Use the right equipment

If you were digging a hole, and the spade you were using had a shaky handle and a broken blade, you would take a lot longer to dig that hole than a guy with a well-made, new spade. If you were trying to play a guitar and it only had five strings, then you would not get such a great sound out of it as a guy with a new Fender. So when it comes to body building, there is something to be said for using new, efficient equipment. It may cost more than second-hand, and you could buy some cheaper weights, but would the saving justify the use of the poorer equipment?

Badly designed weights can work muscles in the wrong way. The advantage that you gain with better equipment is that, for the same amount of work, they give you far more than basic or poor equipment. There is little point in cutting corners when it comes to training – all that will happen is that you will struggle at some point down the line and you will regret it. At that point you may decide to upgrade your equipment – and all you will have done is delay the spending, incurred some extra and held yourself back.

Instead of this, ask someone who knows you, and who knows training what kind of equipment you should go for. Working with the right equipment is worth the effort and the cost, and will save you money in the long run. There is no point at all in half-measures where training is concerned.

If You’re Injured, Find Something Else

Training to gain the shape that you have always wanted makes for an intensive regime of hard work and effort. You can never be in too good of a shape, so it is important to maintain a quality training regime, and it’s the word “quality” that is important. Quality wins out over quantity, every time. The key here is that if you get injured, you do not dwell on how it is keeping you from training. You have to accept that training must wait for a time when you can do it effectively, and in the mean time find something else to do.

If you are sitting about getting wound up about how you want to get back in the gym, then you will not be effective when you get back in there. All that will happen is you will take the first sign of recovery as a green light to get back in the gym and the training you will do once there will be a great deal less effective than it would be under normal circumstances. Efficiency and quality are the watchwords, remember. As much as you may want to get back in the game, realise that there is little point in training at half of your potential.

Find another way to fill your time – it doesn’t really matter what that is. It could be something slow paced like gardening, or anything else. Something that keeps your mind occupied is the key. If you are left idle, your mind will wander right back to the gym – and you will follow it there, which will not help.

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.

Don’t Get Carried Away

Enthusiasm is a valuable part of the body builder’s make up. There are times for all of us when going to the gym may feel like a hassle that we can do without, but in sticking to a regime that has been designed for a purpose, we get a lot closer to the purpose in question and benefit as a result. A stop-start regime will mean that you are always going back over old ground, and the first part of any training regime even post-warm up will be devoted to regaining muscle tone rather than adding it. So if you can motivate yourself to get in there and go for it, half the battle is won.

Equally it is important to bear in mind that enthusiasm can have its costs if it is unbridled. Spending time in the gym is vital for getting into shape, but it is equally true to say that you can spend too much time in the gym, or try to fit too much work into the time that you spend there. The effect of this is that they will cause themselves an injury, or at least make a continued regime a lot more difficult than it should have been. Having some mobility is important, and by building up too much muscle you can compromise your own mobility.

The answer is to design a routine with some space to relax written into it. On doing this, you will give yourself something realistic to stick to, with results you can monitor and learn from.

Steroids

Although illegal in athletic competition, the use of steroids is not illegal per se. Amateur body builders – and in some jurisdictions, the professionals too – are free to use whatever aids they need to use. That being the case, many people will have no qualms about reaching for the medicine cabinet to make things easier and even more efficient. There is no question, however, that steroids can only give so much because they borrow from what you already have. The damage that can result from this is a very good reason to think long and hard before deciding to use steroids.

One has only to look at the highly publicised cases of some high-profile individuals to see what damage steroids can do. More than one professional athlete has died as a result of the long-term effects of steroids, as the extra boost that they give can put an undue strain on the heart and other internal organs. Even upon retirement, the effects that the use of steroids can cause will mean that a user needs to be very careful with the effects of artificial help. And this is before we get to the famed effects of “roid rage”, which can turn an otherwise placid individual into a person given to bouts of unprovoked anger.

In the end, it is up to the individual if they want to use steroids to get the boost that takes their training to the next level. But ask any doctor and they will tell you that there are huge downsides to relying on the effects of steroids, against a short-term, superficial upside.

Warming Up

There is an attitude among some part-time body builders that someone who hits the gym and goes straight for the heaviest weights is a “hero”, a real above and beyonbd the call of duty guy. This is a fairly dumb attitude to take because, without warming up and down, a body building routine will do very little for you. In actual fact, going for the big weights before you are ready to lift them will destroy any of the good work that you do. A little bit of thought is required before you really go for it.

Warming up is a big part of a body building routine. Generally taking the form of some stretches before you get into the meat of the routine, it means the muscles will be in shape to handle the harder work you are about to put them through. Picking up weights puts a strain on the muscles, and through this work they will become stronger. But going straight from resting mode to hard work will only result in damage being caused. The preparation involved in a body building routine is as important as the exercise itself.

As much as some people may smirk at the idea of going about things by the book, you have to think about what you want to achieve through a body building routine. If it is about getting into the best shape possible, there is no way of achieving this without observing the rules. You will simply do more harm than good.

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.

Design a Routine For You

It is easy to be distracted by the hulking physiques of people who have been doing the routines for years, and to want to match up with what they are doing. Unless, however, you want to spend more time recovering than exercising, it is important to ignore what anyone else is doing and get on with designing your own routine, one you can stick to and which gives you pronounced results. It may not match up with what the experts are doing, but they’ve got a head start on you. Concentrate on what you have to do and you’ll be in good shape.

The word “building” is quite appropriate. When it comes to getting into the condition you want, it is not something that happens overnight. You need to lay down foundations on which to improve. If your muscles are flabby or non-existent, there is no way that you can just do a bit of work to get them into the shape that the professionals have. You will need to get them into decent shape first before aiming any higher. As long as you pay attention to this, then you will be fine.

To really do it right, it is important to take account of the long-term nature of a body building regime. Starting off with light training to achieve condition, then adding steadily until you are in the shape that you have coveted for some time, it will always be a long game. But it will be better for you, and you will not have to worry about picking up long-term injuries.

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.

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.

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