Busting your tail in the weights room is only going to take you so far. Without a high quality nutrition plan designed around YOUR specific needs you will struggle to reach your genetic potential, let alone blow beyond it.

Skinny guys and beginners make the same mistakes all the time – namely thinking that their diet is secondary to their routine. You wouldn’t expect a sports car to run on empty would you? No, you’d fill it up with the best gas you could get your hands on, right?

So since your body is a much more finely tuned machine than any car, it pays to fuel it up with the best dang diet plan you can imagine.

Below I’ll show you how to structure a muscle building diet plan for maximum effectiveness and to get the best out of your workouts in the gym. Think of your diet as the Yin to your workout routine’s Yang.

How Many Daily Calories?

The starting point for any muscle building diet plan is to figure what your daily calorie requirement is, since to build muscle you need to feed your body more calories.

Obviously this will differ from person to person so a little calculation is in order (don’t worry, the maths is simple enough even for me!;) )

As a rough guide you can multiply your current bodyweight in pounds by 24 to arrive at your daily calorie goal. So if you weigh 170 pounds you’ll need 4,080 calories per day (170 x 24).

There are many online calorie calculators that take into account other factors such as activity level, age, height etc and are therefore more accurate. However, the above measurement is handy to give you a rough guess-timate.

Nutrient Ratios

The second aspect to consider when structuring a muscle building diet plan is how to balance out your nutrient ratios…in other words, how do you spread your nutrients for maximum muscle growth?

Aim for a balance of around 40% carbs, 35% protein and 25% good fats. Avoid trans fats and heavily processed saturated fats. Oily fish, olive oil, and nuts and flax seeds (pumpkin) are wonderful sources of good fats like omega 3,6 and 9 that are super muscle builders.

This is a sensible balance for a healthy body. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that just because you’re building muscle you can eat a load of junk just to make up your calorie count.

Eat whole foods that are healthy and don’t use supplements as a crutch for poor diet discipline.

Why It’s Not All About Protein

As you can see from above your protein intake, while super important, is not the be-all and end-all of a muscle building diet plan.

Many skinny guys and beginners make the mistake of thinking that protein is the only thing that matters and so load up on supplements and shakes while sacrificing the other areas of their diet.

Don’t make the same mistake – keep a good balance and you’ll see better results.

It is important to note that both the Paleo diet and the Atkins diet are low carbohydrate diets. The difference in the two diets lies in the purpose of adopting each of the diet plans. This difference can therefore be analyzed by looking at each of the diets individually then trying to compare between the two.

To begin with, the Paleo diet is a kind of diet that is based on adopting a particular lifestyle. This involves eating of food that was originally eaten by our ancestors when there was no technology to process the food as well as agricultural farming.

This therefore meant that people of this era depended on food that was collected by the hunters and gatherers. This diet is limiting to some extent as it does not provide an individual with a variety of options to choose from as is the case in Paleo diet menu.

Additionally, this program allows people to feed on fruits and vegetables as companions to the proteins. This therefore makes the diet quite healthy as a number of nutrients are ready to be absorbed and available from the diet. There is also high intake of fatty acids which are essential in the functioning of the body. This diet is liked and is highly recommended because of its ability to reduce and limit diseases that are currently heightened by the poor feeding habits that involves highly processed and refined foods.

On the other hand Paleo diet is totally different from the Atkins plan because while Paleo diet totally restricts grains or legumes in any form, Atkins program does allow using limited amount of carbs, and these may be source from unprocessed and unrefined carbs.

With the Atkins weight loss plan, the main intention is to lose weight fast and thus initially, people subsist on food that does not have any amount of carbohydrates. This omission of carbohydrates in the dietary list tricks the body into starving that leads to losing weight faster than one could imagine. Paleo diet does not encourage any fasting or restriction on metabolism, as carbs are being consumed in form of veggies and fruits.

