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FAQ To Bodybuidling
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I just began lifting and I wanna get big. How should I start?
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Lift big weights (with proper form). Eat big. Avoid overtraining. Short, but intense workouts are probably the best type of workout to stimulate muscle growth while avoiding overtraining. Some people prefer low-volume High Intensity Training (HIT). Some follow a more moderate volume approach. Others prefer high volume lifting (many exercises, many sets etc.). Still another commonly followed method of training is Periodization. Advanced lifters often follow programs that are not suitable for beginners. Don't follow someone else's lifting schedule, design your own.
Should I work the entire body at every workout?
Certainly. Entire body workouts usually make the most efficient use of time. Of course, there is no reason you can't work different muscle groups on different days. However, a beginner is less likely to overtrain any individual body part if they're working the entire body in one workout.
How many exercises should I do per muscle group?
Some suggest only one exercise per muscle group. Others prefer to do 4 or 5 different exercises for a single muscle group. Keep in mind that too much enthusiasm for the weights will often lead to overtraining, so moderation is key until you discover what works best for your body.
How many sets should I do per exercise?
Some suggest that once the muscles are thoroughly warm (after performing a couple of light-weight warmup sets) you should do one all out set to failure. Others suggest that you should perform 2 to 4 working sets to failure for each exercise.
Almost everyone can agree that if you end up doing 30 sets for any individual body part, you are definitely overtraining (assuming that you take these sets to failure) or just wasting your time (assuming you don't take these sets to failure).
How many repetitions should I perform?
When warming up you should be able to complete more than 12 repetitions with ease. On sets that are taken to failure you should fail at some number less than 12 receptions and greater than 5 repetitions. If you can do more than 12 repetitions on your working set, then the weight should be increased. Remember, there are two components to building mass - the load placed on the muscle and the time under tension.
On the other hand, as Andy Austin used to say, "lots of muscle has been built with singles all the way to 100 rep schemes."
How many times per week should I lift?
Some beginners make fine progress training the entire body three times a week, a Mon, Wed and Fri routine, for example. Other beginners require more recuperation time and make gains training the entire body only once per week. People differ and so do individual muscle groups. Some muscles can be trained more frequently than others. Find a routine that is comfortable for you and allows you to make progress. If you aren't making any progress consider the possibility that you are overtraining (quite common) or even undertraining (less common).
Should I be concerned about the amount of weight I lift?
Initially, no. The most important thing for a beginner is to learn proper lifting technique. However, the basic principle of getting larger through weightlifting is progressive overload. You must increase the weight (load) so that the muscle will be forced to adapt to the increase in stress.
Bouncing and moving the weight too quickly will not stress your muscles into growing and it will likely stress your joints unnecessarily. Remember, that for bodybuilders, the goal is not to lift the weight. Weightlifting, for bodybuilders, is merely a method to stress the muscles. A bodybuilder should work the muscle, or muscle group that the exercise focuses on, not try to heave the weight up by any means possible. There is a difference between lifting a weight and working a muscle, although it basically comes down to using proper form and technique. For example, if your lower back becomes stressed from doing biceps curls, you should consider paying more attention to working the biceps, not trying to get too much weight up by throwing out your back.
Comparing yourself to other lifters is also unnecessary. Everyone starts at a different level.
What are the best exercises for a beginner?
Squat, Barbell Bench Press, Pull Up, Seated Military Press Dead Lift, Incline Dumbbell Press, Bent Over Barbell Row
These exercises are considered the best because they are compound movements that involve moving a lot of weight while recruiting many different muscle groups. These are the types of exercises that will make you grow, not concentration movements.
What is HIT?
High Intensity Training. This is a training method which believes in minimizing the sets per exercise. No warm-up sets are done with the belief that the first few reps of the exercise is sufficient. Each set is done at very high intensity to complete failure.
In a typical HIT workout, 15-20 different single set exercises may be done in the space of 1 hour hitting the entire body with around 2 mins rest between sets. A 'HIT Jedi' does not believe in split routines where different bodyparts are trained on different days (which allows more time per bodypart). Amongst other benefits, HIT training is a very time efficient way of training.
The HIT (High Intensity Training) FAQ 3.0 is available at
www.cyberpump.com/hitfaq/
What is Periodization?
Periodization is a training method where over a series of weeks the number of reps is dropped and the weights increased. The idea behind this is to shock the muscles into growth by varying the reps & weights.
Part of the theory of periodization revolves around the idea that a person can't always train with 100% intensity and that the body may actually need some periods of lighter weight, variable rep training to allow for recuperation. In addition, periodization is based on the idea that not all muscle fiber types can be trained with the same rep schemes. Many powerlifters follow some form of periodization to peak for a competition.
