Muscle Building Genetics

Do Genetics Play A Role In How Much Muscle You Can Build?

The short answer is Yes. At the end of the day how big you can get does depend on your genetics.

A more realistic answer is…It doesn’t matter how bad your genetics are because most people never come close to packing on the amount of muscle that their genetics will allow them, and the reason…they don’t know how to train properly.

So using the “bad genetics” excuse is just a cop out.

It doesn’t matter how skinny you are or how hard it is for you to build muscle, if you learn how to train properly, it will blow you away at just how much muscle your frame will support.

All it means is you have to be more determined and have a desire to succeed. You need to avoid high volume workouts, reduce your stress, sleep more, eat more clean foods and be 100% dedicated.
You couple that with proper training and your almost guaranteed to see results.

So Where Do You Find The Proper Muscle Building Program.

Well one thing you don’t do is ask advice from the biggest guys in the gym because I can almost guarantee that what’s working for him won’t work for you.

No matter how tempting it may be to do what the “big guys” do…Don’t Do It!

These guys are either one steroids or they have amazing muscle building genetics which allow them to pack on slabs of muscle very easily, and most of the time they are both.

So their workouts will literally prevent any hard gainer from seeing any significant gains at all.

You want to find someone like you who has made significant progress already. You want to find the guy who started lifting when he weighed 140 lbs and now he’s 190 lbs and he did it in just a few years time.

That’s the guy you want to approach and ask what the heck he’s doing to build muscle, because what he’s doing to build muscle will work for you if you do what he’s doing.

Now instead of going to the gym and bugging everyone in there in your attempts to finding what will work for you, I’ve gone ahead and done that for you.

I’ve found a muscle building program that is specifically designed to build large amounts of muscle for even the skinniest of hard gainers.

If you implement this program it will work for you guaranteed.

You can check out the muscle building program here

Building Muscle Fast

How To Put On More Muscle

When it comes to building muscle no one knows more then Jason Ferruggia. When athletes need to improve their conditioning or increase their strength and size they turn to this man for results.

But what about the average guy. Is there a step by step plan that can help the average guy pack on size and strength?

The answer is Yes there is. According to Jason here is what you can do starting today that will pack on muscle and get you brutally strong.

If you want to see results you need to throw out everything you “think” you know about weight lifting and follow this plan to the letter.

1. Your going to train 3-4 times per week for 45-60 minutes. Training for 45-60 mins keeps your testosterone levels high and your cortisol levels low.
2. All your exercises will be big compound movements. No isolation exercises that you see in the body building mags. (Your not there yet)

From the top of your body and working down here are the exercises you’ll do for each muscle group.

• Traps – Dead lifts
• Shoulders – Dumbbell or barbell military presses
• Chest – Weighted pushups or dumbbell presses. This keeps the strain off your shoulders. You can use TRX Straps as well if you’d like.
• Back – chin ups and 1 arm dumbbell rows
• Biceps – Barbell or dumbbell curls
• Triceps – dips and close grip benches
• Lower back, glutes and hamstrings – Romanian dead lifts
• Legs – Squats

If you stick to these exercises you’ll see impressive gains in size and strength.

When you get to the stage where people are looking at you when you walk by, then you can change things up but for now stick to these and see results.

How About Cardio

Along with your weight training your going to be doing some cardio. If it’s summer and you want to be outside then you can do hill sprints.

Just like with weight lifting you need to block out all the different voices out there that are yelling a hundred and one different ways to do cardio.

You need to stay focused if you want to see result.

So if you want to be outside then do hill sprints. Any hill will do. You’ll sprint as fast as you can up the hill and walk back down, then repeat for 15-20 minutes with as little rest as possible, and your going to do them twice a week.

If you prefer to stay indoors while doing cardio you can check out my fat burning videos and pick a cardio exercise that you feel you can stick with and do just that one twice a week.

What Should I Eat

As with lifting weights and cardio you need to be just as disciplined with your diet. I’m pretty confident you know what foods are junk food, so during the week stay away from the junk food.

