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 Part 1: Beginner's Bodybuilding Program! Part 2: Intermediate's Bodybuilding Program! Part 3: Advanced Bodybuilding Program!
So, you want to pack on some serious mass and carve out those abs? Here's a step-by-step introduction to the iron game that will get you started on the right foot. Don't expect overnight miracles - building a body takes time, focus and consistency. The good news is that the first 6-12 months is the time when you will probably make the most dramatic gains. However, it is important to learn proper form and basic safety rules now to make sure you don't injury yourself down the road when you're pushing heavier weights around.
As a beginner, you can train more frequently than intermediates and advanced trainers. The reason is simple: as you get more experienced, you learn to push your muscles harder and inflict more damage that takes longer to recover from. Beginners, on the other hand, get sore but bounce back quicker since the muscular damage isn't as severe. If the word "damage" makes you flinch, don't worry. It's a good thing for a bodybuilder to incur limited muscle damage, because it nudges the body to recover and overcompensate (grow) slightly to prepare for future workouts. This is what bodybuilding is all about - a continuous cycle of one-step-back, two-steps-forward, repeated over and over on a weekly basis. With this in mind it is also easy to see why rest and sleep is extremely important, since this is the time when the body does the two-steps-forward phase. More on this in the tips & tricks-section. So, instead of training each muscle group once a week, you can start with a twice a week-schedule and play it by ear from there. Furthermore, we're going to split the body into two separate days: Upper body except abs on day 1, lower body plus abs on day 2. Since we're aiming to train each muscle twice a week, this means we can do day 1 and 2 on Monday and Tuesday, for example. Then we do day 1 and 2 again on Thursday and Friday, leaving Wednesday and the weekend open for rest and relaxation. The following week you start over on the Monday-version of day 1 and so on. We want to learn the basics, so I'll focus primarily on classic exercises like curls, different types of presses and a handful of basic machines. Once we've mastered these simpler exercises we'll move up to Intermediate territory with a new focus on more complex compound exercises, such as deadlifts and squats. At this point, it is more important to learn the form and get the right "feel" for each exercise rather than lifting as heavy as possible. Some exercises, like lat pulls and most shoulder raises, are particularly hard to target the right muscle do the work if you use too much weight. Start easy; pick a weight you can do 10-12 strict reps with and work your way up when you've got the technique down pat. Keep track of your workouts - jot down your poundage and number of reps in a notepad or designated training log for future reference. Using the Mon/Tue - Thu/Fri training schedule outlined earlier, a sample workout routine could be:
Monday: Upper body
Tuesday: Lower Body + Abs
Wednesday: Rest Thursday: Upper Body
Friday: Lower Body + Abs
Weekend: Rest
To support your new, more active lifestyle, you need to review your daily nutritional intake. There is no one-size-fits-all answer to the "perfect diet", but there are some common guidelines you can use whether you're a skinny teenager or an overweight 40 something.
At this point your goals are to clean up your diet and to get in the habit of tracking exactly what goes into you on a daily basis. We'll dive deeper into strategies for gaining or losing weight in the Intermediate chapter, but let's start with establishing baseline of sorts for yourself. First off, get a diet log that you can bring along in your daily life. This may be another section of your training log, it can be a PDA or it can be a small notepad that you carry in your back pocket. Either way, you should have a grid with columns for When, What and Calories. If you want to make it easier for yourself down the road you can also add columns for Protein, Carbohydrates and Fat. Your next step is to start writing down everything you eat through the day. Keep a close watch on yourself so that you stay honest - if you have a candy bar, write it down immediately so you don't conveniently "forget" later on. Most pre-packaged food is easy to track since federal law dictates that they must have nutritional information clearly marked on the packaging. Simply copy down the numbers into your log, but beware! Manufacturers often try to make their products seem less calorie-dense by using dwarf-sized servings. Adjust the numbers to match your REAL serving size. In my humble opinion, anyone who honestly considers a pint of juice to be TWO servings is weird. As for non-prepackaged foods, such as fruits and cooked meals, you can buy a cheap calorie-counting book that should give you an approximation based on weight or volume. Learn the nutritional facts on over 6,000 foods, click here! Pick ones that shows the protein/carb/fat-breakdown of different food types. Tracking your eating patterns will help you resist junk food binges, simply because you are now forced to face up to just how many calories each such occasion really adds. Ignorance may be bliss, but ignorance certainly won't help you get ripped. Further improve your eating habits by adhering to the basic pointers outlined earlier in this section. Simply put; clean up your diet and establish new, healthier eating patterns so that you're ready for the more advanced stuff later. Here is a basic, clean diet plan for an active weightlifter looking to pack on muscle. As you can see, I've filled in the columns for protein/carbs/fat (in grams). We'll examine exactly what these numbers mean in the Intermediate chapter.
Sport supplements can be a great aid in your efforts. Not only can smart use of supplements ensure you get enough of all nutrients you need to function well, you can even give yourself an extra edge in terms of strength, recovery speed and injury prevention. However, navigating the seemingly endless list of supplements with the most fantastic claims can be challenging for experienced bodybuilders and daunting to beginners. 
What works? What is just hot air and marketing baloney? And once you have figured out which products actually work, what brand do you pick? Do you go for the bargain from the company you've never heard of and risk getting disappointed, or do you go for the big name brand and get fleeced? These are all valid questions and will be dealt with in due time, but let's start simple. As a beginner, you only have two real must-haves in terms of supplements. In a perfect world you don't even need that much, but in reality it is very hard to get what you need from regular food alone. I am talking about the two fundamental bodybuilding supplements: Multivitamin/mineral tablets and some type of supplemental protein.
