What should I do to get big muscles

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Besides eating right, I have a home gym with cables (but somehow the cables went missing) and a bike in the basement. It's an IMPEX Powerhouse Elite (forget which model #), so I was wondering if how I can plan my workout.

It depends a little on how old you are, what body type you are, and what your specific goals are. I don't know much about getting big muscles, but know about training to be strong & powerful.

A pretty good site is:
http://www.teenbodybuilding.com/

One piece of advice : forget about most supplements. They don't really work. If you eat a healthy diet, your body takes care of the rest. But you should have protein after a workout. Some cheese or peanut butter are good. Not a lot.

The key is that you have to push your limits to increase strength. To increase power, you need to work out with explosive movements. Several sets with low reps with heavy weights, and perfect form, gives the best results.

Don't work the same muscles hard two days in a row.

Figure out pairs of exercises for each muscle group: one that pushes, and one that pulls. That keeps your body balanced and improves posture.

Work your core. Nobody likes doing crunches, but it's important to have your core muscles strong enough to deal with the increased strength of your peripheral muscles. Otherwise bad things happen.

Keep your stabilizer muscles involved. Machines can isolate muscles too much. Free weights, medicine balls, balance balls, bofy-weight exercises all include the stabilizer muscles.

Do things outside. Learn body-weight exercises you can do in the park. Ride a real bike. Run. Get a work-out partner.

http://www.hypertrophy-specific.com/hst_index.html

http://www.scoobysworkshop.com

This is a good site for strength training and overall fitness, Scooby gives strength training exercises (both compound and isolation), cardio-exercises, weight-lose tips, a diet to follow if you wish, and schedules for beginners, intermediates and advanced people.

"Explosive" means fast, I'm not sure plyometrics like this are a good idea especially for beginners, they can be potentially damaging on the muscles, tendons, ligaments and joints and it's hard to work with good form doing this. If you can lift heavier weights even slowly you should be faster, I don't do explosive movement strength training and I move faster than alot of people who use it, my muscles are generally more endurant as well.



Agreed, however you should also work out your lower back muscles as well.



Some muscles can only be worked out sufficiently with isolation exercises such as the hamstrings. It's best to work your whole body out and keep your body's strength pretty equalized, I've heard that problems occur when some parts of your deltoids (shoulder muscles, rear, middle, front) are overdeveloped while others are underdeveloped, also I've heard that problems occur when your quadriceps are over-developed and your hamstrings are under-developed. It's best to work out each muscle so your body is overall strong and equal.

Well in a nutshell you need to train with high intensity and weight (11+-9RM) Manage your rest and sleep and ofcource eat a high calorie high protein diet.

But obviously that's a question as complex as "how do I earn more money" there are just so many factors and ways to it.

a lot o self proclaimed or more educated and famous gurus wrote many books about beginning bodybuilding. which range from the miracle promising snake oil programs through graphic and illustrated books for newbies who need to learn things as form without much details until more scientific books discussing physiology related to the subject like a text book

you can in theory learn the basics from some of the gym employees that help newbies but 90% of them can't talk the talk nor walk the walk and are bullshitting.

ill attempt to condense the HST principles (from the link)

1. basically, muscles grow larger when given a load/weight they are not used too, that they have not been 'conditioned' to. You need sufficient reps at a given load to trigger that stimulus, but you do NOT need to push yourself to exhaustion every session nor should you lift your heaviest weights - these practices are in fact going to hold you back over the long term as next week you will not be able to increase the load sufficiently to trigger a good growth stimulus.

2. as a rough estimation, increasing the load somewhere around 5% increments is sufficient to provide a growth stimulus. This new load can be repeated for a few sessions, but the growth stimulus will not be quite as effective the second or third time. So you should be increasing the load every week, preferably every session. (with exercises that require very small weights, a 5% increase isnt always practical (size of discs etc) so repeating the same load a few times is necessary)

2. the greatest growth stimulus occurs during a 2 day period after the training. It is therefore better to train your whole body 3 times a week (without pushing yourself into fatigue) than to revisit the same muscle group once a week and hammer it to death, so that it takes a week to 'recover'.

