First let me tell you that blood pressure is basically the force that is exerted by the blood on the walls of blood vessels present in our bodies. Blood pressure is measured to check the cardiovascular and circulatory health of the body. High blood pressure is a source of a number of heart diseases and other diseases. The factors that tend to raise pressure level of blood in our body include weight, daily stress levels, genetic issues and physical activity level.

Bodybuilders and those in the field of weight lifting are liable to carry this disease. Reason is that they are facing much stress due to their exercise workouts and lifting of heavy weights. Another important thing is that they are taking extra food which also includes lots of fats which can raise levels of blood pressure. Also due to extra load on heart and body due to heavy weight lifting and bodybuilding, again, the level of blood pressure can increase.

So, important thing is to keep your blood pressure under control. You need to keep an eye on it and check it on regular basis. Most of the times bodybuilders are not even aware of their blood pressure levels which can be extremely dangerous. You might have seen that faces of some bodybuilder or weight lifters are red even during rest period. Normally 120/80 is considered to be the normal blood pressure but now doctors have reduced it a bit for those who are in best of physical fitness. Some also believe that by working hard for heart makes heart stronger which can result in good heart health and hence could be a source of reducing blood pressure but this is not always right.

It is also worthwhile to mention here that there is no perfect reading for blood pressure that is applicable to all. It depends on stress levels, genetics, family history, drug abuse etc. So all I want to say through this article of ‘bodybuilding and blood pressure – vital tips you need to know about’ is that do not be ignorant of blood pressure levels of your body during bodybuilding because if you are a patient, bodybuilding may likely to increase this level. There is good medication available these days to keep your blood pressure under control so you may use it under the prescription of a good physician.

Bodybuilding competitions are a big deal and can be scary as well with competition environment all around. These competitions have professional bodybuilders all over and therefore are very intense and tough. You should therefore be well prepared for such competitions to give your best. Below are the best tips you need to enter bodybuilding competitions as preparatory steps:

The first and the foremost thing is that you become regular in your exercise routine. There are most of the bodybuilders who take exercises lightly and irregularly. They can afford it because they are not doing it for competition purposes. But if you are up for professional contest, make sure you do not miss your exercise routines and make sure that exercise becomes a prominent part of your life. You can afford to miss other things in your life but not the exercise.

Second important thing is that you pay attention to all the muscle groups rather than focusing on particular muscles. Everybody has got some strengths and weaknesses in his/her body. For example, some have muscular chest, some have good shoulders, some have heavy thighs etc. So importance should be given to all the body muscles and more importantly muscle groups.

Another important thing is that your muscles should be tanned properly and well before time before you actually appear in competitions. You might need the services of a proper saloon to make sure tan your skin properly so that it gets displayed in best form in lights.

You also need proper rest to ensure that you perform hard in the gym in your workout sessions. If you have not taken enough rest or sleep, you really won’t be able to perform best in the gym. So take 7-8 hours of sleep to make sure that you have enough rest in your pocket to perform really well in the gym for longer sessions. Also you must keep an eye on your food to make sure it is rich in proteins and is nutritious. You can also take good supplements to overcome your protein requirements.

Best practices for having good bodybuilding done are as under:

1- Selection of a good gym: Most important thing that you should do is to select a proper gym for bodybuilding. You must ensure that the gym that you select has proper equipment available which is modern and according to the needs, qualified trainers in proper numbers so that they can guide individuals properly, cleanliness in the gym, availability of sufficient space to have vast variety of workouts, availability of a good food shop in the gym, general atmosphere of the gym keeping in view the nature and type of people coming in for bodybuilding and general ethics prevailing in the gym. Another important factor is the distance of gym from your home. This is very important because sometimes you become lazy and start taking days off just because the gym is at a fair amount of distance and you cannot get time out of your busy schedule.

2- Selection of proper exercise plan: this is also very important for bodybuilding. You must focus on exercise plans which focus on building muscle groups rather than individual muscles. Also, you must focus on building back muscles first and then going for the rest because most of the mass is concentrated in the back and thighs. If you build back muscles, it helps building other muscles of the body as well. So select a proper exercise plan in consultation with your trainer/physician.