This is the most basic - and most important - supplement in your arsenal. Your body needs all its daily vitamins and minerals to function optimally, and unless you spend some serious time planning and preparing every meal of the day while ensuring no nutrients are destroyed through cooking, you need to take a supplement. It's not very exciting, but if forced to pick only ONE supplement, this should be your choice. Multivitamin/mineral supplements can come in the shape of liquid, hard tablets, powder-filled capsules or even in "packs" with a whole bunch of pills and capsules. The shape you prefer is up to you, but be careful if you go for the hard tablet approach. Some tablets are so hard they do not dissolve fully in your stomach and never give full benefit before they exit your system. It is wise to test hard tablets by placing them in warm (not hot) vinegar for 30 minutes or so. If the tablet is dissolved or at least mushy, it's Ok, but if it's still hard as a pebble you may have a dud on your hands. There are hundreds, if not thousands of brands that offer multivitamin/minerals. Go with a decently priced option from a reputable company, such as Daily Ones from Twinlab or Daily Complete Formula from Ultimate Nutrition. The important thing to look for is that you all or most of the RDA of all vital minerals and minerals. You will find that manufacturers differ somewhat in the composition of their products, but don't sweat it as long as you get close to or all you need of all vitamins and minerals. Take your vitamin/mineral supplement with breakfast to make sure you remember it.
The main purpose of getting a protein supplement is to provide more "building material" for your muscles. As mentioned earlier, muscle tissue requires protein to repair itself and grow, so your diet needs to reflect this increased need for protein. However, it is often hard to get enough protein through regular foods throughout the day. This is where the supplemental protein comes into the picture. The most common form of protein supplements is a simple powder that you mix with water or milk in a shaker or blender, but you can also buy pre-made drinks and protein-rich sport bars (not to be confused with sugar-packed energy bars). Heck, you can even buy protein-enriched pasta and other foods. For now we'll discuss plain powder. There are three basic types of protein powder, though the lines have gotten blurred in recent years. The formulas are:
If you're a skinny person who can't eat enough calories through regular food, buy a gainer and try to chug as much as you can between meals. As the name implies, the meal replacement drinks are suitable when you're on the go and don't have time for a real meal. Last but not least, pure protein drinks can be taken as part of a snack, to boost the protein content of your breakfast, or right before bed as a way to give your body some extra help in growing. Regardless of which type of protein drink you buy, be sure not to get into the habit of skipping meals in favor of drinks. Supplements are only supplements; your main source of nutrition should ALWAYS be good, healthy food!
Coming into a new environment is always a challenge. There are concepts and unwritten rules that everyone except you take for granted. Don't worry, you'll get the hang of things in no-time.
As a beginner, your goal is to learn to lift right, not lift a lot. In addition to getting the basic movements right, there are some universal safety pointers you should keep in mind to decrease the odds of injuries now and later.
Work, family commitments and plain ol' laziness are parts of life that will tug you away from your scheduled gym session. Don't get me wrong, your kids' school play is important, but there's a big difference between making a rare exception and routinely letting your workouts slip down the priority list. As stated many times before, focus and persistency are crucial to bodybuilding success, so here are a few tips on how to get your mindset right. Your first step is to define a long-term goal in as specific terms as possible. "Getting in shape" is not good enough. What exactly are you looking for? Gain weight in the form of quality muscle? Lose fat? How many pounds up or down are we talking about, specifically? Increase your strength? In that case, by how much? The goal is to establish exactly where you want to go and how you will measure your success. Make a realistic assessment of how long this should take and write down to the target date. Being a beginner this may be hard to estimate, but make your best guess and allow for some wiggle-room if your guess was off target.
Once you have your goal and your timeline defined, establish a number of milestones, say a month apart, that you can use as checkpoints to make sure you're on track. This helps make the end goal less daunting, since adding 10 lbs to your bench press by next month is within your reach while adding 80 lbs by April can feel far-fetched and discouraging. As an extra incentive, you can give yourself a little reward when you hit your target. Another important part of the mental game is positive thinking. It's a cliché for sure, but that doesn't make it any less valid. If you go into a diet thinking you won't lose a pound, guess what? You'll probably find yourself gobbling down pizza and beer within a week. Fortunately, it works the other way around too. Arnold was a hugely successful competitor, not only because of his legendary grueling, daily workouts, but because he willed himself to victory. In his mind he had already won before he set foot on stage, and as history show that is exactly what happened, time and time again. You can use this technique to make sure your daily life falls in line with your bodybuilding plans. Close your eyes at the start of each day and think through how you want it to play out. Walk through your healthy meals one by one (visualize how you will pass on the donuts at the meeting), when you'll go to the gym, what you'll do during the workout and how it will feel, and finish by how you'll get in bed at a reasonable hour for your full night's sleep. The more detail you can get in there, the better. Repeat whenever you are faced with temptation, delays or anything else that could make you deviate from your plan. You will find that the more you run through the ideal day in your mind, the more like it your day-to-day life will become. Part 1: Beginner's Bodybuilding Program! Part 2: Intermediate's Bodybuilding Program! Part 3: Advanced Bodybuilding Program!Good Luck, Recommend this article to a friend by e-mail here! Visitor Reviews Of This Article!
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