Muscle Mass Building Workout|The Key Exercises

If you're interested in fast ways to build muscle and gain weight in record time, naturally you should ask yourself: "What are the best muscle mass building exercises to accomplish this?"
The answer is simple, but because the market is flooded with so much garbage all you hear or read about is either the latest supplement or "advanced" exercises. If real, solid, steel-like muscles are what you want then anytime you are introduced to a "new" or "advanced" way of performing an exercise, you'll do yourself a world of good by throwing it out the window.
Too many times do I see curious skinny gym members look over at the "gym buff" doing some funky exercise upside down on an exercise ball with one leg up flailing a pair of light dumbbells around thinking that if they learned how to perform that exercise they can look like him. Forget about it. Whether it works for him or not is irrelevant, the bottom line is that this type of exercise or anything like it will NOT work for hardgainers.
If an exercise is "new" I can almost guarantee it is far less effective then the simple, basic muscle mass building exercises. Why? Because all of the best exercises for maximum muscle growth have already been accounted for years ago. They have and always will be the number one exercises for the single purpose of how to gain muscle weight fast. Nothing compares and they will never be bested.
Basic or compound exercises allow you to lift more weight, and the heavier weight you can lift, the bigger you will be. With that in mind, what are compound exercises and which are the best for maximum muscle mass? Compound lifts, or multi-joint lifts, are weightlifting exercises that force you to use more then one muscle group, preferably 3 or more.
For example, the bench press is a compound lift because although the primary muscle used is the chest muscle, your shoulders and triceps are also helping to lift the weight. Tricep pushdowns, however, are what's called an isolation or single-joint exercise. Since this exercise just isolates a single muscle, your triceps, it doesn't stimulate nearly as much muscle growth as a compound lift would. Though there are many different compound exercises, you must focus only on those that stimulate the most amount of muscle and allow you to lift the heaviest amount of weight.
Here are the granddaddy of all compound muscle mass building exercises that you MUST include in your workout if you expect to build maximum muscle mass in the least amount of time:
1) Squats (quads, hamstrings, calves, and also has an effect on most of the upper body)
2) Deadlifts (hamstrings, quads, traps, lower back)
3) Bench Press (chest, triceps, and shoulders)
4) Shoulder Press or Military Press (shoulders and triceps)
5) Bent-Over Rows (back, biceps, lats)
6) Pull-Ups (back, biceps, lats)
7) Bar Dips (chest, triceps, shoulders)
If your workout programs to gain muscle don't include any of these exercises, then don't expect to grow very much, and don't expect to grow at all if you are a hardgainer. Try starting your workouts out with one of these exercises first, before you do any other exercises for that same muscle. This will ensure you exert most of your energy into the most important exercises, the ones that will be most responsible for your growth. For example, if you are training your shoulders, start off with the barbell shoulder press before you do any laterals, shrugs, or any other isolation exercise.
A couple of months ago, a friend asked me why he wasn't gaining any weight and getting any bigger. So I asked him to tell me about his workout. You can probably guess what it was. Sure enough, he was doing about five exercises for each muscle group, mostly isolation exercises. He wasn't doing any lower body exercises whatsoever, and the only compound exercise he was doing was everybody's favorite: the bench press.
So here is what I did: I gave him a simple but proven workout program for fast results that consisted of ONLY compound exercises, which in fact doesn't look too much different from the list of muscle mass building exercises above. I told him to just do a few sets of each exercise a few times a week and to focus on just adding weight to the bar every week. Did he grow? About five weeks later he e-mailed me back and told me of his improvements. He weighed 18 pounds heavier and added around 20 to 30 pounds to each of the compound exercises I told him to do.
Is this a common result? Those who are willing to work hard on just a few compound exercises can expect results like this, even hardgainers. Was it easy? No. He worked hard, just like everyone else who got results like this. No fancy supplements or advanced exercises, just hard work on the key muscle mass building exercises, lots of clean food and plenty of rest.
Now that you know the key muscle mass building exercises for maximum muscle growth in record time, I want you to use them! If you haven't tried any of them before then you will be in for a treat. They're tough, they're demanding, they take sweat and grit and everything you got. They're not the type of exercises you can do while you hung-over or on 3 hours of sleep. You have to have lots of energy, be properly warmed up, and fully concentrated if you want to get the most out of them.
But they will bring you more results then all of the other exercises put together.

Derek Manuel is the author of the best-selling How to Gain Weight and Build Muscle for Hardgainers. If you want to learn how you too can gain 20 to 30 pounds of solid muscle in as short as 8 weeks, or if you just want more quality information on how to gain weight and build muscle.