Instead, you should be eating chicken, fish, fresh fruit and veggies, legumes, nuts, seeds, oats and brown rice. If you can afford it, try to get as much organic as possible.

On the weekends you can allow yourself one day where you can indulge in anything you’d like, but when that day is over you need to get back to health eating.

That’s it.

Follow this plan and you’ll get the results your looking for. If you want to learn more about this topic and get into greater detail on exactly how to do the exercises and when to do them for optimal results then check out Jason Feruggias book, Muscle Gaining Secrets.

5 Fat Loss Tips

If you want some “straight to the point”, “no filler”, “real life” tips on how to burn fat off your body by the minute then take a second to read what world renown fat loss expert John Alvino has to say:

Here are 5 fat loss tips you can implement right away to start shedding those unwanted pounds.

1) Don’t decrease calories by more than 15% below your maintenance levels. This is one of the keys to maintaining all of your muscle mass during a fat loss phase. If you have a time constraint (weigh in for a sport, etc), you may have to decrease your calories further than 15%. In these rare cases, you can decrease calories as low as 25% below maintenance, but be sure to temporarily increase your calories at regular intervals. This brings up our next point.

2) Do not stay in a caloric deficit for longer than 5 consecutive days. Staying in a caloric deficit for too long leads to a slower metabolism, less glycogen (stored carbohydrates in your muscles that are crucial for athletic performance), and without fail, losses in lean muscle mass. This is easily avoided by “eating up” occasionally to replenish your glycogen stores and give your metabolic rate a much needed boost.

3) Focus on force output during your cardio workouts. Many so-called fat loss “experts” love to say, “You shouldn’t output a lot of force during cardio. You will fatigue and have to stop before you burn enough calories.” These critics are missing the forest for the trees. There are 2 critical points that they are completely disregarding.

First, they are focusing solely on the amount of fat loss that occurs during the cardio workout itself. This is foolish, because if a cardio program is designed correctly, the majority of the fat loss from that cardio will occur AFTER the workout has already been completed. As a matter of fact, it turns out that the post-workout energy expenditure that follows a very intense cardio workout burns much more fat than a long, boring low intensity cardio session ever could.

Second, they are neglecting the fact that low intensity cardio actually encourages the fast twitch muscle fibers to take on characteristics of slower twitch fibers (for those of you who don’t know, it is your fast twitch fibers that provide you with explosive strength and quickness). These are very serious consequences to a high level athlete.

For both of these reasons, I strongly advise you to stay far away from low intensity cardio. So what kind of cardio should you perform? That brings up my next point.

4) It’s no secret that a great way to integrate higher intensity cardio into your routine is high intensity interval training (HIIT). The problem is that there is so much confusion about how to perform HIIT properly, and what work to rest ratios provide maximal results.

I have discovered after years of methodical research that there is no perfect ratio across the board. However, it turns out that each specific type of HIIT exercise does actually have its own optimal work to active rest ratio.

For example, some well respected experts have asserted that the best work to rest ratio is 1 to 3. This is true for a few specific exercises, but for many other important and popular forms of exercise, it is completely wrong.

Let’s take the jumping rope, for example. Can you imagine getting a great workout from jumping rope for 1 minute, and then resting for 3 full minutes? As you can see, a “one size fits all” approach is seriously flawed when it comes to HIIT training. So knowing the exact ratios that best accompany the different forms of exercise is of paramount importance. I have spent years calculating them quite precisely, and when you hit the right combination on the button, the results are incredible.

5) Resistance training is of the utmost importance in any fat loss protocol. However, there are just as many misconceptions about how to properly weight train for fat lass as there are about performing cardio for fat loss. In particular, be very careful not to use a “high rep” approach exclusively. This is very popular among some well known fat loss gurus, and it is the kiss of death for anyone who truly wants permanent and sustainable fat loss. Using high reps exclusively can actually cause you to lose muscle mass during a fat loss phase. This will have a negative impact on your metabolism, thus making it that much harder for you to lose your next pound of fat. Even further, this type of resistance training will cause you to lose strength and power, for the exact same reasons that low intensity cardio does.

