Do body building supplements work? This is a common question that many people may have when they walk into any health or nutrition store and see the large volume of powders, pills and other products that flood store shelves. Now, this is a very fair question to ask, but it is unlikely that anyone in the store will say that they offer a product that does not work!

However, people need to be realistic about what they expect body building supplements to be able to offer. They are not miracle products that will pack on 50lbs of muscle nor will they magically burn off 10lbs of fat. Body building supplements have their particular values, but these values and benefits are based on realistic nutrition and science and not over the top advertisements. Well, that is not entirely accurate. Often, the advertisements and their claims act as substitutes for actual science and this is unfortunate.

The Magazine Days

In the early days prior to the great expansion of nutrition shops all across the USA, virtually all body building supplements were sold via mail order through body building magazines. These ads were generally bombastic and promised that the person who took the supplements would develop a body builder physique of massive dimensions. Now, this is a bit of a stretch! However, within the hyperbole was some truth – these supplements are helpful. However, they will not pack on a massive amount of unrealistic muscle. So what is it the body building supplements will actually do?

The Supplements

Different body building supplements do different things. In general, however they are designed for building mass and reducing fat. In terms of mass building, there are those supplements that increase testosterone production, there are creatine supplements that help the muscle retain water, there are supplements that aid in providing significant calories without excess fat and then there are those protein supplements that aid in the repair of muscle after a hard workout. The fat loss supplements either suppress appetite or they speed up heart rate to burn more calories.

While this may seem somewhat mundane it is because it is an explanation of what these products actually do without any hyperbole that attempts to sell a particular product. While this is not over the top, it is accurate and accuracy is what you want when selecting a product. Or would you prefer to take the word of a nutty over the top ad campaign instead?

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If there ever was a true legend in the sport of body building it would be the legendary Lou Ferigno. In the 1970’s, Ferigno was a true rags to riches story as he came from humble origins to worldwide fame as a bodybuilder and then to even greater fame in his endearing portrayal of the titular green monster in the classic television program THE INCREDIBLE HULK.

While some may be familiar with Lou and his work, they may not be all that familiar with his background which may prove to be quite interesting even to those who do not follow the sport.

Early Years

Lou Ferigno was born in Brooklyn New York in the 1950’s and had the handicap of being deaf. Since attitudes towards the hearing impaired were not exactly progressive during this time period, Lou became somewhat withdrawn and isolated. While in his teens he would discover a new hobby in the form of weightlifting. Lou became enamored with this new hobby to the point of obsession. He would work out everyday and watch his diet religiously. In time, he would set his sights on competing in amateur body building competitions. He entered them and did well enough that he caught the eye of body building mogul Joe Weider who brought Lou into the fold of professional body building competition. Lou did extremely well in this new profession although he alternated his time between competing and working in construction as construction paid far more than professional body building! Lou would then become featured in the classic documentary PUMPING IRON, a documentary that would bring him to the attention of a number of Hollywo od producers.

The Hulk

When former James Bond villain Richard “Jaws” Kiel bombed as the Hulk during the first few days of shooting the pilot for the TV series, Ferigno got the call to play the green goliath. While few believed this series would be a hit, it turned out to be a colossal hit lasting many years on network TV and decades in syndication. Ferigno was now a bona fide worldwide star!

Ferigno no longer competes in body building these days as he is well into his retirement years. He does, however, appear at numerous competitions as a special guest and as a judge. He also signs autographs at comic conventions and meets with all his fans who have followed his career through the years. In terms of pop culture history, Lou Ferigno is a true icon and definitely one of a kind!

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Perhaps one of the most important keys to body building success is nutrition because it provides the fuel you need not only to survive but also to build muscle and provide energy. ‘

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For body builders, eating small frequent meals throughout the day will increase metabolism and prevent your body from feeding on muscle mass to maintain energy. You have the carbohydrate importance in body building as well to balance within a diet.

Role of Carbs

Carbohydrate importance in body building is significant as carbs are one of the most significant nutrients your body needs for energy. In fact, carbohydrates are your body’s primary source of fuel because it kick starts your pancreas to produce insulin, a hormone that plays a huge role in how proteins and fats are stored.

Insulin’s role in carbohydrate importance in body building is this: This hormone latches onto the carbs and will store them as fat or within the muscle. Plus, the insulin snatches the amino acids that make up protein and uses it for the rejuvenation and repair of muscle cells. It is important to eat the right amount of carbohydrates so that the body uses it as fuel rather than produce too much insulin and end up storing it as fat.

