By Bill Geiger & Larry Shackelford, Muscle & Fitness Magazine
Starting a bodybuilding program can be a daunting experience. You visit
your local gym only to see intimidating, big armed men and lean,
muscular women training with a serious attitude. You look around and are
dazed by the expansive array of equipment. How dies it all work? Even
the vocabulary seems like a foreign language: spotting, pyramid
training, gastrocnemius, reps, periodication.
Whew! Would it help if we reminded you that even Arnold Schwarzenegger,
perhaps the greatest bodybuilder of all time, had a first day in the
gym? If fact, we all did!
Getting Started
Great - you've decided to try bodybuilding. Perhaps you want to build
mass, tighten up your midsection or slim down; those are all possible
with strength training. Whatever your reason (and you should definitely
write down your goals for starting and your realistic expectations of
what you hope to achieve in the short and long term),m you should follow
a clearly defined program.
Don't expect us to provide you with any so-called success; let's state
for the record right now that some training methods are smarter and
better than others, but nothing resembles a secret. Our role here is to
teach and guide you through your first three months so that you can take
your training to the next level and design a personal routine that
meets your needs.
Is there one program that's right for everyone? No. Did you really
expect that one routine would serve the needs of the female college
basketball player who wants to make a more dominating presence on the
court, the 45 year old businessman looking to firm his body and improve
his health, and the young man interested in competitive bodybuilding?
Every person who trains has different motivations, desires and genetic
potential, and each must make his or her own adjustments in putting
together a particular program. It's really not so difficult. But before
you get started, here are some points you'll want to consider.
- Get a physician's release if you are over 40 or have had any sort of previous injury or impairment.
- Be realistic but positive. Assess your current
condition and where you want to be in three months, one year and five
years. Keep focused on your goals and know you'll achieve them.
- Commit yourself to three months
before making any judgements about whether it's working or not. The
truth is, you're probably a bit impatient, and sculpting your physique
takes time. Changes take place incrementally, but three months is long
enough to notice some significant changes in strength and size.
Persistence and dedication are characteristics that all successful
bodybuilders have in common. Do you?
Designing Your Exercise Program
Before getting into your program, you need to develop an understanding
of how and why you're building your exercise routine. Although we've
gone ahead and designed a program for you, just about everything in ti
can be changed depending on your particular circumstances. Your primary
objective here, as a beginner, is to build a solid foundation - and not
just any training program will take you there in an efficient manner.
Study the following points to better understand your bodybuilding
program.
Bodypart Training
Bodybuilders group exercises by bodypart and train one muscle group at a
time. Working one are with 1-3 exercises ensures that you train it
thoroughly. Experience says that this type of training is the most
efficient for bodybuilding. (Circuit training, on the other hand, allows
you to do movements for different bodyparts back to back with no rest
in between).
Every major muscle group should be developed to prevent muscle imbalance
and the risk of injury. The major muscle groups include legs
(quadriceps, hamstrings, calves, glutes), chest, shoulders, back
(Trapezius, lats, erectors), abdominals and arms (biceps, triceps).
Exercises
You can choose from any number of movements that target a particular
muscle group, but beginners should stick with the basics to develop a
solid foundation. The first exercise you do for a given bodypart should
be a compound movement. (A compound or multijoint movement, unlike an
isolation exercise, has movement at two or more joints and thus brings
in a greater number of assisting muscle groups. Note: Some bodyparts
like biceps, triceps and calves can be worked with pre-dominatantly
isolation exercises.)
Some basic movements can be done in a number of ways; for example, you
can do a bench press with a barbell, with dumbbells or on a machine.
Eventually, you'll learn how to do them all and use the in your training
arsenal.
Two similar exercises can target a muscle differently. For example, the
bench press is a good exercise for most of the chest, but the incline
press (essentially a bench press done on an incline bench) works the
upper pectorals more effectively. When you put exercises together to
form a routine, you'll want to include those movements that hit the same
muscle in different ways. That's why you normally include 2-3 exercises
when you work each bodypart.
Weights
During the first couple of training sessions, you'll want to go pretty
light just to get a feel for how to do the movement correctly. After you
feel comfortable with the form, begin adding weight.
Even an experienced lifted should always do his first set as a warm-up
with practically no weight to flush to target muscle and connective
tissue with blood. On the second set, add a couple of small plates and
do the exercise again. Was it still east? If so, and assuming you used
good form, add more weight. If you struggled to reach 12 repetitions,
add just a little bit of weight. (Adding weight on successive sets is
called pyramid training and is one of the safest ways to train.)
Continue adding weight until it becomes tough to complete 8-12 reps.
Your goal is to train in the range where you reach muscular failure at
8-12 reps. Once you find a challenging weight, stick with it. So you'll
become stronger and be able to increase the number of reps. Once you can
do 12, it's time to increase your training poundage by about 10%. At
this heavier weight, you won't be able to do 12 reps, but with time
you'll once again be able to. Keep working in this fashion.
The principle behind this type of training is known as overload. It
states that for improvements to occur, you must impose a demand on your
muscles greater than what they're accustomed to (for bodybuilding
purposes, about two-thirds of your maximal strength). Your muscles
compensate for this strain on the cellular level by adding protein to
grow thicker and stronger. At that point, the same load is no longer
sufficient to induce further changes, more load must be added. That is,
you must progressively add training stimulus to make continued
improvements.
