LukeT
11-22-2004, 01:49 PM
Okay, before I say anything i'd like to point out a number of things. Firstly, do _NOT_ take any of this, I repeat do not take anything I say here as fact (unless otherwise stated). This is strictly things that i've noticed, or came across since I started bodybuilding, which wasn't very long ago. Okay, basically the point to this mini-guide is for absolute newbies with little to no experiance in bodybuilding, this would not be benificial to a more experianced bodybuilder, and could potentially be counterproductive in some areas. That being said, I can begin.
Bodybuilding is different from generic 'working out', when one thinks of working out they will usually think of pushups, situps, jogging, ect. Bodybuilding is more of a sport, and its meant to achieve a look similar to this: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v390/Juggler02/coleman.jpg
Now, of course not everyone who bodybuilds is going to look like this, this is Ronnie Coleman; arguably the number one bodybuilder in the world (at this time, and I am not saying >I< think he is number 1, just saying he is definitly up there, and is winning all the big tournaments he enters). But the point of that was to show a difference, you don't see say basketball players looking like that. Then there is powerlifting, i'm not really going to cover anything relating to powerlifting, however I will just say that powerlifters are the strongest men on this planet, watch a show like "World's Strongest Man Competition" or something similiar, and you will see powerlifters. They are bigger waisted than bodybuilders, higher bodyfat%, ect. But they have more strength. That being covered, i'll start stating a few things that you should know right away.
Fact: You should be eating about 6-8 meals a day, instead of the 3 you are used to. The purpose of this (summed up) is basically taking in your nutrients and things at various times throughout the day will be more benificial. This is also more efficient because you want to get different things at different times in the day, for example before a workout you want to get lots of carbs, and after a workout you want to get lots of protein. With 3 meals a day, you wouldn't be able to 'customize' when you got your wanted nutrients aswell. I'll go more into nutrients later.When it comes to food, you're going to have to make some sacrafices. You don't have to be a total food nazi, but you have to cut crap like McDonald's and other processed crap out of your diet perminatly. Some treats you like are okay in moderation, but fast food is a big no-no. Depending on what you are doing, bulking or cutting you will want different types of nutrients that you get from healthy foods, but i'll also get into bulking and cutting in more detail later. Keep in mind too, this is for new people with no experiance only, i'm not suggesting to anyone who's been bodybuilding for a while to stop watching their diet as closely as they are, that would be stupid.
Okay, i'll mainly be covering bulking as I'm an ectomorph and I havn't had a chance to cut yet, i'm currently bulking. The idea of bulking is for people to do simply that, bulk up. In order to bulk up you will have to start taking in a lot more food than you are used to. This might cause stomach pains, and things so take your time a bit. Like I said, 6-8 meals a day is a good goal. They don't have to be real 'meals' just food, you can limit their size a bit but its important to keep eating throughout the day. Now, this doesn't mean you should go start eating 2 bags of chips a day, and drinking soda while watching tv. You must eat CLEAN (healthy). Oh, and one important thing, drink LOTS of water! Okay, you will put on three types of weight while bulking. Fat, Water, and Muscle. The goal of bulking correctly is to minimize the fat weight, and maximize the muscle weight. Water retention is going to occur as a result of drinking more water, water retention is nothing to worry about.
A little note, I mentioned ectomorph above, that is one of three body-types. Ectomorph - A person who is naturally skinny and has trouble gaining weight, either fat or muscle. However in the cutting phase, Ectomorphs get it easy as they tend to have high motabilisms and can easily lose weight. Then you have Mesomorphs, the guys that tend to be 'natural athletes', and have little trouble both gaining muscle and losing weight. This is the optiminal body-type (something you can't control which type you are) for more balanced things. Then you have endomorphs, they are naturally large, and have little trouble putting on weight, however have trouble losing it.
Cutting, as i've mentioned before I won't go into great detail on, remeber this is only a small mini-article-like thing to get you familiar with the basic terms and whatnot of bodybuilding, if you have specifics on cutting you can just post questions in the forums, or find threads with similar questions. That being said, cutting up is essentially losing weight, the goal of course being to lose minimal muscle and maximum fat, the two go hand-in-hand so you are going to lose muscle, but if done properly you can minimize that muscle loss.
Okay, now, I will talk a little about pain. Pain is an important tool, as you experiance different times of pains, more experianced bodybuilders can communicate with their bodies, they know what certain pains and certain times mean, and can respond accordingly to this. You don't. Period. Pain can be used as a guage for someone totally new, but should be used as a guage that means "I hurt, please stop." When you first start out, you should use pain as a sign that you should not continue on much longer. Now, if you get pain just at the end of a set, and its an early set you can continue on to your next one, however if it hurts still after a short break on rep 1 of your next set, I would recomend stopping and call it a day. It's better to in my opinion to under-train for a little bit than overtrain right away and end up not being able to walk for a few days.
