These bodybuilding tips for beginners are intended for newbies that are about to embark on this quest to build muscle. Every bodybuilder has made mistakes but eventually overcame them to add muscle to their frame. Trainees will continue to make mistakes in their training but these tips will help minimize them.

There Are No Shortcuts
Aside from taking drugs, there are no short cuts in bodybuilding. For the person with average genetics, it takes years to build quality muscle. Don’t expect to gain 30 lbs of lean mass in a year unless you’re in the midst of a growth spurt. The key to gaining muscle is hard work, consistency, proper nutrition, and intelligent supplementation. If you plan to build a physique that turn heads, plan to be in this for the long haul.

There Are No Magic Pills
This is one of the most important bodybuilding tips for beginners, especially teenagers. The purpose of supplements is to SUPPLEMENT good nutrition and training. Each year supplement companies produce the next greatest supplement promising to add X amount of muscle in Y weeks. Each year, these wonder supplements are replaced by the next greatest thing. There are great supplements on the market but they will not perform miracles. If a fat burner promises to shed fat without changing your eating habits, leave it on the shelf!

You Must Be In a Caloric Surplus to Gain Muscle

One of the biggest mistakes I see beginners make is trying to stay super lean while gaining muscle. There are blessed individuals that can gain muscle while maintaining a chiseled six pack but the majority of trainees don’t fall in that category. To gain muscle, you must consume more calories than your body uses. If you do this correctly, the excess calories will be used to build muscle. Unfortunately, some of this new muscle will be accompanied by fat gain. This is NOT an endorsement to get fat (over 15% bf) but don’t expect to be super lean while in a gaining phase.

Genetics Play a Huge Role

Don’t you hate that guy that can eat McDonalds and pizza everyday and not gain a pound? Or that guy that barely touches a weight and seems to gain muscle quickly? That is genetics. Thanks Mom and Dad! Every individual has to play the hand he was dealt. If you have a high metabolism and can’t seem to gain muscle no matter what you do, you better start eating A LOT, everyday. If you seem to gain weight by just looking at a cheeseburger, you better cut back on the carbs, buddy! Your calves won’t grow? You need to train them almost every day.

You Need to Get Stronger

This is one of the bodybuilding tips for beginners that most trainees don’t understand. Bodybuilding is about looking good and building larger muscles. With this in mind, most newbies go to the gym and hit set after set with little regard for strength. Your muscles need a reason to get bigger. If you are constantly exposing your muscles to the same stimulus (weight), it has no reason to get bigger. If you are constantly trying to add weight to the bar, your muscles will need to grow in order to handle the extra weight. You don’t need to train like a powerlifter but your goal should be to handle more weight in a rep range conducive to building muscle.

These are a few bodybuilding tips for beginners. Many beginners keep making these same mistakes. Mistakes aren’t entirely bad because it is part of learning how your body responds to different things. Hopefully these tips will minimize the mistakes you make.

If your a skinny guy, is it possible for you to gain muscle? You try to gain muscle with little success. You look into the mirror day after day wondering if you are doomed to stay skinny forever. It’s not through a lack of trying, however you spend much time focusing on the wrong things.

Many skinny guys know the latest training programs and latest supplements promising to build tons of muscle but lack knowledge in the one thing that will make the most difference when trying to gain muscle: NUTRITION!

Proper nutrition can make or break any great training program. In the case of he skinny guy, Your likely not eating enough calories to stimulate muscle growth. Your body needs nutrients to build muscle as muscle can’t be built from thin air. You must eat enough to gain weight consistantly to put on muscle.

Naturally skinny guys have fast metabolisms therefore you will have to consume more calories than the average person. If you aren’t gaining weight, you’re just consuming enough calories to survive and perform your daily activities. Skinny guys must consume more calories than needed for their normal activities to gain muscle.

In order to gain weight, you must realize that you’re not eating enough. Most skinny guys will tell you that they eat all day long but if you were to calculate their daily totals, you’ll soon realize you are under eating. The you goal is to eat enough calories to gain weight but not add excess fat in the process.

