Bodybuilding: A Beginner's Guide
Bodybuilding is simply the process of increasing the muscle
mass of the body and decreasing the amount of fatty tissue
in the body. This is accomplished through the use of
Progressive Resistance Training. Progressive resistance
simply means to progressively use heavier weights as your
muscles get stronger.
Increasing resistance is possible due to the body's ability
to adapt to stress by becoming stronger in response to the
stimulus of exercise. Simply put, when you work a muscle
hard, the fibers are actually damaged or broken down and
the body responds by repairing the muscle and making it
slightly bigger and stronger to prepare for the work to be
repeated. If the work (exercise) is repeated frequently
(with enough rest in between for the repair process to take
place) with increased resistance each time, theoretically,
the muscle will get progressively larger and stronger. That
is the basis of bodybuilding weight training.
It is a simple process, but there are many variables that
can affect how fast and how much the muscle will grow.
These factors include, but are not limited to, the
following:
Nutrition
Rest
Intensity of workouts
Frequency of workouts
Nutrition is a huge part of successful bodybuilding. I
would highly recommend reading everything you can get your
hands on dealing with bodybuilding nutrition and
supplementation. One way to keep informed in this area is
to subscribe to a good Bodybuilding magazine such as Flex
or Muscle & Fitness. Both of these fine bodybuilding
magazines have many great articles each month dealing with
diet, nutrition and supplements.
Rest is another important area to consider. In this day and
age, it is not unusual to get less than 6 hours of sleep a
night for a lot of people. I recommend trying to get at
least 8 hours if at all possible, even if you need to take
a nap! Your body does most of it's growing as you sleep, so
get all you can!
Workout intensity is something that entire books have been
written on. I recommend reading up on this topic as well.
Flex and Muscle & Fitness deal with this topic in depth.
Basically you need to find the right amount of intensity to
trigger muscle growth. When a bodybuilder is just starting
out, it does not take much to trigger new muscle growth.
However, the body will quickly adapt to repeated stress and
this can cause muscle growth to slow or stop all together.
When this occurs, bodybuilders refer to it as a "plateau".
This is when changes to workout intensity must occur. The
muscle must be subjected to a new kind of stress that it is
not used to in order to stimulate new growth. Fortunately,
there are many methods of changing the workout intensity,
but that is beyond the scope of this article.
Frequency of workouts is something that will vary from
bodybuilder to bodybuilder. Some bodybuilders workout every
day and some only 3 days per week. You will have to
experiment with this to determine what works best for you.
You must give your muscles enough of a break between
workouts to repair themselves, but you don't want to wait
too long between workouts or you will not get maximum
results.
Getting Started
First and foremost, check with your physician to make sure
you are in good physical condition to start a weight
lifting or bodybuilding program! I recommend that beginners
to bodybuilding start with a simple workout plan. This plan
should consist of one exercise per bodypart, working the
entire body 3 times per week.
Bodyparts are divided as follows:
Chest (pecs)
Back (lats)
Shoulders (delts)
Triceps (back of upper arm)
Biceps (front of upper arm)
Forearms Abdominals (abs)
Quadriceps (front of thigh)
Hamstrings (back of thigh)
Calves (back of lower leg)
Here is an example of a workout:
Bench press
Lat pulldowns
Military Press
Tricep pushdowns
Barbell curls
Crunches
Leg extensions
Leg curls
Standing Calf raises
You should start out each exercise with a warm up set. For
this set, choose a relatively light weight that will allow
you to do 25 reps without killing yourself. This will get
your muscles ready for heavier weights. Then do 3 sets of
each exercise of 8-10 repetitions.
For your first set, choose a weight that will allow you to
10 reps without struggling too much. Rest for 30-60
seconds, then increase the weight for your second set that
makes 10 reps considerably harder. For your third set,
choose a weight that is heavy enough that you cannot do any
more than 8-10 reps no matter how hard you try. This is
called muscular failure. You must take your muscles to the
point of failure or they will not grow. The last few reps
of the last set are the ones that will trigger your body to
respond by making the muscle bigger and stronger.
Write the weights down for each exercise so you know where
you are for the next workout.
It will take a bit of trial and error until you find the
correct weight in each exercise. Be sure to take care when
you first start out not to load the bar up with some
ridiculous weight that may cause injury to your muscles,
tendons, or your foot when you drop it!
As time goes on and you are diligently following your
training program, you will notice that when you get to rep
number 10 on your last set, you feel like you can do one or
two more. This is good! Go ahead and do one or two more for
a total of 11 or 12. When you are able to do this for 2 or
3 workouts in a row, it is time to increase the weight in
that particular exercise.
If you are training a relatively large muscle group, such
as chest or quads, you may try increasing the weight by 10
or 15 pounds. If you are doing biceps or delts, then maybe
increase only 5 pounds or even 2.5 pounds. The new weight
should limit you to 7 or 8 reps on the last set. Soon you
will be back up to 12 with the new weight, and then you
will bump the weight up even more. These increases are what
you are working so hard for. Increased weight means
increased strength, which means increased muscle mass!
Be sure to write everything down as you train. This is very
important for several reasons. First, you may not remember
what weight you used in a particular exercise the next time
you workout, and you will waste time and effort having to
figure it out again! Second, you need be able to gauge your
progress as time goes on. When you see that you are using
10 or 15 more pounds than you did a month ago, you know
your strength is increasing and this is great feedback! I
recommend getting a good training journal, but you can use
any pad of paper. Create a space for the following data for
each workout:
Date
Muscle Group worked
Exercise name
Number of sets
Number of reps in each set
Weight used each set
Personal Notes
Write things down that may have a positive or negative
affect on your workout, such as energy level, whether you
were tired or still sore from your last workout, or maybe
your left shoulder has been bothering you, etc. If you are
detailed here, you may be able to learn some important
clues as to what makes you have a good workout verses an
"ok" workout. Maybe you'll find that when you workout right
after work you have more energy than when you wait until 8
o'clock. Or maybe certain foods you eat before a workout
help you with your energy and focus. Write down if you have
a cold, or if you are recovering from an injury, or if any
particular exercise hurts you when you do it. These notes
will come in handy sooner or later in the course of your
bodybuilding program.
Use this program for 4-6 months and you should see some
real progress. At that time, you may want to start to
include some advanced techniques to increase your workout
intensity in order to continue making good gains.
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David Monyer has been involved in bodybuilding for the last
20 years, making most of his muscle gains in his basement
gym, as well as different clubs and gyms over the years.
For more information on training and recommended protein
supplements, visit http://www.RockSolidBodybuilding.com
Try Flex or Muscle & Fitness Magazine at a deep discount:
http://www.rocksolidbodybuilding.com/magazines.html
