Muscle Building Tricks

Building muscle comes down to the 2 things. The basics, and the things that you probably aren't doing. There is a line that says "If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always got." If you find that you can't seem to build muscle, here are a couple of cutting edge muscle building tips that you can throw in your gym bag and take with you when you lift.

Muscle Building Tip #1

Use wrist straps. You are in the gym to build muscle, not work on your grip strength. When you are doing exercises like barbells rows, dumbbell rows, lat pull down, pull ups, or even shrugs, your grip can give out before your muscle group does. Doing this compromises your ability to fully stimulate your targeted muscle group. Using wrist straps will alleviate this problem so you can put all of your focus on hitting your muscle group, instead of worrying about your grip giving out.

Muscle Building Tip #2

Listen to music. Music is one things that many lifters must absolutely have in their gym bag, and I would recommend the same for you. It has also been proven that listening to your favorite tunes can actually help you lift more. More weight lifted equals more muscle stimulated, which leads to more growth. Use some type of MP3 player and be sure to fill it with motivating music that will get you pumped up for your workout. Not only that, less people will come up to you when you are lifting if you constantly have your headphones in your ears. In this scenario, the local gym "know-it-all" will have to preach his bad advice to someone else. Definitely a win-win situation.

Muscle Building Tip #3

Take longer rests in between sets. The greatest advantage of taking longer rests is that it allows your muscles to (just about) completely recover from your taxing sets. More time to rest in between sets equals more weight lifted on the next set. An example of a longer rest period is 2-3 minutes or even 3-5 minutes.

Muscle Building Tip #4

Work on your weaknesses. Everyone has that muscle group or certain exercise that they avoid like the plague. Stop avoiding it. Many times lifters will focus on their strengths and by doing that, they completely forget about their weaknesses. Work on your weaknesses and you will find out that by doing those exercises you don't prefer, you can actually grow to like them over time. What was once your weakness, has now become your strength.

Make sure you are focusing on your mistakes as well. They must be fixed. Now a days lifters make the same mistakes over and over again and it ruins any chances they have to build muscle. Check out what the 3 WORST muscle building mistakes.

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