Let’s not waste any time: what exactly is the quickest way to gain weight? To put it simply, just eat more than your body can metabolize and you’ll gain weight. If you’re naturally thin then chances are you have a fast metabolic rate (or metabolism), meaning you’ll have to eat a lot of calories every day in order for weight gain to occur. But wait a minute, we don’t want to gain just any weight, we want to put on muscle baby! It’s that muscle mass that the chicks dig, so that’s what we’re aiming for.

So how do we get our bodies to store those extra calories we consume as muscle and not body fat? I know what you’re thinking: “I’ve just got to get to the gym, lift those weights, pump iron like all the big guys do”. Well, you’d be right, but that’s not the whole story.

The problem is your situation is different from those ‘muscle men’ you probably idolize. Their genetics are different from yours: their natural hormonal balance makes them prone to being muscular from the start, and their metabolisms are typically slower than yours. Because of these complications you need to employ a much more specific strategy than the one which works for them.

Try this: train your muscles to hypertrophy with relatively short sets of 8-10 reps per muscle group. We’re talking about a full body workout here. Then get a lot of rest in the following two days, exerting yourself as little as possible, and eating large, frequent, balanced meals. Remember, muscle growth occurs after you train and not during. It’s almost always the post-workout strategy which hard gainers get wrong, ruining their plans to gain weight for good. You won’t have this problem though, as you’ll reach hypertrophy while expending the smallest amount of energy, and you’ll follow-up your workouts properly to boot.

According to doctors, workouts may help you reduce your risk of a lot of health conditions, such as cancer, depression and heart attacks. Aside from this, workouts make you stronger both physically and mentally. If you are working out without the help of a good fitness trainer, you are more prone to common workout mistakes. Here are 5 of those mistakes that you should avoid.

1. Workout goals

What are your workout goals? No matter what you want to achieve by working out, your workout sessions should consist of three stages: warm-up, exercise and the stretch-out stage.

Most people focus on the second phase, which is a mistake. Starting your workouts phase without warming up your body first is a bad idea. If you don’t warm up before a workout session, you may end up hurting your muscles. The stretch-out phase is equally important.

2. Not Warming-up Before Each Session

With the warm-up stage, you are informing your nervous system of the physical stress it is going to go through. This stage will help your body prevent premature fatigue and skipped heartbeats.

The warm-up phase is more important if you are going to do some high interval intensity training exercises like CrossFit or sprinting. Even if you are going to do a workout of moderate intensity, you should warm up as it will get your blood flowing throughout your body.

3. Doing The Exercises The Wrong Way

After box jumping or deadlifts, some people complain about pain in their lower backs. Some people think that it is muscle soreness and shouldn’t be taken as something serious. However, the thing is that you should learn to differentiate between muscle soreness and joint pain.

Mostly, joint pain may occur if you do an exercise the wrong way. It may also lead to injury in some cases. Therefore, it is important that you get some guidance from a fitness trainer.

4. Sticking to the Same Type of Exercises

Do you find your workouts boring? If so, it’s time for you to change our workout plan. Doing the same movements over and over again may make it harder for you to get your desired results.

For instance, if you do jogging on a daily basis, you should change your route. Or you can increase or decrease your speed for a change.

5. Ignoring Other Body Parts

The human body is not a simple machine. It functions on different levels at the same time. Therefore, you should do workouts that will work multiple areas of your body. Focusing on the same parts may cause your body to lose balance. As a result, your body gets weaker and you don’t see the desired results.

Therefore, we suggest that you choose a set of exercises that will work all of the important parts of your body that people usually ignore.

So, these are some common workout mistakes that most people make. If you don’t want to end up hurting yourself while working out, we suggest that you avoid these mistakes. Hopefully, now you will be able to get the most out of your exercises.

Background

Before starting to take lycopene supplement, it is useful to take stock and think through a few things. To be able to do this in a systematic way, one can group the issues to consider as follows:

What Benefits Can I Expect?

