Arm Muscle Building » Muscle Man

How To Encourage Fitness For Kids

Tue, 04 May 2010 09:19:35 +0000

You might be a preteen yourself or have kids of your own. You might even know friends that do. In today’s world, with the easily available amount of distractions from physical fitness – including movies, video games and television programs, many children fail to get enough and it’s no surprise obesity is increasing (and is over 50% in some countries!).

You want to make sure that your children or the children you know are getting enough physical exercise as if they don’t they might have problems later in life. How to make sure they see exercise as a must and not a chore?

Make it fun.
Children hate doing things that are boring and most of them will have very short attention spans. By involving them in exercise that is fun, for example playing war games like paintball or laser tag, or even team sports like football and cricket, where they can interact with others, they will be more likely to want to participate in the exercise rather than miss out on an afternoon of fun.

Set a good example.
If you constantly tell your children to start doing some physical exercise but never do any yourself, they’re unlikely to listen much to what you say. If you do some exercise yourself that you can involve your children in, you can set a good example that they will follow for the rest of their lives.

Eat together.
Try and eat together when possible and avoid sitting in front of the television when doing so. When you eat as a family, you can make sure your children are eating right and show them that you’re eating the food they’re eating too. Try and avoid making things they dislike – a tasty salad could be appreciated a lot more than just plain boiled vegetables.
These three things will make sure your children maintain a healthy lifestyle and reap the benefits – both short and long term – of doing so.

Eat More Often To Maximize Your Muscle Building Efforts

Tue, 04 May 2010 09:16:01 +0000

Attempting to gain muscle means that you will be eating a lot of calories. However, what most people do not realize is that your body can only successfully use a certain amount of calories in every meal. Thus, to have the best possible results you should eat less at each meal and eat more meals every day.

A good number of meals you should eat is about six meals per day, roughly spaced out at 3 hour intervals. Don’t worry – each meal doesn’t have to be a full blown one like the normal breakfast, lunch and dinner in a three meal day – some meals may consist of just nuts or fruit. Your goal is to provide your body with a steady supply of nutrients during the day, which will mean you always have enough energy available for your body to use.

If you eat just three times a day, you have around five to six hours between each meal (maybe even more than that between lunch and dinner). This doesn’t just mean you’re wasting the calories in the meals that you do eat, as your body can’t assimilate them, but it also means that if your body starts to need energy it will begin to breakdown your muscle tissue. When you’re trying to build up muscle, eating three large meals a day can be counterproductive.

Try and have a weekly chart and stock up on foods so you always know what options you have for your small meals. This way you won’t have to go looking around for food when you’re hungry and you can make sure that you’re eating the types of food you like. Once you start with your new food schedule, your body will feel much better and you’ll wonder why you ever used to have three meals a day instead of six!

Why Do I Need Protein and What Can I Eat To Get It?

Tue, 04 May 2010 09:14:45 +0000

When starting your muscle building attempts, one of the things you’ll hear from friends and trainers is that you need to eat protein. Why do we need protein? It’s essential as protein provides the required amino acids that will help your body to build and repair muscle.

So without protein, it is impossible for your body to build muscle to bigger than it currently is. Now, the problem with protein is that people don’t know what to eat, or can’t fit it into their meal plans due to work, an inability to cook or other problems. This article will help you understand what kinds of food you can eat – that won’t cost you a tonne of money and are easy to make!

You should aim to eat some protein within half an hour to an hour after your workout. You don’t need to overeat, but you should aim to get a little into your system. What foods contain protein and are easy to get?

Meat, poultry and fish. Chicken, pork, beef, salmon and cod have lot of protein in them and best of all they taste great if cooked right.
What if you’re a vegetarian? Thankfully, not only meat contains protein.

Dairy products like milk, cheese (cottage, cheddar and mozzarella are good varieties) can help you build up your protein levels and are best had for breakfast. Talking of breakfast, you can also have…

Eggs are known for their high protein levels. Depending on how much muscle you want to build, you can have one a day or more. Check with your dietician on the specific number of eggs you should eat as it varies from person to person. Try and cook eggs in a healthy way – avoid having fried eggs too often but scrambled and boiled eggs are great for you.

Beans and Nuts. Sometimes you may want a little protein in between meals, in which case you can snack on beans (like soybeans and black beans) and nuts (like almond, cashews and peanuts).

Remember to keep your protein levels up. To build up your muscle, you should aim to intake at least one gram of protein per pound of body weight.