Natural Body Building Tips for Women [PART 3]

Cut Back Your Cardio

• If you want to gain more muscle mass, you need to cut down on your cardio exercise and spend more time performing resistance training (weightlifting). Adding more muscle mass will speed up your metabolism, as the new muscle tissue requires you to ingest more calories to maintain it. Too often, women spend hours and hours on exercise bikes or elliptical machines and count the calories burned. The problem with this is that after about 45 minutes of cardio, your body will begin secreting cortisol. Cortisol is a stress hormone. If your body produces too much cortisol, it will begin storing extra body fat because it thinks it is starving. As a result, try to limit your cardio sessions to 20 minutes.
  

Eat Enough Protein

• It is imperative that you eat enough protein, especially within 30 minutes of your workout. To help build the muscle mass that is needed for a successful body builder, you need to eat 1 gram of protein for each pound of body weight. Your body requires the protein so it can break it down into amino acids to build additional muscle tissue. For example, a 120-pound woman needs 120 grams of protein, and it is best to spread this amount over the course of five or six small meals throughout the day. You would need to eat at least 24 grams of protein for five meals each day to ensure muscle growth. The half hour window after a workout is most important because your muscles have been taxed, and your body is actively searching for amino acids. If you do not eat, your body will catabolize muscle tissue to get the amino acids, which is counter-productive to working out in the first place.
  

Bodybuilding Exercises

• One way to increase your muscle mass quickly is to perform compound exercises that work several muscle groups simultaneously. This allows you to work out more efficiently and shortens your workout time and allows for more rest. Pull-ups are an excellent exercise for building muscle mass on your back (lats), forearms, and biceps. Deadlifts are a muscle building exercise for anyone serious about body building. Deadlifts incorporate a large amount of muscle groups during each repetition. Muscle groups involved with deadlifts include: upper abdominals, back, legs, butt, hips and forearms. Dips are another simple exercise that provide big gains in muscle mass by training several muscle groups. In addition to the triceps muscles, dips also affect the back, chest, shoulders, and wrists. Try to do at least 3 or 4 sets of each exercise. By adding these compound exercises into your workout routine, you will grow your muscles larger and faster.