Building muscle is a great way to protect bones and can also make you look a bit sexier. Whether you want to tone your body or build a massive amount of muscle, there is a lot you need to know. For example, how often should you practice weight training? Here are just five things everyone should know about building muscle.

Growth Begins with Nutrition

Nutrition is necessary for muscle growth. Not only does this mean eating adequate amounts of protein (1-2 grams per pound of body weight), but it is essential to eat enough calories. Not eating enough calories will prevent your body from growing muscle. In fact, if your body is getting too few calories it may begin to break down muscle and start storing fat.

Stretching Before the Workout Is Necessary

In order to prevent injury, you need to stretch your muscles before you start lifting weights. Stretching works to warm the muscles so that they are more flexible. Lifting weights without stretching can damage the muscles because they don’t have enough give to handle the weight. Take 5 minutes to stretch the entire body, paying special attention to the areas you will be working that day.

Muscles Require Rest

There are two ways in which your body needs rest. The first is making sure to get 7-8 hours of sleep each night. While sleeping, our muscles recover and continue to grow. The second way you need to rest is to alter your routine between weight lifting and cardio. Your muscles need time to recover after a weight training routine or they will not grow.

Desired Results Will Determine the Routine

If you want to bulk up, it is recommended to lift heavy weights in fewer reps. Those that want to get toned, but not bulky, should opt for lighter weights and more reps. This option is perfect for most women that simply want to tone their body for a sexier look.

Consistency Is Essential

You cannot work your body to death one day and then not have another workout for 2 weeks. You need to be consistent in your workout. Many people opt to weight train 3 days a week with a day of cardio in between for a total of 5 days. This ensures that your muscles continue to grow.

Building muscle is easier than you might think. Remember it all begins with adequate nutrition and that the workout itself needs to begin with at least 5 minutes of stretching to prevent injury. Don’t forget that your body also needs rest for the best growth and that your desired results will determine your routine. Last, but not least, be consist with your workouts.

About the Author: Octavie Henges is a female bodybuilder who enjoys reading about how to get ripped fast and disecting the opinions of other fitness enthusiasts. She encourages everyone to see a doctor before starting any fitness routine.

We all know how beneficial exercise is to our physical health. But you may be surprised to know how much it helps improve our mental health as well. Those who make exercise a routine aspect of their lives are undoubtedly nodding their heads in agreement as they read this. For those of you who don’t and who are also considering seeking depression help, stop and consider the following ways in which exercise can improve your mood:

Exercise releases “happiness inducing” endorphins into the brain: Endorphins are released whenever the heart rate increases rapidly, and are responsible for creating positive feelings within the brain. Studies indicate that through endorphin those suffering from depression experience increased positive thinking.

Exercise strengthens the immune system: It’s simple logic that the more you are unwell the more likely you are to be depressed. Science has revealed a distinct correlation between exercise and an improved immune system, so those who can’t ever seem to shake off a cold and are down in the dumps because of it ought to go running or bike riding and see if it doesn’t make them feel better in the long run.

Exercise improves sleep: Nothing is going to guarantee you hit the hay at a reasonable hour every night quite like an intense workout during the day. Can depression connect to low levels of sleep? While the jury is still out on this one, it has been proven that less sleep equals a weaker immune system, so for the aforementioned reason it still pays to ensure you get enough rest every day by sticking to a work out regimen.

Exercise boosts confidence: The better in shape you are and feel, the more likely you are to feel good about yourself. This in turn is certain to help ease the symptoms of depression. It goes beyond self-image; a more active lifestyle generally makes you feel like a more productive member of society, and in turn makes you feel like a better person.

Exercise encourages healthy solutions to stress: One of the worst aspects of dealing with depression is that so often our ostensible cures such as drugs and alcohol only make the situation worse. By turning to exercise instead we begin to see how positive solutions to stress are so much more beneficial to our mental health than chemical crutches.

