|
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.
By Bill Geiger & Larry Shackelford, Muscle & Fitness
Magazine
| 
