Bodybuilding is really beginning to piss me off and you might even describe the feeling as having haemorrhoids. I am constantly being swamped by journals and articles about how poor physique standards have become and what really gets at me are the concerns about professional contests judging results.

I have been around the bodybuilding scene for many years now and have experienced a number of changes at competition level. There is no doubt in my mind that the standards have hit new levels for everyone concerned in an event and that the evolution of my sport continues and that the results seen will always get better.

I love to go and watch other people competing at international levels and I will always make my own personal opinion on the possible outcome, but there is one thing I will always resign myself from doing and that is judging other people.

So with that my further comments are meant in no way to criticise any of those brave guys who chose to sit on the judging panels. I realise the pressure they must be under as their own opinions can either make or break the competitor’s careers, advertising deals, sponsorships and even the rest of their lives. Just imagine what Arnold might be doing now if he hadn’t won competitive events during his youth.

The actual amount of bodybuilders that just train with the intention of competing in physique contests is very minimal as the majority of weight trainers out there will be concentrating on rehab, increased strength for their chosen sport, gaining or losing weight and just good old muscle gains.

Few are like Arnold, who reputedly intended from his first squat and dead lift, to become a bodybuilding champion. For most weight trainers, physique contests as such, are something that goes on in the background, that takes up perhaps too much space in the muscle mags, and possibly an event they may attend just once in a while, usually locally to support a fellow gym member, or nationally to see in the flesh some legendary bodybuilder they have seen in the journals. Almost every gym has its own local hero whom most guys agree should at least enter, if not win the area ‘Mr Muscles on a Cake’ award or even national fame. (Coming Soon Part 2)

There is a “secret” to building muscle fast. And I’m going to share it with you here in this article today.

It’s not a REAL secret (by this I mean — lots of people “know” it) but because so many trainees don’t realize how important it is — it might as well be a secret.

Are you ready to know what this secret is?

It’s only 4 letters long. R-E-S-T. Thats how you build muscle. You don’t build muscle when you’re in the gym… sweating… straining and lifting weights!

In fact, if most bodybuilders (and weight lifters too) don’t realize they’re actually over-training because they’re putting too much emphasis on working out and not enough emphasis on recovering!

So how can you benefit from this secret and start building more muscle today?

1. Get a good nights sleep every night. Try to sleep at least 5 hours a night… and 8 hours is best if your’e training really hard (like you should be!)

2. Eat A LOT — most people can’t gain lean muscle because they don’t eat enough. Especially if your’e a hard gainer you have to eat, eat, and eat some more. Definitely increase your intake of proteins (an easy way to do this is to drink at least one protein shake a day).

3. Stretch the muscles you last worked out. This will increase blood flow to the area ( which brings nutrients to the muscles — feeding them for growth) and will also help with any post- workout soreness and general recovery.

I know what you’re thinking… “It can’t be that simple to build muscle!” Well, it just could be that simple for you.

So how do you know?

If you’ve found that you’re not getting the gains you once were … if you feel like you’ve “hit the wall”…or you feel like you’re always tired then there’s a chance you’re not getting enough rest. If that’s the case, then a little rest and relaxation might be all you need to starting building more muscle right away!

Women’s Weight Training & the associated myths.

The myths about women’s weight training and female bodybuilding do not ever seem to go away. I’d like stop the weight training and bodybuilding myths from circulating in gyms and instead, share the real facts about female bodybuilding.

#1 -Weight training makes you big & bulky.

Due to the fact that women do not and cannot naturally produce as much testosterone as males do, it is impossible for a woman to gain huge amounts of muscle mass. Unfortunately, the image that may come to your mind is that of professional female bodybuilders. Most of these women, unfortunately, use anabolic steroids (synthetic testosterone) along with other drugs in order to achieve that high degree of muscularity. In addition, most also have good genetics coupled with a work ethic that enable them to gain muscle quickly when they spend hours in the gym lifting very heavy weights. Believe me when I say that they do not look like that by accident. Women who conduct weight training without the use of steroids get the firm and fit cellulite-free looking body that you see in most fitness/figure shows these days.

Myth #2 - Exercise increases your breast size.

Not True ladies!. Women’s breasts are composed mostly of fatty tissue. So, it is impossible to increase breast size through weight training. Incidentally, if you go below 12 percent body fat (which I don’t recommend doing), your breast size will actually decrease. However, weight training does increase the size of the back, so this misconception probably comes from confusing an increase in back size with an increase in cup size. The only way to increase your breast size is by gaining fat or getting breast implants.

Women’s Weight Training Myth #3 - Weight training makes you stiff and musclebound.

If you perform all exercises properly, flexibility will increase. Exercises like flyes, stiff-legged deadlifts, dumbbell presses, and chin-ups stretch the muscles. Therefore, by performing these exercises correctly, your stretching capabilities will increase.

Women’s Weight Training Myth #4 - If you stop weight training your muscles turn into fat.

This is like saying that brass can be turned into gold. Muscle and fat are two totally different types of tissue. What happens many times is that when people decide to go off their weight training programs they start losing muscle due to inactivity (use it or lose it) and they also usually drop the diet as well. So bad eating habits along with the fact that their metabolism is lower due to inactivity, and lower degrees of muscle mass, give the impression that the muscle is being turned into fat but in reality what is happening is that muscle is being lost and fat is being accumulated.

#5 - Weight training turns fat into muscle.

More alchemy. This is the equivalent of saying that you can turn any metal into gold; don’t we wish! The way a body transformation occurs is by gaining muscle through weight training and losing fat through aerobics and diet simultaneously. Again, muscle and fat are very different types of tissue. We cannot turn one into the other.

#6 - As long as you exercise you can eat anything that you want.

How I wish this were true also! However, this could not be further from the truth. Our individual metabolism determines how many calories we burn at rest and while we exercise. If we eat more calories than we burn on a consistent basis, our bodies will accumulate these extra calories as fat regardless of the amount of exercise that we do. This myth may have been created by people with such high metabolic rates (hardgainers) that no matter how much they eat or what they eat, they rarely meet or exceed the amount of calories that they burn in one day unless they put their mind to doing so. Therefore, their weight either remains stable or goes down.

#7 - Women only need to do cardio and if they decide to lift weights, they should be very light.

First of all, if you only did cardio then muscle and fat would be burned for fuel. One needs to lift weights in order to get the muscle building going and therefore prevent loss of muscle tissue. Women that only concentrate on cardio will have a very difficult time getting the look that they want. As far as the lifting of very light weights this is just more nonsense. Muscle responds to resistance and if the resistance is too light, then there will be no reason for the body to change.

#8 -Women Shouldn’t Train Hard

I have trained with girls that train as hard as I do and they look nothing but feminine. If you want to look great then don’t be afraid to pick up the weights and just go for it!