muscle

Go into almost any gym and you’ll see people doing exercises like sit-ups and leg raises. They believe these are the best exercise for abs. But they’re not — it’s crunch exercises. Here’s an experiment. Stand up and hold onto something for balance. Put your other hand on your abs. Now, raise...

Over the past few years, there’s been a raging debate over whether elite athletes — such as bodybuilders and Strongmen — can compete while eating a plant-based diet. People like Nimai Delgado and Patrik Babamouian seem to be proof that you don’t need ground beef and scrambled eggs to find...

Dropsets are a great way to increase muscle mass, as they’re a quick and easy way to increase blood flow into the muscles, get the heart pumping, and most importantly, fatigue the muscles to ensure hypertrophy. What are dropsets? Dropsets are essentially a technique where you perform an...

Jay Cutler

is is the book I wish I could have studied when I started out in bodybuilding. I was so naive, gullible and misinformed, just like most trainees are today—even those who have been training for years. is book would have spared me all the frustration, heartache, injuries and sham advice I had to...

Michael Buckner / Variety / Shutterstock When actor Zack Schor read the script for Hunters, an Amazon-produced show about Nazis living in 1970s New York, he didn't think about how the role could further his career—he thought about his grandparents, and how he wanted to tell the story as...

Per Bernal / M+F Magazine We love the barbell bench press as much as you do, but just because you’ve been doing it every Monday night since high school doesn’t mean you can’t change it up every once in a while. Pressing with dumbbells is safer for your shoulders and activates more pectoral...

Article I found, who doesnt like positive? Introduction Do you engage in endurance sports and wish to improve on your performance? Have you heard about using anabolic steroids? These are fascinating drugs that mimic the natural hormones within one’s body. If you are planning to become more...

Microgen / Shutterstock Using electrical muscle stimulation, also known as EMS or e-stim, for rehabilitation, pain management, or performance isn’t a new concept—Bruce Lee was an early adapter. But its use has picked up in the last few years as high-tech methodologies have found their way into...

Bob Gardner Courtesy of Weider Health and FItness / M+F Magazine [RELATED2] QUESTION Pro bodybuilders talk about adding “quality muscle.” Is that basically mass and definition, or is it something more? ANSWER Adding “quality muscle” to your frame is the result of the consummate art of...

Per Bernal / M+F Magazine It’s not efficiency for efficiency’s sake. Getting in and out of the gym in 25 minutes wouldn’t be an attractive proposition if your gains had to be shortchanged in the process. After all, we believe most M&F readers are like us, and we don’t mind spending a long time...

Tauseef Asri / M+F Magazine Olympic and professional athletes have them. So do bodybuilders, longshoremen, lumberjacks, and pretty much anyone we innately identify as a pillar of strength. In fact, of all the muscle groups, it is the one that most clearly distinguishes a longtime athlete from a...

Artem Varnitsin / EyeEm / Getty Gaining size isn’t as easy as it sounds. Your body is built to survive, not to look like an Olympia competitor, so putting on—and holding on to—muscle mass is a complicated, multilayered affair that can vary from person to person. But one thing everyone can do to...

You can’t put on the amount of muscle that’s advertised by celebrity trainers who say that their clients gained 20 to 30 pounds of mass in three months for whatever superhero film is set to release this month. “I’d say a pound or two pounds of muscle is very attainable to do naturally,” says...

aywan88 / Getty Building a bikini butt requires a training workout focused on hypertrophy so you can stimulate muscle growth. In addition to that, the workout should specifically target the posterior chain with exercises that maximize usage of these muscle groups. This hypertrophy based glute...

milan2099 / Getty Look, getting abs ain’t rocket science, and it’s easier for most guys than getting big or putting pounds on their bench press. You have to eat right, and you have to lift weights. That’s it. Commit to being consistent with the following program—which outlines exactly how to go...

Per Bernal / M+F Magazine Maxx Charles has fielded his fair share of critiques about his unorthodox training style. Yet no one can argue the results—a 5'11", 265-pound physique that has snagged a dozen top-five finishes since 2013. “There’s a purpose to my range of motion, the way I move a...

BraunS / Getty When to Do It After any workout when you're feeling particularly enegeric. Or if you're on the clock, this workout is intense enough to be a stand-alone training sessions. Why Do It Easy: You're accumulating more volume for all your major muscle groups: legs, back, chest, and...

PeopleImages / Getty In recent years, there has been a growing market for people to sell their excess breast milk online. Some nursing mothers overproduce milk for various reasons, and instead of letting it go to waste, they sell it online, typically to other mothers who are unable to breast...

Thomas Barwick / Getty Many athletes and bodybuilders swear by high-intensity interval training (HIIT) for building lean muscle and dropping body fat, and they may be on to something, according to new research from the Mayo Clinic. In a recent study, cardiac rehabilitation patients who stuck to...