Best Exercises For Lean Muscle Mass Gains and Fat Loss

Which bodybuilding exercises are the best ones for lean muscle mass gains and fat loss? This is one of the most common questions that I get asked on almost a daily basis.
In weight training, there is a variety of exercises that one can choose from to sculpt the body of your dreams. Results in bodybuilding are generally measured in body composition changes; increased muscle mass or tone, depending on the goal, along with decreases in body fat. The speed at which such changes are acquired depends on the training protocol used, the nutrition plan followed and the amount of rest (good night sleep) that the trainee gets.
In order for a training protocol to work at peak efficiency, not only must it be periodized or cycled but it also must include exercises that give you the most stimulation in the minimum amount of time.
Different exercises provide different levels of stimulation. Exercises like the leg extensions, while excellent for sculpting the lower part of the quadriceps, produce less of a stimulating effect than an exercise like the squat. The efficacy of an exercise really depends on the exercise's ability to involve the maximum amount of muscle fibers and also on its ability to provide a neuromuscular stimulation (NMS).
Neuromuscular stimulation is of crucial importance as it is the nervous system that ultimately sends a signal to the brain requesting to start the muscle growth process. Having said that, how do we determine what the stimulation factor of each exercise is? Such will be the topic of the next section.
How To Determine Which Exercises Are Best for Muscle Gain and Fat Loss? - NMS Classes
In order to rate what the NMS of each exercise is, I borrowed the Class rating system used for classifying the speed of DSL systems (technology used to achieve high speed connections to the Internet through your phone line) and tailored it to fit my purpose. In this system a Class 1 technology has lower speeds than a Class 2 technology.
Therefore, in our exercise rating system composed of four classes, a Class 1 exercise yields the lowest NMS (this class is composed of variable resistance machine type of exercises) while a Class 4 exercise yields the highest NMS and is therefore the hardest but most stimulating one. In each class we may also have subclasses such as Class 1a and Class 1b. A Class 1a exercise will yield less NMS than a Class 1b.
Class 1a
Class 1a exercises are composed of isolation (one joint) exercises performed in variable resistance machines (such as Nautilus) where the whole movement of the exercise is controlled. These type of exercises provide the least amount of stimulation as stabilizer muscles do not need to get involved since the machine takes care of the stabilization process. An example of such an exercise would be the machine curl.
Class 1b
Class 1b exercises are compound (multi-joint) movements performed in a variable resistance machine. An example of such movement would be the incline bench press performed in a Hammer Strength machine. Since the movement is a compound one, more muscles get involved and therefore the neuromuscular stimulation is higher than that offered by a machine curl for instance. However, the fact that the machine takes care of the stabilization issues limits the growth offered by the exercise.
Class 2a
Class 2a exercises are composed of isolation (one joint) exercises performed with non-variable resistance machines. An example of such exercise would be the leg extension exercise performed in one of those leg extensions attachments that come with the benches that are sold for home gyms. These attachments lack the pulleys and the cams that would make the exercise a variable resistance exercise. Therefore, the muscles need to get more involved in the movement, something that as a result provides better stimulation.
Class 2b
Class 2b exercises are composed of basic (multi-joint) exercises performed with non-variable resistance machines. An example of such would be the bench press unit that is attached to the Universal type of machines or a leg press machine that contains no pulleys or cams that would make the exercise easier. Since there are no pulleys or cams to make the exercise easier as you lift the weight, the NMS is higher.
Class 3a
Class 3a exercises are isolation (one joint) exercises performed with free weights. An example of such exercise would be a concentration curl performed with a dumbbell. It is still not very clear whether a multi joint exercise performed on a machine offers the same amount or better NMS than the one offered by a free weight isolation exercise. However, for the purposes of this discussion, we will assume that the free weight isolation exercise provides more stimulation as stabilizer muscles come into play (especially if you do the exercise standing up).
Class 3b
Class 3b exercises, as you probably guessed by now, are multi jointed basic exercises performed with barbell free weights.
Class 3c
Class 3c exercises are multi jointed basic exercises performed with dumbbell free weights.
The barbell exercises provide less NMS as the movement is more restrained as opposed to dumbbells where the weights can go in all types of directions unless all of your stabilizer muscles jump in and constrain the movement. Because of this, dumbbells provide the highest NMS in this category.
Class 4
Finally, Class 4 exercises, the king of exercises, are free weight exercises where your body moves through space. In other words, any exercise where your torso is the one moving, such as squats, deadlifts, pull-ups, close grip chins, pushups, lunges, and dips, will provide the most stimulation possible and therefore, the fastest results. Haven't you seen at the gym how many people do great amounts of weights in a pulldown machine but have trouble doing pull-ups?
The reason for this is that in order for you to perform these type of exercises you need to be capable of not only carrying the added resistance but also involving your bodyweight as well. Therefore, many muscles are called into play in order to perform this feat. If you look at it, by performing dips, chinups, squats and deadlifts you are really hitting every single muscle in your body! These exercises not only give you fast results, but they also create functional strength; in other words strength that can be used for your daily activities.
If you are great at performing pull-ups and you go to perform a pulldown you'll see how easy the task of performing a pulldown is. As a matter of fact, depending on your pull-up strength, you might be able to lift the whole stack in most pulldown machines. However, the reverse in not true. While you may be very good at performing pulldowns you may not be able to perform many pull-ups as the strength gained in the pulldown exercise is not as transferable as the one gained in a pull-up. Again, the reason for this phenomenon is NMS.
Conclusion
Now that you know what exercises are the ones that give you the most bang for your buck, then my recommendations are the following:
If you follow very low volume routines (3-7 sets per bodyparts), please choose only exercises in the Class 3b, 3c and 4 region.
If you follow a medium volume type of routine (8-13 sets per bodypart), stick mostly to Class 3b, 3c and 4 type of exercises but for those bodyparts where you perform 12 or 13 sets, you may want to incorporate 2 or 3 sets at either the beginning or at the end of the workout from one of the lower classes. This is especially true for legs in which a leg extension movement at the beginning of the workout is a great tool for pre-exhausting the quads or at the end of the workout serves as a great finishing movement.
For high volume routines (14-20 sets per bodypart) you can get away with having 1/3 of your routine composed of lower class (Classes 3a and below) exercises.
Remember, convincing your body to grow and develop muscle is not an easy task. However it becomes an impossible one if you choose exercises that do not provide a significant NMS effect. Therefore, always choose exercises from the higher classes in order to show your body that you mean busi