How to build legs?

The legs and the back are the two muscle groups that represent the foundation of your body. The stronger your legs and back the more stable you are while training the rest of your body. Any weakness here will reflect on the rest of your training sessions, the stability of your core, and the precision of your techniques.

As mentioned in an earlier post the legs can be divided into 4 major groups: quads, hamstrings, gluts   and calves.

The best exercise for the quads and the gluts is the squat. If done right, squats can be building your legs, stabilizing your body, and burning your body fat during your resting time. You start this exercise from the standing position with your feet shoulder-width apart, toes pointing outward (to slightly to the sides). In the bottom position the lumber area should be straight, the knees should be above the toes, shoulders and head should be as close to the standing position as possible and the thighs should be parallel to the ground.

Variation of this technique are available and tailored for each case. Like if you have a comparatively weaker tear drop you can use a wider than shoulders feet position and change the weight accordingly. Also doing the squats with the weights on the front (on your arms and shoulders) helps for the same purpose. Also a deeper drop might be a source of knee injuries, so in cases of existing knee injuries you don't have to go really parallel to the ground.

Leg press is another alternative if you can't support the weight with your back, like in case you have osteoporosis or degenerative desk disease (check with your doctor, I am not giving you any medical advise here, ok? :-)).

Another exercise for the tear drop and the thighs in general is the leg extension. It is not recommended in case of knee injuries, but it helps shape the legs.

The dead lifts also involve the thighs and with the proper resistance and feet positioning you can train the back, gluts, and the legs with the same move.

The hamstrings are trained with leg curls, whether from the standing or laying down position there is no much difference except that you can recognize the weaker leg in the standing position (because you do one at a time) so that you give it more attention.

Glutes can be trained separately with glutes extension machines or the cable. They are very important in balancing your body. If you ignore this group of muscles you not only get an imbalanced body with strong legs and tiny gluts (which will look weird), but also you risk back and knee injuries.




The calves can be trained by different calves extension machines from all positions. Basically what you are trying to do is raising your body or the weight with your toes. In the following video Phil Heath trains his calves and hams in one session.




How to program your workout?

Now that you know the moves you need to fit them properly in your workout in a way that gives you the maximum results with the minimum injuries possible. It's hard though to give a training program without examining your body and training with you for a while, or if you get an specialist customize a workout for your body.

==> It's highly recommended to get a customized workout. Click here to get one done for you.

Bodybuilders Lifestyle

Before you start building muscles you need to know what it takes other than workout to build and maintain a healthy and strong body. I am trying to give you my experience so that you don't do the same mistakes I did as a young man. Bodybuilding is not a part time job, it's a full time 24/7 lifestyle.
In order to build muscles you need to work out regularly. Make the workout time as sacred as going to school or eating your meals. If you train on a choppy schedule you'll get choppy results. There will be breaks but even during those breaks you'll be doing some light training to keep your muscles working and your heart pumping.
The workout should include cardiovascular exercises to strengthen your heart and weight training to trigger your muscles to grow. The two can not be done on the same day, or at least not in the same set.

Aside from the workout, the rest of your life is what defines you as a bodybuilder. You don't have to be a pro bodybuilder to live this lifestyle, if you are at all serious about building and maintaining a healthy and strong body you need to stick to the rules.
Rule #1: Sleep a lot.
The exercises keep your muscles working and trigger their growth by having the blood flow to them and by causing some micro-injuries in the fibers. When those micro-injuries heal the fiber gets thicker because it will compose of the old injured fiber and a few new ones that will grow around it to support it. This is how the muscles grow. This healing process and the formation of new fibers around the micro-injuries happens mainly when you sleep. So sleep a lot and in a dark place.
The dark sleeping hours are essential for your recover as well, so you need to combine continuous sleeping hours with the dark. So the best thing to do is to sleep early so that you go to sleep and wake up while it is still dark if possible.
Rule #2: Eat well.
The bodybuilder diet is one of the most strict ever, but it pays. And not following it harms you, so you need to stick to it. Here is what you need to focus on while preparing your diet:

