Exercise and body building routines will have every person respond differently to the workout. Some of the major aspects that will affect muscle growth are your current strength level, ability to heal or recover, body type and genetics. If you are just starting out or even intermediate you should never model your routine after an advanced or pro bodybuilder. If you start out following an advanced body building routine you run the risk of overtraining and injuries, that can set you back months.

Body Building Tips

You should set your goal and objective for body building to be reasonable and realistic. Everyone experience body changes and improvements in their physique during the first few months. However, your growth and progress will begin to slow down as you reach intermediate level. A stricter diet and more consistent body building routines are required to keep progressing.

You should keep your body building routines short and intense, no more than 30 – 45 minutes per session, this also helps avoid overtraining. You should allow aproximately 48 hours to recover between each workout, this means you should have no more than 3 or 4 workout days each week. Giving your body enough time to rest is just as important as working out for muscle building.

Focus on Compound Movements

Compound movements are defined as exercises that target different muscle groups at the same time. These are different from the isolation exercises that intermediate and advanced body builders include in their workouts to bring out more definition.

Most experts recommend that beginners start out with light free weights to gain a sense of balance and proper execution of the exercises. Barbells and dumbbells should be the core of your exercises.

Recommended exercises

The squat is one of the most important exercises for beginners as well as advanced body builders. It is completely safe if done correctly and can do wonders for your body. The muscle groups involved include the core muscles, abdominals, lower back, the traps, glutes, quads or thighs, hamstrings and parts of the calves. A good starting point is to do 2 sets of 12 – 15 repetitions.

As part of your body building routines another important exercise to use is the bench press. It effectively targets the deltoids/shoulders, triceps, chest, rib cage and parts of the forearms. Do 2 sets of 10 to 12 repetitions.

Next is the bent-over row which is easiest to do using a barbell, this targets the entire back, rear deltoids, biceps and some parts of the forearms. Also here do 2 sets with 10 – 12 repetitions.

Other important exercises are the barbell or dumbbell curl, lying triceps extension and the military press. For each of these 3 exercises, again do 2 sets with 10 – 12 repetitions.

It would be a good idea to add ab crunches to the above exercises, do 2 sets of 12 – 15 repetitions.

Additional Tips

Do some warm-up exercises for 5 to 10 minutes before doing any lifting. A short jog on the threadmill is sufficient. To prepare the muscles and get the feel for the movement of an exercise, you should do a light warm-up set before each exercise. Finish you workout session doing some stretching for 10 minutes.

You should never use wieghts that are heavier than you can easily complete each set with correct form. Using to heavy weights and bad form can easily cause injury or overtraining. Besides your body building routines, you should keep a training journal to keep track of your progress. You can slowly add more weight to each exercise as your strength develops.

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