fatlossandmusclebuilding Blog

Gaining fat when trying to put on muscle is a big concern for many people. If you have worked hard to get yourself a nice little six pack, but then decided that you want to put on some more muscle, forcing yourself to over eat can be hard. The thought of losing that six pack, that you worked so hard for can be unbareable!

I came across this excellent post on Tom Venutos Burn the Fat Blog, which may interest you. He gives some great advice to do with the subject of gaining muscle without gaining too much fat. He mentions the importance of controlling your calorie intake, which is a vital factor in muscle growth. There is some great advice here, definately worth a look…

Hey Guys,

I wanted to talk to you today about a touchy subject in the bodybuilding/sporting world… Steroids.

Steroids are well known for their miracle affects on muscle growth. They have unfortunately become a widely used easy answer to building pounds of muscle. With all the seen to be positive affects of this ILLEGAL drug, people often ignore the negative affects that steroids can have. I am proud to say I have personally never used steroids and I never ever would!

I firmly believe that they answer to building the body that you dream of is to work hard work in the gym, and eat well. For those of you who have ever been, or still are tempted to use steroids, I just wanted to point you in the direction of this article on steroids. Here you can clearly see the dangers of using this drug. It lists the many possible side affects that can occur if you use this drug.

Train naturally to achieve muscle growth, although it may be tough at times, when you do achieve your goals (and you will if you put your mind to it) you can be proud to know that you have done it through hard work, not cheating using illegal drugs. Trust me you will feel a far greater sense of achievement!

I’m sure they I will have upset many drug enhanced bodybuilders with my comments, oh well sure they’ll get over it! You stay natural it is the best and safest way! Is getting big muscles really worth risking your health over?…

Who should train with weights…? In my opinion everyone should!

Weight training used to be shyed away from by everyone except bodybuilders and strongmen. It was thought that anyone else should keep away from lifting around heavy weights, as people associated weight lift with becoming muscle bound. Even professional trainers would keep their athletes clear of weight lifting in there training routines.

As advances in training techniques and more importantly research into weight training was made, the true benefits of training with weights was realised. It was discovered that training your muscles with weights can improve muscle tone, increase muscle size, increase strength, increase body weight and improve endurance. With these benefits being discovered, weight training soon became massively popular outside of  the bodybuilding world and into the main stream, from pro athletes and even the public. 

Now days almost every single athlete in any physical sport will have some sort weight training in their training schedules, in fact it is vital for them to complete at their highest possible levels.

The advanges of weight training should not only be used by athletes/sportsman. As mentioned the advantages of weight training include improved muscle tone, increase in muscle size, increase in strength, increase in body weight and improvement in endurance. If you are trying to improve your body, whether that is by building muscle or losing fat, weight training is essential. When trying to lose weight, or fat to be more specific, weight training will help prevent muscle loss that often occurs when people diet. The advantages of keeping muscle when you are losing weight are numerous. Maintaining and toning muscle whilst you are losing weight will prevent you from getting that scrawny, tired, unhealthy look to you. You often see people who have lost weight fast and look like a bag of bones! Also muscle actually burns calories! Even when you are resting your muscles burn calories, this will help in your fat loss.

Even if you are happy with the way you look and are not interested in altering the look of your body, weight training can still be an important part of your bodies well being. Having a strong musclular system can help reduce the likeliness of problems when you are older, including back problems. Through weight training you can build a strong core, which includes your lower back and abdominal muscles, which supports your whole upper body. This can reduce the chance of injury in every tasks, including mowing the lawn and even getting out of bed, you’d be suprised how many people injure themselves doing simple tasks.

So i’ll ask you again… ”who should train with weights?”…that’s right EVERYONE! Everyone can benefit from weight training, whether you are a professional athlete, a recreational athlete or even a none sporting person who wants to just stay healthy.  

I try and vary my blogs and cover as much information as I can on fat loss, muscle building and exercise and fitness in general. I have decided to add a chance for you to get some Q & A on my blog from now on. Hopefully this will allow me to help individuals with any questions or problems they may have with fat loss, muscle building and any exercise and fitness related questions. Anything from diet and supplementation to training advice, just send me your questions and I will try and get as many answered as possible. I post the replies on my blog pages so keep watching!

Send your questions to me at jallmark@fatlossandmusclebuilding.com I’ll do my best to answer as many questions as possible.

All the best,

Jon Allmark.

It is a much debated question, should you do cardio when you are trying to build muscle?

Some people claim that you should stay completely away from cardio if you are trying to gain muscle, some say that doing cardio whilst trying to gain muscle, but who is right?!

I think that firstly the following points must be considered:-

1. Are your cardio sessions planned around your resistance training, so as to still allow adequate rest for your muscle groups. For example if you train your legs on a Monday, you shouldn’t be running on a Tuesday. Your legs won’t be getting enough rest, and this may lead to over training.
2. To build muscle you must be overfeed, in other words consuming more calories than you are using up. You will have to allow for the fact that cardio burns up calories (energy), so allowance must be made in your diet to make up the burnt off calories.
3. Do you struggle to put on muscle? If you are someone who finds it hard to put on muscle, then it may pay to leave out the cardio and concentrate on the resistance training aspect of training. Cardio will not build up muscle, it is the resistance training that will do that.

So in short my answer would be if you can fit in cardio without overtraining, and you are able to consume the amount of calories that you need to build muscle then it is fine to carry on with cardio training. If you are finding it hard to gain weight, then it is a good idea to reduce or even eliminate your cardio training while in a muscle building phase. When you have reached your target weight, or have reached the end of your muscle building phase, you can add back in your cardio as normal.