3. muscles rapidly 'decondition' over a period or 1-2 weeks. So after taking a break of 10 days or so, you can drop the loads right down and still get a good growth stimulus - starting a new cycle of progressive loading that might last 8 weeks or more. (at the end of the cycle when you get back to your max weights, you should find you are stronger)

This is why many typical programs arnt very efficient. guys will lift their max weights week after weight and wonder why theyve hit a plateau. Then come back after a 2 week break and wonder why theyve started gaining again.

Another principle in the HST program is that the lactic acid production from doing high (15+) reps is useful for strengthing tendons and connective tissue. Since 15 reps @ 75% max intensity is considered a high enough load to trigger growth in a deconditioned body, the traditional HST cycle starts off there, and gradually increases over 8-10 weeks at which time your doing 5rep maximum lifts or even 2RM or negatives (untill you have plenty of experience and perfect form, it is safer to stop the cycle when you hit 5RM)

Also worth mentioning - you should never work-out for more than an hour as your body will start to produce high levels of cortisol, a stress hormone which has catabolic (muscle reducing) properties. A good, balanced whole body routine based around the major compound exercises shouldnt take much more than about 45 mins including warm-up sets.

Here is a great site for bodybuilding www.anabolicminds.com This site is great and there are alot of bodybuilders and powerlifters on there that can help you out. Just remember eat, eat and eat some more. Also, use free weights. All you really need is a weight bench, a squat or power rack, a barbell, weight plates and maybe dumbbells. I would suggest getting good dumbbells. That is the equipment I would recommend to build muscle. Just don't fall for an gimmicks. Nothing will get you built like free weights will.

Here is my routine I started before getting injured. Mind you it's good to change routines after awhile. Unfortunately I can't train again until my arm, knee and back heal.
Set 1 - Back and Bis
One Arm Rows (2 sets)

BarBell curl (1 set)

Hammer curls (1 set)

Deadlift (3 sets)

Reverse DumbBell Wrist Curl (1 set)

chinups

Set 2 - Chest and Tris

Bench (3sets)

DumbBell flyes ss DumbBell press (2 sets)

overhead DumbBell extension (1 sets)

Close grip bench press (2 sets)



Set 3 - Legs Alternated each week between squats and front squats. If you do squats one week, do front squats the next week.

Front Squat (3 sets)

Squats (3 sets)

calf raises (2 sets, high reps)

Stiffleg deadlift (3 sets)



Set 5 - Shoulders

Military Press (3 sets)

BB Shrugs (3 sets)

Upright row (2 sets)

DumbBell Shrugs (2 sets)

Lateral Raise (1 set)

DumbBell Wrist Curl (1 set)

For the main exercises keep between 6 and 8 reps per set. When you get 24 total then up the weight.
For the secondaries (2 sets) keep between 8 and 12 reps. When you get 24 total then up the weight.

Do one set of flyes and reach failure between 8 and 12 reps then immediately do presses until failure using the same dumbbells. Its a super set so flyes + presses = one set. Rest 2-3 min and then do it again. Once you can do more than 40 total reps I'd up the weight.

Pick a weight that you can do between 18 and 22 resp with it. When you can do 25 up the weight.
(single sets)

Day 1: Back and Biceps
Day 2: Chest and Triceps
Day 3 off
Day 4: off
Day 5: Legs
day 6: Shoulders
day 7 off
day 8 off

i like it when i go to the gym and a guy is spotting me....

" how many ya doin?" they always say.

" two more than i can" is the reply.

when it hurts, most people stop.....
when you push it once more you break muscle.....when you go again you fail..this is the goal to getting bigger.

you get bigger when you sleep, not when you work out....

3 rules to working out.


1. what you do in the gym
2. how much rest you get.
3. diet.


the 3 cant be divorced.

Well, you have to do alot, like balancing your diet for the increased needs your going to have, doing the right exersizes and doing them properly, and the number one thing, keeping yourself motivated and not calling it quits. My problem with alot of stuff would be I just give up.

as for personal oppinion, id rather have lean/lithe muscle mass instead of bodybuilder huge.

I could probably recommend some stuff for ya, but like as what has been said, need to know things such as body type (i myself am a mix of mesomorph and the one that usually fits extremely tall and thin.) Height and weight can be considered as well. I can say once I am done recovering from surgery, I will be working out again.