3- Selection of proper diet plan: Diet is very important for you. You must ensure that the food you take in is rich in proteins and is nutritious. Certain protein supplements can be taken to ensure that our body gets the protein it needs to help grow muscles big. Again, diet plan can be selected based on inputs from the trainer and physicians.

4- Proper rest: Rest is very important. You tear your muscles out during the workouts and they need time to repair themselves and grow big. According to a proper estimate, you must take 7-8 hours of rest daily during the periods of your bodybuilding.

So you must take in to account the above mentioned factors to make sure that you get the bodybuilding done right and get the results you have been dreaming of. Otherwise, all you get is disappointment and frustration which is worst thing to have during bodybuilding phase of your life.

It happens sometimes that your muscles stop growing after few months despite the fact that you are having regular exercises and heavy workouts. Below I have explained 7 reasons why your muscles stop growing. How to get muscle to grow again is explained as under:

One of the reasons is that perhaps you are over training your muscles and this is causing problems for muscles. When you do exercises, you are actually breaking up your muscle tissues and they need time to repair. So you need to give them this time through rest and proper sleep. All you need to do is to train your muscle groups once or at the most twice a week and not more than that.

Second reason is that perhaps you are not sleeping enough to ensure that you get good muscles. Muscles are repaired during sleeping and this actually helps them grow big. So sleep atleast 7-8 hours daily if you want your muscles to grow big.

Third reason is that if you are an alcohol user, then this is not a good news for you. Alcohol actually breaks muscles and causes certain other destructions in your body. So avoid it.

Fourth reason could be that you are performing same routine every time and do not change it. If you do so, your muscles get adapted to that routine and stop growing further. So keep changing your workout routines every 6-8 weeks as a good practice for bodybuilding.

Fifth important reason is that you may not be overloading your muscles progressively through either changing weights or increasing the reps. So you need to overload them otherwise there is no point for muscles to grow big.

Sixth reason is that you may not be taking enough amount of protein as required by your body. Remember, protein is building block of muscles and you need at least 1 gram of protein per pound weight of your body. You may also use protein supplements or shakes to overcome protein intake deficiency if you feel so.

Last reason for it may be that you are not taking the diet that is nutritious. Remember that just taking diet does not matter. What matters is that the diet you take should be nutritious so that it can help your muscles to grow and get you the results you want.

I hope that you can get good muscles if you can avoid these 7 problems that have been discussed above in this article. So better luck guys and hope to see you in good body….!!

More and more Americans are going for bodybuilding and getting good shape every year. So with this, the supplements are getting more and more important especially for beginners. But for beginners, there are a lot of questions that need to answered for them including which supplements to be bought, where should they be bought from, when should they be taken and what quantity is recommended to be taken in.

This is a fact that supplements do play a vital role in achieving your targets fast and help you getting a good muscular body. There are some natural sources of supplements as well e.g sea foods and red meat has creatin. But thing is that they are not enough to get really good muscles. So many builders use additional supplements which include creatin, whey protein, glutamine etc.

Now when any bodybuilder goes in the market to get supplements, there is a vast variety available. So it becomes really difficult to decide that which supplements are good and which place is safe to get these supplements from. As a beginner, you just need basic supplements and once you pass this stage and enter into professional stage, then you need different supplements. A general rule that can be used to buy good supplements is that you should go for the best vendors and see that if a supplement is available in the market for a longer period of time say for over 3 years, then it can be considered safe for use.

So the basic supplements you need as beginner include supplements for proteins, creatine supplements, glutamine supplements and multi-vitamins. Protein supplements are very important for having bodybuilding done in a great fashion. Creatine supplements are important not only for having good muscles but also for having good energy required for workouts in exercises. Glutamine supplements help our body to repair itself after tremendous workouts. So it is also very important because our muscle tissues get ruptured during heavy exercises and need repair which is provided by this supplement.

