Rome wasnt built in a day

I have many people asking me how they can bulk up in four weeks, six weeks or eight weeks and my answer to this is simple – Rome wasn’t built in a day. This means that you can’t go in a gym tomorrow and in eight weeks expect to be built, no matter what some of the adverts and ebooks you see on the internet tell you.

My view is that in a twelve week window you can see a significant difference if you put the time and effort into your training, this significant difference will mean you can gain a good amount of muscle mass if you train hard and eat correctly, but this does not mean you will become huge in this time.

If it was as easy as spending a few weeks in the gym to become tonk or built then all men will be mini Arnold Schwarzenegger’s, the truth is that it takes a lot of time and effort to become big, strong and defined.

If you are looking to build your muscle mass then take note, after the first twelve weeks you will see a significant difference when compared to your starting point, again if you eat and train correctly. Taking this into account it will take a good 12 months or more before you see a huge difference in your physical appearance.

Don’t despair if you are reading this and thinking 12 months is too long, in the grand scheme of things 12 months is not long when you think about the difference you will see in your body in this time. With the correct training and diet you can put up to twelve kilograms of muscle in a year dependant on your body type.

Squat Form

Now with any exercise form is extremely important, by keeping the correct form throughout a lift you are ensuring you will not injure yourself and that you are giving the specific muscle group the best possible workout. This is most evident in one of the big lifts called the squat so squat form is very important.

The squat is one of the big compound moves, for this reason it is also the best exercise for training all the muscles of the legs. One of the issues with the squat is that many people do not lift in the squat correctly thus causing possible injury to their lower back as they put more strain on the back thus causing the legs to do less work. In essence this means that the legs aren’t getting such a good workout and the back is straining under the position and weight put on it.

The first thing to mention on squat form is that the lower you go in the lift the better training effect you are going to get…have you ever heard the term “Ass to grass” well its true this is the best way to train the squat.

When carrying out the lift you should bend the knees and hips to lower your body down, during this the back should be kept straight and your knees should not move forward past your feet throughout the lift.

The most common mistakes people have are lowering themselves to quickly causing and moving the torso too far forward both of these increase the force on the back, especially the lower back region which can cause injury.

Deep squat or shallow squat

There are terms for squat types; these are deep squat or shallow squat.
The deep squat is a squat whereby you squat below parallel (over 90 degrees or thighs below knees). This type of squat is the legal requirement in a powerlifting competition.

The shallow squat is one where you don’t reach the parallel before pushing back to your starting position.

Negative Biceps Curls

Negatives are a great form of training and training negatives is something I have talked about before in this training negatives article. The reason why training negatives is really good is because it can really beat that plateau many of us hit after training for periods of time.

Negative training works by lifting only the negative part of a lift, this is because the negative part of the lift is the part in which you can lift the heaviest. By doing this you can push your muscles that little further by lifting heavier than you would by carrying out the full exercise.

For negative Biceps curls you use a dumbbell, barbell or EZ bar (I prefer a barbell) then only lift the negative part of the lift. This works by getting a partner (barbell or EZ bar) or yourself (dumbbell) to lift the weight up to your shoulder area by other means than carrying out the biceps curl exercise then you control the weight down to the starting position of the biceps curl and repeat.

Many people swear by carrying out negative biceps curls at the end of their arm workout to punish their biceps that last little bit for that extra push. I believe this is great and swear by incorporating negatives into my training.

If you are finding increasing your biceps size, beating a plateau on strength or you simply want a change from the usual mundane exercises then you should try negative biceps curls, I promise you wont regret it.

Negative Biceps Curl Video