Bodybuilding is defined as “The process of developing the musculature of the body through specific types of diet and physical exercise,How to Build a Muscular body Articles such as weightlifting, especially for competitive exhibition.” You could also say it is the process of lifting weights in order to look awesome! This process involves increasing the weights (resistance) you lift as your muscles become bigger and stronger
Increasing resistance is possible due to the body’s ability to adapt to stress by becoming stronger in response to the stimulus of exercise. Simply put, when you work a muscle hard, the fibers are actually damaged or broken down and the body responds by repairing the muscle and making it slightly bigger and stronger to prepare for the work to be repeated. If the work (exercise) is repeated frequently (with enough rest in between for the repair process to take place) with increased resistance each time, theoretically, the muscle will get progressively larger and stronger. That is the basis of bodybuilding weight training.
It is a simple process, but there are many variables that can affect how fast and how much the muscle will grow. These factors include, but are not limited to, the following:
Nutrition
Rest
Intensity of workouts
Frequency of workouts
Nutrition is a huge part of successful bodybuilding. I would highly recommend reading everything you can get your hands on dealing with bodybuilding nutrition and supplementation. A great way that I have kept current is by religiously reading Flex and Muscle and Fitness magazines. Both of these fine bodybuilding magazines have many great articles each month dealing with diet, nutrition and supplements.
Proper rest is extremely critical to muscle growth. In this day and age, it is not unusual to get less than 6 hours of sleep a night for a lot of people. I recommend trying to get at least 8 hours if at all possible, even if you need dianabol to take a nap! Your body does most of it’s growing as you sleep, so get all you can!
Workout intensity is something that entire books have been written on. I recommend reading up on this topic as well. Flex and Muscle & Fitness deal with this topic in depth. Basically you need to find the right amount of intensity to trigger muscle growth. When a bodybuilder is just starting out, it does not take much to trigger new muscle growth. However, the body will quickly adapt to repeated stress and this can cause muscle growth to slow or stop all together. When this occurs, bodybuilders refer to it as a “plateau”. This is when changes to workout intensity must occur. The muscle must be subjected to a new kind of stress that it is not used to in order to stimulate new growth. Fortunately, there are many methods of changing the workout intensity, but that is beyond the scope of this article.
Frequency of workouts is something that will vary from bodybuilder to bodybuilder. A bodybuilder may workout anywhere from 3 to 7 days per week. You will have to experiment with this to determine what works best for you. You must give your muscles enough of a break between workouts to repair themselves, but you don’t want to wait too long between workouts or you will not get maximum results.
Getting Started
First and foremost, check with your physician to make sure you are in good physical condition to start a weight lifting or bodybuilding program! I recommend that beginners to bodybuilding start with a simple workout plan. This plan should consist of one exercise per bodypart, working the entire body 3 times per week.