The benefits that one might expect from supplementing one’s lycopene intake include:

Effects against aging: Lycopene is an antioxidant on steroids! It is way more powerful than Vitamin E. Having antioxidants available helps the body deal with oxidants which damage cells, tissues and DNA and can result in premature aging.

Effects against cancer: Several studies have suggested that high lycopene levels reduce the risk of prostate cancer. However the jury is still out on the activity against prostate cancer as other studies have not been able to confirm this.

Effects against chronic disease: There are suggestions that this compound may have an effect against chronic diseases such as coronary heart disease.

How Shall I Take It?

There are at least a couple of options for getting the required intake.

Through diet and food: The richest plant source is a South East Asian fruit called gac. However, in the United States our commonest source is ripe tomatoes or their derivatives such as tomato puree, tomato juice, dried tomatoes etc. Other sources are, water melon, pink grapefruit, pink guava, papaya, red bell pepper, seabuckthorne, wolfberry and rosehip.

As part of a multivitamin containing lycopene supplements: There are numerous places where one can obtain these supplements over the counter. It is also possible to source it online from reputable suppliers.

Keeping to a diet rich in lycopene is well recommended but if it becomes the only source then one must remember that this compound is only soluble in organic solvents such as oil but not in water. This would suggest having oily meals which has its own risks in terms of the calories taken in and risks to the heart.

One can have better control by sourcing the nutrient via nutritional supplements especially as the ingredient amount is known and one can choose the supplement that is better formulated to meet their needs e.g. men, women or children.

Where Shall I Get My Supply From?

There are many suppliers out there and one should give this some thought. The short answer is to use a reputable supplier. Some of the criteria one can use to make this judgment are:

What sort of ingredients do they use? You should only choose a supplier who uses high quality ingredients preferably to the same standard as in pharmaceutical manufacturing.

How do they source their ingredients? Choose a supplier who uses natural ingredients. Some of the cheaper supplements contain ingredients that have been manufactured from petrochemicals and contain impurities.

Do their supplements have enteric coating? This is a neutral polymer coating placed around the capsule to protect it from stomach acids. This ensures that it gets to the upper intestine where the supplement nutrients can be properly absorbed.

Will I Suffer Adverse Effects?

This is an important consideration but so far there are no known adverse effects from taking lycopene other than from excessive intake. The cases that have been reported are of colored skin and elevated blood levels after excessive intake but they resolved normally as soon as it was withdrawn.

Choosing your lycopene supplement means much more than what I have outlined here and there are products that I am aware of that pass these criteria with flying colors. If you are concerned with your health and well-being then please visit my website for an opportunity to learn a whole lot more.

Muscle hypertrophy, it sounds like an avoidable disorder, but it’s exactly what you want to achieve when you implement resistance training into your workouts. Hypertrophy is the increase in mass and girth of your existing muscle cells. It is a complex process activated by catalysts including: resistance of force, intensity, duration and frequency of workouts and the recovery period after workouts. During and after training sessions your muscles undergo the beginnings of growth but must also have time for recuperation, otherwise you experience muscle weakening from overuse.

Growth prompting changes to your muscle tissue is triggered during your workout within two to four hours and continues for up to 24 hours. The length of time muscle growth sustains depends on the training session intensity, duration and trauma caused to the muscle cells.

Essentially, during your workout the muscle cell organelles are subject to slight tears, which activate surrounding muscle cells outside of the muscle fiber. The satellite cells begin to proliferate, or grow and divide, to repair the injury site. Muscle fibers fuse as part of the healing process and then form new myofibrils, or threads of the muscle fiber. Myofibrils increase in density and permit the initially injured muscle fiber to allow in more protein for building muscle mass. This process is called muscle protein synthesis.

