The starting point

I have seen people hitting the gym and trying to build or tone those muscles from day 1.They either choose, or are asked to do exercises which supposedly would get them their desired results.

Here is something I figured out myself after years of working out.The first step when you start working out should be to feel, identify each of your target muscles. The work outs one choose should over a period of 7-8 weeks help him to thoroughly feel and isolate the target muscles.This means that after starting your work out, in a period of 7-8 weeks, one should be able to feel only his biceps move and getting the work out while doing a biceps curl, or feel only the middle and lower lats getting worked out while doing seated rows. Until this goal is achieved, I would say rest of the work out and time you invest would be a waste.

I derived a simple way of checking if I can isolate and feel a muscle.The technique is to flex that particular muscle in isolation.Now you would see that you could flex your biceps and triceps with out any difficulty. Try flexing your lower back muscles, upper back muscles in isolation and you would realize that its not as easy.Taking it one more level up, try if you could pump up your target muscles in isolation by working out that muscle with no weights or resistance, but a fictitious resistance. If you can achieve this, you can be assured that you have reached a situation where you can use resistance, weights or workout to hit the target muscle groups with out diluting or spreading the impact else where.

The objective of doing the aforementioned technique is to ensure that your target muscles gets the 100% impact of a work out you are doing. Else you are not getting the best of that workout and more over you will be more prone to injuries. So learn to focus, feel and isolate your target muscles during every workout. Master this in by 7-8 weeks of starting your training.

Beginners beware of wrong instructions

I was very thin and lean when I was first introduced into working out.I had no idea and had never heard that I could change the way I look by working out. I had never even seen a gym till I was 22. Then started the nonstop suggestions and expert advice from instructors,fitness freaks and hefty guys around.I must admit that I was gullible. But I'm glad and happy that my learnings are more profound because I made those mistakes and found my way out of it. So let me share some of those worst suggestions you will see coming your way, if you are a lean person trying to put on some weight.

Please stay away from these suggestions

• Drink beer. Lots of it:)
• Eat lot of sweets and confectionaries.
• Eat lots of white rice and refined flour.
• Eat lot of red meat and cheese.

I'm sure you all know what these tips did to me. At 6 ft 1 inch height, it took some time for these tips to put unhealthy mass around and I realized that was not what I had in mind.Since my workouts were also wrong ( which i would share with you in my next blog). These made my face chubby and I did get broader and huge but was definitely not feeling healthy and looking nice.I soon started reading and looking out for a true health and fitness person who could give me the correct tips. Else, I was determined to continue working out and finding out the correct techniques my self. I'm glad I did that because that is helping me today in giving the correct tips to my friends and the ones who seek them. In the next blog, I would share the wrong workouts.

Dare to dream

Through this blog, I will be sharing tried and tested methods of staying in shape, building muscle, losing fat, toning up, getting ripped etc. The best thing about this, would be that I would be sharing what I went through. Not something an accomplished bodybuilder, fitness model or a celebrity did. Since these were tried and tested by me, on me, one can be confident about how it would be just perfect for a common person like you and me, for whom staying in shape is not the only activity to do. Just like you all, even I have a job that takes a lot of my time, long working hours, odd working hours, hectic schedules, living alone, which means even more difficult to get the right food, rest and other favorable conditions.

Its going to be back to basics and keeping things simple. I have always found and believed that the best of the solutions are in the simplest methods. Sticking to basics does not mean staying rigid. Being imaginative and thinking out of the box is great. That will bring you richer results. You would get to see a perfect combination of both here at Optimicician Health.

If you all are ready to go on a journey and achieve your health and fitness goal, then here are some rules -
Dare to dream. Dare to realize your dream. Anything is possible to those who believe.