Tips for teenagers wanting to start bodybuilding.
I was 15 years old when I first started training, for the most part I just watched the football players in school.
Sure they had some direction from the coaches and this is why I tried to copy them.
But bodybuilding is a different training philosophy than football training (American Football).
Bodybuilding in itself is not just lifting weights but we will focus on that here. It is a balance of diet, exercise and rest.
To make it simple, you grow when you sleep and not in the gym.
The idea is very simple, you stimulate the muscle, and let the body adapt to the stimulation you have given the muscle.
If you are eating and sleeping in theory you should grow.
This all can be shortchanged by not getting enough food, or not getting enough rest, these two things will hinder the body???s recovery and growth.
Overtraining is another obstacle that most people will do without even knowing it, in the normal thinking of things, more is not better here.
Ok, best advice I can give for anyone starting out would be to stick to basic compound movements. Compound movement???s mean that the exercise has more than one joint.
For instance leg extensions have one joint movement (knee), whereas squats will have knee, hip, ankle, etc.
What are basic compound exercises?
Squat, dead lift, military press, pull up???s, bench press, incline press, bar dips, rowing exercises, etc.
You can not go wrong by choosing all of the above in your workout routine.
Notice that curls and triceps are not included there?
That is because they are an isolation movement and not a compound movement.
Every one of those in some way or another hit arms, for instance. Bench will hit chest, front deltoids and also triceps. Military press will hit triceps, so will dips. Actually those three exercises will hit the whole tricep.
Now that we have the basic compound exercises identified, we will figure out what rep range we want to use. I have found that a rep range of between 8 to 12 reps to work very well for most people, some may like less reps, some may like more, but we will stick to those for now as 70% of your 1 rep max will work 90% of both slow and fast twitch muscles. Or in simple terms, it will work all your muscles, which is what we want.
Remember these rep ranges are on your own with no help from someone else, if you need help to get to your 8th rep, then you are going too heavy.
It is often said, control the weight or the weight will control you.
What does this mean?
This means that you choose a weight you can do comfortably without having to cheat or ask for help to execute the exercise. It is a good idea to use the full range of the movement and not do half reps, or cheat reps. This is not only good practice but also will help you to avoid injury.
I know it looks good using big weights in the gym and others are watching you, but if you use a weight you can handle, over time you will get stronger, and what you lift tomorrow will be more than you lift today.
It is a good idea to write your lifts down to compare from week to week or month to month. Once you have a weight you do more than 12 reps with, next week, you will add some weight to the bar and probably take you back down to the 8 rep mark.
Remember Rome was not built in a day and neither was Arnold.
Now that we have the exercises down, the rep range down, let???s focus on how many exercises for each body part. I myself like to work with about 3 different exercises per body part, for instance, I like to do bench, inclines and dips for chest, pull downs, bent over rows, and dead lifts for back. I occasionally do add another rowing exercise to that due to most people do too much pushing and not enough pulling exercises.
Remember the bigger muscle groups will generally have more exercises than let???s say the smaller muscle groups like let???s say biceps. For some reason biceps tend to get more attention than most other muscle groups. Arms in particular seem to be everyone???s favorite to work. It might sound strange that many don???t even work arms directly as they get hit with all the compound lifts. So, not only should they not be the main focus, but they should be the least focus. Arms will grow if you do compound exercises period. Yes it is ok to do some arm work but it is not priority.
So, let???s think of the bigger muscle groups as having between 3 to 4 different exercises per large group and 2 exercises for the smaller muscle groups.
Never neglect working your legs.
Most think that weight lifting is either pushing (concentric) the weight up, or pulling (concentric) the weight down. Yes, muscles do contract and this is called the concentric part of the movement. An example of this is the bench press where one was to push the weight off of the chest; this is called the concentric part of the exercise.
Many will let the weight just drop with little resistance. But doing any lift this way cheats you out of half of the benefits of the exercise.
The eccentric part of the bench press would be controlling the weight on the way down (giving resistance) to force the muscle into a stretched contraction, or lengthen under tension.
This eccentric part of the exercise actually causes the muscle to have greater soreness.
Using both the concentric and eccentric part of each lift will offer greater gains in strength and muscle size then not using both.
So, next time you are in the gym, use those basic compound movements, utilizing both concentric and eccentric parts of the exercise, shoot for 3 to 4 max exercises for the big muscle groups, and 2 exercises for the smaller muscles.
Try to keep the rep ranges between 8 to 12 reps, if you can???t get 8 you went too heavy, if you can do more than 12 you are too light.
Try and get at least 8 hours of sleep and take rest days when you feel fatigue.
Muscle takes time to develop, it is not something that happens over night, it takes along time, be patient.
