Small weights first!

The most important lesson that you can absorb before you take up body building is that there is such a thing as too much, too soon. All of us are keen to do something impressive, whichever field it is in. When taking up body building, especially if you do it at a gym, it is common to see guys whose biceps are thicker than your thighs. The natural response to this is to wish to match them lift for lift. But the natural result of that is that you will end up in hospital with all sorts of muscle problems. Early on, stick to the small weights.

Those guys with the huge biceps have been body building – and sticking to a daily routine – for years, often longer than a decade. It is unsurprising that they are so well built. To them, lifting the weights is like breathing, and their muscles have reached a stage where they can move the weights without any massive effort. Early on, the more basic weights will be more than enough to exert some effort on your muscles, and this is how you get toned.

Try to run before you can walk and you’ll end up on the floor – and if you thought the muscle bound guys were laughing at you before, you wait until they see you knock yourself flat trying to lift your own body weight. A little light mocking will be as nothing compared with that kind of shame, trust us.

Alcohol and Body Building

Given that many of us decide to take up body building after a long and challenging night at the bar – or at home with a few beers – it is bad news for many people that body building and alcohol do not mix. This is not to say that you cannot drink a beer every so often if you decide to take up body building, but you will be restricted in either one capacity or the other. There is conflict between the effects of alcohol and the intentions of a good body building regime, and something has to give – so, do you value your nights out more than your coveted muscle?

Part of the reason for alcohol being such a bar to body building is the effect it has on muscles. It does not reduce the muscles as such, but it does present a barrier to the muscles getting the necessary support from the body in order to recover from small tears and pulls. The blood needs to take oxygen and other natural resources to the muscles in order to fix any injury and, if the bloodstream contains alcohol, it cannot do this in the same volumes – meaning that you will take longer to recover and your training is less effective.

Those little tears can occur without you even noticing them, and are repaired fairly quickly, but perhaps the best way of putting it is that you shouldn’t go out for beers right after a body building session. If you have a block of three days off in a row, day 2 is the best time to go for a drink or two.

Don’t Work Through the Pain

There is a lot of talk devoted to “feeling the burn” when training. This is when you feel a substantial amount of pain and carry on exercising, as in some people’s estimation it won’t work if it doesn’t hurt. While there is some element of truth in this – if something is not physically demanding it is worthless as an exercise – it should not be confused with exercising on through the pain. If you pick up a weight and instantly feel pain, just carrying on is the worst thing you can do. In all likelihood, you have torn a muscle and need to stop.

When you have a demanding training regime the chances are you will pick up small muscle tears quite regularly. Muscles are made of quite flexible material which allows them the room to move without which they would be useless. As a result, major exertion will cause some tearing in the muscle, but there is a difference between types of tearing. Some repair themselves overnight if rested, but a larger one will take time and treatment. Exercising while carrying one of those will only aggravate it and eventually, it will stop you training or doing much at all.

While some people may view exercising on through an injury as a sign of commitment and strength, it will end up being just the opposite. Taking a rest every once in a while is a clear necessity, and taking one when you are too sore to continue is an absolute non-negotiable. Work smart – it is just as important as working hard in the long run.

What Not To Eat

An exercise regime will only bear the kind of results you are looking for if you accompany it with the right diet. This is known as a “holistic” approach, where you view every part of your routine in a critical fashion and look to see what you can do to make it the best it can be in every way. If you are studying for an exam, on which questions will be asked on a range of topics, it is all well and good studying heavily on one of those topics to the point where you could answer every question that could be thrown at you on that topic – but if you ignore all the others in doing so, you’ll end up failing.

So it is with body building. You can be the most committed trainer that there ever has been, and you will effect positive results in some respects. But if you are just eating fries and burgers all of the time, you will not be giving your body some of its most vital nutrients. You will get tired more quickly, train less effectively, and sustain injuries. For this reason it is worth taking a realistic view on diet – cut out the ice cream sundaes for a time, drop the greasy burgers and lay off the beer, too. Alcohol does horrible things to muscle recovery.

Of course, you can work scheduled breaks into your regime – in fact it is probably advisable at the beginning – during which you can treat yourself. Just remember the end goal when you have to get back to training.

Muscle Building Tip # 1: What Should You Eat?

If you ever watch strongman muscle building competitions on the television, you will often see the contestants in a typical clichéd pose next to a kitchen table with their typical daily diet spread over it. Frequently this will include several chickens, enough pasta to feed a family for a week, lots of energy drinks and plenty of veg. Often it will also include some burgers and similar fast food. This is often taken as a sign that these guys can eat as much as they want, and an invitation to the potential bodybuilder to just keep pigging out. The good news is that these guys do generally eat the stuff they say they do. But wait for the bad news.

The fact is that these guys are generally pulling trucks over distances that the average human being would find it hard to carry a couple of liters of milk. To get to the level where you are doing that, you need to be in such prime physical condition that to maintain it requires a routine of physical training that would make the Navy Seals shudder. And to keep up that level of training requires a whole lot of energy.

For the beginning body builder, the opportunity for burgers, fries and sugar-filled drinks will be limited. Meat must be grilled, and come with the fat cut off, at least to begin with. Essentially, when looking at the kitchen table next to that strongman, you can subtract all of the “fun food” and bear in mind that until you have taken your training up a level, you will need to favor the less “exciting” stuff.

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