The Truth About Building Muscle And Burning Fat

By Sean Nalewanyj
Natural Bodybuilding Expert & Best-Selling Fitness Author
www.MuscleGainTruth.com

I receive emails everyday from aspiring lifters all over the world, and one of the most common questions I’m asked is…

“Do I have to join a gym in order to build a strong, muscular body?”

The answer, my friend, is no. With the right equipment and planning you can follow an equally effective bodybuilding program from the comfort of your home without ever having to set foot in a gym.

In fact, my first 2 years of bodybuilding were spent working out with basic equipment in my basement, and I saw incredible results doing this.

Maybe you can’t afford a gym membership due to your financial situation.

Maybe you lead a busy lifestyle and would prefer to save time by training at home.

Maybe you’re simply too embarrassed or uncomfortable to train in a regular gym setting at the moment.

Whatever your reason, don’t worry!

I currently workout at a gym with my training partner but have to say that my years spent lifting at home were fantastic.

I didn’t have to worry about the travel time to and from the gym. I could simply slip downstairs whenever I felt like it and all of my equipment was there waiting for me.

I could listen to whatever music I wanted to, as loud as I wanted to without having to worry about those around me.

I could grunt, yelp and scream through my sets if I was in the mood without disturbing anyone (hey, squatting to failure isn’t easy okay?) or train shirtless if I felt like it.

When the workout was over, I could sprawl out on the floor in exhaustion and know that my post workout shakes were just a few steps away, and that I wouldn’t have to hobble to my car and spend anymore time driving home.

It was great.

The only real disadvantage is that your exercise selection will decrease because you won’t have access to certain pieces of machinery such as a leg press or calf machine. You can purchase certain machines if you have the money to spend and plan on training at home over the long term, but for the majority of people this simply won’t be possible.

The good news is that planning out a proper bodybuilding routine does not require the use of any fancy equipment, and all of the machine exercises that you would regularly perform can be swapped for freeweight substitutions.

Here is the basic equipment that your home gym should contain:

1) An adjustable barbell with freeweight plates – A cast iron set is probably a good idea, and you must also make sure that you purchase enough weight so that you can continually progress from week to week.

2) Adjustable dumbbells – This is much more efficient and cost-effective than purchasing an entire set of dumbbells. You should be able to buy the barbell and dumbbells together in a single set.

3) A bench with incline adjustments – A good sturdy bench is a must-have for performing bench presses and other seated movements. If possible you should purchase a bench that can be set on an incline and that also contains safety catches if you plan on training alone.

4) A chin-up bar – These can usually be purchased for 15-20 dollars and can be placed inside of a door frame.

5) A squat rack – This is usually the trickiest piece of equipment to purchase, as a full squat rack can be pricey. Squats are an irreplaceable movement and should always be a part of your workout routine, especially if you don’t have a leg press machine handy.

If you can’t afford a squat rack then you’ll have to be creative. The bottom line is that you must have some sort of apparatus that will allow you to safely unrack a loaded bar and drop the bar onto a safety catch (or the floor) if your strength gives out during the lift.

Don’t ever squat without a safe place to drop the bar! Most full squat racks will also provide a chin-up bar on top, so you can kill 2 birds with one stone if you decide to purchase one.

So there you have it; the 5 pieces of basic equipment that are needed to set up a home gym. As long as you have these basic tools in your arsenal you can perform an equally effective workout without ever having to join a traditional gym.

If you’re all set to go and need a highly effective, step-by-step workout routine to follow, visit www.MuscleGainTruth.com. I can teach you exactly which exercises to perform and the ideal number of workout days, sets and reps you should use to get maximum results from your efforts. I can even customize a specific workout plan for you based on the equipment that is available in your home gym.

About The Author

Once an awkward, pencil-necked “social reject”, Sean Nalewanyj is now a renowned natural bodybuilding and fat loss expert, best-selling fitness author, and creator of the wildly popular online muscle building program, “The Muscle Gain Truth No-Fail System”. Learn how to build muscle and gain weight in just 24 minutes a day by visiting: www.MuscleGainTruth.com.

Sean is also the owner and operator of the web’s premier muscle building and fat loss support community, currently accepting new members at www.SchoolOfMuscle.com.

Note to the reader: You are free to reprint and redistribute this article as long as the content is not altered in any way, the links remain live and the author resource box (including this message) is left intact.

By Sean Nalewanyj
Natural Bodybuilding Expert & Best-Selling Fitness Author
www.MuscleGainTruth.com

With so much hyped up information and bogus “breakthrough” exercise methods popping up all the time, most lifters seem to have lost sight of the basics.

While the basics may not be as flashy and exciting as what most of the “other guys” out there promote, they’ll pack raw muscle size and strength on to your body faster than any other method you’ll come across.