A resistance training program is crucial to fat loss, but it must be designed very shrewdly. A specific balance between higher rep exercises and lower rep exercises must be utilized if optimal results are to be seen.

Start employing these tips right away, and you will see immediate and dramatic improvements in your strength, energy, and fat loss results.

Good luck!

John Alvino

John Alvino a strength and conditioning specialist, nutrition adviser to Men’s Fitness Magazine and the creator of the most comprehensive fat loss system ever developed. To learn more about John’s amazing How to Get Ripped Abs, fat loss program, Click Here now.

See Also:
Weight Loss Secrets

Why Is Breakfast The Most Important Meal

It is so easy these days to skip breakfast. Most of us are usually in a rush getting out the door in the morning that it almost has become a nuisance to have breakfast. For someone who is on a diet, skipping breakfast is even more justified, as they think skipping a meal will help them lose more weight.

New research has shown that this couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, these new finding suggest that skipping breakfast actually leads to higher calorie consumption through out the day.

Check out this video to learn why

See Also:
Weight Loss Secrets

Why Most Diets Prevent You From Losing Weight

How many weight loss diets have you been on? How many of those diets have been successful in terms of permanent weight loss?

Most of us equate weight loss to fat loss, when in fact they are two different things.

When we look in the mirror and see an over weight person starring back at us we automatically say, “I need to lose weight”. When in fact what we are really saying is, “I need to lose fat”.

The difference between losing weight and losing fat is this: To lose weight almost always entails muscle loss which directly effects our metabolism.

To lose fat almost always entails maintaining and building on the muscle you have and doing it in a manner that promotes rapid fat loss, which also directly affects your metabolism.

So from this point on whenever I speak about weight loss, I’m referring to fat loss, which is really what this is all about anyways. Our goal is to lose body fat.

The weight loss industry has exploded lately with all kinds of products promoting fast weight loss. Truth be told there is quite a few of these products that will help you lose weight quickly, and they are quick to tell you about it.

What they don’t tell you is the thousands of people, if not tens of thousands of people, who regain all the weight they lost and in most cases they gain more.

Not only is that discouraging in itself, but the next time you go on a weight loss plan it becomes more difficult to lose the weight than it did the first time and it will become even more difficult the third time and so on.

The reason for this is because unknown to you when you were on your first diet, the scale might have been showing you numbers you could be proud of but the weight that you lost was a combination of muscle and fat.

This is bad because your metabolism rate (which is what burns fat off your body) is determined by your lean muscle mass.

When I talk about “lean muscle mass” I’m not talking about looking like a body builder. I’m simply talking about having more muscle on your body than you do fat.

So when you go on a weight loss diet and lose a chunk of lean muscle you are in fact making it harder to lose weight, and the moment you go off your diet you start to swell up like the Michelin man.

So How Do You Lose Weight Consistently?

There are a couple of things that you can do to permanently lose that unwanted body fat, while maintaining and even building more lean muscle.

The first thing you need to understand if you want to permanently lose body fat is this: Your metabolism rate will determine how successful your weight loss program will be.

Your metabolism is what burns fat, so the higher you can make it the faster your body fat will disappear. Two of the best ways to get your metabolism high enough to effectively burn the required amount of body fat you want is:

Resistance Training – This type of training out performs all other types of training hands down, for burning the greatest amount of body fat in the shortest amount of time, while building more lean muscle which fuels your metabolism even more. Nothing can beat it!

One thing to keep in mind when doing resistance training is this…do Not use machines at all! Always use free weights. Using free weights helps build and tone your stabilizer muscles. Even more important is free weights promote compound exercises. Compound exercises will burn more calories and build more lean muscle faster then isolation exercises, which is what you get on machines.

Strategic Dieting – I’m not talking about traditional dieting where you need to count calories and do all that other junk that most diets make you do.

This is in fact where most diets fail. Whenever you restrict calories for more than a week or two your body thinks that there is a shortage of food and it goes into “starvation mode”.

