There has been a lot of studies performed and articles written lately surrounding the effect of music on physical exercises. But what about weightlifting? How is this type of bodybuilding stimulated through the means of music? Research has shown on multiple occasions that upbeat music increases the pulse and respiration, which positively affects the endurance of a weightlifter. Not to mention that the amazing benefits of music in the psychological area, which also helps bodybuilders achieve success while lifting weights.

Biological effects

When a person is listening to music while training with weights, their heart rate and respiration increase. The effect of music works in any kind of physical activity, including weightlifting. It is to some extent predictable that listening to a motivating music will induce a lasting and dynamic change in the cardiovascular system. This leads to a faster respiration and pulse, which is a desirable state of the body, considering that weightlifters can send more oxygen to nurture the working muscles.

A study published in “Perceptual Motor Skills Journal” proved the effects of music over muscular endurance. The tests showed people are able to decrease the overall time until exhaustion by listening to music, in comparison with those that had lesser endurance due to the fact that they had only white noise to work with. Therefore the interactive stimulation of music is highly beneficial for all those whose ambition is to work really hard to achieve their goals through weightlifting.

Psychological effects

Pushing through a difficult weight training exercise has to be aided by the mind, as well as body. Music has to give the athlete a rush of adrenaline. This will give him a huge wave of energy, helping him to exceed his own limits and think about achieving the impossible. Anything with a constant beat is perfect to give the weightlifter that rush in order to lose himself in the music and gain that mindfulness necessary to remain 100% engaged in the workout.

The Right Music

When it comes to the music that increases the overall performance of a weightlifter, not all types of music will produce the same results. In order to be successful in what you’re doing, you, as a weight trainer, should choose the best music out there, a music that will motivate you personally to achieve a great boost in your potential as a weightlifter. Putting together a playlist is a wise thing to do if you want to motivate yourself to last longer at the gym and also train harder and better. Pay close attention to anything that gives you an adrenaline rush and a particular state of mind, the one that makes you want to tear something apart. That kind of music is normally an upbeat music which will help you exceed your average performance at the gym. So if you want to feel your blood pumping while working out your muscles, pick a wide variety of beats that will aid your weightlifting performances by getting the best out of your efforts.

The effects of music on exercise are equally important with the music you choose for yourself as a strong motivator. And that shouldn’t be too hard when you have your iPod or MP3 player to get instant access to the weightlifting music that will make exercising more motivating than ever.

All guys who are into fitness and who have ever been into action movies want big arms or have wanted to have big arms at some point in their lives. In fact most guys work out their arms first when they first join the gym, it just one of those testosterone driven things that have not been seeded out by evolution if you believe in that sort of thing. Big arms are a sign of masculinity and guys like to show how alpha they are by the size of their guns.

The mistakes we make when it comes building big arms

One of the first workouts we guys do when we first join the gym is the bicep curl; it does not really matter whether it’s the barbell or the dumbbell curl. We have the misconception that doing bicep curls is all that is needed to build monster arms. Yes at the beginning your biceps will respond and grow because of beginner gains (anything you do at this point stimulates growth since you were not used to it), but soon beginner gains stop and you have to find other ways to bring about growth and you will notice that your arms are not as big and thick (width wise) as you would have liked them to be.

The other thing we don’t do is we do not work out other body parts, which is a really bad move because if you want to look the part and proportional you have to work out other body parts. Imagine Arnold without his big chest and shoulders to back up his huge arms, he would not have looked the part and he definitely would not have won the Olympia or gotten the role of Conan the barbarian.

The third thing we do is that we over train and do not give our muscles enough time to recover and grow, doing the same workouts and working out the same body parts day after day. In the beginning this is usually your biceps so you do not get the maximum growth you expect from the amount of work you put in.

And finally we do not eat good food (healthy) or drink enough water instead we drink too much coffee, juice (not fresh juice), fizzy drinks and alcohol. Sipping on cola and other such drinks the whole day is not going to do you any good, and drinking beer (too much as in binge drinking for college and high school guys) is counter-productive. Drinking water will do you much good. Eating junk food will not help you build lean muscle mass, in fact because you will be eating more because you workout, eating junk will also add to the amount of fat you gain.

