Basically, you have to know what you want. If you're a beginner looking to tone up and add a bit of muscle, you will have to start with a beginners muscle building routine.

If you've been muscle building for a couple of months and need a muscle building program that's a bit more challenging, you'll need an intermediate program.

On the other hand, if you're an experienced weight lifter looking to try something different, you'll need specialized muscle building programs.

It's a matter of finding out what you want and establishing your goals. If you don't know what you want, than you will have to sit down and figure that out.

How do you build muscle with weight lifting programs?

If you want to build muscle, you're going to have to use weight resistance exercise like weight lifting. Weight lifting requires the use of weight bearing equipment such as barbells and dumbbells (free weights), and machines that use cables and pulleys to help lift the weight.

You can also use body weight bearing exercises such as chip ups and dips in your weight lifting programs. If you are just starting out, I suggest you use a combination of machine and free weight exercises in your weight lifting program.

This will give your body the time it needs to adjust to the different levels of stress that weight lifting places on your body.

As you progress in your weight lifting program, it's suggested that you add more free weight exercises. Free weights and compound movements such as squats, bench press, shoulder press, and bent over barbell rows apply a lot of stress on the supporting muscles.

These exercises are often called multi-jointed exercises because they employ not only the targeted muscle but the supporting muscles as well. By using free weights and compound movements in your muscle building program you will challenge your body to work harder and therefore make better muscle gains.

Adding more free weight exercises will increase the intensity of your muscle building program. The result? Added overall power and quality beef added to your frame.

Here are examples of compound movements to use in your muscle building programs:

Barbell bent over rows

Bench press

Barbell shoulder press

Dead lifts

Squats

Close grip bench press

If you are just starting out, I suggest you start with the beginners weight lifting program and slowly progress to the intermediate and advanced weight lifting programs.

Remember to always ask for advice if you are not sure about certain exercises. Gym staff is usually pretty good and will provide you with quality advice regarding all aspects of weight lifting.

What is a repetition?

Muscle building exercises consists of repetitions and sets. One repetition consists of a series of muscle contractions with a weight or movement such as one push up.

A series of repetitions is called a set. For example, 10 repetitions of push-ups is considered one set.

The number of sets performed will depend on your current level of fitness and goals. Beginners can only tolerate a couple of sets per body part. Anymore than one or two sets for a beginner is certainly not recommended, as this can be counterproductive.

If you are a beginner to muscle building training, I suggest you design your weight lifting routine using light weight and higher repetitions.

As you progress in your muscle building program, your strength and muscle gains will be moderate but what you want to concentrate on is form. This is very important.

As a beginner, you want to perform the exercises with proper form. This will be very important as you progress to the intermediate and advanced weight lifting programs.

As your form and style improves, you'll want to move to a lower repetition range using heavier weights. Although you will want to keep using the higher repetition range for warm ups. As your training levels advance, you can add more sets to your weight lifting routine in order to stimulate more growth.

For building muscle it is desirable to perform low repetitions using heavy weight.

The amount of repetitions you complete will depend on your goals as well as the weight lifting routine itself. There is no magic number of repetitions that will produce better results than any other number.

You will have to determine your combination of body chemistry, feel, and trial and error to determine what works best for you. What works for one person may not necessarily work another.

What is a set?

A set is the completion of a series of repetitions. Beginners should perform one to two sets per exercise for the first couple of months of a weight lifting routine.

This should be sufficient to stimulate increases in muscle size and strength. After a couple of months, you will probably need to add one or two more sets to further stimulate improvements.

As you progress you will need to place more strain on your body to stimulate growth. Just remember that more is not always better.

You want to keep your muscle building sessions brief but intense. If you don't know for sure what to do and how to do in order to have a good muscle building program you should always feel free to ask the gym staff or a professional muscle builder.

They will surely know how to guide you to a good muscle building program for you.