Additionally, Atkins plan emphasizes on eating lots of fat and protein which is not a healthy choice. This kind of diet allows the intake of carbohydrates once loss of weight is experienced. The sole purpose of this plan is losing weight, while Paleo diet focuses on losing weight and staying healthy too.

Therefore, it is evident that Paleo diet and Atkins diet vary in the content that has to be taken as well as the main purpose as to why they are taken.

This agility workout can be set up rather easily. Just mark out five dots on the floor with five centimeter long insulation tapes being the look alike of the number 5. There are five different exercises with five reps for all the drills in the workout and they have to be done one after the other without any break. Please repeat all the drills five times each until you have totaled twenty-five workouts. You will be able to do them between 40 and 50 seconds after you have developed some skills. Please note you should at least have 2 to 4 sets to get optimal results.

Let us now clearly visualize the positions of the five dots on the number 5. The figure has A on the top left, B at the top right, and C in the middle whereas the bottom left and right dots are E and F. The first agility workout known as Up and Back, commences with your feet on D and E. Go hop-jumping to C and then to A and B. Now jump back to C with both feet and continue doing so to D and E. Have 4 reps of this dot drill.

The Right Foot agility workout should see your feet jumping both feet from Up and Back position to D and E before you go to dot C with right foot. Have 4 reps in this fashion. You should now do the Left Foot exercise by going to dot C with your left foot. Have 4 reps of the jumps to dot A, B, C, D and E respectively to finish the Left Foot dot drill. The next drill involves Both Feet. Jump with both feet to C and then to dot A, B, C, D and E and have 4 similar reps.

You will simply be amazed by the excellent results that the dot drill agility workout will produce after you do this training for four weeks.

You can find millions and millions and millions of words on the subject of reducing fat and  building   muscle . Body building techniques have been around for several centuries now. “Exercise,” no matter how the term is disguised, is the basis for all  muscle  development programs.

But the fact is that just any old exercise isn’t going to  build   muscle .

Cardio is exercise that is designed to increase endurance and improve the cardio system function. But cardio exercise is NOT designed to  build  or develop  muscle .

Cardio exercises come in many forms: Walking, running, jogging and cycling are all cardio – so are aerobic exercise classes and programs. Also, there are all kinds of exercise machines for the purpose of cardio exercise: treadmills, stair-steppers, and ski simulators for example.

Cardio exercise is a good thing, and it’s highly recommended that people of all ages and both sexes engage in aerobic exercise to encourage good heart health. BUT the purpose of cardio exercise in NOT to  build   muscle !

Weight training exercises are what you need to  build   muscle . Weight lifting is one example, but it isn’t the only option. Squats, push-ups, chin-ups and dips are also weight training exercise. Body weight is the weight that is being lifted, and a wide variety of  muscles  are used to lift and move the weight.

Here are three PROVEN weight training  tips  that will always help  build   muscle :

a. Intense Exercise Sessions

b. Short Exercise Sessions

c. Frequent Exercise Sessions

a. Intense Exercise

It’s important that you not start out with a preconceived idea of how many reps you are going to do in a set. The idea is not to accomplish a number. The idea is to challenge your body.

If you can do ten, there is no point in stopping at five. Unless you force your body to do as many reps as possible, it will not develop new  muscle . Exercise intensely!

b. Short Exercise Sessions

It’s better to train intensely for very short periods of time. Your body will get more benefit from short but very intense  muscle   building  exercise sessions than longer periods of not-so-intense sessions.

c. Frequent Exercise Sessions

A short exercise session done frequently is a more results generating regimen than infrequent long exercise sessions. Your body develops more  muscle  more quickly if you exercise intensely for fifteen minutes at a time, four times a day, than it will if you exercise not-so-intensely during a one hour session each day.

The bottom line here is; exercise intensely (do ALL of the reps you can push your body to do of each set), exercise for short periods of time, and exercise frequently. That’s what been PROVEN to  build  the most  muscle  as quickly as possible.

