Another busy month getting stronger. Right now I'm recovering from an over-enthusiastic bout of weight lifting and climbing on the same day, which has me pretty stiff and sore :-)

First off, check out the new Facebook page for Complete Strength Training…

www.Facebook.com/Complete-Strength-Training.com

Head over there and click 'Like' to follow updates, and my own tips about strength and fitness posted every few days.

Also, this month there will be a lot of new info on eating healthy and losing weight to get ripped. So keep an eye out for that.

Check out this month's article about looking good while building strength, and some of the best new pages from this last month. And then get out there and start making yourself sore!

"Start now. Today. Right this minute. There will never be a better time!"

~ Aaron McCloud

1) My Favorite Strength Training Links

Here's a short list of my favorite exercise, nutrition, and strength training links.

2) The 300 Workout Routine - Become A Spartan!

Download a pdf of the 300 workout routine that actor Gerard Butler followed to become the muscular King Leonidas of Sparta in the movie 300!

3) Top Submission: Please Help With Your Opinion and Tips

First off I'd like to provide the details before the criticism comes. I work on remodeling job, (currently about to find something else and I believe I...

4) How To Eat Just Enough to Get Strong

Building muscle is a time consuming and energy intensive process for your body. And you have to eat enough for it to happen. Without that extra food, your body will just get worn down and your workouts will make you weaker.

However, you don't need as much food as you might think.

There is the belief by some people that you need to eat everything you can get your hands on (and the kitchen sink!) to put on muscle. Which is not strictly true.

When you eat to put on muscle, you want to be eating more than you need - so that your body can put that extra energy into muscle. But it is not a linear relationship.

Thus, the more you eat the more you put on muscle up to a very limited point. After that point, the extra food just becomes fat.

So while food helps with your muscle regeneration, your muscles get stronger on their own time. As long as you've met the threshold for 'calorie excess for muscle growth', getting more food won't help you.

If you're curious about this, do a murderously hard workout at the gym and then go home and eat a lot. A lot a lot. Like 5,000 or 7,000 calories a lot - spare no carton of whole milk, block of cheese, or jar of peanut butter!

And the next day you will still be sore. Oh, you will have started putting on more muscle - but the bulk of that torrent of extra food will be going into fat, not muscle.

I say this because especially in America, it's easy to eat enough. In fact, it's really easy to eat too much! For most people, eating a lot won't be a problem.

So, if you're looking to put on muscle and are anal retentive like me, eat just a little more than you need to. An extra 300 to 500 calories a day, if you're counting.

That way, you'll get the benefits of putting on muscle (and getting stronger) without a ton of fat gain.

If you have a hard time gaining muscle (and weight in general) you probably aren't eating enough. But it's easy to fool yourself by eating a ton, watching the numbers on the scale rise, and think you're putting on muscle and getting stronger when you're actually getting fatter.

Adding just 2 - 3 pounds of real muscle per month is difficult, and a great accomplishment. If you're a beginner it will go faster, and someone that's been at this a while might just aim for 1 pound (or less) per month.

so, just eat a little extra to gain a muscle without gaining fat.

Just to give you the full picture, fat can actually help you get stronger by giving you a mechanical advantage. For example, if you're getting fatter your bench press numbers can increase more easily since you don't have as far to lower the bar. And your muscles gain a leverage advantage from the fact that you're looking more and more like a barrel.

This is why if you look at photos of old-time strong men, many of them are BIG! Lost of muscle, but also lots of fat.

So if your goal is strength and lifting more weight at all costs, eat everything! But if you want to just add muscle and not add blubber, eat just a bit more than usual.

I'll get into more detail about special ways to manipulate nutrition in the coming months. But for now, these guidelines should be enough to get you started.

Starting Strong brings you the latest additions to Complete-Strength-Training.Com & select articles about how to get STRONG.

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Train hard, do your best, & see you next month!

Aaron

www.Complete-Strength-Training.com/home