Starvation mode is just a term used when your body shuts down its fat burning enzymes and lowers its metabolism. It does this because it thinks it needs to hang onto as much body fat as possible while it goes through this “food shortage” period.

This is exactly why you only see good results from a diet in the first week or two. After that it seems like you have to really fight to lose even a pound a week.

One of the best ways to combat this problem is through strategic eating.

You need to eat more meals per day. They are portion controlled meals (it is a diet that we’re on after all), but you need to simple eat more times in a day then just lunch and dinner. Your calories per day stay the same but your dividing them up between more meals.

Eating multiple meals a day helps:

• Preserve lean muscle mass
• Curve cravings
• Utilize more of the calories for energy
• Increases the thermic effect
• Stabilizes metabolism

These are all necessary when dieting and will prevent your body from going into “starvation mode”.

By doing both resistance training and eating strategically you can lose weight quickly and more importantly, you can keep it off.

See Also:
Weight Loss Secrets

Healthy Diet – A Guide To Weight Loss

Laxatives And Weight Loss

Lifestyle Changes For Rapid Weight Loss

The Importance Of Breakfast

5 Fat Loss Tips

A Clean Colon Is The Foundation Of Your Health

One of the greatest keys to optimal health is a healthy digestive system, and a colon cleanse is a great way to restore and maintain digestive health.

Your digestive system is the hub to the rest of your body and since it’s linked to the immune system it is crucial to your over all well-being.

Constipation, irritable bowel syndrome, colon problems, indigestion, are not subjects that most people like to discuss, not to mention actually experience, but these problem are more common than one might realize.

A major contributor to these conditions is a disfunctional digestive system.

Thanks to the well documented studies that have been done which prove that a properly functioning digestive system is a prerequisite for overall good health, people having been turning to colon cleansing to get their system back on track.

First of all, what is so great about a colon cleanse?

To answer this question we need to have a basic understanding of what is taking place in the digestive system.

Your “system” processes every bit of nutrients that enters your body. Starting from your stomach and going into your small intestine it breaks down the food that you eat.

The nutrients from the food then gets absorbed through your small intestinal wall and from there they enter your blood stream. They then get delivered to your heart, liver, brain and every other organ, tissue and gland in your body at the cellular level.

All the food that did not get digested ends up in your large intestine which we know as the colon. Along with the undigested food, all metabolic waste from your cells and any other toxins that the body wants removed ends up in the colon waiting to be expelled.

Believe it or not what starts this whole downward spiral is our diet. It is what we put in our mouths.

Our bodies were meant to function in an alkaline state, but the foods that we eat are creating excessive acidic levels. (We measure our acidic/alkaline balance in the form of pH. 0-7 being acidic and 7-14 being alkaline.)

These foods consist of dairy products, meats, breads, refined and processed foods, and sugars, all of which produce acids in the body.

Normally our bodies can handle higher then normal acidic levels by using our bodies reserve of electrolyte minerals, which go to work to neutralize the acids.

This would be fine and dandy but the American lifestyle includes the over-consumption of these acid producing foods. Over time our electrolyte levels start to get depleted because of the never ending higher than normal acidic levels in our bodies.

Next to breathing and maintaining a heartbeat our bodies are hard at work maintaining a proper pH in our blood. pH stands for “potential hydrogen”. It is our electrolyte reserve that is measured in pH.

So in laymans terms the lower our electrolyte levels the more hydrogen is in our blood which means our bodies are more acidic. The higher our electrolyte levels the lower the hydrogen the more alkaline our bodies are.

Our bodies strive to maintain a pH balance of 7.35 to 7.45. When the pH level drops below or rises above, health problems start to develop.

How Does This Effect My Digestive System?

In order for your body to use any of the foods you eat it must neutralize the acids in the food. It does this by using a primary electrolyte called sodium (and its not sodium chloride “table salt” its an organic sodium which is found exclusively in plants).

The thing is, when our electrolyte reserves are low or nearly depleted thanks to higher than normal acid levels, our bodies must look elsewhere to get its electrolytes.