To start gaining weight, you should keep a log of everything you eat for about a week. I suggest setting up a free account at Fitday.com Add the total calories consumed over the week and divide by 7. This will give you your average daily calories. If you don’t want to keep a food log, you can multiply your bodyweight by 15 (or 18 if you are really skinny) to give you a rough estimate of the calories needed to maintain your bodyweight. Each week, you should add 500 calories to your daily calorie total. For example, if you kept a food log and calculated you ate 1800 calories a day, you should bump your calorie consumption to 2300 per day. You should add 500 calories each week until you start gaining weight. Once you find your calorie “sweet spot”, you should maintain this calorie amount until muscle gains begin to plateau. When your muscle gains begin to plateau, and an extra 250-500 calories unitl your weight starts to go up.

Skinny guys gain muscle by eating the right foods. Your diet should consist of adequate protein, complex carbohydrates, and fats. Because you have a fast metabolism, you can probably get a way with eating junk without sabotaging your muscle gains but it’s not recommended you live off of McDonalds, Wendy’s, and Burger King. Most trainees looking to gain weight should eat 1-2 grams of protein per pound of body weight. You can get this protein from whole foods or protein shakes. You shouldn’t be afraid to consume fats as some of them are actually good for you. Just keep saturated and trans fats to a minimum. The bulk of your calories should come from complex carbohydrates.

Skinny guys gain muscle by training hard and eating enough calories to grow and not by looking for the next magic potion to come out on the market. If you believe you are eating enough but still can’t gain weight, you need to re-evaluate you daily calorie consumption.

If you’ve been working out for some time, then it’s extremely significant to change your workout after sometime, so that you can get explosive muscle growth; as workouts which are consistently the same will never give you the kind of rapid muscle growth that you want to see. But, before you just change your workout completely, there are a few things to be taken into consideration, and one of them is, that you don’t have to completely do a 180 on your workout and start doing things which you don’t normally do, but rather you just have to change a few key things which you should normally be doing in your workout already. Read on to find out how you can turn your workout into an explosive muscle building session….

Switching the sets - Most people would be happy just switching from something like 3 sets of 10 to 4 sets of 8; or perhaps moving over from the flat bench to the incline, but these are normal changes which come with your workout over time. If you haven’t been switching your sets yet, then you haven’t been effectively challenging your body, and this is something you need to start doing as soon as possible if you have been working out for some time. As well, drastically switching your sets is not recommended, because the last thing you want is muscle strain. But rather, what you want is to challenge your body so that it reacts by rapidly building more muscle, and switching your sets is one effective way to do this.

Flipping your workout - Changing your workout so that you can maximize on muscle building and growth is known as flipping your workout, and it has a few variations. Switching your sets does not count as flipping your workout as its something you should regularly be doing in the first place, and it should still be done regardless of how you flip your workout, as its part of your regular routine. Here are a few variations on how to effectively flip your workout….

Last to finish first to start - By switching up the order of your workout, you can instantly get results, because you are not always working the same muscle groups at the same time. Keep in mind that your body can easily adapt to things, such as your workouts, so this is why changing the order of the things you do, can instantly help you to achieve better results. One of the easiest ways to do this is to simply do the last part of your workout first, such as calf work; and the last part of your workout, then, would be what you normally do first. This does not, however, mean that if you do any stretching or other prep things, that these will be last. Always do any prep first, and anything else that is not workout prep can be interchanged. What will happen once you alter your workout, is that you can completely change the stimulus of your body, but keep in mind that you will have to adjust the weights accordingly.

Mixing up your sets and reps - while most people get on a continuous routine of sets and reps which seem to make sense, what happens, once again, is that your body build resistance to your sets, and in turn you will get less from your workout. What you want to do then, is simply mix up your reps altogether. If you normally do 3 sets of 8, start doing 8 sets of 3! Reverse everything, and this will become a very useful variation to your workout, because your body will once again have to start building resistance, and resistance leads to faster muscle growth.