Types of Carbs

When talking about carbohydrate importance in body building, it should be noted that there are two types of carbs – simple and complex. The simple carbohydrates are those that give you an immediate energy release whereas the complex carbohydrates slowly release energy over a period of time.

The complex variety should be consumed throughout the day during your frequent mini-meals to keep you energized. The simple carbohydrates should only be consumed immediately after a workout when your energy stores are depleted and you need an immediate pick-me-up. As you can see, carbohydrate importance in body building can be a bit involved and requires in-depth knowledge of nutrition as well as what foods will provide the best energy bang at the appropriate times.

To give you an idea of the different foods out there that are considered simple carbs, here are a few suggestions: apples, bananas, grapes, pears and pineapple. Complex carbohydrates are many and can be split into two categories – fiber and starch. Some examples of these types of carbs include oatmeal, potatoes, rice, corn, broccoli, lettuce, mushrooms, spinach and peppers.

To accurately interpret carbohydrate importance in body building and strike a healthy balance in your daily diet, it is important to assess your training needs first so then your diet can be arranged to accommodate those needs. The frequency, intensity and duration of your workouts as well as your overall performance body mass goals all play a part in determining the overall carbohydrate importance in body building.

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Who says that you need to eat meat in order to succeed in body building? Vegetarians are not the stereotypical thin and gaunt images that you see portrayed in some public arenas.  Rather with complete understanding about nutrition, you can create a diet chock full of healthy essentials that could help support your vegetarian body building. There are many misconceptions about vegetarians which is the reason why many people don’t associate them with body building.

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Proteins Can Be a Problem

Many people believe that without eating the flesh of an animal, you will not be able to get enough protein and other essential nutrients. That is simply not true when it comes to vegetarian body building as you can easily get proteins from other food sources. Soy products, beans, various grains, eggs and dairy product provide plenty of muscle building proteins.

Of course, many vegetarian body building athletes are drink supplemental shakes with whey protein as well as other important vitamins and minerals like zinc, vitamin B12, iron and more.

While meat can provide those items, it doesn’t provide enough for the minimum daily allowances for body builders. The same applies with other foods that contain those essential vitamins and minerals. Supplements are important to get enough of the essentials that are lacking in any diet, vegetarian or not.

Cannot Build Strength or Muscle Mass

Vegetarians actually have a better chance of increasing their strength and size while on their meat-free diet. Vegetarian body building means exactly that – building muscle mass and strength based on a diet filled with fruits, vegetables and whole grains.

Eating meats can actually slow down your metabolism because it takes so much energy to digest it whereas with a vegetarian diet, your body actually speeds up its digestion.

Vegetarian body building means being creative with meals to ensure that you have plenty of vitamins and minerals represented in the foods you eat. Many body builders who abstain from meat have consulted with nutritionists to ensure that their diet as well as supplements provides what is needed to maintain and grow muscle mass.

Vegetarianism Not Healthy

Vegetarianism is actually quite healthy as seen by the much lower cholesterol and blood sugar counts that many vegetarian body building athletes can attest to! Many meats, even the lean ones have the presence of “bad” cholesterol or LDL which can raise cholesterol and therefore, blood pressure. In addition, trans fats and saturated fats are almost a thing of the past when dropping meat from the menu.

All the foods that vegetarians eat along with some supplemental items can more than provide all of the vitamins and minerals that your body needs to succeed at vegetarian body building.

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If you walk through any health or nutrition shop you will notice that there is a tremendous number of body building muscle supplement products on store shelves. The sheer volume of products is overwhelming and their popularity is quite strong.

While many people are familiar with the fact that these products exist, they may not be aware of how these body building muscle supplement products work. Unfortunately, because these products are in such fierce competition with one another they have a tendency to employ a ton of over the top advertisement campaigns so as to stand out in the marketplace.

Unfortunately, a number of these ad campaigns leave the false impression that there is a miracle out there that will maximize one’s ability to grow muscle.

The Truth

First, what must clearly be understood about these supplements is that no body building muscle supplement is a miracle product. There is no product that will magically burn fat and enhance muscle growth while eliminating that pesky need for working out.

Sure, there are a number of products with wild over the top ad campaigns that make these grandiose promises, but these products are less than honest and even less successful in terms of actually delivering what they promise.

The products out there that fall into the body building muscle supplement category are essentially one of two things known as mass gainers and whey protein supplements. A mass gainer is a drink that provides a massive amount of calories in liquid shake form so as to help someone who is having difficulty gaining weight the ability to gain weight without packing on fat.