Keep track of your training poundage by recording your weights, sets and
reps in a training log alongside a list of your exercises.
Some bodybuilders swing and heave, cheating for the sake of pushing
heavier weights. Remember, the name of the game here is not
weightlifting, but rather bodybuilding.
Sets
A set is a combination of any number of reps of a single exercise. As a
beginner, you'll normally want to do 1-2 light warm up sets of each
movement (especially the first movement for a given bodypart) before
doing 1-3 heavier sets. That equals 2-4 total sets per exercise.
Reps
A rep is a single execution of one exercise. if you do a set of 10 bicep
curls consecutively, that's 10 reps. During your first week or two,
keep the weights very light so that you can complete about 15 reps in
good form. This is a change for you to practice good form while you work
on your neuromuscular coordination and lean the proper 'feel' for the
movement. Developing that feel with become even more critical later on
because it will tell you if an exercise is working.
After that initial break-in period, to build size and strength you want
to do 8-12 reps per set (after your warm-up set of 15 reps, which you
should do at the start of each exercise). Use a weight that allows you
to do the recommended number of reps and still reach muscle failure.
Muscle failure means that you cannot do any more reps with good form. If
you can't do eight strict reps, the weight's too heavy. If you can do
more than 12, the weight's too light. Adjust the weight for your next
set. (Note: The numbers eight and twelve are not arbitrarily derived.
Exercise scientists have conducted numerous tests and have found that
working with a weight about 70% of your one-rep maximum produces the
fastest results. Most bodybuilders can lift about 70% of their
one-repetition maximum 8-12 times).
Though you don't have to train to muscle failure to grow, you need to
come pretty close. Bodybuilders call this intensity. How do you know if
you're close to working at 100% intensity? Simple: If you can do another
rep with good form, do it! If you can do still another, do it.
After you build you base, you may want to experiment with a program that
alternates periods of high reps (which build muscle endurance) to
medium reps (builds muscle mass) with low reps (builds strength and
power) and back up again. This is called cycling. The idea here is to
progress to a higher level of strength each cycle. (Note: Advanced
strength athletes like powerlifters use slightly different training
methods, most notably the number of reps, that do bodybuilders. You'll
get stronger as you build muscle, but training to maximuse strength
isn't identical to the type of training that maximizes mass.)
Proper Form
We'll say this again and again, but it's far better to use a weight that
allows you to perform the movement correctly than to cheat with a heavy
weight that will, sooner or later, result in an injury.
Speed of Movement
Use a smooth, controlled motion during all phases of the lift. This
deliberate rep speed produces the greatest results for bodybuilding
purposes. Super-fast reps with ballistic movements and jerking can be
harmful to muscles and connective tissues, while slow training
accomplishes very little. In general, most bodybuilders use a formula
that approximates a two-second positive contraction (raising the
weight), a momentary squeeze of the muscle at the point of peak
contraction, and a two-second negative contraction (lowering of the
weight).
Breathing
Most people don't think much about breathing until they begin lifting
weights, but it should still come naturally. Start each set with a deep
inhalation and exhale as you push through the most difficult part of the
lift. Inhale at the top (or the easiest portion of the lift) and exhale
as you push.
Rest between Sets
In general, rest as long as it takes for you to feel recovered from your
previous set. That normally ranges from 45-90 seconds. Larger muscle
groups take a bit longer to recover; smaller muscle groups clear low pH
levels are are ready to go more quickly. Don't fall into the all too
common mistake of talking with your buddies for 3-4 minutes between
sets, during which time your muscle can become cold. This is
counterproductive and lengthens the time you spend in the gym.
If you want to emphasize strength, take a little longer rest between
sets. On the other hand, less rest means you won't be able to lift as
heavy, but you'll be stressing your endurance. Of note: How much you can
lift on a given set and the number of reps you do are directly related
to the length of your rest period.
Use a Full Range of Motion
Use a full range of motion in your exercise movements. You want to work
each target muscle through its natural range of motion for complete
development and to prevent injury.
Training Frequency
Say you train your entire body on Monday. Should you do it again on
Tuesday, or wait until Wednesday? The answer is that your body requires a
minimum of 48 hours to fully recover after exercise, sometimes even
longer. Physiological processes at the cellular level require rest and
nutrients before you can train that same muscle group again. A good rule
of thumb: If you're even slightly sore, you're not ready to train that
bodypart again.
If you're an advanced bodybuilder and split up your workout into, for
example, one day for upper body and another for lower body, you can
train on consecutive days as long as you don't repeat the same workout.
As a beginner, you don't want to go more than 96 hours (four days)
without training the same muscle group again. Timing too infrequently
results in submaximal gains.
The answer for the beginner, then, is to train every 2-3 days (or three
times a week). A Monday - Wednesday - Friday (or similar) schedule is
ideal.
Training Duration
If you follow the exercises, sets, reps and rest prescription, you
should complete your resistance training in about an hour. Never mind
those two hour plus sessions; who could possibly maintain the high level
of intensity and mental fortitude of a marathon training session? What
matters is the quality of your workout measured by the intensity you
create, not the length of time you spend in the gym. Remember that.
Courtesy of GetBig.com
