Here’s a huge list of tips I personally recommend and abide by. Everyone can learn atleast a few new tips, regardless of your experience level.
Supplements
1. Stick to the basics. Whey Protein
, fish oil
, BCAA, and a multivitamin
are the basics. Stick with them.
2. Buy an iron-free multivitamin. NOW EcoGreen Men’s Multivitamin. With all the meat your eating, you don’t want to much iron - possible health hazard.
3. Get a quality BCAA. SciVation Xtend. Whether bulking or cutting, BCAAs improve recovery and reduce soreness significantly.
4. Take Whey Protein. Higher Power Whey Protein, Vanilla . One to two scoops after every workout, combine this with a carbohydrate and you have an awesome post workout shake.
5. Take Fish oil. NOW Fish Oil. Too many benefits to list, just take it.
6. Try Creatine. Higher Power Creatine. It may work wonders for you and or it may do nothing - that’s the nature of how different our bodies all are.
7. Ignore advertisements. For the love of god - you are not going to gain 15 pounds of muscle in one month from some random supplement advertised in a magazine. Read #1.
8. Be a skeptic. Lots of scams in the supplement industry, don’t be fooled and waste money.
9. Don’t ignore supplements. Focusing on diet and training is awesome, but don’t make my mistake and ignore them completely.
10. Know the truth. Supplements only work well when your diet and training is perfectly intact, which takes months and sometimes years of trial and error.
11. Research before buying. Read reviews here, or bodybuilding.com
12. Know what you want Don’t walk into a supplement shop without knowing what you want, you’ll end up buying things you do not need.
Diet
1. Eat More Frequently. Five to six small meals a day, not three.
2. Cook more, eat out less. Limit eating out to 2-3x a week, save money and get better results.
3. Eat basic foods. Eggs, oatmeal, brown rice, milk. They’re cheap and awesome for you.
4. Buy a griddle. Pesto 22″ Griddle. Pots and pans are a mess, griddle is faster and requires little cleaning.
5. Make smaller meals. Frequent, small meals will speed up your metabolism and remind your body to not burn muscle.
6. Pre-cook food. Don’t make excuses for poor diet, pre-cook saves energy and time.
7. Get tupperware. Take food on the go, easily.
8. Use healthier seasonings. Salt-free seasonings, fat-free salad dressings and fake butter spray will make everything taste better without added calories.
9. Eat veggies. Whether trying to gain muscle or lose fat, they’re essential and great for you. Makes digestion much, much easier as well.
10. Have a diverse diet. Don’t get all your protein from one source, always diversify.
11. Find a nutritionist. If you want help making a diet, find one - I did.
12. Drink a gallon of water, everyday. Bring a gallon of water everywhere you go, it’s very easy. Always a conversation piece for some reason too.
13. Buy in bulk. Save money, gas, and energy by buying in bulk.
14. Eat more oats. Rolled oats, steel-cut oats, whole-oats - know your oats because it’s the Rolls Royce of carbohydrates.
15. Eat more Sweet Potatoes and Yams. The best tasting carbohydrate ever, no seasoning needed. Just stab it with a knife, microwave for 5 minutes, and enjoy.
16. Love your food. You won’t be able to eat 6 meals a day if you hate them, experiment with a variety of quality foods and find ones you love. Makes life much easier.
17. Try a new protein. Fish, milk, cottage cheese, etc. Have at least 4-5 solid protein sources in your diet.
18. Respect fat. Fat doesn’t make you fat, eating too many calories does. Unsaturated fat has many health benefits.
19. Eat fat. Almonds, almond butter, natural peanut butter, avocado, and fat from fish are great for you.
20. Eat the same thing everyday. Counting calories is a drag, get the same benefits by building a diet on paper and eating it everyday. Makes life much easier.
At the Gym
1. Focus on the big 3. Squats, Dead lifts, and Bench press. Make these your holy grail of exercises.
2. Squeeze your muscles. Don’t focus on the movement of the workout, squeeze the muscle your working on every rep. This will tear more muscle and lead to more growth.
