Muscle Building Exercises - Five Exercises to Gain Muscle Mass

Want to build muscle fast? Work with the heaviest weights you can handle for 8 to 12 repetitions. Lifting weights builds strength by breaking down muscles. While you are recovering from your workouts, this breakdown process begins to heal and your muscles grow. That's why the recovery process is so important to gaining lean muscle.

To get big muscles, lift big weights, learn about muscle recovery, get plenty of rest, and focus on core exercises like the following.

Click here for a comprehensive list of weightlifting exercises.

Build Muscle Fast - Gain Muscle Mass

1. Squat Exercise - The king of all muscle building exercises.

Ideally, you want to perform the squat in a squat rack. That way, you don't have to lift the barbell over your head to rest the barbell behind your neck. With a squat rack, you can just lower the barbell onto your shoulders. It is much safer.

Weightlifting belts are a must to avoid back injury. Also use a squat bar pad and a safety squat bar.

Squat technique - Once the barbell is on your shoulders, squat down until your thighs are parallel with the floor. Then blast back up to a standing position and repeat the motion. If you only squat down halfway, you are doing a half squat rather than a full squat. The half squat is not nearly as effective as the full squat.

Click here to read more about the squat exercise.

2. The Bench Press - The bench press is the predominant exercise for the upper body - in particular for the chest. It is the best of the chest exercises.

Lie on an exercise bench with your feet flat on the floor. Grasp the barbell with your hands slightly wider than shoulder-width apart. Lift the barbell off the rack and slowly lower it to your chest. Then blast the barbell up until you lock your elbows. Repeat the motion. Once you've done 6-12 bench press reps, you've completed a bench press set.

You may also try this bench press technique - when lowering the barbell to your chest, try to lower it slowly - say to a count of 2 or 3. Then when raising the barbell off your chest, try to raise it quickly (but safely) to a count of 1 or 2. Try to lower it slowly on the negative part of the repetition and blast it up quickly when driving it back up off your chest. But, you don't want to jerk the barbell and hurt yourself.

The bench press can also worked with dumbbells using an exercise bench. It is safer using a barbell because you have more control of the weights and you can rest the barbell in the bench press rack when finishing your final repetition.

When doing the bench press with very heavy weight, use a bench press spotter.

3. Upright Row - Grasp the middle of the barbell with your hands about six inches apart. Standing with your back straight, raise the bar to your chin, pause a second, then slowly lower the weight. Repeat the motion.

4. Military Press (aka Shoulder Press) - This is an excellent shoulder exercise. You can either do it sitting on an exercise bench using dumbbells, or standing up using a barbell. When standing up using a barbell, you can just use a squat rack so you don't have to lift the barbell up off the floor.

Grasp a barbell with your hands shoulder-width apart. Lift the weight behind your neck and rest the barbell on your shoulders. Press the barbell up until your arms are fully extended. Slowly lower the barbell back to your shoulders then repeat the motion.

5. Pulldown - This is a difficult home exercise since you need a lat machine (unless you have a multi-exercise home gym machine). The lat pulldown exercise builds your back.

Stand facing the machine, reach up and take an overhead grip on the bar with your hands slightly wider than your shoulders. Use the bar to pull your body downward until you are sitting on the seat. Using your upper back and arms, pull the bar down to touch behind your neck (as an alternative, you can pull the bar down to touch your chest). Hold for a count of one, then slowly return the bar to the starting position. Repeat the motion.

Another great lower body exercise is the deadlift. The deadlift is a terrific core building exercise. This exercise works the legs and the back. When doing the deadlift exercise with heavy weight, it will really exhaust you.

The deadlift is a great muscle building exercise. You don't see too many people doing it in the gym (probably because it takes hard work), but it is highly effective.

These muscle building exercises will help you to build muscle fast.

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