How to get big arms:

Getting big arms is about more than training your biceps it is about training your whole arm which includes your triceps as well, if you work out your triceps your arms will be bigger because your triceps are bigger than your biceps ( haven’t you ever wonder why triceps have ‘tri’ and biceps ‘Bi’ as a prefix).

Furthermore you should train your large body parts as well as this will help make your arms bigger because training you large body parts like your back and legs helps to release hormones that make you grow more and help you become stronger. This can be done by doing exercises such as squats and dead-lifts which workout your whole body.

A guy with big arms and no chest and shoulders never look good so it will be at your best interest to focus on those body parts as well, not only will it make you look better, stronger but it will help your other body parts recover because you will train each body part on a separate day. This helps avoid over-training, your body will get enough rest and it will recover and grow.

Drinking lots of water will allow for your blood volume to increase and improve the transportation of nutrients to your entire body. Proper nutrition will make sure you minimise fat gain and you maximise muscle gain because your diet will help to repair and build new muscle cells.

So you see getting big arms is not only about curling weights, there are other factors that influence whether you grow and how much you grow in terms of fat and muscle gain. If you follow these guidelines to growing your arms you will notice the difference in your body and strength levels in the following weeks.

Like other little boys, you were probably a huge fan of wrestling. In truth, girls love the drama of wrestling too, but boys can be such a huge fan of this sport. Do you remember watching matches with your father, uncle or grandfather? It doesn’t matter how old you get, wrestling is a great sport to watch. Yelling curses and obscenities while the match is going on is just probably one of the thrills. Not surprisingly, if you are a fan of wrestling and you’re into bodybuilding, you are probably wondering how to build forearms of steel.

While watching wrestlers slam heads and beat the daylights out of each other, it is hard not to notice these wrestlers’ massive forearms. Although skills play a huge part on winning in wrestling, it doesn’t hurt if you have the strength and big forearms to use against your opponents. Bruno Sammartino and Billy Graham both had massive forearms. They were big all over. Having big biceps means that you can have a strong grip. To have big biceps, you need to learn how to build forearms of steel. Both Sammartino and Graham had forearms the size of tree trunks.

The neck, calf muscles and forearms are the most neglected parts of the body. Many guys focus on building their biceps, but they often overlook building their forearms. This results in huge upper arms with little twigs for forearms. In truth, the forearms are quite visible, so it is ironic that there are a lot of guys who do not give importance to building their lower arms. In combative sports, especially wrestling, your forearms will help you grab and hold your opponent.

Often when you are doing deadlifts, shrugs, curls, rows and pull-ups, your forearms get secondary work. Exercises that are ideal for building forearms include barbell, sledge hammer levering, steel bar bending, horseshoe bending, hammer and finger curls. In order to build forearms, you need to work them twice a week using two methods:

1. High volume training involving 20-50 repetitions

2. Lower volume training involving 8-12 repetitions of heavy approach.

Although you may know how to build forearms of steel, you also need to consider your body type. There are people whose bodies respond quickly to exercises and they will see their forearms growing massive quickly. There are some people who will have a bit of a problem achieving fast development. Men of short stature will likely see their forearms getting bigger more quickly than men with tall stature.

Just about every guy who goes to the gym to build muscle wants to get a huge chest. This is hardly surprising considering the effect that a ripped chest has on the opposite sex (not to mention on other men). There isn’t anything really terribly complicated about building a ripped, attention grabbing chest. The foundation for developing your chest muscles is consistency and progressive overloading. If you are willing to put in the effort you too can have a ripped, sexy chest in no time.

The chest muscles actually consist of two sub muscle groups: the pectoralis major and the pectoralis minor. These two sub groups of muscles contained within the chest are where the slang term “pecs” come from, in case you were curious. The secret to maximizing your chest muscle gains lies in the pressing movements used in lifting weights during exercise.

Chest flyes certainly have their occasional place in an overall chest workout program but they pale in comparison to the dramatic anabolic effect of pressing movements. Pressing movements include such exercises as incline chest press, decline chest press, flat bench press, dumbbell presses, and seated dips.

