Whey protein: how to use it to build muscle and bulk up fast.

Build muscle faster and more efficiently by taking whey protein

Taking whey protein will help you build muscle. Read on to find out how.

•The problem

You’re recently started weight training, but you’re struggling to put on muscle.

•The solution

Start taking whey protein. Consuming protein after exercise compensates for the increased breakdown of protein in the body that occurs during training, while also providing it with the stimulus for muscle growth. Whey protein is ideal for post-workout recovery because it’s easily digested and has a high concentration of essential amino acids.

Some people don’t see the effects of using whey protein. The main reason for this is simply that they’re not taking it properly. First, the protein will be most effective in the 15-20 minutes after working out because this is the time that muscles are craving protein to repair the tiny tissue tears that occur while exercising. It will still be effective if consumed later, but the longer after that initial window it’s taken, the more the protein's effect will be diminished.

Second, it is important that the right amount of whey protein is being used. Too much whey protein can result in weight gain and is therefore counter-intuitive, while not enough won't be effective enough to make a tangible difference. Aim to take 1.4-1.7g per kg of your body weight a day in no more than three servings. Using whey protein as a milk substitute with breakfast cereals is a good way to start your day, for example.

•The science

A study published in the Journal Of The International Society Of Sports Nutrition found that subjects who consumed whey protein after training experienced improved blood flow to their forearm muscles, enhancing the delivery of muscle-building nutrients such as oxygen and hormones. It is also generally understood that the anabolic effects of weight training are increased through the consumption of whey protein because amino acids are rapidly driven to skeletal muscle tissue. This helps your muscles get larger and stronger in less time than if you weren’t taking whey protein.

Best Superset Shoulder Workout for Men.

Most men who aspire to improve their physiques want to build big, powerful shoulders. Well-developed shoulders convey strength, and help create the classic bodybuilder "V" shape. The weightlifting concept of supersets can help take your shoulder development to the next level, or help you break through any plateaus you may have encountered along the way.

• Definition:

Supersetting is a weight-training concept in which you perform one exercise, immediately followed by another without rest in between. Typically, a superset consists of two exercises, but you can add more if your fitness level allows. You can do a superset on opposing muscle groups like chest and back, on complimentary groups like biceps and back, or do different exercises for the same muscle group.

•Rear Deltoids :

Your rear deltoids are also known as posterior deltoids. For a rear-deltoid superset, pair two exercises together that work the back part of your shoulder, such as bent over dumbbell laterals and reverse flys or cable raises. Whichever exercises you choose, keep your elbows bent and pull the weight back with the rear deltoid muscles at the top of the movement. Rowing exercises with a straight bar that enables you to keep your elbows high are also a good choice.

•Side Deltoids:

The side or lateral deltoids help give you width in your upper-body physique. A side-shoulder superset will consist of cable or dumbbell side lateral raises, paired with an exercise like external rotations. Side lateral raises are performed with palms down by lifting the weights straight up to the sides. For an external rotation, lie on your side holding a dumbbell in your top hand, and position your elbow near your ribs so the dumbbell hangs in front of your midsection. Keep your elbow in place and rotate your forearm up, using your side deltoid to lift the weight. Perform the exercise on both sides.

• Front Deltoids:

Heavier exercises like overhead and Military presses are designed to strengthen the front, or anterior, deltoids muscles. You can do shoulder presses effectively with either dumbbells or a barbell. For a front-shoulder superset, it’s wise to pair your heavy presses with a different movement such as shrugs or upright rows. Use dumbbells for shrugs, and lift your shoulders straight up toward your ears. You can use dumbbells or a barbell for upright rows, just keep your hands close together and pull the weight straight under your chin.

•Considerations

Experiment with your shoulder-superset workouts to discover which combination of exercises and how many sets are best for you. Start with just one superset for each part of the shoulder and increase the number of sets as needed. Try to work up to three supersets for each part of your shoulder, per workout. Avoid doing any other shoulder work for at least two days between superset workouts, and scale back to singular sets if you experience any lingering discomfort in your shoulders. Work the rear and side deltoids first, to get your shoulders warmed and ready for heavier pressing movements.

Men's Health: Watch Out for These Warning Signs.

According to a survey by the American Academy of Family Physicians, 38 percent of men go to the doctor only when they’re extremely sick or when symptoms don’t go away on their own. But feeling healthy isn’t the same as being healthy, and waiting around for problems to get better with time could lead to complications or late diagnoses.

Men interested in protecting their well-being need to be vigilant about symptoms that could indicate potential health conditions. A warning sign can be subtle and present for some time before you take note of it. Or it can be immediate, painful, and worrisome. In either case, if you experience any of the following symptoms, see your doctor so you can get an evaluation of your health risk.


1- Chest Pain:

Most people associate chest pain with a heart attack, but it could be caused by a different health condition. You could have another type of heart problem, like angina, or a lung condition such as pneumonia, a pulmonary embolism, or asthma. Or it might be a gastrointestinal health condition such as acid reflux or a stomach ulcer. All of these need a doctor's attention.


