With all the varied type of workout regimes bandied about today to build muscle, how do you determine which program is correct for you? As a weightlifter, I suggest that you look at two main routines to employ in the weight room, in addition to a possible combination routine and then determine which one is most effective, and determine how the best plan can be employed to meet your specific goals.

Building Muscle Mass

Most newbie weightlifters initially have one main goal when starting in the weight room - they want to quickly build large muscles fast! The majority are usually skinny to start with and see weight lifting as a method of getting major muscle mass on their frame regardless of the price. If you are one of these type of trainers you will likely benefit the most through heavy use of compound exercises. You can begin the Monday workout as a "bench" day. The emphasis will be primarily on chest, triceps and shoulder muscles using a number of heavy weight exercises such as bench presses, dips, military presses and some added skull crushers. The Wednesday workout routine can emphasize the biceps and back with heavy weight sets for rows, curls, chins and dead lifts. The Friday workout routine can emphasize the legs with a series of heavy weight exercises like calf toe raises, leg curls and squats. Use these 3 days only to train hard, then rest. Keep it this simple. It is not important to deal with any cardio training. Also, it's advisable to add an additional 500 calories each day to the diet plus get a solid 8 hours of sleep nightly in order to reap the most benefits of the mass muscle method training method.

Goal To Lose Fat

If your main concern as a weight lifter is to lose body fat rather than gain muscle bulk as a goal, a better suited routine for you would be to concentrate more on lighter weights and a greater degree of cardiovascular training. Begin your training session with thirty minutes of full body exercises or split body push-pull exercises at a moderate level, then move forward with different cardio exercises for the remaining 30 to 45 minute period. This approach will allow you to build muscle mass and maintain it because your sugar levels (glycogen) are high during the weight lifting phase and the subsequent cardio workouts will burn additional body fat. As additional muscle mass is built, your body's natural metabolism will be altered so that you will be losing fat. However, as a consequence of your current efforts you will lose body fat immediately. This will make you feel better about yourself and look better at present.

An Overall Fitness Program

This particular type of "hybrid" workout program will enable you to achieve the mass muscle building program with the fat loss program into one single method of training that builds muscle. The methodology involved here is to workout very hard 3 days a week with weights and spend the other 2 or 3 days working out very hard on the cardiovascular exercise regime. You will definitely see muscle growth, just not as much as with the first two programs because you are spending cardio time on what would otherwise be recovery and growth time. However, you still will be gaining muscle and getting stronger with this blended program while at the same time becoming more lean.As you research all the different routines for building muscle you will undoubtedly learn about work outs that claim they are the best. Be sure that you identify what individual goals you have for yourself and then choose the routine that fits you best. With that as your basis, find a work out regime that embodies the methodology that enables you to arrive at your specified goal most quickly. I wish you all the best!