Muscle protein synthesis plays a crucial part in completing the growth process of muscles from a singular workout session. Specifically, muscle growth only occurs when the rate of muscle protein synthesis exceeds the rate of muscle protein breakdown. At the most basic level, this means your workout has to cause efficient muscle tearing through resistance and force to allow existing muscle cell protein to breakdown rapidly. However, muscles can only repair and grow if new protein is introduced to the body during a sufficient window occurring in this cellular process.

A single intense set of high-weight repetitions can prompt muscle growth but you might never see the results if you do not continue engaging in consistent training. As important as the intensity and frequency of your workouts are, equally is the importance of recovery or recuperation time between workouts. Within two hours of your training session, consume a protein-filled snack to prompt muscle protein synthesis. You should also avoid working the same muscle group two days in a row. A day of rest in between muscle groups is adequate for prompting those biceps to grow from pebbles in to big old rocks.

Skeletal muscle such as that you are trying to bulk is extremely resilient and adaptive but this can lead to mass gaining plateaus. Hitting the muscle bulking slump is easily overcome by traumatizing your muscles in a new and different way. Simply boost your weight but lower your reps or change up your routine. Avoid ceasing your training sessions altogether because this can delay the progress from the efforts you have put in and force you to over-train the next time you attempt to replenish your workout.

If you are new to muscle bulking you will likely see relatively rapid muscle growth results. Keep in mind that proper form, consistent training and nutrition are important components of a comprehensive workout. With time persistent efforts lend to quality gains and increased muscular strength.

When you work for janitorial services, you could work in schools, factories, hospitals, or offices. The job can be hard and does require a lot of stamina. Hazards can also be associated with being a janitor. Working as a janitor for a janitorial service, you are subjected to various chemical and physical hazards. This can include lifting things on a constant basis, using heavy equipment for cleaning, bending, stooping, being on your feet for eight hours a day, using strong chemicals for cleaning purposes, and more. Any of these hazards can lead to a severe injury and could cause life-long injury.

To help minimize the risks of accidents and hazards a janitorial service should hold training sessions and go over what a janitor can do to work safely. This includes:

• A very common job for a janitor is lifting heavy equipment. To escape muscle sprains and back injuries make sure that you use proper lifting techniques. When lifting heavy things bend your knees and lift from the floor making sure that you avoid turning and twisting your back.

• To relieve stress from continuous work take short breaks

• If you are working with someone and have to lift heavy equipment ask the person working with you to help so you do not have to carry the entire load alone. It could adversely affect your body and cause an injury. You should also have on a lift belt when you have to lift a heavy load on your own or with someone else.

• Make sure that the shoes you are wearing are comfortable and have slip proof rubber soles to get a proper grip on the floor, especially if it is wet because you may have floors to mop.

• Most janitors have carts that carry their equipment like mops, brooms, dust rags, cleaners, etc. Make sure that they are in good condition and roll smoothly across the floors. If there is a wobbly wheel or other problems with the cart that you let your janitorial service know so it can be fixed. When pushing them lean forward so it makes pushing them easier. Take time to stretch after pushing the cart so you do not get kinks in your back or cause a back strain from pushing the cart too much.

• One of the main duties is cleaning the floors. It can be mopping or vacuuming the floor. Be sure that when cleaning the floor that you maintain proper body posture. When mopping make sure that the handle is held tightly and that it is done in a rhythmical motion to avoid tiring.

• When taking out the trash, cleaning the bathrooms, and messing with chemicals and cleaners wear rubber gloves to protect your hands.

Hepatitis C has long been a disease for which humanity had no effective cure. The well-known treatment standard with interferon was only successful in around 50% of cases. In 2013, a new drug under the trade name Sovaldi was introduced to the US market. With above 95% success rate the new drug changed the game and transformed Hepatitis C into an easily treatable liver disease.

What is more, Gilead added 90 mg of ledipasvir, a NS5A inhibitor, to existing 400 mg sofosbuvir formulation in Sovaldi. The newly created drug is named Harvoni and it is currently the most successful Hepatitis C treatment available.

