Summer Muscle: Bodybuilder Tuan Tran

Bodybuilder Tuan Tran poses for photos and video in Miami following the 2009 Musclemania Universe competition.

Your Weight in Muscle Fiber

You probably have heard that muscle weighs more than fat. Many people notice a small weight gain when they begin lifting weights consistently. As a general rule, if you lift weights 2 to 3 times a week, you can gain 1 pound of muscle per month for about 6 months. After that, the rate of increase slows down as you start to reach your genetic potential. For the same reason, you will make a lot of progress on weight progression at the beginning, but the longer you lift; your progression will lessen because you are reaching your genetic potential.

Don’t be alarmed at the extra pounds of weight from weight training because it is well worth the effort. For every 3 pounds of muscle you build, research shows you increase your resting metabolic rate by about 7 percent. For example, if your body burns 1,200 calories per day (not counting exercise or any other movement), you would burn an extra 84 calories per day with those 3 extra pounds of muscle. Many women have a difficult time outgrowing 2-3 pound dumbbell weights, because they are afraid that if they increase the weight they will bulk up.

If you are happy with the strength and appearance of your muscles, you can do a maintenance program with 5 pound weights. However, if you want more strength, you could progress to 8 or 10 pound weights and still not bulk up. Using heavier weights can increase muscle size, but it’s highly unlikely that you’ll get bulky. Women don’t naturally have enough of the hormone, testosterone, required to build huge muscles, and even if you could bulk up, you’d have to use significantly heavier weights. Another option to tone muscle is to increase your repetitions instead of increasing weight. A high-repetition/light-weight program will develop muscle tone and increase strength and endurance without significantly increasing muscle size.

I like to tell my clients to not just go through the motion when lifting weights. I use the word squeeze” a lot to describe the contraction of the muscle you should be focusing on. Think about the muscle you are working and squeeze or contract it as you are lifting. You will get a lot more benefit for your efforts if you squeeze the muscle on the lift rather than just raising and lowering the weight without focusing on the muscle.

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How to Build Oblique Muscle

Aside from an actual six pack, the oblique muscles help frame your abdomen and give it a great look. In this article you will learn about the necessary workouts and nutrition that go hand in hand with building oblique muscles.

The most important thing to remember here is that you need a low enough bodyfat percentage in order to see the oblique muscles. The same applies to your abs. So it's important that your diet is correct in order to reach a bodyfat percentage that is low enough to begin to see the obliques. To lower your bodyfat percentage, you need to widen the gap between calories burned vs. calories consumed. The "calories consumed" part of the equation should obviously be lower than the "calories burned" part. The bigger the caloric deficit, the more fat you will lose and the more your bodyfat percentage will drop.

From a workout perspective, performing a combination of ab crunches, twisting ab crunches, and oblique specific exercises is ideal. A great exercise to target the obliques is performed by holding a dumbbell in one hand down to your side. Keep your lower body stationary as you drop your torso directly to whichever side you're holding the dumbbell, and then raise back up. This targets the obliques and will help you put on oblique muscle.

It's very important to understand that you need a low bodyfat to see your obliques. Otherwise if your bodyfat is too high, it doesn't matter how many oblique exercises you perform, you will simply never see them. In fact, you will make it worse because the added muscle will only add size underneath the fat, which can give you the appearance of having a higher bodyfat percentage.

BeSt Sport EvEr - BoDYbuilDing

BeSt Sport EvEr - BoDYbuilDing