Building Muscle

A quick word to muscle building. Some people have joined this contest not so much for weight loss but to increase tone and overall fitness.
For those who want to look more tone, pay attention. It takes some time to build muscle. The standard medical answer is that from beginning of a weight program to the end, it takes on average 8 weeks minimum to build more muscle. There are other opinions about this in the world, but I am giving you my perspective from my training. In order for the muscle to actually build, ie get stronger, you not only have to be patient, but you also have to work the larger muscles to fatigue often. So a short intense work out (30 minutes or so) is more beneficial than two hour long sessions. Working the larger muscle groups or combanation moves like squats and lunges will get the smaller muscles working in the area as well. Again this is for those who want to build muscle vs just get stronger. To get some more size to the muscles, you need to tire them out several times a week. This will send a signal to the brain.... 'I have to get bigger to adapt to this weight lifting.'
For those who start now, they will still have a chance of looking fit and tone by the end of our contest.