3. Change your reps. Three sets of 10 reps (3×10) is great for building muscle, but you’ll adapt eventually. Try a 5×5 routine for a solid 12 weeks, then go back to 3×10.
3. Flex your abs all the time. In every single workout, activating your core will lead to better form and increased core strength.
4. Use ultra-strict form. Limit your ego and use super strict form. You’ll shock your muscles and grow more by lifting less weight with strict form.
5. Get a workout partner. Absolutely essential, get one today.
6. Work out with people stronger than you. They’ll push you to get stronger and lift heavier.
6. Increase your intensity. Jack up your workout and get aggressive.
7. Record your lifts on paper. Bring a small notepad and pencil and write down the weight and number of reps for each lift you did. The following week, do more reps or more weight - every week.
8. Don’t socialize while training. Train first, socialize when your done.
9. Work out at off-peak hours. You’ll focus better when there’s less people in the gym.
10. Squat to parallel or lower. Please don’t be “that guy” - Squat like you mean it.
11. Weigh yourself weekly. Only once a week and at the exact same conditions. EX: Every monday morning before breakfast.
12. Train for 45-90 minutes, no more. More isn’t always better. Move quickly from exercise to exercise. Get in, get out. Do this and you’ll limit the number of catabolic hormones your body releases.
13. Lift heavier. Consider this the Mack Daddy tool to building muscle mass.
14. Never skip cardio. Whether bulking or cutting, don’t skip cardio. Your heart is more important.
15. Bulk or cut. Pick one or the other and commit to it.
16. Train harder than everyone else. This is easy and a lot of fun too. Take the intensity of everyone around you in your gym and double it.
17. Trial and error. Test out everything. Don’t stick to the same routine for over 12 weeks.
18. Change routines, but don’t cause chaos. Your body doesn’t adapt to your workouts instantly, so don’t do something different every single time. Stick to something for a solid 6-8 weeks, then make big changes.
19. Keep a training calendar. Write down what muscles you worked and your off days. Helps keep you from overtraining and allows you to see the big picture.
20. Take body measurements. Keep track of measurements on a monthly basis. Great way to see improvements.
21. Turn off your cellphone. “Can you hear me now?”
Life
1. Join online forums. Get involved and be apart of a community. It’s good to interact with others who care about something as much as you do, plus you’ll learn more. Bodybuilding.com and Anabolicminds.com are my two favorite.
2. Set specific goals. Don’t try and “get big” - try to gain 5 pounds of muscle in the next 8 week while not increasing your body fat percentage.
3. Balance your priorities. Balance social life with fitness, too much of either leads to problems.
4. Don’t let your friend’s think for you. Think independently; your friends eat like crap - so do you too?
5. Limit alochol. I’d like to say eliminate, but realistically - balance is more important.
6. Surround yourself with goal-oriented people. We’re all influenced by the people we’re surrounded by, so make the influence a positive one.
7. Learn from your trainer. Trainers at public gyms can be somewhat under-experienced in bodybuilding overall, but be open-minded and listen. You can always learn one new thing.
8. Make friends at the gym. I see them more than my family - so it makes sense to be friends with them.
9. Read strength training books. The New Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding and Strength Training are must haves. This is the most credible information you’ll find.
10. Don’t read muscle magazines for advice. Some might be okay, but they’re very difficult to trust. Use them for entertainment if anything, not as a reliable source of wise information. Read #9.
11. Stop looking in the mirror. Your body changes over long periods of time, not hourly. This will help keep your moral up as well.
12. Don’t trust everything you read and hear. I don’t care where it’s from - you need to take everything with a grain of salt and interpret it for yourself (to some degree).
13. Be patient. It takes years to build an amazing body, not weeks.
14. Work ridiculously hard. Whether it’s for your body, mind, career, relationship with girlfriend, whatever. Working hard builds confidence, which means more focus and more dicispline.
15. Write stuff down. Goals, fears, desires, etc. Crystalize your thoughts and you’re 10x more likely to achieve them.
Lastly
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