So you have been working out in the gym regularly trying to build bigger muscles. Although you have put in a lot of effort into your bodybuilding program, the results seem to be very slow and agonizing. Why is this so?

Why your muscles are not growing bigger as you expect them to be? Yes, genetics, age and hormonal levels do play a big part, but so do the right exercises, eating the right muscle nourishing food and consuming the correct bodybuilding supplements that are great for your muscular development.

No doubt sleeves popping biceps and ripped forearms can be pretty sexy, but exercises like bicep curls and wrist curls are not going to get you anywhere nearer to building a muscular hunky physique. To build overall body size, you need to do more compound exercises. Of course, the smaller isolated exercises have their places in bodybuilding, but that is for another article.

So what are compound exercises then? Compound exercises are weightlifting movements that require the movement of two or more joints and in so doing, more muscle parts are involved and more supporting muscles are also being activated to execute the exercises in good form. In other words, you are working out several muscle groups at one go instead of just isolating your biceps in a bicep curl movement. Does this makes sense to you?

Furthermore, because more muscles are being involved in the lift, especially the bigger muscles like your quadriceps (thighs), glutes (butt), back and pectorals (chest), you will induce the production of more human growth hormones and testosterone, the hormones that are vital for muscle development, recovery and massive muscular size gains.

And if you do these exercises with free weights such as with the traditional dumbbells and barbells instead of using weightlifting machines, you will also need to balance the weights when you lift them and as such, the movements will involve the myriads of stabilizing muscles for support and balance and thus, working out even more muscle groups. Most machines in the gyms do not give you these benefits as the movements are mostly controlled since you need not balance yourself as well as the weights that are being lifted as much as in the old fashioned traditional way.

Let me put it this way. If those weightlifting machines are more superior than the dumbbells and barbells, then why are the dumbbells and barbells still around and are still being used substantially by professional bodybuilders instead of being cotton balled away in some obscure warehouses or made into scrap metal? Get the picture?





Here below are 3 great compound exercises for full body muscle development to massively increase your muscle size :-

1) Chin Ups and Pull Ups - Both these exercises are very convenient to do. All you have to do is just to install a chin up bar anywhere which is convenient for you. Otherwise there are also many public parks providing the chin up bars at their exercise stations for the public to use. A chin up is done by your palms facing you when gripping the bar and palms facing out when doing the pull ups. 

Both these exercises work more than a dozen muscles in your back, especially the latissimus dorsi (lats). Other body parts worked on will include the triceps, biceps, forearms, chest and shoulders. When you curl your knees up to your chest during the pulling up movement, you will also work your abdominal muscles as well. These exercises thus can be considered as a full upper body exercise. So if you want to get the tapered V-shaped upper body, you cannot miss out these excellent two exercises.

Case in point is just by looking at the V-shaped tapered bodies of male gymnasts. These guys worked out a lot on the pulling movements on the high bars and Roman rings. These gymnastic movements are very similar to those of chin ups and pull ups and that is how the gymnasts developed those spectacular upper body physiques. To execute these fabulous exercises in good form, watch the video below carefully.













































2) Barbell Squats - Did you ever notice that the big boys in the gyms are those who are often doing the barbell squats? There must be a reason as to why they are so actively doing the exercise which many people shun because it is way too intensive and who wants to build a muscular lower body when they are hidden from view by the trousers, right? Wrong! If you seriously want to get bigger and more muscular, you definitely cannot miss out the barbell squat exercise routine. 

Furthermore, you will look very awkward when you have a superbly powerful and muscular upper body only to be supported by a pair of spindly chopstick like chicken legs if you do not build them up as you have done with your upper body, won't you? Let the truth be known, if you do not work on your lower body, your upper body can hardly develop too. This is because your lower body constitute a major proportion of your entire musculature and when you work on them with enough intensity, you will naturally increase your testosterone and human growth hormone which contribute to your overall muscle development for the entire body.

The barbell squat work many muscle groups of your body at one go. Some reports even suggested that more than 200 muscles are working when you execute the squat. In other words, you are working out almost your entire musculature with just this one exercise thereby inducing entire body muscle growth.

That goes to says that you are not just merely working out your lower body as most people erroneously believe. So is it any wonder why the big boys are the ones squatting regularly? If you wanna be big, then squat more often.

Furthermore, because of the intensity of the exercise, it is a natural body fat burner as the exercise requires your body to burn plenty of calories for energy. At the same time, since your body needs to repair and recover from so many muscle groups being worked out, it will produce more testosterone and human growth hormone to carry out the recovery work and stimulate even more muscle growth in your entire physique. These are the reasons why the big boys love squatting and the underdeveloped ones are stuck with the puny dumbbell bicep and wrist curls.
































3) The Deadlift - The deadlift is an intensive compound exercise which works several muscle groups such as the back, glutes (butt), hamstrings your core muscles, trapezius, forearms and the entire lower body. It is one of the only few exercises that hit the muscles in both the upper and lower body simultaneously in a single exercise. All your lower body muscles are used, your entire back and core muscles are also triggered and your forearms too because of the power grip.

The bodybuilding world is split in the middle as in whether the coveted title "King Of Exercise" is to be bestowed upon the deadlift or the barbell squat. That means the effectiveness of building massive muscle mass is in these two big exercises and also note that these two exercises are primarily lower body exercises although they also hit some upper body musculature as well as triggering their growth as well.


























