Listen... if you want to get big, you have to train big.

Entering the gym and simply going through the motions without a sweat just isn’t going to get the job done. You have to overload those muscles with heavy weight and high intensity if you want to see real results. This is without a doubt the most effective means of stimulating muscular growth.

Muscles grow due to a natural adaptive survival response, and if you don’t give them a damn good reason to grow, well, they won’t.

While training hard and heavy may be awesome for your muscles, it can be trouble for the health of your joints and connective tissue. This is simply the reality of intense weight training, and while there are no guarantees that you will be able to completely avoid getting injured, you can certainly take specific steps to lessen the chance.

An injury is the absolute last thing you could ever hope for, as it will stop you dead in your muscle-building tracks.

Down below I’m going to outline my 5 golden tips for weight training that will minimize the risk of injury. If you can honestly say that you implement all 5 of these tips for weight training into your program, then your risk of getting hurt will be much lower than someone who does not.

1) Always perform a thorough warmup.

One of the best tips for weight training involves taking time for a proper warmup, as this is the single best thing you can do to minimize your risk of injury. This simple 15-20 minute process will prepare your mind and body for the hard work to come by increasing blood flow into the surrounding connective tissue and by lubricating your joints.

I would recommend that you perform 5 minutes of light cardiovascular exercise before each workout followed by 4-5 warmup sets for your first major exercise of the routine.

2) Always train with proper form.

This is one of those tips for weight training that should go without saying. Every exercise that you perform in the gym should be done with proper form and technique in order to keep the stress off of your joints. If you start squatting or deadlifting with a rounded back, jerking the weights around in a ballistic manner or performing dangerous exercises you are almost guaranteed to hurt yourself at some point.

3) Always train within your own personal limits.

This is one of those tips for weight training that you need to remember in the gym. Weightlifting is a personal battle, and letting your ego take over is almost always a recipe for disaster. It doesn’t matter what the guy next to you is benching and it is completely irrelevant to your training program.

You must always use weights that you can handle and control with proper form, and if you start piling on the plates to impress the people around you, you’ll be stretching your limits and putting yourself in a very vulnerable position.

4) Always know when to quit.

This is one of those tips for weight training that every bodybuilder should adhere to. If you cannot complete another rep of an exercise using proper form, the set is over, plain and simple. Put the weight down and rest up for your next set.

If you start using huge amounts of momentum and jerky body motions to crank out a couple of extra reps, you’ll be on the sidelines before you know it.

5) Never ignore your aches and pains.

This is one of those tips for weight training that will help keep you from ignoring something serious. When you’re motoring along through a training program and are making progress from week to week, the idea of quitting just seems impossible. This can sometimes lead us to ignore those obvious injuries and pretend as if they aren’t really there as we often “work through” the pain and hope that it magically disappears.

More often than not, it will only get worse.

If you feel that something definitely isn’t right and can sense that you probably shouldn’t be training, get the problem checked out by a professional and then take the proper measures to heal. While it may hurt your progress in the short term, the overall long-term effect will be a positive one.

You can learn even more tips for weight training and details about keeping your joints and connective tissues healthy for years to come by visiting www.MuscleGainTruth.com. I'll teach you the specific way to perform a weightlifting warmup, and will provide you with streaming online videos that demonstrate the proper form for over 100 different weightlifting exercises.