The big secret to getting a ripped chest is that there really are no big secrets or magic spells or mind blowing techniques to stimulate your chest muscles into extraordinary growth. So long as you focus on pressing movements and progressive overloading you will almost certainly see substantial muscular development in your chest area.

In my professional opinion, the following lifts are the most effective for muscle gains in the chest area:

1. Bench Press – This includes all three varieties of bench press including flat, decline, and incline bench press. This is essentially a basic compound movement that will allow you to handle the maximum amount of weight through a specified range of motion. The incline press targets the upper region of the chest while the decline press focuses stress on the lower portion of the chest. The flat bench press simultaneously targets both the upper and lower chest muscles.

2. Dumbbell Bench Press – Again, this includes all three varieties of bench press. The primary advantage of the dumbbell press over the standard bench press is that dumbbells allow for a much more natural range of motion and as such help to prevent shoulder injuries. Additionally, dumbbells also help to prevent strength imbalances since each muscle must work on their own rather than in conjunction with each other. Unfortunately, you will not be able to do as much weight with dumbbells as you would with normal bench press.

3. Seated Dips – If possible make sure to use a wider grip while leaning slightly forward so as to alleviate the stress on the triceps and better target the chest muscles. Seated dips are great because you can adjust the weight according to your specifications in contrast to standing dips where the weight is limited to your body weight.

At 16 years old, Reg Park did not resemble a future Mr. Universe.

His scrawny frame carried just 160lbs on a 6 foot tall frame.

But eventually, Reg Park carried 250lbs of solid muscle with true 18 inch arms. (Some stats put his arms as big as 20 inches).

Plus, he was one of the strongest men of his time. Not only did he play Hercules on the big screen, many of his lifts were absolutely herculean as well.

Take a look for yourself:

Way back in 1950s, Reg Park hoisted:

A 605 pound squat for two reps.

He was the first bodybuilder to bench press over 500lbs.

A 700 pound dead lift and a 315 pound behind-the-neck press.

While much of his strength was built using basic exercises and basic workout routines, his contest bodybuilding training is legendary for the amount of volume he would cram into a single workout.

Not only would he use extremely heavy weights (3 sets of 20 rep squats with 315lbs) but each workout consisted of over 100 sets.

How could any man handle such a brutal workout?

Perhaps the secret was Reg Parks home-made workout drink.

Here is the recipe:

2 Pints of diluted orange juice concentrate + honey.

Just as you would expect from Reg Park, it is a simple and basic drink.

But if you run the numbers, you can see why it is so effective:

The drink contains a boatload of concentrated energy. Nearly 600 calories and 142 grams of fast-acting carbohydrates.

Not to mention nearly 2,000 milligrams of potassium. Why is this important?

Potassium is crucial for muscle contractions and nerve transmission. And when you sweat, you lose potassium.

So replacing the potassium that your body loses through sweat is essential for maximum performance.

If you find yourself struggling to get through your training sessions because of low energy levels, you might want to give Reg Parks homemade workout drink a try.

And if you are struggling to gain weight and build muscle, why not follow in Reg Parks massive footsteps and follow the same training program that transformed him from a 160lb weakling to a 250lb Hercules?

Here is a variation of one of Reg Parks many basic, brutal and effective training programs:

Barbell Curl: 4 sets of 6-8 reps.

Barbell Shoulder Press: 4 sets of 6-8 reps.

Bench Press: 5 sets of 5 reps.

Barbell Row: 4 sets of 6-8 reps.

Barbell Squat: 5 sets of 5 reps.

Dead lift: 1 heavy set of 5 reps.

Instructions: This training program should be done 3x a week. (Monday, Wednesday, Friday). Monday is a your heavy day.

This means you use the most weight you can while still completing the recommended number of sets and reps.

If you able to complete all sets and reps as written, increase the weight 5lbs during the next week.

If your unable to complete all sets and reps of any given exercise, keep the weight the same next week.

Wednesday is your light day. You do the same exercises, sets and reps but you use 80% of the weight that you used on your heavy day.

So if you used 100lbs on the barbell curl on Monday, you would use 80lbs on Wednesday.

This workout allows your body to recover from your heavy training day (Monday) without any risk of de-training.