If you, like me, have been searching the internet for reliable, professionally backed up information relating to bodybuilders nutrition then hopefully after reading my short article you will know where to find the best, most accurate information relating to bodybuilders nutrition. Diets/nutrition are all the same concept but a very difficult subject in the bodybuilding world and the internet creates masses of SCAMS designed to get you to buy useless products. I personally am sick of coming across statements such as “Gain 50 Pounds in 30 days” as if anyone really believes these statements because if they were true then we wouldn’t be here speaking about bodybuilders nutrition if we could just bypass this most important part to building lean muscle.

The product I am relating to (that I was lucky that I read an article like this that pointed me in the right direction) is one that is backed up by a nutrition expert along with also being an expert in the bodybuilding world with over 20 years of experience his name is Will Brink. He has taught very important forces such as the SWAT about bodybuilders nutrition, weight training and supplement use – so if they listen then I certainly will and hopefully you will share the joys of this guys knowledge. Click the link in at the bottom of the page labeled Bodybuilders Nutrition by my name to take you to my dedicated review page.

This guy will teach you things about nutrition that you probably would never even relate to a bodybuilders nutrition unless you have been in his exclusive members club. Learn how to eat to optimise your bodies natural muscle increasing hormones – Not that complicated at all when you know how and no need to drastically change what you eat when you know this and no need to supplement either if you get this right. Something really amazing you will learn when you are a member as follows.

Read this statement: Discover the three main factors that determine whether you gain muscle mass or not – (These are all related to diet & nutrition) We can control two of them which is enough to get the results you want (they produce major improvements in lean muscle).

Above is one of the best and completely different concepts I have personally and a lot of my bodybuilding friends have ever heard of a “Big Secret” in the building muscle world, it is truly outstanding when you read about it, it makes bodybuilders nutrition very easy to understand.

To conclude if you follow in the footsteps of an amazing professional you will get the body you strive for as bodybuilders nutrition is very closely related to weight training. Usually any professional help is very expensive but really less than $50 (far less than I spend on a tub of decent protein powder. He also reviews all the major protein powders out there). Not only do you get his nutrition but you also get a whole host of excellent products free of charge. For all of what you get please view my dedicated web-page which reviews his product as my number one and similar other products. Click the link in at the bottom of the page labeled Bodybuilders Nutrition by my name.

Real, rapid weight loss comes from a combination of diet, exercise and sheer determination.

As much as we’d like to believe it, there is no instant program that will hack off the poundage within a day or two. Nope, our bodies just don’t work that way.

However, there are ways to optimize cardiovascular exercise over a short period of time so you see the results you want quickly. Here are three tips:

 Tip  #1. Figure out the best cardio  workout  scheme for you. Our bodies are not created equal – you probably know this already if you browse fashion or bodybuilding shows every now and then.

You can find several online tools to track  workouts  that will help you record your body measurements and fat percentage (body mass index), monitor your  workouts  and nutrition intake. Being aware of this information can help you monitor the effectiveness of the different levels of exercise that you do. You will be better able to tell whether fat is burned or muscles are developed from particular  workout  intensities.

This knowledge is especially useful in that it will help you to pinpoint the fat burning exercises that work best for your body.

A key point you will want to be aware of is that low intensity cardio  workouts  do burn fat. However, you need to build up to that optimum heart rate, and maintain it – the entire process takes longer than it would for a high intensity cardio  workout  to get the same results. Of course you will need to exert yourself more to perform high intensity cardio  workouts  – and you will feel the burn.

Tip #2. Mix it up. There’s no rule that says you must stick to either only the low or the high intensity  workouts  to get the best results. In fact there are several physical trainers who recommend programs that alternate low intensity  workouts  with high intensity  workouts .

You can also mix up the two intensity levels within the same  workout . You can push yourself at the beginning of the  workout , quickly reaching high intensity, and then slow down once your heart rate is at the desired pace, maintain that heart rate / intensity for longer than you would be capable of maintaining high intensity exercises.