2- Bloody Urine:

Blood in your urine is a cause for concern, particularly if it is plentiful enough that you can see it with your naked eye. Bloody urine is a prime symptom of prostate cancer or an enlarged prostate. It could also be due to either cancer or stones in your bladder or kidney. Kidney disease or injury can cause bloody urine as can inflammation or infection of the bladder, kidney, or urethra.

3-  Shortness of Breath:

Shortness of breath is another symptom that can mean any number of things when it comes to men's health. It can signal a heart attack or congestive heart failure. Or you might have a lung disease such as lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), chronic bronchitis, emphysema, asthma, or pulmonary hypertension. Shortness of breath also is a symptom associated with anemia.


4-  Hair Loss:

Hair loss is a common concern of middle-aged men. Men recovering from a major surgery or illness may temporarily lose their hair, as can men under severe emotional stress. While it is a natural part of aging, hair loss also can also serve as a warning for a more serious men's health condition, such as an autoimmune disease like lupus, infectious diseases like syphilis, thyroid disease, or ringworm.


5- Erectile Dysfunction:

About 70 percent of cases of erectile dysfunction are caused by another condition, making this a warning sign that you may be facing a serious medical issue. Diseases that can cause erectile dysfunction include diabetes, heart disease, atherosclerosis, kidney disease, neurologic disease, chronic alcoholism, multiple sclerosis, and vascular disease. These conditions affect a man's ability to achieve erection by damaging nerves, smooth muscles, arteries, and tissues.


6- Fatigue:

Fatigue involves an ongoing lack of energy and motivation and is a normal response to circumstances such as stress, physical exertion, or lack of sleep. However, fatigue also can be a symptom of a more serious physical or psychological health condition. Illnesses linked to fatigue include cancer, congestive heart failure, diabetes, arthritis, infections, and kidney or liver disease. Fatigue also can be part of health problems like anemia, depression, sleep disorders, or a malfunctioning thyroid gland.

How to Gain Better Biceps with Protein or Creatine.

Biceps serve as a very visible muscle group. Thus, many men like to focus on this area. Biceps don't just help fill out your favorite T-shirt, however. These muscles also serve an important purpose in providing strength and stability to day-to-day movements such as lifting and pulling. If you're trying to build bigger, stronger biceps, protein and creatine supplementation can help you get the results you want.

Step 1

Take 5 g of creatine four times a day — 20 g of creatine a day — for five days immediately before you start your biceps workout routine. This is known as "loading," and jump-starts your system by pumping it full of this muscle-enhancing organic acid.

Step 2

Reduce your creatine intake on the sixth day of your creatine regimen. Take 2 g to 5 g of creatine once a day.

Step 3

Complete resistance-based biceps exercise training, working your biceps every 24 to 48 hours to allow proper resting time for your muscle fibers to rebuild and grow. The best exercise for bigger biceps is pull-ups on a pull-up bar, "Men's Fitness" magazine reports.

  Step 4

Drink whey protein within 30 minutes of completing your biceps training. Consume 0.8 g of whey for every pound you weigh. Unlike other forms of protein, such as whole foods, whey protein is digested and absorbed quickly, and also provides important muscle-enhancing substances such as branched chain amino acids.

Step 5

Get lots of sleep, aiming for eight hours a night. While creatine and protein supplementation can enhance your muscle growth, poor sleep habits can reduce your results because your brain releases growth hormones, critical for muscle development, during your deep sleep cycles.

Warnings

• Creatine can cause dehydration, because it affects muscle size in part by causing your muscles to absorb more water, thus increasing your holistic water needs. Drink at least eight glasses of water a day to avoid dehydration.

Tips

• Your body assimilates creatine faster when you take it with simple carbohydrates. Thus, many creatine supplements come with a small amount of sugar or a sugar coating on the pill. If yours does not, enhance your creatine absorption by taking this supplement with fruit juice.
• Other exercises that are great for building biceps include biceps curls using dumbbells or barbells. When using free weights, choose weights that are heavy enough that you cannot do more than two sets of 10 to 12 repetitions each.

Things You'll Need

• Whey protein
• Creatine pills or powder
• Pull-up bar
• Barbells and dumbbells.

Fitness: How Much Rest Should You Give a Muscle Group in Between Lifts?

Let’s face it: 2015 has been an incredible year for you already. Perhaps this is the year you’ve started losing weight. Perhaps you’ve finally seemed to kick your fast food habit, or implement a healthier late-night routine by not eating past eight at night. On top of it all, you’re hitting the weight room several times a week which means that not only do you feel amazing, but you look it, too.  But the question remains: are you giving yourself enough ‘rest’ in between lifts? Here’s how to know for sure.

÷ Why Proper Rest Gives You Results :

Rest is mandatory in life. Just think about it: what happens when you don’t have a good night’s sleep? You wake up feeling sluggish, and move through your day being relatively unproductive and moody, right? Your body is a machine, so when you don’t rest enough (whether it’s a sound sleep at night or in between chest presses at the gym) consequences will follow.