Friday is a medium load day. Again, same exercises, reps and sets from Monday but with 90% of the weight.

For maximum gains, you must sleep a minimum of 8 hours a night and eat plenty of wholesome foods.

Reg himself ate lots of steak, whole milk, whole eggs, orange juice, salads and supplemented his diet with handfuls of liver tablets.

If you want to build herculean strength and size, then give this workout a shot.

If you want to gain weight fast, then pay close attention to the story of Joe Hise.

Way back in 1932 — long before steroids were even invented — Joe Hise gained 29 pounds in just 29 days.

Impossible?

That’s what most people thought. So Joe started teaching his methods to other people. Here are their results:

Mark Berry: Gained 50 pounds in 6 months.

Roger Eels: Packed on 35 pounds of muscle in one month.

Norman Fay: Increased body weight from 156 pounds to 185 pounds in 30 days.

So how does this plan work:

On this plan, you are going to train three times per week on non-consecutive days. So, for example, Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

You will perform only three exercises: The standing barbell curl, the military press and the 20-rep breathing squat.

The 20-rep breathing squat is a regular barbell squat, but you perform just one hard set of 20 reps. In between each rep, you will take 3 deep breaths — completely filling your lungs with air with each breath.

This is the key to the entire system as the breathing squat forces your body to adapt and pack on muscle mass at an incredible rate.

This bare bones workout may look too simple at first, but this exact plan has been transforming skinny guys into heavily muscled men for decades.

To ensure your body has the proper amount of protein and calories needed to build muscle and gain weight, the old-time trainers who followed this plan would drink a gallon of whole milk each day.

So if you need to gain muscular body weight fast, try this simple workout plan for one month. Work hard and you too could gain a whopping 29 pounds of muscular body weight in just 29 days.

HIT (high intensity training)

H.I.T has been very popular among bodybuilders, especially Dorian Yates and Mike Mentzer. This typical method is pretty much in the gym and out within 45 minutes. This is a no nonsense method and should be done with high intensity. For example only 45 seconds rest between the sets and 2 minute breaks between each exercise. Dorian Yates became known for this method while his competitors used low intensity and high volume methods.

DY’s H.I.T was a bit different to others. While others used the 3 working set method but still high intensity, dorian would go even further to cut time out of his workouts and make it even more intense by using a 2 warm up set + 1 working set method. This means that the first warm-up set would be light, a set in which you can do 12 reps easily but not too easy. The second is ‘heavy’, this means a weight in which 8-12 reps becomes challenging. An example of this would be, if I were to Dumbbell press 40kg as my main working set I would use 35kg for the heavy WU. The 3rd set which would be the ‘working set’ is an all out set. EVERYTHING must go into this set. No thinking ” oh that will do, save some energy for next exercise or set ”. This is the purpose to H.I.T training. By going all out and giving it everything doing another set after it would be pointless because your muscle has been worked to its maximum there for cannot be worked anymore.

H.I.T should not be used all year around. 6 weeks of H.I.T then you will need drop in intensity. You body will hit a wall at a certain point and will need to recover, this is the maintenance phase in which you lower the weight and intensity for a week or so ready to hit it hard again. You must remember with H.I.T progression is key, even if its a 1.25kg progression each workout, it will build up!

The Reps

Now lets move on to the actual rep movement. When doing the bench press for example most people lower the bar at the speed of light and blast back up. There is 2 things wrong with this.

1. There is 3 parts to a rep.

2. Muscle fibers have not been worked to its potential.

Yes it’s true, a rep isn’t just the pushing, curling or pulling movement it has 2 other parts which are key to muscle growth. In my opinion the most important would be the negative part to a rep, e.g lowering of the bar to chest when doing bench press. Doing that in a controlled manner and slowly you will feel the stress your chest is under and it is backed more and more with scientific research that it actually stimulates the muscles MORE than that of a positive movement. ( the pressing movement of the bench press or pulling movement of a row )

The second part is the stationary part of the rep. When doing the bench press as an example again, when the bar is lowered to just above the chest that is when your chest is using the most muscle fibers to keep that weight up. Holding a pause at that point would put the muscle under additional stress and would work the muscle more. This technique can be used in most exercises.

