Weight training has become a very popular form of exercising these days. When you weight train you're ultimate goals should be to gain strength and size in your muscles. However, building strength and size takes hard work and you may be tempted to take shortcuts by taking steroids and other performance enhancing drugs. However, the risks of these drugs have been well documented. This means that building muscle naturally through weight training is definitely the way to go. To succeed at natural muscle building you must set up a routine that will give you enough intense weight training to break down your muscles and enough recovery time to build them bigger and stronger. There is no doubt that if you follow the best weight training workout routines you can reach your goals without taking shortcuts.

If you want to build muscle strength and mass from weight training workout routines there are certain things you should do that will help you succeed. You can't just go into it without a plan and expect to get bigger and stronger overnight. Fortunately, there are some great weight training tips you can use to reach your goals.

The first thing you should do when you follow weight training workout routines should be to learn proper form for all of the major exercises you'll be performing. Learning how to perform every exercise properly will help you target your muscles better and prevent injuries. To learn proper lifting form you should purchase a magazine or book that gives descriptions and pictures of how to perform weight training exercises or hire a personal trainer.

One of the best tips for gaining muscle from weight training workout routines is to exercise with high intensity. If you continually stop your sets short of failure you won't force your muscles to respond with more growth. It takes hard work to build big muscles so you must go all out on every working (non warm-up) set you perform.

Strength gains will lead to size gains so you should always try to lift more weight. During every workout you must try to either lift a little more weight or do more reps with the same weight. You won't gain strength during every single workout, but as long as you try you'll eventually succeed. These smal gains will add up over time and you'll get stronger and build size as a result.

Another great tip for gaining size and strength through weight training is to give your muscles enough rest before you train them again. When you follow weight training exercise routines you should never train a muscle if it's still sore from it's last workout. this will lead to overtraining which can be detrimental to increasing muscle mass.

If you follow these tips in your weight training routine you'll be much more likely to succeed at gaining muscle.

When you start weight training, you may want to train each muscle group of the body with a few exercises and sets during each workout. You'll be learning how much training your body can handle and proper exercise form at this time. At some point however, you will find the need to perform more exercises and sets for each muscle group. This is when you should split up your weight training workout routine.

Splitting up your weight training workout routines into 3 separate workouts is a great way to get bigger and stronger. You'll train a few muscle groups per workout and have plenty of time to allow them to recover since you'll have 2 other workouts to do before you train those muscles again.

A push pull routine is one of the best weight training workout split routines. To perform a push-pull routine you train the "pushing" upper body muscles at one workout, the "pulling" muscles at the next workout, and the legs during the last workout. A push-pull weight training routine looks like this:

Workout 1 - chest, shoulders, and triceps

Workout 2 - back and biceps

Workout 3 - legs

Another excellent 3 way weight training workout routine looks like this:

Workout 1 - chest and back

Workout 2 - shoulders, biceps, and triceps

Workout 3 - legs

If you try either of these routines you should do abdominal training during every or every other workout. You should also either take a day off between each workout or after 2 workouts. Whatever the case, both of them are excellent for helping you build muscle strength and size.

One of the keys to building muscle size and strength through weight training workout routines is to perform the right exercises for each muscle. The best exercises to do for any muscle group are compound ones that involve more than one muscle group. Isolation exercises should be saved for towards the end of your workouts. The best exercises to perform for each muscle group during weight training workout routines are as follows.

Chest - bench presses, incline presses, decline presses, dips, and flyes

Upper Back - pull-ups, cable pulldowns, bent rows, dumbbell rows, and cable rows

Lower Back - deadlfits, good mornings, and hyperextensions

Shoulders - military presses, dumbbell presses, shrugs, and front, side, and rear laterals

Biceps - barbell curls, dumbbell curls, hammer curls, and preacher curls

Triceps - close or reverse grip bench presses, triceps extensions, and cable pushdowns

Quadriceps - squats, hack squats, leg presses, lunges, and leg extensions

Hamstrings - stiff legged deadlifts and leg curls

Calves - standing calf raises, leg press calf raises, and seated calf raises

Abs - crunches, leg raises, twisting incline sit-ups, and side bends.