I hope that this article five minute guide to bodybuilding supplements for beginners gives you a good insight for getting good supplements for your bodybuilding requirements.

Supplements that contain amino acids or foods that contain amino acids are very helpful to have a healthy body and mind. Amino acids are building blocks of proteins which are an essential requirement for bodybuilding and are important for our hair, nails, skin and other body organs. Apart from amino acid supplements, amino acids are also found in meat, eggs, milk and cheese.

Lack of amino acids in our body may result in having bad muscle strength and general fatigue. Similarly, over dry skin and outbreaks of acne are also indications of lack of amino acids in the body. If we analyze details of amino acids, we come to know that there are 8 essential amino acids and fourteen non-essential ones. It must be noted that our body does not manufacture these essential amino acids and therefore their intake through amino acid food intake and supplements is important. There are a lot of studies showing that amino acids help in building lean muscles without any bad effects on other mass of the body. Foods rich in amino acids also help in reducing body fat and increasing endurance and this has been experienced by many athletes. Also, after having extreme workouts, amino acids help your body to recover quickly and provides lots of energy. Using amino acid supplements in bodybuilding are particularly important because they play a great role in getting big muscles. Amino acid supplements are also important to cure for bronchitis, depression and fatigue. It is also important for the patients of high blood pressure and emphysema.

Amino acids help athletes and bodybuilders to perform their exercises easily and help them in having extreme workouts without having too much of the fatigue. So look out for best supplements for amino acids available in the market and stay fit.

If you are into bodybuilding, perhaps the best thing is nutrition. No matter what exercise plan you carry out and what diet you take in, the food that you take should be nutritious. One other thing which is important is that you should not get fat while trying to get big muscles. If you have bad eating habits, does not matter whether you do best exercise in the world and take best diet, you can succeed only if you eat properly and take care that the food you take in is nutritious.

The most important thing about nutrition which you should know is to have diet which is high calorie diet which is rich in protein. We need calories to build our body. If you just eat whatever you want to, this ends up making you fat and does not help a great deal in building lean muscles. Therefore it is important that your food should be rich in protein. It must be kept in mind that proteins are the building blocks of everything in our body and if we take them, we can get very good muscles.

Having talked about the nutrition, let’s talk about another important factor for bodybuilding i.e training. There are virtually hundreds of training programmes available. But you need to follow the one that suits your goals. For example, some guys are looking to get big shoulders, others are paying more attention to their chest muscles, and some are keen to have very big thighs. So what you should be looking probably is to have a balanced body. Here are some of the exercises that you can perform:

For chest:

Inclined dumbbell press, flat barbell bench press, flies with flat dumbbell and inclined dumbbell flies.

For Back:

Pull-ups, dead-lifts, bent over rows, one arm dumbbell rows

For shoulders:

Dumbbell press, military press, front and lateral raises and shrugs

For legs:

Straight leg dead-lifts, Leg extensions and leg press, lunges and lying leg curls

I hope this article ‘How to Gain Muscle Mass Fast Without Getting Fat in Bodybuilding’ gives you a good insight about getting good muscles without having too much fat on the body.

It is common that when any bodybuilder thinks of supplements, it immediately comes to mind that these would be protein shakes. It must be kept in mind that first of all, the most important thing is regular exercise and then a proper diet with sufficient amount of rest. Once you have all these things in place, then comes the role of supplements. Now below we explain the role of supplements:

1- There are supplements that boost the testosterone and are required by those who want to compete in the competitions. This testosterone is boosted by the steroids and to avoid most of the effects of the steroids, we need to take in safe testosterone boosters in the pill form.

2- Multi-vitamins and minerals are also required by our body to have good bodybuilding. Our body has its own chemistry and needs certain vitamins and minerals to keep it in a healthy state. So it is important that we understand the requirements of our body and take necessary vitamins and minerals required by it.