In this article I am simply going to list each major muscle group on the body, along with some basic tips for building that muscle as quickly and efficiently as possible. Nothing “revolutionary” or “innovative” here… Just the bare-bones truth about building muscle fast.

Let’s get right to it…

Chest

If you want to get the most bang for your buck and develop your chest as quickly as possible, then forget about flye movements such as the pec-deck, dumbbell flyes or cable crossovers. Instead, place all of your focus on the big basic pressing exercises such as barbell presses, dumbbell presses and wide-grip dips.

If you want to include a few flye movements here and there at the end of your chest workout then that’s fine, but your primary focus should be on consistently increasing the poundage on all of your compound pressing exercises.

Back

Use bent-legged barbell deadlifts as your primary back-developing exercise. There is simply no other lift out there that will pack more raw muscle size and strength onto your back and your entire body than the basic barbell deadlift.

It is extremely challenging and uncomfortable to perform, but the rewards are well worth it. It will work you from finger to neck to toe, and if you haven’t been deadlifting up to this point, be prepared for some serious gains once you start.

Shoulders

Laterals raises are fine to include to isolate the medial head of the shoulder, but the meat and potatoes of any effective shoulder training routine is based on a compound overhead press.

Either perform a standing or seated military press with a barbell, or an overhead press using dumbbells. This should be the first exercise in your shoulder routine, with side laterals being performed at the end.

The front and rear heads of the shoulder receive plenty of stimulation during your chest and back exercises and therefore do not need to be specifically isolated.

Biceps

Cut down on your training volume and understand that the majority of your bicep growth is actually a product of hard and intense back training. Heavy chin-ups, pulldowns and rows all provide plenty of stimulation for the biceps, and direct curling movements are far less important than most people think.

Including a few sets of direct bicep work is still recommended, but going too far overboard can easily over train them and will actually slow down your bicep growth rather than speed it up.

Triceps

The same thing goes for triceps as well. Any time you perform a compound chest pressing exercise or an overhead shoulder press, your triceps will be heavily stimulated. Because of this, performing direct tricep isolation exercises should be done so cautiously and with only a small number of sets to prevent over-working them.

Abs

Since spot reduction is impossible and you cannot target fat loss from specific areas of the body, stop placing so much emphasis on the idea of achieving “6-pack abs” through the use of direct abdominal exercises.

Attaining defined and sculpted abs is mostly a product of your bottom line body fat percentage, and has very little to do with specific training techniques. Include a few sets of direct ab work for the sake of strengthening your core and building up the abdominal muscles themselves, but performing endless sets of situps and crunches is nothing more than a waste of time.

Quads

If you aren’t performing a basic barbell squat as the cornerstone of your leg training routine, you’re missing out big time!

Squats are by far the most effective lower body exercise in existence, and by a good margin. Not only do squats provide serious stimulation for the muscles of the legs, but because they force the body to secrete greater amounts of powerful anabolic hormones (such as testosterone and growth hormone) they will increase your upper body size as well.

As the saying goes, “you ain’t squat ‘till you squat!”

Hamstrings

Leg curls should be included in your hamstring training routine, but the real secret to a massive set of “leg biceps” is the stiff-legged deadlift.

You can perform SLDL’s using a barbell or dumbbells, and not only will they pack size onto your hamstrings faster than any other lift out there, but they will strengthen your lower back and add size to your upper back as well.

Calves

If you really want those stubborn calves to respond, then stop worrying so much about “feeling the burn”, and instead focus on truly training your calves to the point of muscular failure.

Rather than slapping on an arbitrary amount of weight and pumping out 20-30 reps until it starts to hurt, load up as much weight as you can possibly handle for 8-12 high quality reps. Execute each rep in a slow and deliberate manner, squeezing at the top and using a full range of motion until you cannot perform another rep despite your best efforts to do so.

To learn more simple but powerful tips for maximizing your muscle size and strength gains, go ahead and visit www.MuscleGainTruth.com. You can instantly download my exclusive collection of online muscle-building video lessons, as well as gain access to my award-winning workout plans, meal plans, progress tracking tools and more.

About The Author

Once an awkward, pencil-necked “social reject”, Sean Nalewanyj is now a renowned natural bodybuilding and fat loss expert, best-selling fitness author, and creator of the wildly popular online muscle building program, “The Muscle Gain Truth No-Fail System”. Learn how to build muscle and gain weight in just 24 minutes a day by visiting: www.MuscleGainTruth.com.

Sean is also the owner and operator of the web’s premier muscle building and fat loss support community, currently accepting new members at www.SchoolOfMuscle.com.

Note to the reader: You are free to reprint and redistribute this article as long as the content is not altered in any way, the links remain live and the author resource box (including this message) is left intact.