Most people exercise to maintain physical fitness and improve health. Exercise is done in a repetitive, deliberate and regimented fashion. Exercising regularly can help prevent and treat medical ailments such as heart disease, obesity, diabetes and osteoporosis, as well as improve mental health. There are two categories of exercise: strengthening and cardiac rehabilitation exercises. Cardiac rehabilitation, which focuses on aerobics, helps to improve the cardiovascular system. Strength-based exercises give resistance to muscle groups to build strength and mass. Workouts will include a combination of range of motion exercises focusing on the movement of joints, and strength exercises. It is possible to gain weight through the building of muscle mass through strength-based exercises.
Instructions
1. Begin with a plan for weight lifting. Start your weight lifting by practicing on an empty weight bar. Add more weight to the bar as you progress to get more resistance, which will build more mass.
2. Do calisthenics such as push-ups, dips, pull-ups, crunches and reverse crunches. (Exercises are detailed in bodybuilding.com resource below.)
3. Use free weights when exercising to build mass. With free weights, you can balance and control the weight. In contrast, machines don't facilitate mass-muscle building because they lack balancing and rely on fixed patterns.
4. Create a regimen of compound exercises, such as pull-ups, chin-ups, barbell rows, as well as bench presses, overhead presses and dips. In addition, focus on dead lifts. These exercises work out several muscles at the same time. (Exercises are detailed in bodybuilding.com resource below.)
5. Do squats, which work your other body areas because all of your muscles tense. Dead lifts have this same effect. (Exercises are detailed in bodybuilding.com resource below.)
6. Work out your whole body and avoid isolation exercises if you want to build muscle mass. For example, a great full body workout is the Stronglifts 5X5 workout. This consists of:
Workout A
Squat (5 sets by 5 reps)
Bench Press (5 sets by 5 reps)
Inverted Rows (3 sets until failure)
Push-ups (3 sets until failure)
Reverse Crunches (3 sets by 12 reps)
Workout B
Squat (5 sets by 5 reps)
Overhead Press (5 sets by 5 reps)
Deadlift (1 set by 5 reps)
Pull-ups/Chin-ups (3 sets until failure)
Prone Bridges (3 sets for 30 seconds each)
Alternate plan A and B for each workout session. Do the workout three times a week, with 48 hours between each exercise day. (Descriptions of the exercises are included in the bodybuilding.com resource below.)
7. Rest your muscles by sleeping eight hours a day. While you sleep, muscle growth hormones are released in your body.
8. Drink plenty of water. Avoid dehydration and drink two full cups of water with each of your meals.
9. Integrate whole foods into your meals until they comprise at least 90 percent of your diet. Whole foods are natural, unprocessed foods, such as fruits, vegetables and nuts. Avoid junk foods. Have a diet of protein (meat, chicken, eggs, fish and whole milk), vegetables, fruits, carbohydrates (oats, pasta and brown rice) and fats (fish oil and nuts).
10. Eat more frequently. Eat every three hours, or six times a day, and eat after every workout.
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