• Stay away from fat, red meat, salt, and alcohol. Contrary to what some might tell you, caffeine doesn't help you during the exercise, so stay away from it. Just to keep you in the know, caffeine causes blood vessel contraction, which is contrary to what you need. If you ever heard of the nitric oxide supplement that bodybuilders take, they work by relaxing the blood vessels and make them wider to accommodate for more nutritions and oxygen supply to the muscles during the work out and after. If you drink caffeine you are preventing your muscles from getting enough.
• Your body can digest and absorb maximum of 30 grams of protein at a time. So you need to split your protein share of the day on mini meals throughout the day for maximum benefit.
• Carbohydrates are essential for supplying your muscles with the energy it needs to keep working during the workout, and after the workout they transform into glycogen in the muscles to replace the amount depleted during the workout.
• Drink plenty of water throughout the day. If you are not urinating at least 7 times a day it means you need more water to keep flushing the toxins and wastes out of your body.
• Calcium and vitamin D are important for your bones. And don't under estimate the value of healthy bones. Without healthy bones your muscles are useless. How do you think I knew that?
• Eat plenty of fresh vegetables (salad) and fruits for vitamins instead of the supplement. In 2007 if my memory is still clear about it, a scientist published an article about the nutritional supplements and how they harm the body more than they benefit it. Of course the drug companies lobbied against the research and get themselves some more time to sell their stuff. Don't take any supplements, your body is better off the natural way. It's not going to be nice if you have a good looking body now and after 10 years this same body becomes a burden on you because of the supplements you took as a youth. Again ask me how did I know that?

In the future I'll try to post some recipes for healthy bodybuilding meals, so come back and check on those later.
Rule #3: Be patient:
Building a body is a lengthy process and it is for your own benefit to take your time. Again, supplements that promise mass gains and fat burning are more harmful than useful, and if you like your body to stay strong and healthy longer as you progress in life you'd better stick to the natural path. Look at Arnold Schwarzenegger's body now and 20 years ago. As far as I know from the press he had a liver failure and some other health complications. Also look at Frank Zane, he never looked bulky, but he hadn't changed much over the years even after he retired as a pro bodybuilder.

Main Muscle Groups from a Bodybuilding Perspective

Before I get to the muscle groups I want to make sure we are on the same page. I want you to know how to detect which muscle does what. Each muscle is connecting bones around a join to control the movement of these bones.

Take your elbow as an example. There is a muscle that extends the elbow (the triceps) and there is another one to curls it (the biceps). In order to grow a strong triceps you need to extend your elbow joint against a resistance (weight), and in order to grow a strong biceps you need to curl your elbow against a resistance.

So, here are the main muscle groups in the body (bottom to top):

1. Calves: Calves are the most used muscles all day long. The whole time when you're on your feet you are using your calves to support your whole body weight. Because they are always working it's not easy to make them grow. To exercise your calves you need to lift your body on your toes while your knees are locked extended. A resistance of your body weight could be enough at the beginning, but soon you'll need to add some more resistance.

2. The Thighs: There are two main muscles in the thighs that control the knee joint movement: the quads and the hamstrings. The quads work on extending the knee while the hamstrings work on curling it. The quads are composed to 4 muscle "heads" and it's important to know that because you need to balance the strength of your quads in order to keep your knees working properly. A stronger side over the other can easily cause terrible pain when you move your knee in the future (I know this first hand). Squats exercise the quads, while curling exercises the hamstrings.

3. The Glutes: The glutes are the muscles around the bottom of your body (aka: butt). This group of muscles is not only for looking good, it's main function is to balance your body while standing (together with the lower back muscles) and to support your legs and hips while doing movements like walking, running, and climbing. Weak glutes might cause your legs to bend to the inside to make it up, stressing your knees probably to the point of injury. To exercise this muscle group you want to involve hip extension to the back and to the sides.

4. The Back: It can be divided into three main zones; the lower back, the latts and the traps. The lower back  muscles are involved in erecting to back to the upright position. You can exercise this small group of muscles with the dead lift. Be extra careful with this exercise and this group of muscles. Any injury in this area might cause you a life-long suffering from the consequences. The lats are covering most of the back and they can be exercised by rowing (depth) and pull ups (width). The traps are on top of your shoulders and they extend to the first third of the back in a diamond shape. To exercise this group you simply curl your shoulders trying to touch your ears with them.