3- Whey protein is the best protein and is of high quality. This protein gets digested very quickly and removes stress. So the more easily it gets absorbed in our body, the more quickly our body can use it for getting energy and in result can have more workouts and exercise. This type of protein also improves the functioning of the liver and this also helps in getting your food to digest properly and give energy to the body.

4- Another important source of protein is egg’s white. It also provides various other minerals and vitamins required by our body. This protein does not get absorbed in the body as quickly as whey protein does.

5- Beef liver tablets are also a good source of protein and are used by the bodybuilders’ frequently. Important thing is that they come from the beef liver and are properly processed.

This article ‘Best Bodybuilding Supplements - Here Are 5 That Athletes Use for Bodybuilding’ gives some of the proteins that are taken by the bodybuilders’ every day.

Legs in most people normally have two-third of the body weight. The tissues of thighs are normally hard and not soft as compared to the trunk tissues and hence require hard training to get them build. There are almost 150 exercises for getting bigger thighs. Below are some of the ways to get bigger thighs in bodybuilding:

Squats: This can be considered as the best exercise for building thighs but it is tough as well. This can be performed with barbells or through the use of weight-loaded smith mechanism. This exercise can be done by using burden on our shoulders with pectoral height in front. You can do it with heels elevated about 2 inches or having flat footed. However, it is important that you do not keep your legs locked otherwise strain won’t be on the muscle tissues. You can use a bench for this purpose so that you may know the exact distance to go down or you can keep going down till your butt touches the toes of your feet. To get big thighs, you can use squats with different positions and with 3 sets each of ten repetitions.

Barbell squat: You can perform this exercise using a bar with weights on it. Way to perform it is that you elevate your heels and squat down with all things parallel to the ground. Use the weights in such amount that you can perform 10 repetitions.

Barbell squat wide stance: In this type, your heels are elevated with your legs spread in broad style. You must squat your knees such that they point for an inside thigh exercise.

Hack squat: In this type, you are holding barbell behind your buttocks with lifted heels and squat till your weight is almost hitting the ground.

Thigh Curls: This type of exercise can be performed to get good hamstring and bicep tissues of thighs. Pulley and cable contraption with foot straps can be used for this purpose also.

Dumbbell lunges: Rear thigh muscles can be built through this exercise that also includes gluteus. They also play role for making good hips.

Leg presses: Different types of leg presses can also be used to get good thighs that include apparatus for leg extension, decline leg press and normal leg press. These exercises give you inner, outer and upper thigh muscles.

Whenever you ask anybody about getting good biceps, you may come around different answers. In order to get rid of the misconception, we are giving you some advice on how to get big biceps in bodybuilding. Below are the details:

1- Workout frequency: Biceps are the muscles in the upper arms and most of the guys want them built. They are comparatively smaller than the other muscles of the body like triceps. It is normally recommended that you have workouts not more than 3 times a week for these muscles. This is enough for our biceps and it will provide them enough time to repair and grow themselves because in the gym, you tear up your muscles during the workouts. Another important thing is that you train your muscles through a variety of exercises and angles. This provides your biceps a greater opportunity to grow big and get good shape. Also you should vary the weights as well i.e. more weight for power workouts and less weights for having more repetitions.

2- You can use the following exercises and workout routines to have good and big biceps:

• Barbell curls – This can be performed if we use straight or curled bar. The method is that you open your feet equal to your shoulder width and hold the bar inside your shoulder line. You can start with the amount of weight that is easy for you and go up to 15 repetitions. You must have 1-2 minutes of break between the reps. Increase the weight for your next 8-10 reps and use light weight for the last set that you can easily curl.

• Dumbbell curls – Pickup a dumbbell in both of your hands and go for 15 repetitions. You can vary weights to get good results.

• Preacher curls- These are performed on preacher bench and you can use a curl bar or a straighter one. This exercise helps to make your biceps isolate so that you can have maximum workouts.

• Incline dumbbell curls – These are performed on an incline bench and help to isolate bicep muscles for workouts.

So make sure that you give your biceps good workout plan and enough time so that they can be repaired and rebuild properly.