Now, as you look into bodybuilding, you are surely going to encounter things about drugs, supplements, ect. I am under the assumption you've already at least heard of anabolic staroids, and have at least some idea what they do. If you wish to use staroids, that is your descision and I will not attempt to pursuade it. HOWEVER, I will say this as FACT if you are under 21, don't even THINK about staroids. That is all I will cover regarding staroids. As for pro-horomones, due to my lack of experiance/knowledge, ect. I know very little about prohoromones (as I don't intend on taking any, but thats just me) and cannot really talk much about them. But what I do know, is that they aren't protein whey or something like that, and misused can be harmful (i'll cover what whey is later on). Also, as far as I know the famous Andro is a prohoromone. Little note is you probably shouldn't start taking prohoromones if you are under 21, either.
Now, supplements I know a little bit more about. Personally, for now I wouldn't recomend taking supplements (excluding multi-vitamin supp's) until you at least about a month or two on bodybuilding, get to know your body a little bit, start to see a bit of progress, get your diet down, get your workout down, ect. However aslong as they are done correctly, there isn't really any harm that could be done by going right into them, at least the two that I know most about. Protien Whey - Whey as far as I know is (substance?) that is found in eggs and such, and when milk is made into eggs or cheese or other dairy products, the small ammounts of whey are extracted (not always, but for protein whey). Anyway, this whey is concentrated and has very high protien, and very little fat or anything else. You can find these products in the bodybuilding.com shopping area. Creatine monohydrate on the other hand, is a little more than simple protein ingested in shakes or whatever. I'm not going to go too into detail about Creatine, the main reasons being i'm both not as knowledgeable of it, 'nor good at writing as some people. Here's a link with some information on Creatine that is more in-depth and better than my own: http://bodybuilding.com/store/creatine.html Personally, I don't take Creatine or Protein Whey, but i'm going to start taking Whey soon (I'm 16 - have a very old-fashion and close-minded mother). But that isn't to say that you can't get great results without taking supplements.
Now as far as working out goes, I recomend taking a look at http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/exercises.htm and trying to find at least 3 or 4 exercises that appeal to you for each muscle listed.
I can't really think of too much more to add at the moment, but a closing statement would be..
When you see someone on a beach with massive biceps and great abs, he is NOT a bodybuilder. A bodybuilder doesn't limit himself to two muscle groups, and if you plan on limiting yourself, my advice is get the hell out of here, and cut off assosication with bodybuilding. Bodybuilding isn't for picking up "chicks", it is for re-defining yourself both physically and mentally - in all aspects and areas.
Bodybuilding is different from generic 'working out', when one thinks of working out they will usually think of pushups, situps, jogging, ect. Bodybuilding is more of a sport, and its meant to achieve a look similar to this: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v390/Juggler02/coleman.jpg
Now, of course not everyone who bodybuilds is going to look like this, this is Ronnie Coleman; arguably the number one bodybuilder in the world (at this time, and I am not saying >I< think he is number 1, just saying he is definitly up there, and is winning all the big tournaments he enters). But the point of that was to show a difference, you don't see say basketball players looking like that. Then there is powerlifting, i'm not really going to cover anything relating to powerlifting, however I will just say that powerlifters are the strongest men on this planet, watch a show like "World's Strongest Man Competition" or something similiar, and you will see powerlifters. They are bigger waisted than bodybuilders, higher bodyfat%, ect. But they have more strength. That being covered, i'll start stating a few things that you should know right away.
Fact: You should be eating about 6-8 meals a day, instead of the 3 you are used to. The purpose of this (summed up) is basically taking in your nutrients and things at various times throughout the day will be more benificial. This is also more efficient because you want to get different things at different times in the day, for example before a workout you want to get lots of carbs, and after a workout you want to get lots of protein. With 3 meals a day, you wouldn't be able to 'customize' when you got your wanted nutrients aswell. I'll go more into nutrients later.When it comes to food, you're going to have to make some sacrafices. You don't have to be a total food nazi, but you have to cut crap like McDonald's and other processed crap out of your diet perminatly. Some treats you like are okay in moderation, but fast food is a big no-no. Depending on what you are doing, bulking or cutting you will want different types of nutrients that you get from healthy foods, but i'll also get into bulking and cutting in more detail later. Keep in mind too, this is for new people with no experiance only, i'm not suggesting to anyone who's been bodybuilding for a while to stop watching their diet as closely as they are, that would be stupid.
