You're probably tired of being skinny or overweight, and you want to have a lean muscular body. You're at the right place.

I'm the kind of guy that gets straight to the point. I'm gonna try to give you the most important information needed in order to get yourself started in order to learn how to build muscle the right way

GOALS:

There are two possible goals, you need to choose one of them

Goal #1 Bulking - Bulking is the process of gaining muscle. When you're bulking you eat in a caloric surplus meaning you eat more than your caloric maintenance level, thus you gain weight. When you bulk up, you most probably

are gonna gain some fat as well as muscle.

Goal #2 Cutting - Cutting is the process of burning the excess fat from your body. If you're overweight, or you've built muscle but have some fat as well, you do the process of cutting. In which you eat in a caloric deficit i.e you eat less than your maintenance level.

You have to set a single goal. Meaning you should choose either to Bulk or cut. Don't try to build muscle and shed the fat at the same time. It might be possible, but it's hard to do for the average trainee. Trying to Bulk and cut at the same time might lead to failure.

If you're skinny fat, meaning you look fairly skinny, with little to no muscle on your body, but

have excess fat in the abdominal area, your best bet is to bulk first for a few months, and after

you've gained enough muscle, start cutting to get that lean look. Same thing goes for skinny people, and people who want to put on some size on them.

Cutting in most cases does not build muscle, when you cut, you even lose some muscle along with the fat. If you start cutting when you don't have enough muscle on your body you're gonna end up looking skinny.

DIET

Diet is crucial to building muscle and losing fat. If you want to learn how to build muscle you need to learn how to bulk up properly.

If you wanna bulk up, you're gonna have to eat a lot. Many of the people who start working out claim that they are eating a lot and still cannot gain weight and muscle.

The problem is that they don't know how to eat, and they're not eating a lot, they just think they are. You need eat 5-6 times per day, or more if you can. You need to eat like a beast if you want to build muscle. If you don't eat, you don't get big.. simple as that.

Include protein and complex carbs in each meal, and also add some fruit and veggies.

Include goods fats in 2 to 3 meals per day.

Protein - Protein is necessary for building muscle. A rule of thumb is to have 1 gram of protein per pound. So if you weight 180 pounds you should have 180 grams of protein per day.

Good sources of protein are: Chicken Breasts, Turkey Breasts, lean beef, fish, egg whites, cottage cheese, whey protein etc...

Carbs -Carbs are very important, they give you energy and relinquish the depleted glycogen

stores after workout. Carbs are good if the right carbs are eaten. That means healthy carbs

that have a low to medium Glycemic index. There are two kinds of carbs , complex and simple carbs . It's often said that simple carbs are bad while complex carbs are good. That's not a completely true statement. Low to medium GI Complex and Simple carbs are good, while

high GI Complex and Simple carbs are bad. Read more about GI here.

Pasta, Whole wheat pasta, whole wheat bread, yams, oats, barley, sweet potatoes, brown rice are a good source of carbs. Stay away from white bread, candy, soda, everything that contains sugar, stay away from it. Make sure to eat plenty of fruits and vegetables, because they're healthy and contains a lot of valuable nutrients that your body needs.

Fats - Fats are also very important, they must be a part of you everyday diet, because your body needs them, and they help with hormone regulation in your body. Of course you will need to consume only the good kinds of fat.

• Monounsaturated fats - peanut, olive and canola oils
• Polyunsatured fats - corn, safflower, sunflower and cottonseed oils.
• Omega-3 fatty acids - fish, flaxseed, walnut, flax oil

Stay away from

• Saturated fat - can be found is red meat, as well as poultry, when eating this kind of meat try to choose lean parts of the meat, because those parts contain very little saturated fat

• Trans fat- Can be found in butter, cookies, doughnuts, french fries, fast food. Basically it is found mostly in junk foods.
• Dietary Cholesterol - Eggs, red meat, butter etc.

Eat plenty of Omega-3 rich foods in your diet, and include a moderate amount of monounsaturated and polyunsaturated in it. Keep the intake of the bad fats to a minimum.

This doesn't mean that you cannot eat foods like eggs , red meat and similar. Only certain parts of a meal have bad fats, meaning the lean parts of red meat is good for you, and also the egg white is good for you, so don't eat the yolk. It's okay to have a few yolks when eating eggs, but eat them in moderation.

