Smart & Effective Weight Lifting Tips

Here you will find simple yet highly effective Weight Lifting Tips to maximize your lifting session. Want to make the most of your time? Want to increase your muscle mass? Want to get cut? Let's get to it.

The 3 best Lifting Tips are:

1) Warm Up, Warm Down, and Stretch.

2) Consistently work different muscles.

3) Eat in a way that promotes muscle gain but fat loss.

Weight Lifting Tips: Right before and right after.

Before you hit those weights you must warm up. Taking just 3 minutes to warm up greatly reduces your chances of pulling or tearing a muscle when you start pumping iron and instantly increases the blood flow throughout your body making your Weight Lifting more effective.

Why?? Because this warms your muscles up. By walking straight into the gym and picking up a heavy weight you are asking to pull something. This is the last thing you want to do because this will limit your ability to work out and make more muscle in that area for a week or more.

Just simply walk at a fast pace on a treadmill for 3 minutes before you get to it.

Similarly warming down does the same exact thing. Your blood is pumping at a very high rate after weight lifting and you want to let your body down slowly. This promotes better stamina, better heart health, and wards off getting hurt.

Just head this simple advice and take the 3 minutes to warm down. Again just walking on a treadmill for 3 minutes at a quick pace is sufficient.

This may be the most important of the Weight Lifting Tips. STRETCH the muscles that you worked out immediately after warming down. You do not have to stretch the areas hard. Just lightly stretch in a couple of different positions using walls, a pole, a piece of equipment, anything. It only takes 5 minutes total. Stretch each muscle group for 30 - 45 seconds.

Why?? Your muscles are overextended but tightening back up. You caused thousands of microscopic tears and your muscles are releasing enzymes that promote muscle tightness.

You want to let them conform slowly.

This increases your future results and wards off injury for days to come.

If you do these 3 simple Weight Lifting Tips YOU Will see better results and dramatically decrease your chances of injury and lost work out time.

Take the 13 minutes it takes to do all three and you will be happy that you did.

Weight Lifting Tips: In the gym or weight room.

You want to work certain muscle groups with each other on the same day. The most effective combos are:

Day 1) Chest & Back

Day 2) Arms & Shoulders

Day 3) Legs

Stomach: You can do this 2 of the above days, doesn't matter which ones.

Here is one of the biggest Weight Lifting Tips : Always strive to find ways to work different muscles in the muscle groups you are focusing on.

Find 4 different ways for each muscle group/area using free weights, calisthenics, and/or machines. If you work the same muscles all of time you will not gain muscle!

Over the course of 2 weeks you want to cycle back to every exercise. You do not have to fit in every lifting exercise every week.

For example do a regular bench-press using a machine and an inclined press using free weights one day. Then the following week do the fly press on the cables and incline press on a different angle than the last time.

Then you can cycle back to the beginning. You are working 4-6 different areas of your chest in 2 weeks time.

Some people do the regular bench press multiple times a week and don't do anything else! There are many other muscles in your chest area that you could be working.

You will know if you used muscles that you usually didn't by experiencing soreness 24-48 hours after your lifting session.

When you are sore that means your muscles are repairing themselves and rebuilding stronger, making more muscle! You can be sore for up to a week in a certain muscle mass area.

Soreness will be felt less after the first 6 weeks of lifting.

DO NOT work out the muscles that are sore until they are done building. If they are still sore they are still growing. Let them take their course and you can work them when they are done repairing.

Weight Lifting Tips for Sets: You only have to do 2 sets of 7-10 repetitions for each exercise. You want to lift the maximum weight that you can achieve in 7-10 repetitions.

For instance if you are doing a chest exercise and can easily surpass 10 reps then you are not lifting enough weight. You want to constantly challenge your muscles to do more than they are used to. Here is one of the most important weight lifting tips : When doing your reps do them slowly. Doing reps slowly works more muscles doing the same exercise.

Don't use your body and back to do the reps. If you cannot do the reps in good posture without arching then decrease the weight until you can perform the 7-10 reps.

In-between each set get a little sip of water and walk around for a minute. To maximize my time your only wait about 1-3 minutes between sets.

You want to do a set of one muscle group (i.e. Chest) take a little break and follow up with the other muscle group (i.e. Back). Doing 6-8 total sets in one workout day is more than enough and may only take you 20-30 minutes!

Weight Lifting Tips: When you are out of the gym or weight room.

Let's get one fact out there before we go into the food and diet part of muscle building.

As reported in Fitness, Health, and Men’s Health magazines over the last 2 years: "You need to consume an Extra 500 calories every day in order to build a pound of muscle in a week". Notice the word Extra in bold.

Your body needs more calories and protein than it normally needs to maintain everyday to even have the ability to make muscle.

So if you usually consume 2400 calories a day you should be consuming at least 2900 calories a day just to make one pound of muscle in a week. A pound of muscle is 3500 calories.

Because of this when you are building muscle it is not the best time to be on a diet. It takes work to make muscle and it is a challenge to lose weight but doing both at the same time is very hard. This is key to the dieting portion of these Weight Lifting Tips.

It is a very fine line to achieve both at once because your body needs more calories when building muscle not less! It will take much longer to achieve the muscle building results you are looking for if you are trying to diet at the same time.

I recommend that you build up your muscle and when you are at the results you were looking for THEN start on losing weight. At least then all you have to focus on when you are on a diet is keeping the muscle mass you have already built up. See our other 2 popular articles: Tips for Losing Weight and Quick Weight Loss Tips.

You must have a proper muscle promoting diet to get good results in a reasonable amount of time. You can pump iron everyday for months, not give your body what it needs to make muscle and only see results half of what they would be if you were eating the right way.

Weight Lifting Tips for Eating:

Eating Tips #1 : You want to give your body as much protein as it can get. Protein is the most important part of your diet when you are trying to make and keep muscle.

Muscles tear through protein when rebuilding and becoming larger. They need a steady stream day in and day out just to maintain.

Meats, eggs, fish, nuts, beans, and ALL dairy hold the greatest amount of protein per serving. Consistently feeding your body protein throughout the day will greatly increase your muscle making ability.

Eating Tips #2 :Timing right before. You need to give yourself energy to get the best weight lifting workout. You want to eat something small in the 1-2 hour window before you hit the weights.

If you are going into the gym hungry your body is not going to perform at its peak weight lifting performance. Even something small such as a piece of fruit, a yogurt, glass of milk, handful of nuts, just about anything will do.

To get a good healthy boost before lifting (or anytime for that matter) shakes & smoothies pack a powerful protien and vitamin punch.  You can add fruits, veggies, milk, yogurt, eggs, the list goes on and on.  We have bought the Tribest Personal Blender years ago. It's cheap, works well, and makes a good healthy smoothie.

Eating Tips #3 : Timing right after. You want to eat as soon after lifting as you can. When you leave the weights your body and muscles are starving. They are looking to get the nutrients and protein they need to start repairing themselves almost immediately.

You want to have something within an hour of finishing. This will give optimal repair and building ability.

Eating Tips #4 : Eat throughout the day. Your body is constantly processing the nutrients and protein it needs to repair muscles. Give it a steady stream eating some form of protien 4 or more times a day.

There you have it. The 3 best, most effective Weight Lifting Tips to achieve substantial and lasting muscle mass.

Be sure to check out our other related Health, Weight, and Looks articles:

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Quick Weight Loss Tips

Healthy Sun Safety Tips

Tips for Staying Cool

Men's Fashion Tips

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