Muscle Building Home Workouts

With work, family obligations and an odd night-out everyday, it's probably hard for you to find time to get to the gym on regular basis. That's why it's always a great idea to have a back-up workout option that you can do with minimal equipment. In the following workout, the only piece of equipment you need is a chair and half an hour of free time. For each exercise, perform 2 sets of 12 to 15 repetitions (reps).

Home Workouts!

1) The Plank: Place both feet on the seat of the chair and form a 'table' with your body by placing your elbows on the floor in front of the chair (you may wish to put down a towel if you are on a hard floor). Make sure your back isn't arched and that your whole body forms a straight line. Keep your core muscles tight and hold this position for up to one minute.

Benefits: This total body exercise will work your core muscles as well as your upper body.

2) Pushups: Get into same position as for the plank, but instead as of balancing on your elbows, place your hands on the floor shoulder-width apart. Then, begin to perform a pushup, keeping your feet on the chair. Be sure not to let your back arch while performing this exercise.

Benefits: Your chest muscles will be targeted.

3) One-Legged Squats: Stand a few feet in front of the chair, facing away from it. Place one leg behind you on the seat of the chair and find your balance. Slowly lower your hips as far as you can go, using the muscles in your standing leg. Once at the bottom, carefully rise up again to complete one rep.

Benefits: This is another great action for targeting your gluteus maximus muscle, as well as your hamstrings and quadriceps. Due to nature of this exercise, you will also work on your balance.

Random Tip:Maintain the starting stance and bring both forearms half way up, keeping them parallel to the floor. The fists should be pointed upwards. Just curl the fist up and down several times in a controlled move of the small wrist joint. Make sure to keep the wrist in line with the forearm.

4) Triceps Dips: Sit on the chair with your arms at your sides and your palms resting on the edge of the seat. Next, walk your body out from the chair so you are only holding on by your palms. Slowly move your body down, using your triceps to lower yourself and rise up again.

Benefits: You will feel a good burn in the back of your arms (triceps). For an added challenge, you can also put your feet on the seat of another chair or on an exercise ball.

5) Front Raises: Stand up and hold onto the two front legs of the chair with a sturdy grasp. Slowly raise the chair straight out in front of you, from below the waist to your shoulder level and back down again. When you hold the chair right up, hold the position for 15 seconds.

Benefits: This exercise will help you target your frontal deltoids as well as your biceps. It is a form of strength training.

No Excuses: So, when you are pressed for time next, don't just give up on your workout. With some imagination, you can create your own workout at home using common household objects that will stimulate your body in new ways, thus preventing you from reaching a plateau.

Even if time isn't a factor and you could have made it to the gym, it's never a bad idea to take a few sessions away, both to give you a psychological break, as well as to give your body some time away from the customary movements.

Ensure you are using proper form to avoid injuries. Take a day off in between each workout so you don't risk overtraining.

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Big Muscles

Big Muscles Now - Gaining Weight in 30 Days

Can you imagine what you would look like with more weight and more muscle in only 30 days? It can actually be done. You can gain a lot of weight if you commit to 30 days of following the tips listed below.

1. Eat, eat, eat!

5-6 meals a day for 30 days. Every meal should contain protein as the main source. Eggs, chicken, beef, fish - pick one of these for breakfast, pick one for lunch, and pick one for dinner. Then add whatever carbs you like: rice, pastas, bread, and so forth to add in the calories you'll need to gain weight.

Protein shakes: You want to drink down 2 or 3 of these in between your 3 main meals. If you are a truly hard gainer, and have trouble packing on weight no matter what you seem to eat, then here's a trick: Make your protein shakes with ice cream. Pack a few scoops of ice cream into the blender along with your protein scoops, and 1-2 tablespoons of peanut butter. You can get 800-1000 or more calories off just one of these shakes, so even for the hardest gainer, you will pack on weight.

2. How to train.

You want to focus on the movements that are best known to create size, thus create weight gain. Doing wrist curls are not going to promote massive weight gain. Neither are bicep curls. You have to do the big daddy's like squats, deadlifts, weighted chin ups or pull ups, dips and so forth. These are the tried and true exercises that will create a bigger you quickly and very effectively.

3. What kind of program to follow.

There are all kinds of programs to follow from high repetition training to low rep training. Each have their merits (for instance 20 rep squat training is very effective for weight gain, while many low reps on other exercises are effective as well.) The most important thing to look for in a good muscle building/weight gain program, is whether or not the program focuses on the big exercises mentioned above. If they just recommend doing bicep curls and calf raises every workout then it's safe to say you're not going to gain much weight off of that program. You want a muscle building program that is set up for you to start right away and start making muscle gains immediately, using the tried and true exercises that create weight gain.

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Gain Muscle at Home

Dumbbell Workouts - What You Need to Gain Muscle at Home

Dumbbell workouts are the ideal at home workout to gain muscle. You see all sort of infomercials now days promoting different kinds of complicated contraptions. Yet what they don't tell you are that dumbbell workouts are cheaper, simpler, and much more effective for gaining muscle.

Here's what you need to gain muscle at home with dumbbells.

1. There's two choices for the actual dumbbells. First you can choose to just get a pair of dumbbell handles and an assortment of weight plates. You will simply interchange the weights on the handles according to the exercise you are doing.

You second choice is getting a dumbbell rack system, which already has all the weights included, and simply requires hitting a few buttons to get your desired weight loaded onto each dumbbell. This is very convenient and should be considered if you think you'll be switching weights frequently.

2. Rubber mat. It is a good idea to have a rubber mat which you can put your dumbbells down on in between sets. These can actually be found at auto parts stores, as well as fitness stores. This way you won't damage your flooring, and you will have a firm surface to perform your dumbbell exercises on.

3. Dumbbell Exercise Instructions. Here's the important part. There are a lot of different exercises you can do with dumbbells. It's key to get dumbbell exercise instructions so that you do the routines safely and effectively. There are a number of exercises that are incredibly effective for building muscle and if muscle gain is your goal, then these are the exercises you will want to follow.

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