Are you going from one lift to the next, and overdoing your workout?

Whether you’re dealing with free weights or resisting against your own weight, proper rest in between sets will speed up your strength and fitness exponentially. In addition, it will reduce the risk of injury, allowing you to push through to a whole new physique in a shorter period of time without a pesky shoulder or back injury to slow you down.

÷ Commit to a ‘Resting Rule’:

To know how much rest you need to take in between lifts, ask yourself: what are my fitness goals? If you are trying to drastically increase your muscle mass (as in, becoming toned and muscular) and you’re pushing through intense lifts every time you work out, enforce a three to five minute ‘resting rule’. However, if your primary goal is to get lean and lose inches, a shorter resting time of 60 seconds in between lifts should be sufficient.

Some people tend to think of ‘rest’ as a weakness. Why do you have to stop in between reps when you’re feeling great and getting stronger by the second? Simple! Because without proper rest, you can’t achieve proper muscle recovery and thus, get in the best shape of your life! Whether you have just started a strength training program or you basically grew up in the gym, a commitment to your own ‘resting rule’ isn’t only mandatory for a healthy, fit life. It’s necessary in order to ‘up the ante’ of your exercise plan, indefinitely.

Women's Health: Best exercise to improve posture.

There are many things can affect your posture sitting at a desk all day, slouching at the dinner table, and more. However, there’s one great way to improve it: exercise. The best way to improve your posture through exercise is to strengthen your core and upper back.

A strong core keeps your back safe from injury, helps your body balance and allows you to move with control and efficiency—all of that leads to a better a posture. If you’ve felt pain in other areas of your body, like your back, it could be because of a weak core; when your core can’t do its job other body parts and muscles have to pick up the slack causing weakness and pain.

A strong back is also a critical part of posture because a common cause of poor posture is weak upper back muscles, which leads to shoulder slumping.

Try these exercises to gain better control of your posture.

÷ Plank and Variations

Start with the standard plank: Get into pushup position, with your hands below your shoulders. Keep your back and butt flat and pull your abdominals in. Hold here for 30 seconds to one minute.

Some variations include:

•Move from hands to forearms; one up and down is one rep.
•Put towels underneath your feet and slide them out and in horizontally, or pull them in toward your chest like a jackknife.
•Hold the plank position on your forearms and bounce your butt from one side to the other. One tap on each side equals one rep.

÷ Russian Twist

Sit with a medicine ball in your lap. Pull your legs off the ground and sit on your tailbone, adjusting the angle until you feel the burn your abs. Now move the ball from side to side, touching the ground each time.

÷ Reverse Dumbbell Flies

Stand with your feet shoulder width apart and dumbbells in hand, slightly bent at the waist. Hold your arms straight down and slowly bring them out to shoulder height and return to start for one rep.

÷ Weight Raise

Hold a round weight block with two hands in front of your pelvic area. Raise it up to shoulder height and lower back down for one rep.

Many areas of your life can affect a good posture, from working at a desk to many years of slouching without realizing it. Incorporate these exercises into your daily routine and you may notice you’re standing up straight in no time.

The Best Way to Bulk Up Naturally and Quickly

Looking to bulk up? Many men find it frustratingly difficult to bulk up and gain muscle size. ... Below the best sure-fire ways to build muscle naturally:


1-  Eat more :

If you want to gain more muscle then you need to up your calorie intake, which means eating more. If you aren’t consuming more calories than you are burning throughout the day, you won’t be able to put on any muscle. Your diet should be made up of nutritious, unprocessed foods that are rich in complex carbs, protein, healthy unsaturated fats, and important nutrients needed for muscle growth, energy production and good health. Steer away from processed, sugary and fatty foods that will only mess with your blood sugar levels and promote fat gain.

2- Increase your protein intake:

Protein is essential for providing your body with amino acids, which are vital for building and repairing muscles. Have some good quality protein with each meal and with snacks. Having protein with each meal and with snacks will help increase amino acid levels to optimize muscle growth. Choose healthy, lean protein choices such as lean meat, chicken, eggs, fish, legumes and low-fat dairy foods. Healthy protein-rich snacks include nuts and seeds, quinoa, yoghurt, muesli and protein bars and balls, and hummus with wholegrain crackers.

3-  Protein powders are a great way to boost your protein intake:

There are lots of different protein powders on the market. If you find whey-based protein powders difficult to digest, and you suffer from bloating and gas when you consume them, go for a brown-rice-based protein powder instead, that is still a fantastic protein source without the tummy upset. You don’t need to go overboard with protein either as excessive amounts of protein can put you at risk of putting on fat.

4- Eat 5-6 smaller meals:

Eating 5-6 smaller means throughout the day ensures that your body is getting a good constant supply of fuel and amino acids to build and repair muscles. Having a protein shake (that also contains some carbohydrates) around 30 to 60 minutes after weight training will help encourage muscle development by upping the production of anabolic hormones. Protein fruit smoothies are another healthy post-workout snack, made with healthy ingredients like low-fat milk, banana, berries, LSA, chia seeds, yoghurt and protein powder.