Harvoni side effects

No drug is without side effect and even Harvoni is not an exception. The most frequent ones are headaches (20%) and fatigue (18%), followed by diarrhea and nausea. All these side effects were discovered during clinical trials and patients should expect some of them during the standard 12-week treatment.

However, more and more Hepatitis C patients are experiencing weight gain as a side effect of the treatment. In some cases, patients put up no less than 30 pounds in as little as 12 weeks. Is the new treatment stimulating weight gain?

Why are Hepatitis C patients gaining weight?

The treatment is most probably not a direct cause for weight gain. Nonetheless, there are two factors that can influence body mass increase during the 12-week regimen:

1. Headaches and fatigue decrease physical activity
2. Immune system is burning muscle tissue to fight off the disease

Normal physical activity is very important when it comes to weight maintenance. Even simple tasks such as cleaning or walking through the mall burn calories and little by little these calories add up. However, when being treated for Hepatitis C, headaches and fatigue usually prevent patients from performing those tasks. On the other hand, people on Harvoni usually find less time and motivation to prepare healthy meals. When suffering from a headache, taking snacks out of the fridge is much easier than making a healthy homemade meal. This adds to the calories being consumed and contributes to weight gain.

Nonetheless, consuming food is vital for fighting off the disease. While on treatment, the immune system is in hyper-drive and is in need of additional energy to construct antibodies against Hepatitis C virus. Antibodies are created out of proteins. This is why it is very important to consume a sufficient amount of protein while on treatment. Otherwise, the body in need of protein will start burning off valuable muscle mass in order to obtain the necessary building block for the immune system.

Both effects add up and influence weight gain. The important thing to know is that patients on treatment must eat in order to keep their immune system healthy. It is true that this will, in turn, increase their body weight. The primary focus of the treatment is still to cure Hepatitis C.

Get energy from fat tissue

The most brilliant way of getting the energy to fuel your immune system is by burning of excess fat. Most of us have fat on the stomach and thighs. This fat can be used to support our immune system. The added benefit is that you will not gain weight on Harvoni treatment. Not only this, many people report losing weight when being on a right fat burning program.

Regular exercise and physical activity are extremely important and good for your overall well-being and the development of your CHI. Here are some positive benefits to your overall well-being and CHI by regular exercise and physical activity:

* You can reduce the risk of premature death.

* You reduce the risk of developing and/or dying from heart disease.

* You reduce high blood pressure or the risk of developing high blood pressure.

* You can reduce high cholesterol or the risk of developing high cholesterol.

* You reduce the risk of developing colon cancer or breast cancer.

* You reduce the risk of developing diabetes.

* You reduce or maintain body weight, or low body fat content.

* You can build and maintain healthy muscle, bones and joints.

* You reduce depression and anxiety.

* You improve your psychological well-being.

A nice by-product of your improved physical condition is that you can enhance all domains of your life, i.e. recreation, work, relationships etc. Incorporating aerobic exercise into your physical development adds benefits as well. An individual can increase their maximum oxygen consumption, which is their V02 Max. This means that they can work out longer and harder before lactic acid releases into your muscles and makes them slow down and tire. In addition, an individual gains an overall improvement in their cardiovascular and cardiopulmonary functioning in their heart and lungs. As an individual continues aerobic exercise they increase the maximal cardiac output, which means that the amount of blood pumped in their heart every minute increases.

For individuals training for competitive events that require prolonged physical exertion, aerobic exercise can increase their threshold for lactic acid accumulation, lower their resting systolic and diastolic blood pressure. A nice by product of aerobic conditioning is the ability to reduce body fat and gain control over body weight.

Another way to improve your physical being is through weight training. There are some important benefits of lifting weights. First, an individual can increase their muscular strength. Second, a person can experience an increase in the strength of their tendons and ligaments in their body. Third, increased range of motion in joints and improved flexibility are a result of strength training. An additional by-product of lifting weights is an individual can reduce their body fat and increase lean muscle mass.

