Check them out:

(1) Not Eating Enough Protein – In the gym you pound, tear and generally tyrannize your muscle cells. At the kitchen table you rebuild and grow them with – protein. How much? Recent studies with strength trainers suggest that one-gram of protein for every pound of bodyweight is about ideal. That’s roughly double the Food and Drug Administration’s RDA. But there’s more to it than that. All proteins, you see, are not created equal.For muscle growth to be activated you need “complete” proteins – those that contain all of the essential and non-essential amino acids in the exact amounts required by the body for growth. Not only must your protein be complete, it must also be lean (fat free). Chicken breast, fish, egg whites, lean red meats and whey protein powder should be your staples.

(2) Not Eating Every Three Hours – There are two critical reasons why you should eat small, nutritionally balanced meals every three waking hours. Firstly, eating every three hours will supercharge your metabolism, turning it into a fat burning furnace. Secondly, supplying lean, complete protein to your muscle cells every three hours is the only effective way to build muscle. Protein you see cannot be stored in the body and lasts about three hours in the blood stream. So, to create and maintain the ideal muscle-building environment, you have to keep supplying it every three hours.

(3) Not Taking in Enough Calories – If you want to gain muscular body weight, you need to eat – a lot. If you don’t you will never put on muscle – regardless of what you do in the gym. To put on mass plan to eat 18 to 20 times more calories than your bodyweight in pounds. Of course, those calories must be clean – they must prioritize lean, complete proteins and follow the one, two, three rule of macronutrient intake, which says that at every meal you should have one part fat, two parts protein and three parts carbohydrate. Use whey based protein powders to help get your calorie intake up.

(4) Not Drinking Enough Water – Heavy weight training can easily lead to dehydration - unless you keep replacing the water you lose. Once your muscles are dehydrated, they’ll take a lot longer to repair themselves – halting the muscle building process. Without sufficient amounts of water the kidneys will struggle to remove the metabolic waste products generated by the increased amount of protein you’re eating. It also appears that drinking ice-cold water will help speed up the metabolism.

(5) Drinking Too Much Alcohol – If you are serious about bodybuilding, you cannot afford to drink your potential away. Alcohol consumption needs to be minimal or non-existent. Here’s why: at 7 calories per gram, alcohol is the second most calorie dense nutrient behind fat, alcohol will sabotage your body’s fat burning ability, alcohol dehydrates the body and alcohol suppresses testosterone production. Bottom line; Getting drunk may be what it takes to make a man, but he’ll be a fat and pathetically muscle free one – and you deserve better than that!

(6) Not Planning Meals – It doesn’t matter how good the intentions are, the crushing pace of modern living isbound to threaten your nutritional plans. It is absolutely vital, then, that you plan your daily eating in advance. Here’s how: Each night plan your coming day’s activity and figure out how you’re going to get the food you need every three hours, prepare the coming day’s food the night before, cook in bulk, plan ahead for when you’re traveling and prepare foods that help you avoid buying junk.

(7) Not Keeping A Nutritional Journal – Keeping a log of what you eat is cumbersome but it is the only way that you’ll be able to identify what is causing your body to shed fat and grow muscle. Without it you’re never learning, never benefiting from your nutritional past. A good nutritional journal will include the date, time, food type, carbohydrate, fat, protein and caloric breakdown. A short note about your energy levels will also be helpful for future reference.

(8) Not Taking A Multi-Vitamin – If you are deficient in any vitamin, mineral or trace element, your muscle building endeavors will be compromised. Today we can’t just assume we’ll get those essentials from the mythical ‘balanced diet’ – over-processing and pesticides have killed that idea. A good multi-vitamin, then, is essential. Look for one that contains the recommended daily allowances of the following: A Complex, B Complex, C, D, E, K vitamins and the minerals calcium, magnesium, zinc, iodine and selenium.

(9) Eating Too Much Sugar – Arnold called sugar ‘white death,’ and for good reason. Now, just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there. This is especially true of soda. In fact your average 2-liter bottle of soft drink contains over 100 tablespoons of sugar – that’s a lot of white death! So stop fooling yourself and cut out those muscle depleting hidden sugars.

Jesse Erving L.S.C.T.

About Larry Scott:

When Larry was a young student in Pocatello, Idaho, He’d hit the street running as soon that last school bell rang and wouldn’t slow down until he got all the way across town to get my newspapers. he always wanted to be the first to deliver to the bars and beat the rest of my competitors.After my deliveries and before he caught the bus to go home, he’d stop in at Fred’s sporting goods. he needed one more look at the big guys arm using the chest expander box. he never could get that image out of my mind. It haunted me! You almost couldn’t tell that he had his arm sticking straight out because his bicep had such fullness down around the elbow. It almost took my breath away.Years later when he discovered the Scott Preacher bench and learned how it could pack meat on the bicep, I resolved to get myself an arm just like that guy on the box!

In my quest to build the perfect bicep, he learned all kinds of tricks to make the exercises even better. he redesigned the bench to squeak out every last ounce of growth on the lower bicep. It’s funny how you’ll never seem to stop learning if you just keep asking.

One of the secrets he learned along the way! The position of the palm is the key to determining how much growth you can get on the lower bicep. Before the advent of the EZ curl bar he had to use the straight bar. When the EZ curl bar hit the scene, everyone switched because it was easier on the wrists and we could use more weight. he thought to myself… If he use more weight could he build even bigger biceps? Unfortunately, It didn’t happened that way. My size actually shrank. he had forgotten the importance of the positioning of the palm on the bar.

You see, the first function of the lower bicep is to turn the palm of your hand in towards the body. When you use an EZ curl bar the palm is already turned in at 45 degrees before you even begin to work. We had all missed it. He could use more weight with the EZ curl but our lower bicep development began to suffer. It troubled him, so he went back to the straight bar and sure enough the lower bicep started to grow again. It was actually an injury that helped me really understand it. he had overdone my forearm workout and the brachioradialis was really hurting. As he patiently waited for it to heal, he hungered for some serious Preacher bench pain. he had to find away to disconnect the brachioradialis and make the bicep do all the work.

He looked at the curves on the EZ curl bar and suddenly it dawned on me. When he normally use the EZ curl bar he grab the bar with the thumbs higher than the little finger which uses both biceps and brachioradialis to do the work. But, if we grab the bar with the little finger higher than the thumb, it takes the brachioradialis completely out of the picture and requires the lower bicep to do all the work. This was a break through of wonderful proportions! he could do the exercise without pain and work the lower bicep even better than when using the straight bar.

You’ve got to try this! It’s really fun and it builds wonderful lower biceps. Remember, the lower biceps are the ones that are hard to build. Yeah, we can get big arms, but how about beautiful? Develop the lower biceps and it knock your eyes out!

Grab the EZ curl bar on the curves which force the little finger higher than the thumbs. It feels strange because it forces the elbows to come in together, but WOW what a monster for building the low bicep.

Jesse Erving L.S.C.T.