Whether you hope to live longer, get fit to engage in certain challenging sports, or simply look amazing on the beach or ski lift, exercise is important. You want a hardcore workout that builds those amazing lines around your muscles and burns fat to let those muscles shine through. Getting a good workout involves discipline in the form of making the time to workout and getting your backside to the gym on a regular basis.
But, there are also some specific things that you can do to increase your strength and make that hardcore workout that much easier and more effective. Things that involve your diet and your actions. You can increase your strength and get a better workout by remembering these tips:
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Gradually increase your volume of exercise.
One mistake that many people make is that they try to do too much too soon. Your body needs to work up to doing the hardest workout in both volume and difficulty. If you do too much too fast then two things happen: One, you can injury yourself, tearing muscles, bruising tendons, or even breaking bones. When this happens you slow down your progress, and put a halt to it altogether. Two, if you do too much too fast and exhaust yourself you will lose your mental focus and your desire. In short, you may start to dread your workouts.
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Eat a healthier diet with enough calories.
No matter your reasons for working out, eating healthier will get you better results faster. To make lean, fat-burning muscle your body needs proper nutrients. Sure, bulk supplements in the form of multi-vitamins or protein can help, but eating lean meats and vegetables is your best bet. Of course, if you want to bulk up and really put on the muscle then you want to pack on plenty of protein in the form of lean chicken, lean beef, or bulk protein supplements.
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Do an extensive warm-up to pump your body.
Warming up is a very important way to keep your body healthy and prevent injury. Too many people skip this step and get hurt, and nothing stops your progress like an injury. It is important that you spend ten minutes or more engaged in light activity, such as brisk walking or biking and light stretching before you jump into your real workout. Don’t think of that warm up time as a boring part of the workout, but rather use it to get your mind going, to pump yourself up mentally and physically for the challenging workout to come.
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Perform stretching exercises in between your sets.
Like your brain, muscles can become bored. If you keep on doing the same exercise over and over – say pushing your biceps in a round of weight training for set after set after set – you will fatigue more quickly and you will actually lessen your results. Instead, do a set of one exercise and then pause a moment, stretch and let the muscles relax a minute before your next set. You will find that you can get more sets in and push your muscles longer, which will build more stamina.
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Take a break to relax your body.
You may be tempted to think that the more you workout the bigger you will get, that you should workout hours each day, seven days a week. But the truth is that your body needs a break. Muscles grow when two things happen: One, they need to be pushed to their limit; two, they need time to rest and rebuild. When you push your muscles until they fail it is almost as though they get insulted, then they rise to the challenge and grow. Except, they need time to grow – they need rest. If you just keep on pushing them then they do not have time to heal and grow, and they will not get stronger as quickly as you would like. Many people create a weekly training schedule to let their muscles relax, pushing their arms to the limit one day, then letting them rest two days while they push their legs the next day, and chest and back the next.
When it comes to getting the best workout that you can it is about how you behave and your attitude. Building lean muscle and increasing your strength is not easy; if it were, everyone would have a strong, lean, attractive body. You need to remind yourself, every day, why getting a tough workout is important to you and what your goals are. Reaffirm that you will maintain the discipline, eat right, workout hard, train your mind to push your body, and remember these tips: increase weight and reps gradually, eat a healthy diet with sufficient calories to build muscle, warm up your body, stretch between sets, and take a little time to let your body relax.