Tip #3. Have fun. The cardio  workouts  that achieve the best results are those that keep things interesting. Most people think of working out as a chore, which is why so many never reach their fitness goals.

Don’t fall into a boring routine; pound the treadmill one day and play two sets of tennis on another, mixing up your high and low intensity  workouts  in the process. If you’re falling asleep on your stationary bike, keep your mind occupied by reading a book or watching TV. You won’t realize you’ve been exercising for over an hour when watching your favourite show while skipping rope or jumping on a trampoline.

To achieve optimum results for rapid weight loss, pair your exercise regime with a balanced diet – and know when to eat to aid your cardiovascular activities. For higher intensity  workouts , have some protein in your system but make sure to eat two hours before the exercise and then not again till an hour after. That hour is actually when your body burns fat and eating anything will distract this process.

Also, keep your metabolism up by eating small meals throughout the day instead of three large meals. Diet, exercise and sheer determination – your tools to rapid weight loss that’s both safe and successful.

For most people training legs is something they would just like to skip. I know plenty of guys that ignore leg training and spend all their time performing muscle building workouts on their upper body. This type of training will eventually hinder your total upper body mass because there is only so far that your body will let you go out of proportion. If you have a low tolerance to pain or don’t care about having skinny legs you should go read another article. Here is a workout that you can do for 5 to 6 weeks and it will add an entire inch or more to your legs. I used it once for 5 weeks to gain 1 1/4 inches on my legs.

I’ve shown this workouts to many others and the ones that stuck with it all made the same type of gains. If you want to shock some quick growth on your legs then you need to try this. One thing you need to be ready for is being sore for 5-6 days and then by the time it’s time to do the workout again the soreness will be gone so you are going to spend the next month walking funny. You know what they say, no pain no gain! You want you your muscle building workouts to give results don’t you?

This is a simple workout that is going to completely exhaust your thighs so don’t let its simplicity fool you. It focuses on gaining raw strength and has an element for maximum hypertrophy. Here is the plan –

Leg Press Machine – first you need to thoroughly warm up your joints. Do a couple sets with very light weight for 12 to 15 reps. Then you are going to perform a pyramid from 10,8,6,4,2 reps. Increase the weight each set and pick a weight that allows you struggle to get that last rep. You are going to need to rest a full 2 minutes on sets 1,2, and 3 and then a full 3 minutes between sets 4 and 5 when you are doing the lower repetitions.

Leg Press Triple Drop Set – This could be the most painful thing you have ever tried in your life. You may have done drop sets with biceps or shoulders but doing a triple drop set with a leg exercise is something completely different. You are working with your largest muscle group in your entire body so the pain and lactic acid buildup is going to be immense. You need to push through this set and enjoy the painful burn. Think about the guaranteed results you will have by following muscle building workouts that are proven to deliver.

For those of you that don’t know what a triple drop set is here is what you do. Put the weight back on the leg press that you used for 10 reps. Go to complete training failure with that set and then strip off about 50% of the weight. Then rep out as many more as possible without resting between sets. Once you get to failure strip off another 50% of the weight. Keep repping them out with even the smallest weight until your legs don’t move anymore. This is going to hurt but will provide you with the stimulation that will guarantee new leg growth.

Light Squats – Yes the dreaded squat. Leg muscle building workouts wouldn’t be complete without squats! Did you really think you were going to be so lucky as to see a leg workout that didn’t include squats? I call these light squats because now your thighs are so pre-exhausted from that triple drop set that you will need to use a very light weight. Pick a weight where you can do only 8 to 10 reps. You are going to do 3 sets to failure with 2 minutes rest in between sets. Go slightly past parallel so that you can get some good glute activation.

Leg Extensions – 1 triple drop set. That’s it, you don’t need more than 1 set here.

Leg Curls – 1 triple drop set. Push this as hard as possible and make your hamstrings scream!