5. The Abdominals: The abs can be divided into two groups: the front (six-pack) and the sides (the obliques). In addition to looking good, the abs protect most of your visceral organs (liver, stomach, pancreas, spleen, intestines, kidneys, and female reproductive organs). Strong abs also help balancing the body so that the back can stay erect without compromising the posture. To exercise the abs you need to bring your legs to your chest (leg lifts) or bring your head to your knees (set ups) while lying on your back.

6. The Pectorals: Chest muscles attach to the chest and to the humerus bones. The involved join here is the shoulder. Pecs work on bringing your arms to the front. To feel it really well lay in your back and flap your arms like a flying bird. To exercise this group of muscles you can use the bench press and flapping with a resistance. This is for the sake of simplicity, as you'll see in future posts there are different angles for exercising each group of muscles and different movements as well.

7. The Deltoids: The delts attach to your scapula (the colar bones) and the outer side of your humerus bones. The work on extending your arms side-wise up. To exercise this muscle you can extend your arms to your side with a resistance.

8. The Arms: There are two big muscles here: the biceps and the triceps. The biceps curls the arm and the triceps extends it. To exercise the biceps curl your arms with a resistance and to exercise the triceps extend your arms with a resistance.

9. The Wrist (Forearms): The wrist muscles control your grip and rotation of your hand. Do both movements with a resistance to make your wrist grow stronger. It's hard to grow this group of muscles because, as in the case of the calves, they're involved in everything you do with your hands.

10. The Neck: The neck muscles protect your vital blood vessels, your trachea, and the top of your backbone. They also control the movements of the head, which can be divided into two kinds of movements: tilting and rotating. To strengthen this group of muscles do the usual head movements but with a resistance. PLEASE DON'T TRY TO MAKE UP RESISTANCE, WEIGHT UNTIL YOU SEE THE EXERCISES ILLUSTRATED BY VIDEOS AND/OR DIAGRAMS.

How Muscles are Built?

One of the evolution theories that I studied in the school was Lamarck's, which stated that "function creates organs". In other expression of Lamarck's: Functional organs grow and get stronger, and the disused organs become weaker and smaller.

Despite the fact that the theory is no longer used in evolution, it explains a lot how muscles are built; used muscles grow bigger and stronger, and unused muscles diminish and become weak.

So, in order to grow your muscles you need to use them, and to use them you need to know what movements uses which muscle.

In the following few posts I'll try to show what muscle groups you have in your bodies and what movements you can use in order to grow them bigger.

I'll also give some exercises for each group of muscles explained by illustrated diagrams and/or videos. You can go ahead and try them but don't over do them.

As will come in future posts, there is a optimal level of exercise density, above which is over exhaustion and below which is under training.

Stay tuned my friend.

Hello World! Welcome to Muscles 101

I have been thinking about starting this blog for quite some time, and everything was ready only in my mind waiting for me to take a few minutes to set them free on a blog ...

And here we are ...

Muscles 101 as the name indicates is for beginners who want to grow bigger muscles, but at the same time have no idea what to do. A personal trainer is a good idea for such people, but I know not every body can afford it. Heck not every body can afford a gym membership in this economy.

On this blog you are going to find some educational material about muscle building. I am planning to cover everything a beginner needs to know about the science of body building, the muscle groups and how they work, the nutrition, and the muscle building life style.

There are tons of body building videos on youtube accessible to anybody. The problem though is that not everything there is accurate. And here comes my role, which is picking up the useful and at the same time easy to understand ones with the beginner in mind.

A little bit about me so that you know you can trust this blog: I started with body building in 1983, but I have never participated in a competition. I don't feel ok about showing off and the stuff, but I like the feeling of being strong and bulky. I added to that some martial arts skills (Karate) which added speed to my strength, which is awesome!

For health issues out of my control I stopped completely from exercising and I am only training my kids just to be as strong as their father used to be, but not for a competition level.

In addition to the gym experience I also have a degree in physiology. I only picked this field of academic studies because I wanted to know more about how my body works and complete the idea about muscle building and nutrient assimilation. It helped, no doubt, but it was too late I guess because by the time I finished my degree I wasn't able to fight or exercise anymore.

Enough depression, and let's cheer up and get started.