The safest place that the body can extract electrolytes from, especially sodium, is from the bile, which is produced by the liver.

Bile has a pH of around 8.5 and it is stored in the gall bladder until it is needed to help digest meals. The bile mixes with food along with pancreatic juices and together it alkalizes the food. This process is essential for proper digestion.

When your body has extracted the sodium from your bile, your biles pH starts to drop. When it drops below a certain level gallstones start to form.

In fact, cancer, heart disease and most other diseases are associated with electrolyte deficiency and it’s this deficiency that puts our body in an acidic state rather than an alkaline state.

Once your bile has been depleted of sodium (which is a primary electrolyte) your bile is now acidic. Acidic bile is the primary cause of cystic fibrosis, polyps in the bowel, bowel cancer and all the other colon problems that we have in the digestive system.

Once your bile is acidic its not too long after that your bowels become acidic. Once this happens it starts killing off friendly intestinal bacteria.

Friendly bacteria are essential to digestion, plus it helps in preventing constipation. It also helps in the production of B vitamins, as well as the production of amino acids and many other beneficial things.

With this over acidic environment in our bowels, it responds by secreting a gel-like substance known as mucin (mucoid plaque). It does this to protect the cells of the intestinal wall from the damaging acids, but in doing so this mucoid plaque becomes a store house for all kinds of toxins.

Not only that but it starts to interfere with digestion and the absorption of nutrients which our bodies depend on for survival.

There is hope and a solution to this problem. There are two things that you can do to restore your health. The first is to eat more foods that are alkaline forming. Fresh raw vegetables and fruits is a great start.

The other is to do a colon cleanse. A good colon cleanser will remove all the built up toxins and acids along with the mucoid plaque from your bowels.

Once your bowels have been cleansed and you add more alkaline forming foods to your diet you will experience greater digestion, better elimination.

You’ll have less constipation, bloating and gas, not to mention a greater sense of satisfaction and well-being.

See Also:
The Best Colon Cleanser

The Importance Of A Colon Cleanse

Benefits Of A Colon Cleanse

Where Do Cold Sores Come From

It’s estimated that around 85 percent of the American population has the virus that causes cold sores, but only 1 in 5 actually develop the cold sore.

The medical term used for “cold sore” is herpes simplex type 1, and you probably guessed it, it’s a virus.  Its ugly cousin is the herpes simplex type 2, which appears further south in the genital region.  Like any other virus it is contagious when in its active phase.

Generally you get the virus as a child from infected saliva. It can lay dormant for years before you experience your first outbreak.  Normally the virus is triggered by a fever or a cold or some other viral infection.  Even exposure to the sun or wind can cause an outbreak.

Once you get the virus and experience your first outbreak (which depending on the person can be very uncomfortable and painful) the virus will go into a dormant phase and lay in the nerves just under the skin where the outbreak occurred.  Which is why most people have their next outbreak in the same area.

As it lays dormant it is not considered to be contagious.  It lays there waiting for the right conditions to appear again.

So How Do You Tell When One Is Coming On?

It’s believed that there are six stages to an outbreak.
Stage One: There are no visible signs, only a tingly feeling, itchiness, or throbbing sensation.

Stage Two: Swelling begins which usually turns red.

Stage Three: Signs of a blister are seen.

Stage Four: The blister erupts and a soft crust forms.  This is usually the most painful stage.

Stage Five: A hard crust forms.  This stage will usually last up to four days.

Stage Six: The hard crust is gone and your left with a slightly swollen area where the outbreak occurred.  This stage usually starts around the tenth day.

Depending on severity, an outbreak can last as long as ten days, give or take a couple days either way.

What To Do During The Active Phase Of An Outbreak

It’s important that you do not share anything with anybody during this time.  Do not touch the cold sore and then touch other parts of your body as it can spread just as easily on your own body as it can on someone else.

Eat foods or take supplements that boost your immune system.  A strengthened immune system can reduce the chances of having an outbreak.

You can also avoid foods that weaken the immune system like: alcohol, coffee, tea, refined grains, and high amounts of sugar.

