With summer time fast approaching, thoughts of revealing more of the skin and days at beaches are definitely on your plans. Given this state, these following 5 muscle building tips will definitely help you towards achieving the best shape of your life and a positive momentum of feeling good about oneself as you continue to sculpt your body long after your suntan has lightened.

1. Don’t Expect Instant Status and Results

You have to enjoy muscle and body building to the fullest, its physical and health benefits and expect little else. Why? It takes a rather great deal of time, effort and energy before you see the results. It appears that, a lot of novice body builders have the kind of thinking that if they hit the gym, do bench presses for several reps, execute squats and lift weights simultaneously, they’ll get results instantly. Unfortunately, this is not the case; you have to devote a big portion of your time and day on a regular basis prior to reaping the rewards of hard work.

2. Determine your Five

What this means to say is that you have to take your keys to muscle building from five things: barbell front squat, dumbbell bench press, shoulder press, chin up and sit up crunches. Repetition, executing good combinations and balance makes up excellent muscle building tips a body builder and fitness buff should keep in mind.

3. Don’t Be a Lazy Body Builder

Its essential to become good at those five things mentioned considered as basics of body and muscle building. A lot of body builders don’t get the hang of going through these phases and settle for the easiest and less time consuming workouts and lifts. But, one must consider doing all of the aforementioned essential five, or whats the point?

4. Workout with a Training Partner

Another first-rate muscle building tip is to find someone you can train with, someone who is committed like you and someone who has similar body building goals. Having a partner to work together, by and large, compels and drives you to be in a competitive mode even if you don’t always have the greatest motivation. A training partner imposes accountability and competition that makes up a fun and productive environment as you work out.

5. Perform Briefer yet More Intense Routines

Keep your muscle goals in mind and work towards the attainment of that specific goal or purpose. Your objective is to hit the gym and perform your exercises in less than an hour. Keep in mind that the intensity of a workout is contingent on two important factors: the choice of exercises and the speed of the workout. Therefore, as your body building level improves, one needs to go for exercises that are more challenging and exigent. Working through the motions is not the intent, it is the time and energy spent that will reap the rewards in time.

It is also the primary reason why so many people are trying so hard in the gym only to see a small reward of muscle gain.

Are you one of them? If you are, it is high likely that the problem is not with your routines or workouts but rather your consumption of nutrition.

The great Larry Scott, the first ever Mr. Olympia in 1965 stated that body building is 90% what you eat. At that time, people thought that he was making an overstatement only for us to realize that he knew what he was talking about many years later.

Thus, knowing, it means that if you wish to build muscle successfully, you have to prioritize in your nutrition intake.

Here are 5 pitfalls to avoid on your nutrition intake:

1) Not Enough Protein

While pumping away and tearing away your muscle cells happens in the gym, muscles are formed outside of the gym. And since protein is a main source of building muscle, you must consume protein consistently as you are working out in the gym. Protein consumed must be lean and fat free for example: egg whites, fish, read meats, chicken breast and whey protein. It is ideal that for every pound of your body weight, that you consume one gram of protein.

2) Not Eating Frequently Enough.

Eat every 3 to 4 hours with small balance meals. Many think that it’s not important and they rather have 2 to 3 meals due to laziness. As mentioned earlier, discipline plays a big role in body building and will make a big difference on where you are and what you do. The reason why you should be eating frequently is that firstly, it will accelerate your metabolism rate, resulting in your body burning fat naturally. Secondly, protein cannot be stored in the body and will usually only last for 3 hours in your body. So by consuming protein frequently, there is a constant supply to build your muscles as your muscles recover.

3) Not Drinking Enough Water

Workouts in the gym can lead to dehydration easily. It is extremely important to replace the fluids that you lost during your training. As 67% of the body is made from water, your muscles will have a hard time repairing itself if they are dehydrated. At the same time, without enough water, your kidneys will also struggle to remove unwanted waste as a result of your increase intake of protein and other substance from your frequent meals per day. So drink as much water as possible starting from today.

4) Drinking Alcohol

One advice that all body builders speaks about is not to consume alcohol. Why? Alcohol contains 7 calorie per gram. Apart from fat which is 9 calorie per gram, alcohol is the second most calorie dense nutrient. By consuming alcohol, it will greatly affect your body’s capability to burn fat. Not only that it will quickly dehydrate your body and also reduce the productivity of testosterone. In conclusion, avoid alcohol at all cost.

5) Consuming Too Much Sugar

Arnold Schwarzenegger calls sugar the “white death”. It suppresses the immune system of your body and has been shown to decrease the number of white cells in the body. Sugar can cause your blood to be also more acidic, which increases vulnerability to toxins, bacteria and viruses. While your body is busy repairing its muscle, anymore more unnecessary stress will cause your muscle building process slow down, thus avoid sugar too.

If you have a proper lifestyle and proper nutrition intake, it is safe to say that you have already won most of the battle to a healthier, and learner body you desire. In a way, you can force your body to gain muscles by working out in the gym, and the only missing ingredient you will need is fuel your body with the right nutrition regularly.

Exercise is just one factor in achieving mass. Food choice should partner with exercise. Building mass is achieved better when eating protein-rich foods. These muscle building foods keeps the body in an anabolic state maintaining the much needed nitrogen balance.

Foods rich with proteins. Protein contains amino acids abundant in nitrogen. This is why gym buffs are recommended to drink protein shakes after workouts.