Well there you have it, five arguments for why exercise should be a part of anyone’s battle against depression. It’s certainly not the end-all-be-all of depression cures, but it does go a long way in battling this bitter foe, and is one of the few ways in which we can better our mental health by improving our physical health at the same time.

Getting a good night of sleep is essential for feeling healthy and productive. Many people are sleep deprived and do not even know it. They spend their days run-down, lethargic, and groggy, which leads to serious health damage over time. Getting adequate sleep and making sure it is quality sleep is an important part of maintaining good health, but it can be challenging. Making just a few changes can make a big difference when it comes to getting better sleep.

1. Make it Dark

One of the best ways to ensure a good night of sleep is to create a bedroom that is conducive to peaceful rest. Start by making sure the space is dark. Too many people sleep in rooms where light shines in from outside. It is also possible to lose hours of sleep because the sun rises too early. Black-out shades alleviate both of these problems. A room with black-out shades makes it possible to shut out night-time light, as well as the light that streams into the room first thing in the morning.

2. Up the Comfort Level

Make sure the bed is comfortable. An uncomfortable mattress ruins a night of sleep faster than nearly anything else. The mattress and box spring should be supportive and high-quality. It might also be a good idea to invest in a mattress that allows for separate sleeping conditions when sharing sleeping space with another person. Spouses have found that adjustable mattresses are often the key to pleasing two different sleep styles.

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3. Make Sleep the Priority

Finally, remove all distractions from the space. Bedrooms are often used for activities besides sleeping, which makes it difficult to relax and fall asleep at night. Remove distractions such as televisions, computers, and work areas from the space. Those living in homes with children should limit the amount of time kids spend in the room alone. A bedroom should be a personal space, so sharing it should only happen when the entire family is present. It is also a good idea to add soothing colors and fragrances such as lavender to the space.

4. Go to Bed Hungry

Going to bed hungry might be a bit too much, but nobody should go to bed on a full stomach. Eat dinner early enough in the evening so the food is digested by bed time. It is also a good idea to eat heavier meals earlier in the day and choose something light for dinner. The digestive system needs to rest at night, too.

5. Get Moving

Those who exercise on a regular basis often find they sleep better at night. Not getting enough physical activity during the day can keep a person up at night and leave them feeling packed with excess energy. People who exercise enjoy more peaceful rest because their bodies are free of stress and pent-up energy, and therefore, able to rest at the end of the day.

Written by Emily Ottermann. Emily is a former sufferer of Candida infection with a passion for solving health problems the way nature intended.

As fitness, exercise, and living a generally healthier life becomes increasingly more popular in American life, the programs used by the masses gain in popularity as well. I’m sure just about everyone has heard of classes or programs like Zumba, P90X, Spinning, Pole Dancing, Tae Bo, Boot Camp, and others. Another well known fitness class is called Les Mills Body Pump. The Les Mills Body Pump classes up until now have only been available by means of a trained and licensed instructor, taught at nearly 14,000 different gyms and fitness centers around the globe. We say “until now”, because now there is an in home version called Les Mills PUMP brought to you by the same people behind P90X, Insanity, and other popular in home workout programs.

What Is Les Mills Body Pump?

The Les Mills Body Pump classes are generally one hour long sessions made up of one instructor teaching on average 20-25 students. It’s designed to exercise all major muscle groups in the one hour session using the best weight-room exercises such as squats, presses, lifts and curls. You never get tired of the classes because like all Les Mills classes every three months the music, exercise moves, and choreography is changed.

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The secret to Body Pump is called the “Rep Effect” which is a technique that focuses on high repetition movements with low weight loads. This technique can involve anywhere between 70-100 reps per major muscle group. The effect is several hundred if not into the thousands of reps done during the full hour long class.