What whey protein does is that it provides the body with quality protein so as to aid in the repair and growth of muscle after a solid exercise program. While this description of these products may make them sound mundane, it is also an accurate assessment.

Again, there is no body building muscle supplement that can provide any miracles so avoid looking for them. Instead, keep your feet grounded to the earth and look for those products that provide an honest and sensible result.

These products are not necessarily expensive and are generally quite effective. Of course, some brands are a little better than others and then there will also be issues of personal taste involved in the selection that you make. But ultimately if you stick with legitimate products you will achieve the results that you desire.

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Body building is a sport many people are not entirely familiar with mainly because they generally only hear about the results of contests and generally not about the actually training that is involved in such preparation for the contests.

Additionally, most people work out in gyms to keep in shape and generally follow the same workout all year round. When one is training for a body building competition there will be a need for two separate body building programs in order to achieve the ability to enter a contest.

These two phases will be clearly examined and explained herein. The body building programs are the off-season phase, the pre-contest phase and the contest phase.

Off Season Phases

The off season phase involves body building programs that center on mass building. That is to say, during this phase the goal is to get as huge as humanly possible and not worry so much about definition. Now, this weight gain must be primarily muscle because packing on excess fat will not do anyone any good.

It will simply make the pre-contest cycle significantly more difficult and that is a self-defeating venture. So, instead one needs to watch diet closely and to perform a significant volume of mass building exercises. That means the primary exercises to be performed during this phase will involve serious compound exercises such as military presses, bench presses, etc. This cycle usually runs several months and requires much consistency in order to effectively be undertaken.

Pre-Contest Contest Phases

The pre-contest phase is usually refers to the six to eight weeks that precede a competition and involve a “shredding” process where the goal to be achieved is definition of the muscles. This involves a significant amount of isolation exercises that target single body parts as well as a great deal of cardio…repeat…a great deal of cardio. Of course, the other area of consideration that is critical during this phase is diet.

Often, when people think of body building programs they often think of exercises as opposed to the quality diet that is the epicenter of all body building programs. No matter how hard a person works out or how much time they invest in exercise, all work will be completely thrown out the window if a poor and sloppy diet is employed. As such, it is critical not to eat poor quality foods or to eat any type of food at levels of excess that could prove self defeating.

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When it comes to the subject of amateur and professional body building, only the most naïve person would not acknowledge the prevalence of anabolic steroids in the sport.

Needless to say, there is a great deal of performance enhancing drugs in competitive body building, but also there are a number of people who prescribe to natural body building which is essentially a drug free approach to the sport of body building. Sadly, many people who are proponents of natural body building do not always get the credit they deserve in regards to the contributions to the sport.

Understanding Anabolics

So what exactly are anabolic steroids? These are drugs designed to increase the body’s ability to grow muscles by increasing the body’s ability to release growth hormones, reducing the amount of rest one needs in order to grow muscle, and allowing the body to exercise for significantly longer durations than what would be possible without the use of drugs or drug agents.

Needless to say, the physiques that these drugs create are more massive and more defined than what could ever be achieved with a natural body building physique. Of course, there are a host of negatives associated with anabolic steroids as well. For example, excessive use of steroids has been associated with a number of serious medical conditions such as heart disease, kidney failure and many other problems. As such, sticking with a natural body building program is much better for overall health and safety.

For the Hobbyist…

For the hobbyist, there is really no reason to use anabolic steroids. While there are many arguments for and against the risks associated with taking drugs for a profession in body building, for someone who is simply trying to get in shape or look good the risks associated with drug taking simply makes the risks not worth it. There is an old saying that many gyms use as a mantra: “It is better to feel good than to look good.”

This is a veiled reference to all the problems that are associated with the health issues that can derive from using steroids. If you are a hobbyist, then it is best to stick with natural body building because there are no risks associated with it. In fact, this is a healthy pursuit that can greatly increase a person’s quality of life. Why would anyone want to do anything different? Again, it is best to stick to the natural route.

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Legendary body building mogul Joe Weider once said that the true secret to body building success what found in the proper body building diet.

What Weider meant was that people who over eat and pack their body with fat ultimately harm all the benefits of body building because the lean, ripped look becomes impossible to attain.

Hence, if you eat the proper body building diet of low fat, high protein and decent carbs you will do ok. Now, while a body building diet will consume more calories than a common diet, there are certain considerations that also must be understood as well.

