Weight Lifting Routines

Hi, I'm David Butcher, owner of Muscle Building for the Skinny Guy.

I've spent more hours than I care to remember in the gym, researching and experimenting in order to turn my skinny 120lb body into something that would grab womens attention long enough to get to know them.

Here at Muscle Building for the Skinny Guy we work with some of the top experts who understand the challenges of what the skinny guy faces. The photo's above are of one of our gurus, a guy called Sean Nalewanyj, who I'm pulling out for special attention in this review. Yes, those photo's are of him, and yes, that could be you too.

The fact is that skinny guys/ hardgainers, whatever you want to call them, have a hard time growing muscle. It follows that only the best routines work for them. They can't afford to waste time on some off the wall routine that doesn't produce maximum results. They need the most efficient, most effective ways of packing on muscle. Someone with good genetics for example will exercise, gain muscle and leap to the assumption that it was a good routine. Sure they gained muscle, but did they gain as much as they could have? This is why we focus on the skinny guy, because the routines that are effective for them are also explosive for people with good genetics.

Members have access to a lot of free resources about routines and the other parts of the muscle growth cycle, largely written especially for you by our training gurus. For the best results, the inside scoop on the industry that will save you countless hours and dollars then you need to work directly with our gurus. Yes, this will mean that you need to make an investment in doing that, but the returns you will acheive are massive and far outweigh the cost. Why do we charge for that advice? It ensures that you stay motivated - the second law of success is consistency and that small outlay helps you stay focused.

Our gurus are the top experts in their fields, the sort of guys you might need to pay hundreds of dollars an hour to train with. The information they will give directly to you will save you that investment many times over in time, the ability to maximise those expensive gym sessions and not waste them like most gym users. If you've ever been tempted by supplements then that investment in our gurus advice will more than save the cost right then and there.

Repetions or reps

* These are the actions - a bench press, a push up. A rep consists of two parts
o Positive (concentric). This is the action part, push or pull where you are working against the resistance of the weight
o Negative (eccentric). This is the return where normally gravity returns the weight to the starting point.

Sets

* These are the number of reps you do in an exercise before resting or moving on to the next exercise.

Routine

* A series of sets put together to form a workout or part of a workout

Splits

* A form of workout where you exercise different body parts on different days - you split your routine so each daily routine works out one or more body parts

Full body workout

* A routine where you exercise the whole body in one workout - unlike a split routine

Cutting

* The process of shedding body fat to reveal the muscles underneath

If you've not lifted weights before then I'd strongly advise you to start with an overall body conditioning. This will improve your aerobic fitness to the point where you will be able to spend time lifting weights and not gasping for breath between sets (well actually you'll do this anyway!). Second and just as importantly it will strengthen any areas of your body which are weak and out of balance - this will help you avoid injury.

This phase will in addition allow you to get everything in place without the pressure of the lifting. You need to set a slot for exercise and get into the habit of doing it. You need to learn about good nutrition and start to eat properly.

This period will be a test of your motivation, because it will be hard to make so many changes in your life.

Personal recommendation: Download and use this routine:

Especially for you, from our fitness guru; Craig, is a full body programme that uses bodyweight only so that you train without expensive equipment.

Craigs main clients are concerned with fat loss, which you will need when you come to cut.

This introduction from Craig is a must have for the novice or anyone who needs to train without equipment - don't go on holiday or a trip without it!

If you are in good physical condition and you've been exercising then feel free to jump in here. However don't let your ego get in the way. Working out can and will cause injury. I don't know anyone, trainer or otherwise who hasn't suffered injury and most of the time it's the result of simple, careless mistakes. Don't put yourself three months behind by waiting for an injury to heal instead of taking four weeks to complete the novice programme.

Beginners should be concentrating on core compound, multi jointed exercise routines. Beginners should be interested in only one thing - gaining bulk. This means concentrating on purely the major muscle groups. You should not be doing any isolation work at this point - no bicep curls or anything like it. Those relatively smaller muscles will get all the workout they need during the main workout.

The beginner phase should last until you have bulked up to your overall target mass. This phase may take several attempts since you may want to cut some of the fat that you will put on and then build again.

You need to really focus in this stage on that bulking up. Do not allow your gains to slip by being tempted by isolation exercises.

Personal recommendation: Work with one of our expert trainers such as Sean, above.

You can see the transformation pictures above of our bulking guru; Sean, so you know that he knows exactly how to turn skinny into bulky.

Sean's routines include everything that you need to know. Find out for yourself now!

At the intermediate stage, you will have bulked up to your target mass. You'll have an understanding of nutrition and your experience in the beginner phase will have taught you how to grow muscle.

In the intermediate stage your routines will change. You will still use the compound multi jointed exercises as the core of your routines because you will want to maintain the muscle mass you've gained. But now you will also be adding in isolation exercises to target muscle groups that aren't as well developed as you'd like.

You'll also have an established cardio routine at this point which will help you cut down the excess fat gained in the bulking phases. Remember though that you gaining more muscle and cutting fat is hard to acheive at the same time. Hard, but not impossible and certainly you should have the experience to do this.

If you are advanced then you will have an expert level of knowledge in how to grow muscle. You will understand the importance of nutrition, you will eat the right foods at the right time. Your motivation will be impressive.

If you are advanced then you'll understand exactly how to target any muscle group. You will not need anyone to teach you routines. If you do, then you need to go back to the intermediate stage and improve the areas where your knowledge is weak.