If you want to bulk up and build muscle, incorporate carbs and protein in most of your meals, and include some of the good fats as well. Pizza and candy won't build muscle. If with the diet you're not gaining weight, than simply increase the amount you eat, until

you get to a point where you eat enough to gain about 1 pound per week.

On the other side if you feel you're gaining too much weight, which means also that you're building some excess fat along with the muscle, then decrease the amount of food that you eat so that you are gaining around 1 pound per week.

If you want to cut i.e burn the fat, eat less carbs, limit your intake of carbs,

eat plenty of lean protein.

Drinking water is very important, carry of bottle of water everywhere with you, and try to get at least 64 oz of water each day. You must be hydrated at all times.

EXERCISE

Most of the newbie trainees and even more experienced ones, go to the gym without a plan. And workout whatever exercise they feel like doing. Which is mostly arm exercises like curls. They get nowhere fast by doing that, and after months of working out they look the same. They're not aware of the basic fundamentals on how to build muscle.

The optimal workout plan for the beginner and intermediate trainees is a full body workout or a upper body/lower body split. In order to build muscle you need to do Compound exercises. Compound exercises build slabs of muscle, that's something that everyone that knows something on how to build muscle will agree.

What are compound exercises you might be asking?

Compound exercises are exercises which involve multiple joints of your body and work more than one muscle group.

An example of a compound exercise is a bench press, it involves multiple joints - the elbows and the shoulder joints, and works mostly the chest, triceps and shoulders.

The other types of exercises are isolation, which target a specific muscle, an example of an isolation exercise is a barbell curl

Here's a sample workout

Workout A

Squat

Bench Press

Pull up (Or assisted pullup)

Military Press

Barbell Curl

Workout B

Deadlift

Barbell Row

Incline Bench Press

Chest Dips

Chin up

Dumbell Curl

Crunches

3 times a week of training is sufficent for most people in order to build muscle.

Here's how the training should look throught the week

Monday: Workout A

Tuesday: rest

Wednesday: Workout B

Thursday: rest

Friday: Workout A

Saturday, Sunday: Rest (next Monday starts with workout B and the cycle continues)

Do 3 to 4 sets of each, do 6 to 10 reps of each set. By 6 reps I mean the weight you're lifting is so having that you're going to be able to lift in only 6 times, meaning that in the last rep or two it will get hard and you will struggle a bit. It doesn't mean that you put light weight and do 6 reps. If you're doing 3 sets of an exercise do it the following way: First set 10 reps, second set 8 reps, third set 6 reps. Meaning you increase the weight with each set.

Pushing yourself a bit is what you need in order to build muscle. Rest 1 to 2 minutes

between sets and exercises. Don't go talking to your friends and take 10 minute breaks. You're at the gym, you're there to workout.

If your goal is cutting, along with these lifts, you will need to include some cardio on the rest days. You can do anything you want, I like doing cardio on the stationary bike and by running, but the choice is yours. Cardio along with an appropriate diet an exercise plan will help

you burn fat. Do cardio 3 to 4 times a week, each cardio session should last from 30 to 40 minutes.

You need to concentrate on maintaining proper form, proper form will build muscle.

Don't worry about lifting a lot of heavy weights, leave your ego at the door. You will be able to lift heavy with time. You'll gain both strength and size. Concentrate on the form of the lift, because that will build muscle. Putting more weight than you can handle and using improper form is less effective, and it can be dangerous at times, it can even lead to injuries.

Don't train too much. Don't do too many sets and try to workout more than 4-5 times a week unless you're one of the rare people who is genetically gifted to do so.

Working out too much leads to overtraining, and when you overtrain you don't see any muscular growth. You're not gonna build muscle at this state, you're not gonna gain size, and your not gonna make any strength gains. You need to train smart, and not train too much.

I understand how everyone wants to gain muscle fast and as quickly as possible. But this takes time and patience, it doesn't happen overnight. Eat, train smart, and get proper rest and you'll grow.

REST

The final thing you need to know on how to build muscle is rest. You need to get proper rest in order build muscle. Try to get at least 8 hours of sleep each day.

Muscles grow when you're resting, not while you're working out.