Important systemic benefits can occur as a result of lifting weights. First, an individual can potentially decrease their resting systolic and diastolic blood pressures. In addition, a person can experience positive changes in blood cholesterol. With continued lifting of weights, the human body is given improved glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity. As an added bonus, an individual can experience overall improved strength, balance and functional ability as they get older.

Have you heard of Micro Plant Powder? Many people haven’t. This may be one of the more interesting supplements on the market right now. Further down, I will discuss the boring background info on how Micro Plant Powder is produced but first, some info about why I am interested in it and why you might be too! The healing benefits of this miracle supplement are pretty amazing and there are no reported side effects. Silica, which makes up Micro Plant Powder, is one of the basics of human life. Because silica is no longer prevalent in our soil, it is sorely lacking in our food diets. This is an easy way to get that back into your daily intake.

This supplement has so many regenerative and healing benefits that can be life altering – you will just have to try it for yourself to see the results.

Here are some of the benefits of Micro Plant Powder:

Lowers high blood pressure naturally. It doesn’t just lower it a little – it lowers it a lot.

Improves joint and bone health and encourages healthy building of cartilage. As we get older, calcium in our bodies depletes and our bones become brittle and weak. Studies suggests that, instead of building bone mass, calcium supplements may speed the leaching away of bone calcium.

Here is some of the background about Micro Plant Powder – feel free to skip this paragraph and get to more of the benefits.

Here is the technical and possibly boring background on Micro Plant Powder and how it is produced. Micro Plant Powder is made from single cell microscopic plants that are found in fresh water beds on the east coast under zeolite beds. These tiny plants are made up of only one cell. They form a hard shell around themselves and over many years float to the bottom of fresh water beds and aggregate to form a solid compound that is made up of 89% or more of pure silica surrounded by molecules of oxygen and other basic but vital minerals.

* May stop the pain of osteoporosis and can help the self repair process. Silica in the powder is useful in creating calcium in the body when deficient.

* Excellent and restorative for hair, skin and bones. It is used extensively around the world for improvement to hair, nails, skin, and bones.

* Lowers high cholesterol dramatically.

Other benefits:

* Fades age spots

* Anti-aging properties

* Stimulates metabolism for more energy

* It helps to detoxify the body of bacteria and pollutants.

* Reduces inflammation

* Lessens undesirable side-effects of menopause

* Can help prevent kidney stones and heal urinary tract infections.

Micro Plant Powder’s benefits go on and on – there are more on my site, including some pretty major benefits. It’s the best “miracle pill” that it isn’t a drug. It is natural and gives your body what it needs to heal itself.

While many supplements on the market today are designed to enhance muscular development directly, some are performance-oriented in an effort to improve training intensities, hopefully resulting in the heightened muscle qualities so desired.

One such supplement is beta-alanine.

Beta-alanine’s claim to fame is tied to its influence on the levels of a protein molecule called carnosine. This particular molecule is limited by the availability of the nonessential amino acid beta-alanine, and the essential amino acid L-histidine.

Why is an increase in carnosine such a sought after effect?

One of the main causes of fatigue during intense exercise is an increase in intramuscular acidosis, especially in type II muscle fibers. The more the acidity level increases in a muscle, the less potential it has for contracting. So, if one can offset the increase in acidity in a working muscle through an enhanced buffering effect, the more potential that muscle has for work, thus lasting longer during intense exercise or physical activity.

Theoretically, increasing the levels of an acid-buffering agent like carnosine though the usage of beta-alanine, or beta-alanine combined with another buffering agent like sodium bicarbonate, can possibly lead to the potential for higher intensity efforts and better gains in aerobic and anaerobic performances, muscular performance, and muscular development. That being said, some study results demonstrate that it simply has no beneficial effect at all whether alone or in combination with another buffering agent like sodium bicarbonate.

