Bodybuilding.com - The Basic Principles Of Bodybuilding!

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I stick to once every 7 days, as it gives more time for rest and growth, and also makes scheduling workouts easier.

Work each body part out no more than once every 5-7 days. I stick to once every 7 days, as it gives more time for rest and growth, and also makes scheduling workouts easier.

If possible, work 1-2 body parts per workout, 3 at the utmost. Keep your workout under 1 1/2 hours in length, preferably under 1 hour. Total sets per body part per workout should be kept around 9-12. Arrange your exercises to go from compound movements, which involve multiple muscles, to isolation movements employing only a few muscles. As such, always start your workout with your major exercise, be it bench press, squat, deadlift, pull-ups, military press, or another powerful, compound movement. Remember, go from large to small when it comes to exercises. Always go to failure on your last set of an exercise. You should reach failure or near failure on your preceding workout sets, but always go to failure on your last set.

Observe good form, always. It is alright to let your form loosen some later in your set, but make sure you can get at least 6 reps with near perfect form before you "cheat" a little. Even then, it should be very slight, and still "good form", no ass-in-the-air on bench, or body swing on curls. If you have to cheat, the weight is too damn heavy for you. There is no shame in acknowledging your level of strength, if the weight is too heavy, lower it some, you're guaranteed a better workout, and better gains.

Workouts

For the purposes of lifting lets divided the body into 9 parts, the shoulders, chest, back, legs, calves, biceps, triceps, forearms, and abdominals. Biceps, Triceps, Forearms, abdominals, are usually not considered "full" body parts, though, and are worked less thoroughly (6 sets at most) than other parts. Split these body parts up into several workouts.

A sample split would be:

Monday
Chest: Flat barbell bench, incline dumbbell bench, flat dumbbell flyes
Triceps: Standing french press w/ tricep bar (or skull crushers), cable press-downs w/ straight bar.

Tuesday
Back: Pull-ups, barbell rows, dumbbell rows (deadlifts instead on heavy days)
Biceps: Barbell curl, incline hammer curls Forearms: Behind the back reverse wrist curls, wrist roller

Wednesday
Rest

Thursday
Shoulders: Standing overhead press, arnold press, rear laterals
Abs: crunches, leg raises

Friday
Legs: SQUATS
Calves: Standing barbell calf raises

Saturday
Rest

Sunday
Rest

Change your workouts every 6-8 weeks, and be sure to experiment. This is not the be-all-end-all of weight training, I've seen people who advocate high volume, low volume, full bodies, all different kinds of styles. For every advanced lifter of one method, you'll likely find an advanced lifter of another. But, I will guarantee you this; eat plenty of good food, rest well, and follow this routine, and you will make great gains in size and strength. You must follow through with all three, following through with 2/3rds of it doesn't get you 2/3rds of the gains, it could get you a lot less! Accept the fact that you've adopted a new lifestyle! If you can't accept bodybuilding as a lifestyle, if it's too time consuming or too expensive or too hard, then forget it! This is not meant for you. A classic physique is not in your future.

Daily Food Intake

Protein: Keep it over 1 gram per lb of bodyweight.

Sources:

Fat: Just watch the animal fats, and get plenty of veggie fats.

Sources:

Carbs: Try to eat them along with a little fat or protein to avoid spiking your insulin. Get to know the GI values of the foods you eat, forget about "complex" and simple carbs.

Sources:

Important: Your post-workout meal: the most important meal of your day, make sure you've got a lot of protein and high carbs in a meal eaten within 1 hour of the end of your workout, preferably within 30 minutes. I'll cut the technical crap and just tell you that your muscles are ripe to soak in nutrients just after a workout, and you want to get those nutrients in there asap. As such, try a big, quick shake with whey protein powder, with creatine and glutamine.

Daily Supplement Intake

Multi-Vitamin: You just got to take one of these.

Zinc/Magnesium: Great to take before bed. The zinc is especially good if you have frequent sex, lots of zinc is lost with each male ejaculation. Magnesium is good for regulating sleep, but make sure not to take it with calcium for best absorption. Aspartate forms of both are supposedly more easily absorbed by the body.

Vitamin C: Boosts immune system and may be anti-catabolic. Take in the morning, pre-workout, and post-workout.

Vitamin E A good antioxidant, but don't take too much, supposedly your body doesn't pass it as easily as other vitamins (such as vitamin C, which you can eat all day long), and you can build up toxic levels of it.

Flax Oil: (An especially good source of alpha-lipoic acid), take a tablespoon a few times a day, with meals.

Creatine: I'm a big fan, used before and after workouts.

Andro/Nor-andro: I like these, know that only a very few variations actually work at all. Only use andros-4-diol, norandros-4-dione, and norandros-4-diol.

L-Glutamine: Used before and after workout and before go to bed. About 10-15g per day is optimum.

Glucosamine Sulfate: Excellent, this really does help with joint problems, dosage ~1000 mg per day.