Train Intensely - You must work each set until you can't do another repetition in good form. There is no point in stopping at a set number of reps (such as 8), if you are capable of doing 12. Your body needs to be challenged or it will not adapt by building new muscle or burning off body fat.

Train Briefly - Your workouts need to be short. This is a very important weight lifting tip. You should never need to do a weight lifting routine that takes over an hour. If you are in the gym that long, you aren't working intensely enough. You can workout hard or long, but you can not do both. And to succeed in building muscle, you need to workout hard.

Train Infrequently - Your body needs time to recover from your weight training routine, so that in can adapt and grow. If you train with weights before your body is completely recovered, you won't add new muscle and will eventually over train, a big no no.

These are extremely important bodybuilding tips. It seems that your body's potential for strength increases far outweighs your body's ability to recover. What this means is that as you grow stronger, your body needs more time between weight training sessions in order to recover.

Bench pressing 300 pounds is a far greater stress on your body than bench pressing 50 pounds, even if both were maximum attempts at the time.

Train Progressively - You need to constantly challenge what your body can do by continuing to add more weight and/or repetitions to your previous best effort as often as possible.

Following is a sample weight training routine that incorporates the above weight lifting tips. If you put the other pieces in place, such as your
nutrition plan and supplementation plan, you'll be well on your way to great gains and transforming your physique.

1 - Squats
2 - Deadlifts
3 - Chin Ups
4 - Dips
5 - Bench Press
6 - Military Press

Here's another muscle building tip - break in to this routine. For the first few weeks, try working out 3 times per week on nonconsecutive days, performing 2 working sets of each exercise, doing 12 - 15 reps per set.

Don't train to failure.

After about a month, you can lower the reps on everything but Squats and Deadlifts, to the 8 - 10 rep range. Start training to failure on some sets.

After another month, begin training to failure on all working sets and consider only weight training two times per week to accommodate the higher level of intensity and strength that you've developed.

Don't forget post-workout nutrition:

Proper post-workout nutrition is crucial when it comes to muscle building. If you want to build muscle mass, you absolutely MUST have a post-workout shake.

Here is a version of my favorite muscle building post-workout shake.

1 1/2 cups of Orange Juice
40 grams of whey protein isolate
1 serving Creatine
1 cup frozen fruit (raspberries, strawberries, blueberries)

You can alter this any number of ways to suit your taste buds. You could add banana, or even some yogurt, which will also make the shake a little thicker in its consistency. To turn these muscle building shakes into more of a smoothie, you'll want to add some ice as well.

One thing I've found that has helped my progress is to add a few more calories than I normally would and then drink part of the smoothie right before my workout, or even sip some of it during my workout so my muscles are constantly getting the nutrients they need, both to power my workout and to recover from it.

If your goal is purely burning fat, you don't have to add more calories, just have about a third of your shake before your workout and the rest as soon as you've finished your training session.

Consider creating your own pre and post-workout muscle building supplements and smoothies so you can build lean muscle mass fast.