This workout will take about 30 to 35 minutes and is all you need. Muscle building workouts should be short and intense. Don’t stick around and try to make a half baked attempt at doing some calf work or anything else. If you did this workout truly with 100% effort and taking those drop sets to the max you won’t have anything left mentally to work any other muscles.

This is very taxing so I suggest taking some BCAA’s pre workout to help reduce muscle breakdown and you absolutely must take in 40 to 50 grams of whey protein within 30 minutes of this workout so you can start to recover. Don’t waste time killing yourself in the gym doing crazy muscle building workouts if you don’t plan on taking in the nutritional components that your body needs to grow.

The 5 Factor  diet  is the newest  diet /weight loss craze in Hollywood. Celebrities are swearing by this plan, which was created by Harley Pasternak. With the number five as the basis, the plan centers around five meals a day and five workout sessions containing five exercises each.

Participants eat five meals each day. They need to be low in fat and calories. Protein is included in each meal in the form of lean cuts of meat. Any carbohydrates in the meal need to rank low on the glycemic index scale. Lower glycemic numbers add up to a more stable blood sugar level.

Fiber is also a component of each meal. There are two types: soluble and insoluble. The insoluble fiber will wash out of your system but it will also take a bit of the fat from the meal along with it. That’s a great bonus. Drinking water before a meal helps you consume less food. Water flushes out the body. Think of it as giving yourself an internal shower.

Each meal takes five minutes to prepare and has no more than five ingredients. Sounds impossible, doesn’t it? Most people probably don’t actually time the preparation of their foods and preparing the meals may take longer. The most important thing to remember is to prepare your food with care in order to be sure it turns out correctly. Another tip for cutting back on the time it takes to put a meal together is to prepare the foods ahead of time.

With this  diet  plan, meals should not be skipped. Going for a long period of time between meals causes the body to store fat instead of burn it. Starvation mode kicks in and the body will fight you for those fat deposits that you want to get rid of. Eating several times a day, like the 5 Factor  Diet  advises, increases metabolism and fat loss.

The 5 Factor  diet  has a built-in “cheat day”. One day a week participants can eat favorite foods that they have eliminated from their  diet  due to the plan’s requirements. Although the  diet  allows for this exception, the principle of five meals a day and the components of each meal should still be enforced.

The exercise portion of the 5 Factor  diet  includes activity five days a week for twenty-five minutes a day. Dieters can visit the 5 Factor  diet  website for exercise plans and suggestions. The plan was developed for celebrities that need to get in shape in a hurry for appearances and movie roles, but has been passed on to the rest of us.

The website contains sample meal plans, menus, dining guides, customized eating and exercise plans, journals, and much more. Dieters are not left to their own devices with this with this particular  diet  plan. There will be a learning curve, as with just about any  diet  plan, as you get started but that is no reason to quit.

A few drawbacks, but definitely not reasons to avoid the 5 Factor  diet  include:

• Those of us who are not celebrities probably won’t have access to a personal chef, but meal planning ahead of time will aid in helping find the time to prepare 5 meals a day.
• Most people also don’t have access to a personal trainer and can’t visit Harley for a personal training session.

The plan lasts for you guessed it, five weeks. After that time, participants have a grasp of the principles of the plan and hopefully have lost their cravings for high calorie and high fat and sugar content foods. The cheat day helps dieters to stay committed to the plan during the five week period.

Any body building workout routine should be approached with the understanding of your specific goals for the time you spend working out. A workout routine for a 22 year old former college football player will be vastly different from a 42 year old former high school football player not to mention those of us who never spent any time on the gridiron.

If you are significantly overweight, extra emphasis should be placed on fat-burning aerobic exercise such as bicycle riding, walking, jogging or running, Nordic track skiing or even rowing. These exercises are excellent for getting your heart rate up to around 65% of your maximum capacity which is generally understood to be the perfect level for burning fat.

The formula for maximum heart rate is 220- your age. A 40 year old’s maximum heart rate would be 220-40 or 180 beats per minute.