Now, although the above exercises can help you to gain overall muscle mass, your muscles will not show up nicely with clear definitions if you have a high body fat percentage and if your muscles are big enough they will only show up as bulk without much shape and bereft of muscle striations. Learn how to build bigger chest muscles.

You may even have the most beautiful coveted washboard 6 pack abs in the entire universe but no one will be able to see them magnificently displayed if you have a high body fat percentage since your belly fat will cover up your abdominal muscles and what is showing up will be a lump of bulging ugly tummy fat. 

So in order to have that ripped and shredded muscular look, you will have to shed your body fat ratio to below 12 percent. Although at 12 percent body fat ratio will not get you that ripped, at least you will be able to see some muscle definitions and shape. For your washboard 6 pack abs to show up fabulously, your body fat ratio percentage must be kept at a low single digit body fat ratio.

I will not recommend that you keep your body fat at a single digit all year round as that percentage of fat level is too low to be considered healthy. Keeping the fat level at 12 to 15 percent for men should be good enough for your muscle shape to show up nicely when you are strutting around in your tee shirt making heads turn to admire you. So if you need to lose weight, you can try to combine the intermittent fasting along with the ketogenic diet for fast and healthy weight loss result.






How can we talk about bodybuilding if we do not touch on the subject of bodybuilding supplements, right? There are many muscle building supplements in the fitness market, the common ones being the evergreen protein powders (whey protein and casein protein), creatine, BCAA and so on. Some of them are very beneficial while others are merely advertising hypes.

Bodybuilding supplements are largely health foods to provide nutrition for muscle recovery, repair and of course growth in muscular size. However as described earlier in the article, the most important substances for muscle growth are your body's own natural hormones and in particular your testosterone and the human growth hormone.

Do you produce enough of these hormones, especially those of you whom are older since the natural production of these powerful hormones decline with age? If not, find out what can be done to increase your own production or take supplements to help you boost your production. There are also articles on this website about the subjects.

No, I am not asking you to go for hormone replacement therapy (HRT) or go messing around with dangerous anabolic steroids as both of these can have serious negative side effects. However, there are products that are made of natural ingredients and herbs to encourage your body to produce more of its natural hormones. Here are just three of them. 
 

1) HyperGH 14x is developed specifically in mind for rapid muscle growth, quicker muscle recovery from intensive grueling workouts and providing a pleasant looking in muscle tone. The supplement helps to stimulate the growth hormone response (EIGR) in your body. Therefore when you are training with higher intensity, it enhances the release of more human growth hormones to help in the fueling of optimum muscle growth.

This growth hormone enhancer is also designed to help to activate more natural pulse releases of growth hormones so that you have the ability to increase our workout capacity as well as speeding up your muscle recovery in a shorter time span. Furthermore, it works along with your sleeping circadian rhythm since your human growth hormones are released in spurts when you are in deep sleep. Read more about HyperGH 14X here.

2) TestRX boosts your body's own testosterone production naturally which a vital hormone for building muscles. Without enough testosterone, your muscles will not grow, period! This is the reason why it is much more difficult for girls to build muscles because women have much less of testosterone than men do.

This supplement also enhances more efficient protein synthesis which enables you to have bigger and faster muscle development and speedier muscle recovery from your workout training and provides you with more strength to lift heavier weights for more spectacular results. Furthermore, a healthy level of testosterone will also improve your male sexuality such as improving your libido, prevention of erectile dysfunction as well as for getting harder male erections.

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The main active ingredients in TestRX are, zinc monomethionine aspartate, magnesium aspartate and vitamin B6 (pyridoxine). This supplement is said to have played a major role for NCAA footballers to augment their HGH and testosterone production spectacularly as attested in a study done sometime back. As such, it is a natural bodybuilding supplement to powerfully increase natural testosterone production for rapid muscle mass development. You can find out more about TestRX here.

 

3) Nitric Oxide is what you will need if your recovery from your gym workouts are pathetically slow and when you are still feeling fatigued and lethargic a day after your workout even though you have had enough rest and sleep. Nitric Oxide helps to induce more efficient and smooth blood circulation and in doing so it transports more oxygen to your muscle cells tissues to richly oxygenate them.

Since many nutrients are needed in your muscle tissues for faster muscle recovery and growth, your blood circulation is thus vitally important to deliver these anabolic nutrients into your muscle cells. It also then goes to say that when you recover faster after your workouts, you will need less rest days in between your workout sessions and that will mean that you can workout more frequently and with more intensity translating into better bodybuilding results from your gym sessions.

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Nitric Oxide may also help you to burn up more of your unwanted extra body fat to help you look more ripped and shredded. The American Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism reported that professional sportsmen who consumed L-arginine, which is a precursor of Nitric Oxide deplete their blood glucose level much faster than those who did not. This will mean that since the body has no blood glucose to use up for energy, your body will take energy from your body fat instead and thus resulting in fat loss.
 

On the aesthetic side of the coin, Nitric Oxide helps to keep your muscle pumped up for several more hours after you leave the gym. This means that you can you show off your muscle pump for many more hours after your gym workout and at the same time keeping more blood in the muscles for a longer period feeding your muscles with more nutrients and oxygen.

 

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