Welcome to Muscle Building Tips

Twist on Dumbbell Fly

Add a twist at the top of the dumbbell fly movement in order to get a more intense contraction of the chest muscles.

Reps and Sets for Abs

Abdominal muscles don´t need to be trained differently than other muscles, 6-20 reps, 3-4 sets.

Isolating Triceps

There are a number of exercises that target the triceps. Some popular ones are dumbbell or barbell overhead extensions, kickbacks, lying extensions, cable machine pressdowns, and cable extensions. Most gyms have triceps machines. Exercise bands or tubing can be used in place of dumbbells. The thing to remember about triceps is that it straightens the elbow, and you have to do that against gravity. You can choose one or two exercises and do two or three sets of each. You also use the triceps in bench presses or overhead presses, so there's no need to overdo the isolation exercises.

Curl Bar to Ease Wrist Stress

Use an EZ curl bar instead of a straight bar when doing biceps curls; this will help to remove stress from the wrists by placing them in a more natural position.

Upper Chest Exercises

The best exercises for upper chest are incline bench presses and incline flies. You can also try a cable cross with the handles held rather high. You will probably get better results if you also include some flat presses and military presses to not neglect the surrounding areas.

Working the Deltoid

The best exercise for the entire deltoid is the military, or overhead, press. This does emphasize the anterior delt, though, so if you have time and especially want to work shoulders, it's a good idea to add a set or two of lateral raises and/or posterior flies.

Increasing Kickback Intensity

When performing kickbacks, pause when arm is fully extended and raise arm slightly to increase muscle stimulation.

Hugging a Barrel

On a dumbbell fly, in order to properly perform the exercise visualize your arms wrapping around a tree or barrel. This will keep your arc wide enough and keep the movement from becoming like a bench press.

Arm Development

It is easy to overwork your arms. These are relatively small muscles, and also get worked with exercises like pulldowns or bench presses. Sometimes better results can be achieved by doing more chest and back exercises that use arms and fewer specific arm exercises. Another approach is to use heavier weight and fewer reps. Muscle development is partly genetic, so it's possible to get very strong but not show a lot of muscle. This lean look can be very attractive if that's what's natural for you.

Back Development

To develop your back, do pull-ups or chin-ups, or lat pulldowns at the gym. Also do an exercise that works the middle back. Bentover rows can do this, as can low cable rows or back machines that use an overhand grip. You should also do some shrugs for your traps and reverse flies to target the posterior deltoid. Chin-ups and pull-ups both use lats, traps, and rhomboids. Chins use more biceps and pull-ups more forearm.

Pull-ups for Back Muscles

Do pull-ups for the lats by taking a wide grip and concentrating on using your back muscles. Build up to adding weight when you do the exercise. Pull-ups will help you develop a nice set of back muscles, if done properly.

Military Press Intensity

On military presses lower the bar only to the level of the ears and extend to a point just before lockout to keep tension on shoulder muscles throughout the movement.

Bench Press Angles

Vary the angle of the bench when doing bench presses to target different parts of the pectoral (chest) muscles.

Order to Train Abdominals

Train lower abs first before the obliques and upper abs, to target them more effectively.

Shaping the Chest Muscles

Dumbbell flys will help to bring out the separation and shape of the chest muscles.

Target Triceps with Bench Press

To work more triceps, do a close grip bench press.

Building Forearms and Grip

Doing heavy dead lifts and shrugs will build forearm and grip strength, provided you are not using wrist straps.

Working Shoulders After Chest

When you do pressing movements, such as the bench press, you also use the front part of your shoulder, the anterior deltoid. If you do a heavy shoulder workout the day after a good chest workout, you may be overworking the anterior delt. There's less problem with adding stress to your chest muscles on shoulder day. Lots of people do work chest one day and shoulders the next, and it may depend on your choice of exercises, but it would be best to structure your workouts so you don't have to do that.