The buzz about Les Mills Body Pump coming to a home near you has created a lot of feedback. Some positive, some negative. Most of the negative feedback is from instructors who feel they will lose business because now their clients will buy an in home version of what they teach and just stay home. There may be some validity to this argument, however more than likely this will not be the case.

The Beachbody version is based on Body Pump and will come with 12 workouts on 7 DVD’s, as well as include a barbell with two five pound and two ten pound plates. You’ll also get a nutrition guide, how to exercise guide, and some other brochures that help you round out the program.

The Les Mills PUMP DVD workout is for the people that have never done Body Pump before. The segment of America that loathes the idea of a “gym”, having other people watch them exercise, locker rooms, instructors, hot tubs, saunas, and just about everything else that goes along with walking into a fitness center. The idea behind the in home version was to make Body Pump available to anyone, anywhere. Why exclude people form a fantastic workout program just because they don’t do the gym thing? And who knows, if the DVD versions as good as they say it will be, people are bound to want to check out the real thing.

Well, that’s just my two cents and like any new exercise program only time will tell to see if the Les Mills PUMP workout will be one that sticks around for a long time and becomes one for the record books.

Guest Post By: Paul Atkins

Because you’re a strength guy, asking you to do single limb exercises such as one arm upright rows or one leg hack squats is like asking Nascar drivers to make right hand turns. This is not likely to happen. Let’s face it. Allowing one arm or leg to sit still just isn’t in your DNA. You’re right at home with both feet firmly planted or both hands chalked and hooked to the bar. We get it: You want to move the big loads. To be your best with both limbs together, however, either arms or legs, your best bet is to make sure each one is as strong as can be on its own. That’s where unilateral training can help.

It has been confirmed through scientific studies and also research that training one limb at a time causes the limb to make use of more muscle fibers (muscle fiber activation) and compared to use both limbs at the same time requires less force than that of using just one limb.

Consider the bent over row. When you take use of both of your arms at the same time, the equal weight on each side of your body causes you to balance out your torso. Your body remains balanced and straight as you lift the bar up. Using your right arm to perform the exercise, your torso starts to twist to the right side because of the lack of counter balancing, such as when you do dumbbell rows with one arm. It forces you to resist by contracting your oblique muscles. As you lift the bar, your body remains straight and balanced. Using just your right arm as you begin to pull up the dumbbell, with the action being fueled by the momentum, causes your torso to rotate to the left.

For this reason unilateral exercises have been found to offer the benefit of increased core training. That’s paramount for a strength athlete. Take, for instance, the standing overhead dumbbell press. When you press forward, the core works extra hard to maintain form and balance, strengthening your ability to produce intra-abdominal pressure, which is the pressure necessary to protect your spine during your major lifts like the squat and deadlifts. So even when you’re not specifically working on, say, legs or back, training one arm at a time on different body parts will ultimately help you the next time you get in the squat rack or step on the platform.

Even though weak isn’t anywhere in your vocabulary, we all have muscles that aren’t in balance with their counterpart, and unilateral training can help expose and correct muscular weaknesses.

The next time you hit the leg press, do a set with each leg individually. Were your legs of equal strength? Was one slightly stronger than the other (in terms of number of reps with a given weight)? By training each individually, you’re able to detect that strength imbalance, allowing you to determine which limbs need extra attention, while also discovering what could be your limiting factor on your bigger lifts. If you’re going to become a stronger bencher, deadlifter or squatter, you’re better be aware of any weaknesses, even slight ,so that you can turn your training efforts toward them.

Finally, because you have a free limb, you can self-spot on many exercises, helping yourself take your sets past failure. Without a spotter, that would be impossible to do. Training each limb singly is all about learning. It’s about acquiring a baseline of strength of all your parts individually so they can be at their best together. Most strength guys don’t slow down long enough to test each limb. They don’t care about scheduling a specific workout around unilateral exercises. We guarantee, though, that if you carve out time within your month-long schedule of strongman moves to work limb by limb, the weight that was once over your head will soon be under your feet.