Basic Metabolism and Basic Myths

While it is true that a ton of calories eaten will be burned while working out, there will also be a metabolic calorie burning effect that will occur as well, but please keep in mind that it is wrong to over do it! The larger the mass of a person is, the more the person will want to eat more and more.

This is not a bizarre side effect it is simply a logical reaction the body will have to maintaining a significant volume of muscle mass. Keep in mind, muscle is significantly more dense than fat and this means that muscle will require more calories to maintain its size. This is why muscle bound people do not pack on fat when they increase their calorie intake – the muscles burn the calories by “eating” the excess calories. Now, that is often misunderstood by people as a green light to eat whatever it is they want and in massive quantities.

This is a huge fallacy of the body building diet. That is, you will increase your calorie intake…slightly…but if you increase it ridiculously then you will start to pack on a lot of fat on top of whatever muscle that you have. The resultant physique will make you look like someone who enjoys working out, but enjoys overeating more. That is hardly the type of physique to aspire!

As one can see, there is a great deal of common sense associated with the body building diet. Basically, if you eat quality food you can get away with eating a lot provided you have solid muscle mass. However, once you slip into the fallacy of eating whatever you want and in significant amounts that far exceed what you need, you will find yourself undermining your own goals. Now who would want that?

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Senior bodybuilding is an activity that can prove to be very beneficial because it helps to create a healthier senior person and it improves the condition of the heart.

It can even can prove to be a good means of prolonging life, and there is another advantage to senior bodybuilding and that is that it helps to make an elderly person look as much as ten years younger and thus contributes to feelings of well being as well as improves the confidence levels also.

Learn About The Best Means

There is also enough evidence to suggest that senior bodybuilding contributes to improved health, though it is still necessary to learn about the best means that will help form more muscle mass even though there is nothing novel in such means which everyone can try with good results as well.

There is nothing to suggest that senior bodybuilding is in any way different to what other people do though obviously there is a greater need to perform the bodybuilding exercises slower, and if suffering from health problems, should need to consult a doctor first.

For senior bodybuilding, it is still necessary to get professional advice first before proceeding any further, and in any case, it is always better to put safety ahead in everything that you do.

Once you are sure that you want to indulge in senior bodybuilding, it would mean lifting the right amount of weight that will cause your muscles to fail which would in turn require you to use more intensity which may even cause your muscles to tear or break down.

However, once your muscles heal, you will find them to have built up more muscle mass which would improve even further with the proper diet that includes taking of high amount of protein.

That in turn means eating a gram of protein for each pound of your body weight on a daily basis and though this is quite some amount of protein, you can still achieve your goal by taking protein supplements and in addition, also eat vegetables that help in the healing of muscles and so does eating of fruits.

Thus, despite the fact that there is no best method for senior bodybuilding, there is nevertheless need to lift the weights in an appropriate manner and in this regard you must always remember to wear a weight belt which will prevent hypertension and you should also lift weights when there is a spotter present who can help prevent you from hurting you.

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If anything were absolutely required in order to make body building workouts successful, it would be consistency. This is an absolute and those who do not approach their workouts with this in mind simply will not find themselves very successful in their goals.

 Now, this does not mean that a person needs to train every single day, twice a day, for six months in a row. If you are not specifically training for the Mr. Olympia contest then you probably will not want to go that route! However, if you are looking to get in shape, burn fat, build muscle and increase your health you will need to set aside a few days a week for your body building workouts and then you will need to make those workouts worthwhile.

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If your training is infrequent then results will either be minimal or they will be non-existent. If you want to succeed then you are going to need to invest the time that is required.

Four Day A Week Program

On a baseline level, if you are a beginner and you need some quality body building workouts to follow it would probably be best to dedicate four days a week for a mass building program.

During this four day a week program, it would be best not to hit any body part more than once a week and make the entire week a cross training routine that hits the entire body. Cross training here refers to mixing up exercises for body parts and does not necessarily refer to mixing cardio workouts into the routine, but if you did wish to add cardio there is nothing wrong with that at all.

While this may not seem like an elaborate workout program that is because it isn’t an elaborate one! Instead, it is a very simple program that is quite helpful and effective and can greatly aid in achieving one’s goals.

Additional Notes

If you can’t make it to the gym, however, you may wish to perform bodyweight exercises like pushups, chair dips, etc. These types of body building workouts may not have the same effectiveness as training with free weights, but they are definitely better than doing nothing at all.

Additionally, if you are sore and don’t feel like training…take time off. Yes, sometimes it is best to just take a little break as opposed to forcing yourself. This way overtraining and needless injuries will be avoided. Remember, it is always best to train properly and to train smart.

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