In fact, recent meta-analytical research hints that the heightened acid-buffering effect of beta-alanine supplementation might not be a beneficial factor for athletic performances or exercise bouts of less than 60 seconds. This particular notion puts into question its value for resistance training in the hypertrophy zone as the duration of sets are typically shorter than sixty seconds.

Even the importance of the buffering effect, while interesting, is still a subject that is being debated. There is compelling research that points towards the notion that beta-alanine’s influence on the body’s intramuscular acid-buffering capacity could possibly enhance one’s potential for muscular hypertrophy because of increased training tolerances at higher intensities. In addition, depending on the individual, this particular benefit on carnosine levels can last for a few weeks to a few months after the cessation of beta-alanine usage.

Interestingly enough, one of the adaptations to high intensity anaerobic activities, like resistance training, is the natural increase in acid-buffering potential. In fact, it has been shown that highly trained individuals have higher concentrations of carnosine in their muscles, thus a correspondingly higher buffering capacity.

The natural level of carnosine in a muscle may be limited, however. It is in this arena that beta-alanine supplementation is suspected to have its positive influence on increasing carnosine levels.

Now, that’s the good news. What about side effects?

In high doses, beta-alanine is known to cause paresthesia, which is the sensation of a tingling, prickling or numbness of the skin. While the paresthesia effect is temporary and dose-dependent on an individual-to-individual basis, it is more than a little alarming that it could elicit a strange symptom that is along the lines of a neurological reaction.

The message to retain in this case is that if a supplement of this nature can cause this kind of side effect, it is highly probable that it might be affecting the body in other ways, more than just the parameter it is designed to modify or improve. Additional in-depth research is needed to address this issue in both short-term and long-term usage. As such, it would be prudent to wait for long-term safety studies before contemplating the integration of beta-alanine into a sports performance supplement protocol. Unfortunately, this risk-minimizing advice is seldom acted upon as people rarely wait until there is convincing evidence demonstrating efficacy and safety.

In the end, while beta-alanine is an interesting supplement to keep an eye on, it still remains speculative. It might be better to get one’s beta-alanine from natural sources like red meats, poultry, and fish.

This is the question that most people ask after watching the professionals in the magazines and on bodybuilding websites. The methods and principles that can help you get huge biceps are easy when you read about them, but the truth is that big biceps don’t come about just by reading about them. To get big biceps, focus on the workouts. Here are a few things to remember about your bicep training.

Lift heavy

That is the first thing you need to do to get huge biceps. You cannot get massive biceps by following your normal training routine. One mistake most people make is to assume that by doing more reps with their current weight they can improve on their biceps size. That cannot be. You only maintain the current size of your biceps. You should lift heavier weights even if that will mean doing fewer reps.

Vary your training

If you want to know how to get huge arms, you need to mix things up. If you do the same exercise for a long time, your body gets used to the routines and no changes are produced. You need to vary the way you do the exercises. Some professionals advise that you only train your biceps once or twice a week. Make sure that you pack the weights enough when doing the biceps exercises. You must also change the order in which you do the individual biceps exercises.

Be smart in your training

To get huge biceps, you must be smart about your training program. There are certain things you can do to make your training ineffective. Make sure you train your back not earlier than 48 hours before and after training your biceps. The biceps are secondary muscles to the back muscles. To get massive biceps, do the toughest exercises at the start of your training.

Don’t overtrain

People who want to get huge biceps tend to think that they must overtrain to achieve their aims. Overtraining will rather damage your biceps. It is not good to train your biceps when they hurt; doing that will lead to damage to the muscle fibers. There is the need to give your body enough rest after training to grow the stimulated muscles.

Eat well

This should be the basic of all bodybuilding principles. Your body needs nutrients to grow the muscles. If you want to get huge biceps, then you should eat the right kind of food in the right quantities. Proteins are needed to get giant biceps.