Once in the digestive tract, protein is broken down into amino acids. These amino acids enter the bloodstream. In no time, the amino acids are distributed evenly in the body. These amino acids are absorbed and used to build new muscle tissues.

Proteins found in our body are always broken down by cell enzymes. Once you halt your protein consumption, body cells will have no “fuel” to build more muscle tissue. Eating protein-rich foods maintains nitrogen balance in the body thus more tissues are produced.

Muscle building foods include milk, eggs, meat, soybean, and protein shake.

Milk is an opaque substance rich in protein and calcium. It provides essential nutrients such as biotin, iodine, magnesium, pantothenic acid, potassium, riboflavin, selenium, thiamine, vitamin A, vitamin, B12, Vitamin D, and Vitamin K.

Another protein-rich food is egg. It supplies essential amino acids in the body needed for muscle building. Other essential nutrients include folic acid, choline, calcium, choline, iron, potassium, phosphorus, Vitamin A, Vitamin D, Vitamin E, Vitamin B6, and Vitamin B12.

Meat including poultry, beef, pork, veal, and game meat provides ample supply of protein for the body. Just eliminate eating the fat as it does not help in muscle building.

A vegetable high in building power is the soybean. According to the US Food and Drug Administration, it is a source of complete protein. Vegetarians and vegans are recommended to eat soybean as substitute for animal products.

Protein shake is a good source of amino acid. Its whey protein component allows the body to absorb the amino acids in as little as 2 hours. Whey protein repairs and builds muscles quickly that you will quickly recover after the exercise routines.

Also, drink plenty of water. They do not contain protein but they encourage fast travel of nutrients in the bloodstream. A hydrated body contains evenly-distributed nutrients.

Taking multivitamin supplements are encouraged when you plan to build muscles. This is important if you are a picky eater. However, if you consume a complete and balanced meal everyday, supplements are not necessary.

What you must not consume are sweets such as candy and chocolate. Sugar tears the body down. It does not encourage muscle growth.

Now, some people take steroids to increase muscle bulk. Steroid effects are not safe and do not last long. People taking steroids are observed to experience heart diseases and mood swings. Once steroid intake is stopped, the body will quickly return to normal size. Building muscles the slow and natural way produces lasting effects than hormone forcing.

That starts with using the proper equipment, having a good diet, and a healthy way of living.

To get the most muscle growth possible, you want to use the best muscle building exercises in the gym. If you want to build muscle, you’re going to have to lift heavy weight using effective weight lifting exercises.

There’s no getting around this. If you want to build muscle, you will need to apply the appropriate amount of resistance to your muscle.

You’ll need to use simple compound movements. Compound movements are weight training exercises that use more than one muscle group to complete a lift. Free weights are dumbbells and barbells.

By using these effective muscle building exercises, free weights and compound movements, you force your body to work harder.

By forcing your body to work harder, you add more stress to the targeted and supporting muscles.

Remember to use proper form when lifting weight, especially heavy weight. Lifting heavy weight for the sake of lifting heavy will result in poor form, which will lead to injuries. You don’t want injuries.

If you’re a beginner, it’s best if you use a combination of free weights, machines and body weight exercises. In order to lift heavy, you need to establish the correct form and balance.

This takes time, practice and patience. Once you’ve established the correct form and balance, try adding more weight lifting exercises, especially free weight exercises.

If you’re having trouble or not sure about certain weight lifting exercises, always ask for advice. Never attempt an exercise you’re not sure about. Ask a gym employee for advice.

If you can’t find a gym employee, ask one of the regulars. The regulars are usually more than happy to provide some guidance and help when it comes to muscle building exercise.

Before going into a heavy weight lifting workout, make sure you’re properly warmed up. Never attempt to lift heavy weights when you’re cold. Lifting heavy weight when you are cold will result in injuries.

Always remember to include a warm up (5 to 10 minutes) using an aerobic activity, followed by 5 to 10 minutes of stretching in your weight lifting exercise routine.

Here is a series of muscle building exercises that you could use for the chest area:

Flat Bench press
Flat bench press with dumbbells
Flat bench dumbbell flyes
Incline bench press
Incline dumbbell press
Parallel bar dips
Decline dumbbell bench press
Incline dumbbell flyes

Muscle building exercises for back:

Bent over rowing
Wide grip chins
Lat machine pull downs
Low cable pulley rows
One arm dumbbell rows
Dead lifts
Shrugs
Good mornings
Hyperextensions
T bar rowing

Exercises for hamstrings:

Lying leg curls
Stiff legged dead lifts

Exercises for shoulders:

Press behind the neck
Seated dumbbell press
Side lateral raises

Muscle building exercises for calves:

Standing calf raises
Seated calf raises
Leg press calf extensions
Standing one legged calf raises

Exercises for biceps:

Standing barbell curls
Seated alternate dumbbell curls
Incline dumbbell curl
Standing dumbbell curls

Exercises for quadriceps:

Squats
Leg press
Leg extensions
Hack squats

Muscle building exercises for triceps:

Close grip bench press
Lying triceps extensions
Standing cable press downs
Seated over head barbell extensions
Triceps bench dips
Overhead rope extensions

Exercises for abs:
Crunches
Knee ups
Hanging leg raise
Incline knee raises
Incline sit-ups
Roman chair sit ups

That was a list of the best muscle building exercises you should use in the gym. Always remember to use proper form on each exercise.

If you have any questions on how to perform one of these muscle building exercises, ask advice from someone who is experimented in s and than try to experiment through trial them. You don’t want to use trial and error, since you could harm yourself.