You can also avoid as much as possible foods that are high in arginine.  Arginine is an amino acid that seems to stimulate the virus.  It’s like fuel that feeds the virus when it wants to reproduce itself.

Some foods that are high in arginine are: seeds, nuts, grains, peanut butter, beer, raisins, chocolate, and gelatin.

See Also:
How To Get Rid Of Cold Sores

Exercise Keeps You Young

Getting Your Beauty Sleep

Exersices for fast fat loss

		Sandbag Shouldering If you want to develop strength and get full body conditioning while burning fat, you need to incorporate this exercise into your routine.
		Burpees You will burn just as much fat in only a few minutes with this exercise as you would doing traditional cardio for a full hour.
		Jump Rope Performing this correctly can lead to serious fat burning.
		Understanding H.I.I.T
		The Turkish Get Up This is an awesome exercise that produces big time results.
		The Med Ball Slam Learn this exercise the right way and you’ll not only carve out a six pack, you’ll also burn a ton of body fat.

Getting Rid Of Your Cold Sores

To get rid of your cold sores, you absolutely must be taking
Oil of Oregano.
According to studies done at the Medical Center at Georgetown University, the oregano plants ability to kill various viruses, bacteria, yeasts and other microorganisms was very positive.

In fact Dr. Cass Ingram, a physician and researcher and author of over twelve books including “The Cure is in The Cupboard”, and “Supermarket Remedies” states that studies have shown that Oil of Oregano has the power to kill the virus that causes cold sores.

In fact if you have a cold sore right now he recommends putting a few drops on a cotton swab and apply it directly to your cold sore.  It kills the outbreak almost instantly, then you can start taking it internally so it can attack the virus itself.

What Kind Of Oregano Should You Buy

Before you run out and buy the first bottle you see, you need to be aware of imitators.  Just the word “oregano” can mean 60 different types of plants.  All of them have no similarity to true oregano except for taste.  Examples would be the “Thymus Capitus” from Spain, or the “Mexican Sage”, both of which are inferior products, but are still marketed as having the same benefits as true oregano.

To get the benefits of wild oregano oil, the plant can only be grown in certain soil and climate conditions.  These conditions are found in the Mediterranean in places like Greece.

Quality oregano oil is known as P-73 (polyphenol 73%).  It is this chemical profile that is critical, not the name “oregano”.  This is the only formula that has been tested and shown to have anti-fungal, anti-parasitic, anti-viral and anti-bacterial properties.

The “oil” of oregano comes from the plants leaves and should only be picked when the plant is at its highest in essential oils.  The process of extracting the oil from the leaves must be by cold pressing and steam distillation.  Absolutely no chemicals or solvents can be used in the extraction of the oil, so that the oils properties remain in tact and potent.

Most inferior products will make claims of “high carvacrol” content in their oregano.  Although carvacrol does play an important role in oregano (as it is a natural biocide), it is not the only indicator of high quality oil.  A true oregano plant produces over 50 know-to-date polyphenol substances that all work together to give true oregano oil its potency.

You must also take into account the thymol content.  As a rule of thumb you do not want any more than 5% thymol in your oil.  Any more than that and the quality of the oil goes down.

So, to recap here is what you need to look for when shopping for oregano oil, make sure:

1. That it says “Wild Mediterranean P-73 Oregano Oil”.
2. That the leaves of the plant were picked when they were at their highest in essential oils.
3. That the oil was extracted using completely natural processes with no chemicals or solvents.
4. That there is less than 5% thymol.

Recommendation

If your like most people, your limited on time that you can spend researching suppliers that meet the criteria above, not only in quality but also in price.  So to save you time I’ve gone ahead and done it for you.  I have found in my opinion, the best supplier of oregano P-73.  They meet all the criteria above and quite honestly they far surpass it.  In fact they are the oregano experts!

To get the highest quality P-73 oregano oil that has the greatest potential to cure your cold sores, click the link below.  You’ll be glad you did!
North American H&S’s Oil Of Oreganol SuperStrength p73 1oz

See Also:
Where Do Cold Sores Come From

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