Best Bodybuilding Tip

If there is one surefire bodybuilding tip that I can share with you, which will skyrocket your muscle building efforts, it is rest.

Now you say rest. Yes, I am saying rest, don't workout. This may be way against the grain of your logical thinking, but according to sound physiology, it is right on. If you want to get bigger, stronger, and more cut; then I am recommending not to workout. Resting is the most powerful muscle building technique you can implement.

First off, your body develops muscle while you are resting, not during your bodybuilding workout sessions. Muscle fibers hypertrophy, or get bigger, and stronger than before, thus, get you ready to lift more weight during the next bout of exercise.

The entire muscle building process begins when you lift your first weight to a level of overload, or momentary muscle failure. You will be unable to move the weight for another repetition. This momentary muscle failure places stress on the muscle and calls upon it to adapt by becoming stronger to overcome similar resistance in the future. Thus, the growth process has been stimulated. Strength training to absolute muscle failure stimulates muscle growth, but doesn't produce muscle by itself.

Now you go home from the gym, and fuel your body to allow for an energy compensation to occur, which gets your body back to the energy level it was prior to your hi intensity training session. When this short step has completed, overcompensation begins. This is where muscle fibers thicken and begin to grow stronger.

The next question you might ask is how long do I rest? You rest long enough to complete this overcompensation process. Not resting long enough is the biggest mistake ninety nine percent of bodybuilding participants make. If you take the more is better approach by coming back before your muscles are fully recuperated, you will short circuit the whole muscle building process and decrease your bodybuilding workout results. Don't make this deadly mistake! Let your body completely finish growing before you stimulate it again with another bout of resistance overload.

There are a lot of variables that come into play when recommending the exact number of rest days. How hard did you workout? How many sets? How intense was the workout? The higher the intensity, and volume, the more rest days you will require between workouts. The average rest days vary between 3-15 days between workouts.

The best bodybuilding tip I can offer you for figuring out the exact amount of rest you need is by testing it. When I say "testing," I am referring to keeping a training log to determine if your strength increases, decreases, or stays the same. If your strength increases, your rest is optimal. If it decreases, you need to take 1-2 or more days off to allow the growth process to complete. If strength stays the same, take another day off before your next bodybuilding workout session.

Your goal should be to become stronger with each subsequent workout. Get into the gym, stimulate growth, and then get the hell out of the gym to go home and grow.

Therefore, rest is the most neglected principle in the bodybuilding universe. Think more is not better. Higher intensity plus optimal rest equals muscle growth.

Please don't make this critical mistake, rest is by far the most important bodybuilding tip I can share with you. Follow it to obtain maximum muscle growth quickly.

***** Attention: Ezine Editors / Website Owners ***** Feel free to reprint this article in its entirety in your eZine, Blog, Autoresponder, or on your website as long as the links, text, and resource box are not altered in any way.

Jim O'Connor- Exercise Physiologist / The Fitness Promoter

Wellness WORD, LLC 9461 Charleville Blvd. #312 Beverly Hills, CA 90212 1-866-935-5967

Exercise Physiologist Jim O'Connor creates and markets empowering health and fitness products across the world. Visit his Bodybuilding Done Right Blog and receive, for free, his report on The 5 Most Deadly Muscle Building Mistakes You Must Avoid. Building Mistakes You Must Avoid

What Bodybuilding or Nutritional Supplements are Right for You?

What supplements are going to help you reach your fitness goals? Whether it's to add pounds of muscle, strip away ugly body fat or help you become a better athlete or just a more energetic and healthy person, there are supplements that can make it much easier to reach your goals. But you have to know what works and which supplements are just a waste of money.

You want that extra edge that proper body building, sports and fitness supplementation can add to your training and nutrition program.

There's just one problem. You are completely overwhelmed by the insane number of products on the market with more and more being released every day.

The magazines are filled with ads for supplements that are better than drugs (so they say) with unbelievable before and after pictures and outrageous claims.

You could spend all your waking hours trying to figure out which supplements actually work and which one's will never come close to their claims.

Who has the time and money to figure out which bodybuilding supplements will actually help them achieve their goals?

I've wasted thousands and thousands of dollars on bogus supplements. I keep detailed records of how they affect my body and my results.

In fact, the August 2003 issue of Ironman Magazine contains an article of mine on my experience with Muscle Link's GH Stak.

I don't want to see you make the same mistakes I have made and waste years and thousands of dollars on supplements that don't work.

There are a few quality supplements in every category from muscle building to fat burning to energy boosters and overall health. I'll help you tailor your supplement regime to your specific goals.

There is no doubt in my mind that the right bodybuilding supplements will give you that extra edge and help you reach your goals faster.

However, it's important to know that probably 99% of the supplements on the market don't do what they promise. A lot of them don't even carry the ingredients stated on the label.

