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.

Compound Exercises

We discussed earlier why compound exercises are better than isolation exercises for building quality strength and mass. The thing is with compound exercises there is a higher risk involved for the lifter. When you are doing compound exercises you have to ensure that your form is correct and you need to have a spotter, especially when you attempt heavier weights.  There is a bunch of different type of compound exercises but some of the best to perform are bench press, squats, deadlifts, barbell rows, and military press.

Bench Press — The bench press is the preferred exercise for building powerful
pectoral muscles. The triceps and shoulders are also involved to some degrees.
Many people manipulate different angles (incline/decline) to target different
muscle areas but in my experience the flat bench press is adequate enough. If
you are new to bench pressing, it’s imperative to get your form down as the
bench press is an exercise that is tricky to master. I would recommend choosing
a weight that you can push to 10-12 reps as a beginner before moving on to
heavier weight / less rep routines. To start on the bench press make sure your
head is at the top of the bench. When taking the bar off the rack make sure that
it is directly above your chest. The bench press movement is simple but it is
hard to control especially under heavy weight. You want to slowly bring the bar
down to the middle of your chest (all the way down to your chest, you may see
some people in your gym going

Where to start?

When people take up body building it is usually as a result of seeing the impressive physiques of the professionals – whether those professionals be pro body builders, weight lifters, boxers or any other kind. It is natural to see the power that such a physique gives to an individual and want to have the same thing. It is also, unfortunately, something that is beyond many of us and at the very least will require years of committed training for the rest of us. When you are starting out, the goal that you are chasing is still some time off. There is a lot of groundwork to lay down first.

Put simply, the early stages of a body building regime will be about getting toned rather than really building muscle. In order to get to the point where you can even hope to start lifting the big weights, you need to start with smaller ones. It is about progression. Trying to do too much too soon will have the sole result of causing injury, and once that happens you will be in no position to do any training at all. It is more important to pace yourself and prepare for the hard work to come.

Some of us are naturally built more slender than others. That being the case, there is no need to assume the slender ones cannot build themselves up a few levels. In actual fact, a slender physique can be advantageous in the early days of body building, as it allows one to move more sharply and quickly – something which is important in building up those reps.

Learn to Take a Break

Getting into the gym to work out and build one’s muscles up is a highlight of the week for many of us, no matter how many times a week we do it. It can allow us to work through the tension of the rest of the week, give us time to think things through while also expending some energy. It would not be going too far to suggest that there are many of us who view training as an indispensable part of our weekly routine. However, a training regime does need to have breaks built into it if it is ever going to be effective and worthwhile.

The benefits of training regularly are proven. It would be easy to conclude from this that any time spent training makes those benefits all the greater, and within a certain limit this is true. But for training to have the long term effect that we are looking for it will be necessary for you to take regular breaks in order to kick back and relax. Going at a hundred miles per hour all the time will have one result only – burn-out. The ill-effects of that are worse than not training at all.

If you simply live to train, you will miss the opportunity to get things out of life that effect you positively on a mental and physical front. When you are relaxed and happy, the body releases chemicals that you need in order to keep an upbeat mentality. Without that mentality, any setback in your training regime may well be met with resentment and anger, and the result will be poor or non-existent training sessions.

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