Saturday, February 14, 2009

Discover Some Untried Ways to Exercise and Gain Muscle Fast

By Brad Morgan

If you are trying to build muscle, there are exercises that can help you get the most out of your workouts. Some moves are definitely more effective than others in helping you achieve your goal.

What are the best ways to build muscle and keep it on?

1. Work complementary muscles with consecutive supersets.

To get the best results from your workout, make them short and difficult. Building muscle is not about marathon-length exercise sessions but about challenging your muscles.

The most effective way to do this is to superset. Supersetting is when you do two exercises, one right after another, with no rest in between.

You work two muscle groups consecutively with very short rest periods in between sets. This way, you work more muscle and you reduce the risk of injury because the strain on your tendons and joints is less intense.

Supersets allow you to see results more quickly, in addition to making your workouts more effective, efficient, and safe. You can superset exercises for back and chest muscles, quad and hamstrings, and more. An example is doing tricep kickbacks with bicep curls with no rest in between the two moves.

2. Raise the difficulty level with compound exercises.

Building muscle fast requires very intense, very difficult exercises for the body. The good news is that your workouts are shorter ? only about 35-40 minutes.

A great way to both increase your intensity and see results is to use compound exercises, in which more than one muscle is required to do the move. Some examples are:

* Adding an overhead press to your walking lunges

* Making pushups more effective with side planks

* Adding squats to overhead presses

* Lunges with bicep curls

* Completing pushups with one armed rows

Compound exercises like these have a lot of benefits: you work on balance and coordination, make sure all your muscle groups are active, and add intensity to your workouts. In addition, you can reduce your risk of injury. And you'll see more muscle mass.

3. Muscles need rest to develop.

While it may seem counterintuitive, muscles actually require rest for growth, development, and retention. This is why rest is so important in your routine.

Continually working your muscles is counterproductive. If you do daily workouts or work the same muscles everyday, you aren't giving them a chance to grow. In fact, you are delaying your own results.

Here is an example of a good workout routine:

* Schedule three weekly workout sessions.

* Train each part of your body once a week (chest, shoulders, triceps one day; back and biceps another; and finally legs).

* Rest in between.

* Get back to work after resting.

This will keep your body in muscle building mode and help you prevent injury to your muscles.

Supersets, compound moves, and rest are some of the most important factors in your quest to build muscle and retain it. When added into any workout routine, results will quickly follow. - 15438

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