Blogging About The Truth To Gain Weight & Build Muscle Mass!

Resveratrol is an antioxidant that may prevent heart disease, stroke, cancer, and premature death. This is the main ingredient found in red wine, to which most are attributing it’s incredible benefits to.

Resveratrol works like insulin to help regulate blood sugar. As a matter of fact, Chinese researchers did a study on mice. In that study that discovered that it protected against diet-induced obesity and insulin resistance, which are important factors in not only burning body fat, but also in muscle building.

This substance may improve blood sugar metabolism, lower the severity of Metabolic Syndrome, and increase endurance capacity. Again, all which are a must to gain and build well defined muscle mass.

Legendary bodybuilder Reg Park has passed away at the age of 79 in his native South Africa. He apparently lost his battle with skin cancer.

Reg Park, as many fans know, was the individual that most influenced Arnold Schwarzenegger to pursue bodybuilding, as he has officially stated many times.

Reg was considered one of the strongest bodybuilders of his time, and he competed from 1949 to 1970. Reg Park was a legend in our sport, and we are saddened by his passing. Our thoughts and wishes go to his family, friends and fans.

Recently, many have been saying that you should consume more calcium if you are either trying to lose weight or maintain body fat levels low while building muscle. Well, it has been found that in all reality, there isn’t any evidence that calcium supplements or eating / drinking a large amount of dairy products promotes low body fat levels.

As a result, the Federal Trade Commission asked the National Dairy Council to cancel it’s ad campaign that promoted this. Don’t get me wrong, you need a minimum amount of calcium for healthy reasons, but don’t go thinking it’s some type of “magical pill” that’s going to get you ripped to shreds or help you build more muscle.

Especially since the popularity of High Intensity Training and all of its similar versions, going to failure on every set of an exercise (continuing to perform reps to the point of not being able to do anymore) has become a crucial factor.

However, a study in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research found that you’re able to increase total reps for that muscle if you don’t go to failure on the sets. For example, let’s say you’re lifting 200 pounds, and if you were to take the set to the point of failure, you’d probably be able to complete 15 reps. Instead, however, of going to failure, stop 2 or 3 reps short of failure, in other words, stop the set at 12 or 13 reps (even though you could complete 15 reps). This will allow you to be able to do more and more reps in the next sets of that workout. This is because by avoiding failure you’re not draining the muscle, its energy systems, or the nervous system’s capacities.

And, the more reps you can complete overall with the same weight will most definitely lead to more muscle building!

Maybe Juan Valdez knew something about muscle building and coffee way before it was made public!

Anyway, check out the this article just posted on here giving us even more reasons to consider using caffeine as one of our weapons in gaining muscle mass:

Caffeine and Muscle Building!

Many feel that every set of every exercise you perform in your workout routine must “go to failure”, meaning you must take the set to the point where you can’t complete one more rep.

Is this a necessary trigger for muscle building? Many workout programs say yes, such as versions of High Intensity Training and the likes.

Well, many have come to find out that in the REAL WORLD, that’s not the case. As a matter of fact, going to failure on every set could actually slow down the muscle building process.

Scientists in Spain found that when 42 men trained to failure on all working sets for 4 months, they had lower levels of testosterone and IGF-1 (all muscle building hormones), yet had higher levels of cortisol (a muscle-destroying hormone).

If you think popping vitamins or taking supplements will help you feel “more energetic”, you’re wrong. Keep in mind that the main objective of vitamins is to assist you into converting the foods you eat into a biochemical form the body can utilize.

Getting enough sleep, eating correctly, not overtraining, avoiding stress and tension, etc., are what truly will have an impact on your energy levels…..not taking a boatload of vitamins.

Think about: before bodybuilders go workout, what do they make sure they do? Take more vitamins? No. Eat a meal with the proper amount and type of calories to fuel the intense workout the lays ahead? You betcha!

Even when trying to gain lean muscle mass is your main goal, you still want to make sure that you have an efficient metabolism. Hey, no use in gaining all of this weight if most of it is fat….and then when you try to burn it off it refuses to!

An efficient metabolism will make more probable that the weight that you are putting on is mainly muscle weight, in addition to the correct training and eating programs. So out of all the hyped up, expensive metabolism / fat burning dietary supplements out there, which one will give you the biggest bang for your buck??

Hydroxycut? Lipo-6? Thermo-yada-yada? ……….Nope.

It’s good old fashion caffeine!

Everytime you consume caffeine (more than likely in a hot cop of “joe”), you’ll need to drink 200-400 mgs of caffeine.

So, Starbucks, Caribou, Second Cup, Goya, Bustello, Pilon……here I come!!!!

Let’s be honest here, in order to put on a significant amount of lean, high quality muscle on your frame, you have to eat more calories per day than what your body utilizes. Plain and simple. There’s no getting around that.

You can workout until you’re blue in the face, but if you aren’t backing those intense workout programs with enough calories to allow the muscles to recover, recuperate, and then grow, you’ll just find yourself spinning your wheels.

So, on certain days (not everyday) a high calorie diet is a must. But, as with anything, the question arises……how’s this affecting my cholesterol levels?

Well, to ensure that you’re keeping yourself healthy, here’s an article the contains a few facts on this:

Niacin, Blood Cholesterol, & Eating To Gain Muscle

I’m sure you’ve read everywhere or have been told that even though you must eat to gain muscular weight that you still need to keep carbs on the lower end of the scale so as “not to provoke any insulin spikes”…or to “keep insulin under control”.

This is all just all part of the whole carb-phobia phenomenon that has been sweeping the United States in the last couple of years. Everyone seems to be making too much of a big deal about insulin and fat storage.

However, did you know that constant low insulin levels are a predictor of body fat gain in the Pima Indians.

Don’t take my word for it. Check out the study:
“Reduced Insulin Secretion: An Independent Predictor Of Weight Gain. Shwartz 1995″

One excellent way to save a ton of money on the foods you need for your muscle gaining diet is only purchase items at the grocery store that are found along the perimeter of the supermarket. This is known as “shopping around the perimeter”.

Most of the products found along the perimeter of a supermarket are less processed than the items found in the center aisles. And, when you calculate it, they provide more nutrition per dollar than the items in the middle of the grocery store.

Things such as fresh chicken and vegetables are found along the perimeter, while higher priced name-brand items tend to be on the inside of the store……which will always cost you more money.

So, no, it doesn’t take a big bank account to support a nutrition plan aimed at helping you get in the right calories to help you gain muscle mass and size!