What is a 'Hardgainer'? / What is a Hardgainer routine'?
A hardgainer (HG) is someone who has a genetic make-up which does not allow him/her to pack on muscle quickly. These type of people typically do not respond large volumes and frequency of training. It has been estimated that 60%-95% of the population are hardgainers.
HG routines use low volumes and frequencies of training. A HG routine will usually train each bodypart no more than once per week. Compound movements (like squats and deadlifts) are favoured over isolation movements (like leg extensions or hamstring curls). Hardgainers are prone to overtraining when using high volume/frequency workouts, hence the general rule of thumb is 'less is more'.
Frank J. Kelly and Craig Sadler's Hardgainer bodybuilding / weightlifting FAQ (11/29/1999) is available at
cns-web.bu.edu/pub/kellyfj/hgfaq.txt
Where can I read more about lifting routines on the net?
There are numerous places where you can read more about lifting routines,
like HIT and Periodization. Check out these sites:
The HIT (High Intensity Training) FAQ 3.0
www.cyberpump.com/hitfaq/ at CyberPump
Frank J. Kelly and Craig Sadler's Hardgainer bodybuilding / weightlifting FAQ (11/29/1999)
cns-web.bu.edu/pub/kellyfj/hgfaq.txt
Mistress Krista's Women's Weightlifting Page
www.stumptuous.com/weights.html
CyberPump!
www.cyberpump.com/
Bill Piche's Powerlifting Competition FAQ v2.2
www.cyberpump.com/powerfaq/powerfaq22.html
Steve Kidwell's Bodybuilding Competition FAQ v1.0
nps.ticz.com/bbcfaq.htm
Brad Appleton's Stretching and Flexibility FAQ v1.42 (6/10/1998)
www.enteract.com/~bradapp/docs/rec/stretching/
WeightsNet, a resource for people who workout with weights
www.weightsnet.com/index.html
Fred Hatfield's (Dr. Squat's) Home Page
www.drsquat.com
(the following links have not yet be checked or updated)
"Zen and the Art of Weightlifting" It's at
http://www.cs.unc.edu/~wilsonk/zen.html
The misc.fitness FAQ can be found at
http://www.cs.unc.edu/~wilsonkmf-faq.html
MM2K bench press routine at
http://www.users.interport.net/~dl/bench.html
Psycho Trainer's Guide to lifting.
http://www.scri.fsu.edu/~pasko/psycho.html
To subscribe to the Weights mailing list
weights-request@fa.disney.com
The Canadian Powerlifting Union page:
http://www.tgx.com/cpu/nccp.htm
has good discussions of squat/deadlift/bench form.
Which of the muscle/exercise/health magazines should I believe?
There's a profusion of muscle/exercise/health magazines out there and they often seem to contradict each other or even themselves from issue to issue. The one thing they do have in common, however, is that they put well-built guys with defined abs on their covers, usually with scantily-clad (though, in most cases, not visibly muscular) women hanging off of them.
...which should be your first clue that magazines are, first and foremost, in the business of making money, and that means selling issues and supporting their advertisers and owners.
Just in case you didn't already know this, many, if not most, muscle/exercise/health magazines are owned by companies that make supplements and often gym apparel and home exercise equipment as well. Even apart from who owns them, the fact is that advertising sales to supplement companies are where most of their revenues come from; the price on the cover that you pay is just an added bonus. That doesn't mean that what they print is wrong, but it does tell you on what side their bread is buttered. For example:
Experimental and Applied
Sciences (EAS) owns: Muscle Media
MuscleTech
(Robert Kennedy) owns: Musclemag International
Oxygen
Twin Laboratories
(TwinLab) owns: Muscular Development
Weider owns: Fit Pregnancy
Flex
Muscle and Fitness
Muscle and Fitness Hers
Natural Health
Shape
You can expect to find taking (or at least purchasing) supplements given emphasis above and beyond their importance in training, and the coverage in the articles and news briefs is likely to be slanted towards whatever products are in the parent company's lineup.
The other notable caveat about training articles is that many of the routines given would push you well beyond overtraining if you followed them. With an article on training your upper body, legs, or a full-body training regimen, that won't always be the case, but every magazine has to run at least one article every six months on Blasting Your Biceps Beyond Belief and, sad to say, the biceps just aren't that big, and they get worked in a lot of other exercises already (pulldowns, chinups, rows, as examples).
But if you're going to write an article on battering your biceps until they're begging for mercy, you have to come up with more than a few simple exercises to write about, especially if you want to work in a bunch of cool-looking pics of biceps exercises and poses.
Think of "muscle magazines" as decent sources of pictures and inspiration, but keep their editorial biases in mind when you read them.
A Huge Beginners Guide