Okay, i'll mainly be covering bulking as I'm an ectomorph and I havn't had a chance to cut yet, i'm currently bulking. The idea of bulking is for people to do simply that, bulk up. In order to bulk up you will have to start taking in a lot more food than you are used to. This might cause stomach pains, and things so take your time a bit. Like I said, 6-8 meals a day is a good goal. They don't have to be real 'meals' just food, you can limit their size a bit but its important to keep eating throughout the day. Now, this doesn't mean you should go start eating 2 bags of chips a day, and drinking soda while watching tv. You must eat CLEAN (healthy). Oh, and one important thing, drink LOTS of water! Okay, you will put on three types of weight while bulking. Fat, Water, and Muscle. The goal of bulking correctly is to minimize the fat weight, and maximize the muscle weight. Water retention is going to occur as a result of drinking more water, water retention is nothing to worry about.
A little note, I mentioned ectomorph above, that is one of three body-types. Ectomorph - A person who is naturally skinny and has trouble gaining weight, either fat or muscle. However in the cutting phase, Ectomorphs get it easy as they tend to have high motabilisms and can easily lose weight. Then you have Mesomorphs, the guys that tend to be 'natural athletes', and have little trouble both gaining muscle and losing weight. This is the optiminal body-type (something you can't control which type you are) for more balanced things. Then you have endomorphs, they are naturally large, and have little trouble putting on weight, however have trouble losing it.
Cutting, as i've mentioned before I won't go into great detail on, remeber this is only a small mini-article-like thing to get you familiar with the basic terms and whatnot of bodybuilding, if you have specifics on cutting you can just post questions in the forums, or find threads with similar questions. That being said, cutting up is essentially losing weight, the goal of course being to lose minimal muscle and maximum fat, the two go hand-in-hand so you are going to lose muscle, but if done properly you can minimize that muscle loss.
Okay, now, I will talk a little about pain. Pain is an important tool, as you experiance different times of pains, more experianced bodybuilders can communicate with their bodies, they know what certain pains and certain times mean, and can respond accordingly to this. You don't. Period. Pain can be used as a guage for someone totally new, but should be used as a guage that means "I hurt, please stop." When you first start out, you should use pain as a sign that you should not continue on much longer. Now, if you get pain just at the end of a set, and its an early set you can continue on to your next one, however if it hurts still after a short break on rep 1 of your next set, I would recomend stopping and call it a day. It's better to in my opinion to under-train for a little bit than overtrain right away and end up not being able to walk for a few days.
Now, as you look into bodybuilding, you are surely going to encounter things about drugs, supplements, ect. I am under the assumption you've already at least heard of anabolic staroids, and have at least some idea what they do. If you wish to use staroids, that is your descision and I will not attempt to pursuade it. HOWEVER, I will say this as FACT if you are under 21, don't even THINK about staroids. That is all I will cover regarding staroids. As for pro-horomones, due to my lack of experiance/knowledge, ect. I know very little about prohoromones (as I don't intend on taking any, but thats just me) and cannot really talk much about them. But what I do know, is that they aren't protein whey or something like that, and misused can be harmful (i'll cover what whey is later on). Also, as far as I know the famous Andro is a prohoromone. Little note is you probably shouldn't start taking prohoromones if you are under 21, either.
Now, supplements I know a little bit more about. Personally, for now I wouldn't recomend taking supplements (excluding multi-vitamin supp's) until you at least about a month or two on bodybuilding, get to know your body a little bit, start to see a bit of progress, get your diet down, get your workout down, ect. However aslong as they are done correctly, there isn't really any harm that could be done by going right into them, at least the two that I know most about. Protien Whey - Whey as far as I know is (substance?) that is found in eggs and such, and when milk is made into eggs or cheese or other dairy products, the small ammounts of whey are extracted (not always, but for protein whey). Anyway, this whey is concentrated and has very high protien, and very little fat or anything else. You can find these products in the bodybuilding.com shopping area. Creatine monohydrate on the other hand, is a little more than simple protein ingested in shakes or whatever. I'm not going to go too into detail about Creatine, the main reasons being i'm both not as knowledgeable of it, 'nor good at writing as some people. Here's a link with some information on Creatine that is more in-depth and better than my own: http://bodybuilding.com/store/creatine.html Personally, I don't take Creatine or Protein Whey, but i'm going to start taking Whey soon (I'm 16 - have a very old-fashion and close-minded mother). But that isn't to say that you can't get great results without taking supplements.
Now as far as working out goes, I recomend taking a look at http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/exercises.htm and trying to find at least 3 or 4 exercises that appeal to you for each muscle listed.
I can't really think of too much more to add at the moment, but a closing statement would be..
When you see someone on a beach with massive biceps and great abs, he is NOT a bodybuilder. A bodybuilder doesn't limit himself to two muscle groups, and if you plan on limiting yourself, my advice is get the hell out of here, and cut off assosication with bodybuilding. Bodybuilding isn't for picking up "chicks", it is for re-defining yourself both physically and mentally - in all aspects and areas.