Exercise and body building routines will have every person respond differently to the workout. Some of the major aspects that will affect muscle growth are your current strength level, ability to heal or recover, body type and genetics. I you are a beginner or even intermediate your routine should never be the same as a pro or advanced body builders workout. You may risk injuries and overtraining if you jump right into an advanced body building routine, and could end up wanting to give up completely.
Body Building Tips
You should set your goal and objective for body building to be reasonable and realistic. Everyone experience body changes and improvements in their physique during the first few months. But as your muscles get more used to working out, your progress will start to slow down. A stricter diet and more consistent body building routines are required to keep progressing.
You should keep your body building routines short and intense, no longer than 30 – 45 minutes per session, this also helps avoid overtraining. You should allow aproximately 48 hours to recover between each workout, this means you should have no more than 3 or 4 workout days each week. Giving your body enough time to rest is just as important as working out for muscle building.
Focus on Compound Movements
Compound movements are defined as exercises that target different muscle groups at the same time. Compound exercises are different from isolation exercises in that they target more muscles at once.
Most experts recommend that beginners start out with light free weights to gain a sense of balance and proper execution of the exercises. Barbells and dumbbells should be the core of your exercises.
Recommended exercises
The squat is one of the most important exercises for beginners as well as advanced body builders. It is completely safe if done correctly and can do wonders for your body. The muscle groups involved include the core muscles, abdominals, lower back, the traps, glutes, quads or thighs, hamstrings and parts of the calves. 2 sets of 12 to 15 repetitions is a good starting point.
As part of your body building routines another important exercise to use is the bench press. It effectively hits the chest, shoulders or deltoids, triceps and some parts of the forearms and rib cage. Do 2 sets of 10 to 12 repetitions.
Then there is the bent over row that is easiest to execute using a barbell, this exercise targets most of the back, biceps, rear deltoids, and part of the forearms. Also here do 2 sets with 10 – 12 repetitions.
There are several other good exercises, such as the military press, the barbell or dumbbell curl, and the lying triceps extension. For these three exercises, again do 2 sets of 10 to 12 repetitions.
It would be a good idea to add ab crunches to the above exercises, do 2 sets of 12 – 15 repetitions.
Additional Tips
Do some warm-up exercises for 5 to 10 minutes before doing any lifting. A quick jog on the treadmill will suffice. Before each workout set you should do a lighter warm-up set to prepare the muscles and get a feel for the exercise. Finish you workout session doing some stretching for 10 minutes.
Don’t use weights that are so heavy that you can’t complete the sets using correct form. If you use bad form or weights that are to heavy, this can easily cause overtraining or injuries. In addition to your body building routines, to keep track of your progress you should definitely keep a training journal. And as your strength increases you can gradually add more weight to the exercises.