Starting Bodybuilding – From Dumbbells to Schwarzenegger

Bodybuilding is not only a popular sport, but also the means to become stronger and more athletic. Bodybuilding is ultimately anything that you do to encourage your muscles to grow larger and stronger. There are three keys to successful bodybuilding:

1. Using the best exercising to meet your specific goals
2. Ensuring that you consume the correct foods and supplement your diet where needed
3. Get plenty of rest, including extra sleep

With competitive bodybuilding the aim is to build the largest and most defined muscles possible. It is really a display of perfection and not a display of strength. The main difference between bodybuilders and power lifters is fat content. Power lifters are solely interesting in lifting the maximum weight possible, and are not concerned if their nutritional requirements means increasing body fat if it also means becoming stronger. Bodybuilders focus on “cutting” their muscles, and getting fat content to an absolute minimum to get that “ripped” look.

Also unlike powerlifting, where the person that lifts the heaviest weight wins, in bodybuilding the winner is decided by a panel of judges. It is a more subjective sport, more like synchronized swimming than the 50 freestyle!

Bodybuilding is a more popular sport though, with the likes of  Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lou Ferrigno shooting to fame as a result of their success in the bodybuilding arena.

Bodybuilders use strength training exercises to build muscle. When heavy weights are lifting, the muscles are actually damaged, resulting in micro-tears in the areas where most exertion is placed. This is the reason why muscles feel very sore after a weight training session. When the body then repairs these muscles, is will rebuild them stronger and larger than before, in an attempt to ensure that such damage does not occur again. For the body to repair the damaged muscles well, it needs uses proteins (and amino acids) and also requires time to recover. This is why without adequate nutrition and rest after bodybuilding, muscle growth is limited.

There is a lot of advice on Bodybuilding for beginners available on the internet, however when starting a beginner weight training / bodybuilding regime, advice often fails to highlight the dangers of overtraining. Please read the Problems of overtraining when Bodybuilding article before starting a beginner weight training routine.

More information on Bodybuilding:

• Bodybuilding History: The Early Years
• Bodybuilding History: The “Golden Age”
• Competitive Bodybuilding as a Sport
• Bodybuilding Nutrition Advice
• Overtraining Problems for Bodybuilders
• A Guide to Bodybuilding Supplements

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Recommended Reading

• Bodybuilding and Athletic Overtraining Problems
• Bodybuilding Competitions: Mr Olympia and Mr Universe
• The New Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding: The Bible of Bodybuilding by Arnold Schwarzenegger
• The Early Years of Bodybuilding (1880 to 1930)
• Weight Training Push & Pull Split Routine

Tags: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bodybuilding, bowflex, introduction, Lou Ferrigno, muscles, strength workouts, weight training

This entry was posted on Monday, February 2nd, 2009 at 10:33 pm and is filed under Bodybuilding. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.