Get 1 Half Price’ on their Impact Whey Protein. So if you’re going to need some whey soon, now is a good time to get it! Use code ‘IWP‘ at checkout.

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Top 10 Reasons You Need Eggs In Your Diet5 Reasons You Should Take Fish Oil Supplements8 Reasons For Hitting A Plateau And How To SMASH It!Top 10 Reasons You’re Not Building Any Muscle5 Reasons Why Water Aids Fat Loss

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Trapezius Workouts. 9 Ways To Get Your Traps To Grow

If you’re unsatisfied with the size of your traps, give me just 3 minutes here and I’ll give you some advice that will have them GROWING again in no time!

If I had to name the one exercise that attracts the most negative feedback from trainees, it would be trap shrugs. People complain that they just can’t feel this movement.

This is understandable since the percentage of people in the gym that do this exercise correctly would be rather low.

Now this is a real pity since shrugs are the best traps exercise there is in my opinion. But they have to be done correctly!

So how are people getting this movement wrong?

My observations have lead me to conclude that the vast majority of people:

 Involve the biceps far too much by NOT having their arms dead straight. This transfers much of the load away from the traps to the arms.

 Use too much momentum/the cadence is too fast

 Don’t use anywhere close to a full range of motion

Before I recommend how you should correct this and stimulate some growth, let me give you a quick warning…

Drop your ego a little and be prepared to lift a lighter load

Ok? Good.

Remember, you’re in this game to actually change your body. Not to boast about the loads you can lift. “Absolute” loads aren’t anywhere near as important as “relative” loads i.e. as long as your PERSONAL strength is increasing over time, that’s all that matters. Remember that small, incremental increases in load work best in the long term.

Here’s my recommendations. Take them and USE them ASAP!

If you do, the first thing you’ll notice is that you’ll experience soreness (DOMS) in your traps within 48 hrs. When was the last time your traps were sore? The second thing you’ll notice is that your traps will actually start to grow for a change! (I’m being facetious here  )

THT should ALWAYS produce strength and growth. You can have 100% certainty about success on this program.

So here’s what you should do during your next traps workout…

(1) Try giving up the dumbbells and barbells and pick up a trap bar, use the smith machine, or even a low pulley. Trap shrugs are one of the exercises where taking stabilization OUT of the equation is a good thing.

The above methods will allow you to do this, enabling you to produce MORE force and concentrate SOLELY on the issue of producing maximal trap contractions.

(2) Reduce the cadence/go slower. You simply can’t do shrugs quickly; they won’t work to stimulate growth in the natural lifter if done rapidly. Try a 2-1-3 cadence. Lift for 2 seconds, hold at the Peak Contraction Point (PCP) for 1 second, and lower under full muscular control for 3 seconds.

(3) On the issue of the PCP, make sure you actually hit it! There’s a visualization exercise I give to people who are having trouble with this exercise. When performing the positive/lifting part of the rep, try to visualize attempting to make your shoulders touch your ears. It’s physically impossible to do so, but that’s not the point. It will FORCE you to fully contract your traps and get into that all important PCP for a maximal muscular contraction.

(4) Do the negative! You’ll often see this critical mistake being made in the gym. Guys just skip the negative and focus only on the positive. Lowering the weight under muscular control is as important as the lifting/positive part of the rep. You do NOT drop the weight. A rep is not just a lift. A rep is a lift AND a lowering. For this exercise allow the traps (and the traps only) to lower the weight back into the starting position.

(5) Let it hang! I just said to lower the load under control into the starting position. The starting position is ALL the way down. Basically, it’s the point where your shoulder blades can’t physically get any lower.

You’ll know you’re in it when there is no tension on your arms; they are straight and hanging like chains. The weight is simply hanging there and producing a real STRETCH across the traps; trust me, you’ll feel it. Mentally tell yourself to let the weight “hang” at the bottom of each rep.

(6) Straight arms. Like I mentioned above, your arms should not be assisting in the lift. In order to take them out of the equation, keep them straight (fully extended) throughout the lifting and lowering. This transfers 100% of the load to the traps themselves.

(7) Try higher reps. To begin getting this movement right, try using higher reps until you get the hang of it. Instead of aiming to reach failure on the tenth rep, try 12-15 reps for a week or 2 until you really master correct form. Then you can increase the load a little and reach failure in a lower rep range.

(8) Reduce the load. In order to accommodate all of the above recommendations, you’ll almost certainly have to reduce the load a little. This is not a big deal. If it’s bruising your ego, just get over it. The fact is that if you keep doing what you’re currently doing, you’ll produce the same result. If you’re not happy with your results, then you HAVE to change your method to produce a different outcome. Simple.

(9) On a related note, make sure you are doing deadlifts for full trap development. Heavy deadlifts are great for stimulating growth in the traps and will help you continually get stronger in your shrugs too. So don’t neglect to do this important compound movement on back day!

My personal favorite way to hit my traps is by shrugging with a low pulley. The movement is so smooth and I can really concentrate on fully contracting the intended muscle. The only issue here is if your gym has enough weight on the stack for you.

I’m sure many of you will require loads over 100kg and I know some gyms can’t accommodate this on their pulley stacks. If this is the case at your gym, use a trap bar and/or the smith machine.

Read over the above recommendations a few times and memorize them. Apply them in the gym and I can GUARANTEE that you’ll see positive changes in your traps over the next few weeks .

Stay Motivated!

Mark

P.S. Here’s a short vid I shot over a year ago of me doing a low pulley cable shrug. While it isn’t a great vid, note the controlled cadence and the full range of motion.

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(Video) The Best Trapezius Exercise For GrowthThe THT 2.0 Training Cycle. Shoulders & Traps Day (part 12)How To Overload Muscle And Grow!5 Ways to Get Fit in 2008

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