Now by being enlightened by the 3 parts to a rep, you can now use all 3 while doing a rep to increase intensity. Maybe just adding the slow negative movement and then altering with the pause rep. This is what DY wants in the working set of his method, an all out push of that muscle. e.g just bench pressed 100kg for 8 reps and cannot push the bar up anymore, get your training partner to pull the bar up and do some negatives 2-3 at the end to kill it off, or maybe do some forced reps also. By combining these techniques you are on the course to destroy any muscle fibre in its way.

Drop sets

This technique is one of the best out there to increase intensity and possibly make you cry like a girl ( leg extensions! ) to do a drop set you must do a set at a specific weight then once that set is over the weight gets dropped and then straight back into it. 3-4 drop sets is ideal anymore the weight it’s lowered to would be too light and you will gain no benefit from it. e.g leg extensions: 90kg-75kg-60kg-45kg

FORM

Good form is vital when doing high intensity. Do not go into the gym and pick up a dumbbell that is too heavy for you just to get more intensity. This is a no go. You must find a weight in which you struggle but can still use good form. DY would always use good form no matter how hard the rep got. The most important thing in this is that you can feel your muscle working, the mind muscle connection. Once you can do this and progress you are on to gold.

The Routine

• Day 1- Delts, traps, triceps, abs
• Day 2- Back, rear delts
• Day 3- Rest
• Day 4- Chest, Biceps, Abs
• Day 5- Rest day
• Day 6- Quads, Hams, calves
• Day 7- Rest

* – indicates Warm up set

Biceps

Incline dumbbell curls

* 1×10

1×6-8

EZ-curl barbell curls

* 1×10

1×6-8

Nautilus curls

* 1×10

1×6-8

Triceps

Triceps pushdown

* 1×15

* 1×12

1×8-10

Lying EZ-curl barbell extensions

* 1×12

1×8-10

Back & Read Delt

Hammer Strength pulldowns

* 1×15

* 1×12

1×8-10

Barbell rows

* 1×12

1×8-10

Hammer Strength one-arm rows

1×8-10

Cable rows (overhand grip)

1×8-10

Hammer Strength rear-delt machine

1×8-10

Bent-over dumbbell raises

1×8-10

Hyperextensions

1×10-12

Deadlifts

* 1×8

1×8

Chest

Incline barbell press

* 1×12

* 1×8

1×8

Hammer Strength seated bench presses

* 1×10

1×6-8

Incline dumbbell flyes

* 1×10

1×8

Cable crossovers

1×10-12

Shoulders

Smith machine presses

* 1×15

* 1×12

1×8-10

Seated laterals

* 1×12

1×8-10

One-arm cable laterals

* 1×20

1×8-10

Dumbbell Shrugs

* 1×12

1×10-12

Legs

Leg extensions

* 1×15

* 1×12

1×10-12

Leg presses

* 1×12

* 1×12

1×10-12

Hack squats

* 1×12

1×10-12

Lying leg curls

* 1×10-12

1×10-12

Stiff-legged deadlifts

1×8-10

Single-leg curls

1×8-10

Standing calf raises

* 1×10-12

1×10-12

Seated calf raises

1×8-10

The above routine does not need to be done exactly the same but you can see how he worked and how his sets got done. Incorporate his method into you’re routine about using his 2 warm up and 1 working set method. 3-5 exercises per body part.

Thanks for reading and remember doing all of this without the correct nutrition is worthless, nutrition must be spot on along with good training. Good luck!

You have probably heard stories about how celebrities can gain and lose weight so quickly and easily and jumping from roles to roles without much difficulties. Sometimes they share with the public how did they lose weight that fast but there are some secrets they don’t want you to know. The fact is most workout program on the market today is not effective and just some marketing schemes so these companies can make money off you. Is the 6 pack abs program by Arnel Ricafranca just another useless workout program or is it a real deal?

Most of the commercials on TV about diet programs and fitness equipments are not really what they seem to be. If you don’t know already, those ripped sexy model you saw are just plain actors who were hired to say whatever to get you hooked into the hype. In fact, I’m pretty sure most of those models are not even actually use the products themselves to get those kinds of body. They probably worked hard in the gym and stay in a strict diet program to get that results.