Modern gym equipment can be programmed to maintain your heart rate by varying the resistance while you exercise, making this an almost no-brainer. Just plug in your age, weight, duration of workout and the machine will keep you going.

That being said, larger muscles burn more calories, so, muscle gain should not be ignored.

A completely different body building workout routine would be more appropriate for someone with only a few pounds to shed (or even pounds to gain) and would focus more on resistance training or weight lifting.

For those of you who wish to bulk up, add muscle mass to your body, you would want a body building workout routine that utilizes heavier weights and fewer repetitions, gradually adding weight over time as you become bigger and stronger.

People who wish to tone up their bodies without increasing the size of their muscles should follow a workout routine that focuses on higher repetitions of lower weights, adding more repetitions as you become leaner and stronger.

Two important components of any body building workout routines that cannot be ignored are proper rest and proper nutrition. Proper rest between exercises for the same muscle group, [two days would be the minimum I would recommend (others may differ)] will allow your muscles to repair themselves and reduce the occurrence and duration of soreness. Nutrition is vitally important in supplying your body with the proper ratio of nutrients necessary to fuel your workouts and build your muscles in addition to reducing your subcutaneous layer of fat so that you can see and admire (and show off) your new grown muscles.

These are the vital parts of any workout routine.

What is a muscle building diet? For some, it may mean cutting down all fatty food intake to ensure a firm body figure. Others may say that it consists of the proper choice of foods to ensure that you take in what you burn and you have the raw materials for your body to start repairing itself.

In this article however, we will focus on the important nutritional strategy before and after the tedious workout that people do. People usually don’t eat enough prior to extreme exercises and they eat more than adequate after the workout. This in turn will become an imbalance that will result in rendering all the efforts of your workouts useless.

In short, there must be an approximated 1.5 hours or an hour and 30 minutes of preparation time before you engage in your workouts and the same amount of time to be observed after the said workout. Given that your workout will span for an hour, you will have a total of 4 hours to be considered as your critical hours. It is termed critical because it is during these hours that your body is most sensitive to its nutrient needs and where muscle usage is at its peak.

Regarding eating before starting your workout, this preparation time is basically packing up all the necessary carbs that your body needs for the upcoming stresses that you are about to place on it. Being one of the most important meals, eating before your workouts must be done so as to ensure that your body can actually burn something during the rigorous periods of your tiring fitness hour. If your body has nothing to utilize as energy, your body’s natural and immediate response is the breakdown of the stored energy sources in your body. It could have been better if you have eaten something beforehand so as there is no chemical conversion done within your system.

Your nutritional intake before the workout need not be a special one. What you usually take in during an ordinary meal can suffice your pre-workout meal requirements. However, it is important to observe the 1.5 preparation time. This means that meals must not be taken immediately before a workout. It is advisable if you take in food about an hour or the better if 1.5 hours before starting the exercises. This will give your body ample time to break down the food you took and use them as energy. There will be no other unnecessary chemical conversions needed to power up your system.

A good food choice may include the ones that are considered as proteins and complex carbohydrates to ensure that your body will be supplied with energy during the entire course of the workout. Simple carbohydrates, like fruit juices, can also be taken preferably as a drink to give the body some emergency nutrient source when needed.

Lastly, regarding your muscle building diet after the workout, what matters is the quality of food taken and not the quantity. Because your body needs to have the perfect recipe so that it can rebuild the muscles that were torn or broken in the process of the exercises, you need to take in about a quarter of your entire daily caloric intake to serve as your post-work out meal. Make sure that you include a good protein source in this meal because proteins are the building blocks of the muscles.

The key point to consider is the timing when you eat. It is advisable to eat within the 1.5 hours of post-workout time. However, the sooner you have the ingredients for muscle repair, the earlier the rebuilding process will commence. A good sports drink may be a good beverage to start with. All in all, eat freely and don’t be anxious of becoming fat if you eat excessively after workouts because this is the time when your cells are literally hungry!