This is also why you should stick to quality companies like Optimum Nutrition, Labrada, Gaspari Nutrition, EAS, Muscle Link, Twinlab, Ergopharm, AST and a few others.

Keep in mind that you need to get your training and nutrition programs in line first, berfore you can truly see the benefit of this supplement guide.

Eating french fries all day won't help you build muscle, even if you are taking supplements that actually work.

Before getting any benefits from supplements you need to get your training and nutrition program in place. After that, you can focus on what I call "core" supplements.

What are "core" supplements?

Core supplements are fitness supplements that I consider to be more an intergrated part of a proper and healthy overall nutrition plan.

They make it easy for you to meet your nutritional requirements and become part of your overall sports supplement and nutrition strategy.

They are so much a part of your nutrition plan that you could call them nutritional supplements instead. I even refer to these supplements more as part of my nutritional plan as opposed to my supplement plan.

What are some of these indispensable core supplements?

1 - Multivitamins

2 - Multiminerals

3 - Essential Fatty Acids

4 - Antioxidants

You should never go without core supplements in order to purchase other supplements. If you have the finances to do so, you can add to the core but never sacrifice them for any other supplements.

But ignoring them to purchase the latest, greatest testosterone boosting, growth hormone shooting, fat melting, Z-100 gizmo subdural "injection" like supplement would be like buying all the latest workout fashions and never actually going to the gym.

Don't make that mistake. Please. You'll just be wasting your money and missing out on what effective supplements have to offer.

The next step up in your supplementation program would include such things as the following:

1 - Meal Replacement and Protein Powders

2 - Creatine

3 - Glutamine

4 - A quality ZMA (specifically forumlates Zinc/Magnesium) product

Meal Replacement Powders and Protein Powders are really important enough to be considered core sports supplements.

They allow you to get proper the necesssary nutrients you body needs, as well as meet your protein requirements in an easy and convenient (and nowadays, tasty) fashion.

In today's fast paced world, I feel these supplements are essential to helping you stick to a proper nutrition plan.

It's difficult enough trying to prepare and eat 6 meals a day, let alone plan out the proper food combinations to make sure you are feeding your body everything it needs to function at its best. Not to mention making sure that your meals contain high protein foods.

Get your nutrition and training program in place. Then, stock up on core supplements. You'll that this combination will go a long way toward taking you to your fitness goals, whether it's building twenty pounds of muscle or losing fifty pounds of fat.

Gregg Gillies is the founder of http://www.buildleanmuscle.com His articles have appeared in Ironman Magazine. He has written two books and writes for Body Talk Magazine. He publishes a free newsletter available at http://www.buildleanmuscle.com/ezine.html and see how you can get a customized muscle building nutrition plan at http://www.mynutritionjournal.com

How Do I Find Discount Gym Equipment

A great way to get that new gym you've been looking for is to find home gyms at yard sales. This opportunity is a great one that is often overlooked. Yet it's quite simple to find home gyms at yard sales. This is because people often by exercise equipment on a whim and end up not following through on their New Year's resolutions, leaving old home gyms sitting. Other people just like to upgrade in order to get the best workout possible. Whatever the reason, you can get great deals at yard sales.

The first thing to remember when you find home gyms at yard sales is to ask questions. The more questions you ask the better idea you will have of how good a shape the equipment is in. You will want to ask when they bought it and how often they used it. You may also want to ask how often they cleaned it and did maintenance on it. Also remember to ask if it has been sitting around for a while and if so, how long? These are all good things to ask. It may prevent you from buying a home gym that wasn't properly taken care of or has been sitting around for too long and is more likely to have problems.

Once you ask questions when you find home gyms at yard sales, you will also want to look the equipment over yourself. Double-check everything that they said by carefully examining all the equipment. Make sure there are no pieces missing, including screws and rubber safety pieces that should be on sharp corners. Check how well oiled the machine is and ask to look at the manual if they still have it. This will give you a better idea as to how the original product should look. You will also be able to see from the manual what kind of care the equipment should get and be able to check and see if it was taken care of properly. Aesthetics may or may not be important to you. A few chips are not as bad as missing equipment and missing screws however. But do be sure to ask for a price break if you feel you need to.

One last thing to keep in mind when you are going out to find home gyms at yard sales is the prices. Make sure you are fully aware of how much certain machines may cost brand new. This will give you the information you need, just in case someone may try to sell it to you at a brand new price. This also gives you a starting point from which to bargain, based on the condition of the equipment at the time you buy it. Knowing the real value of certain gyms is always recommended before you go out and buy one used at a yard sale or other similar place.

When it comes time to find home gyms at yard sales, you will want to keep these ideas fresh in your mind. Many of them will help you to save not only a huge disaster but money as well. When you finally find the one that is right for you, you'll be glad you took the time.

Check out http://www.homegymsreview.com for more articles on 'weider home gym' and 'cheap equipment gym home'.