Arnel Ricafranca 6 pack abs instant workout program, in my opinion, is one of the best program out there. The main reason is because Arnel Ricafranca was fat before he started this abs workout system and you can actually see real photos and videos from him. If you are really serious about losing fat and get that six pack abs, you want to see real proofs and results not from models but from regular people like you who lost fat and gain muscles.

The one secret about celebrities weight loss that Arnel Ricafranca will address to you is about motivation. Have you ever put in 100% of your effort to burn fat and lose weight? If the answer is no, Arnel will make sure that you will get that motivation and energy to help you get over your hump and start changing your life forever.

What I liked most about this program that really give me that boost to lose weight is the week by week 1 on 1 training program. You are not going to get suffocated with all the information at once because Arnel will send each week program as well as a diet plan for you. You are no longer get discourage reading long boring ebooks, instead, Arnel will provide you with full video course that you can follow or download into your iPod.

If you are reading this article then you are probably interested in bulking up and building muscle mass. But have you ever wondered what causes muscles to grow? In other words, have you ever wondered why it is that the body builds muscle in response to lifting heavy weights repetitiously? Or why some people seem to develop muscle mass easily while others seem to struggle?

There are actually a variety of reasons that determine how fast your muscles will develop and how strong you can become. Of these the important reasons are your genes, the amount of growth hormones present in your body, types and quantity of food consumed, and the type and intensity of exercises performed.

Within the individual muscle fibers are cells involved in a process called protein turnover. Under normal circumstances your body is actively engaged in breaking down muscle tissue and building the tissue back up again. Exactly how and when your body performs protein turnover is regulated by your genes and unless interrupted by some other factor such as exercise keeps the muscle tissue and fibers at more or less the same mass and strength level.

Your genetic structure acts like a blueprint and designs the conditions for your specific physiology and there is little that can be done to reconfigure your body’s basic architecture. However, by learning how your body is genetically hardwired you can determine how to reliably use other factors such as diet and exercise. If, for example, you are hardwired to have slow metabolism then you will require less eating and supplements then someone with high metabolism.

Growth hormones like testosterone act like messengers within the body and give messages to individual cells to repair themselves. When the amount of physical activity is increased there is a corresponding increase in the level of hormones present in the body. Muscles start to grow faster as the level of growth hormones rises.

Protein and water are the main ingredients required for muscle growth. This being the case you need to always make sure you supply your body with an adequate amount of high protein food and also keep your body properly hydrated. Protein is to muscles what a foundation is to a home or building. If the foundation is made from poor materials or built improperly the building will be very weak. Likewise, if you don’t consume high quality protein or not enough then your muscles will be very weak.

To maintain proper hydration levels drink at least 3 tall glasses of water each day and when working out replace every ounce of lost body weight with 2 ounces of water.

If you want to gain weight fast, then pay close attention to the story of Joe Hise.

Way back in 1932 — long before steroids were even invented — Joe Hise gained 29 pounds in just 29 days.

Impossible?

That’s what most people thought. So Joe started teaching his methods to other people. Here are their results:

Mark Berry: Gained 50 pounds in 6 months.

Roger Eels: Packed on 35 pounds of muscle in one month.

Norman Fay: Increased body weight from 156 pounds to 185 pounds in 30 days.

So how does this plan work:

On this plan, you are going to train three times per week on non-consecutive days. So, for example, Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

You will perform only three exercises: The standing barbell curl, the military press and the 20-rep breathing squat.

The 20-rep breathing squat is a regular barbell squat, but you perform just one hard set of 20 reps. In between each rep, you will take 3 deep breaths — completely filling your lungs with air with each breath.

This is the key to the entire system as the breathing squat forces your body to adapt and pack on muscle mass at an incredible rate.

This bare bones workout may look too simple at first, but this exact plan has been transforming skinny guys into heavily muscled men for decades.

To ensure your body has the proper amount of protein and calories needed to build muscle and gain weight, the old-time trainers who followed this plan would drink a gallon of whole milk each day.

So if you need to gain muscular body weight fast, try this simple workout plan for one month. Work hard and you too could gain a whopping 29 pounds of muscular body weight in just 29 days.