Let’s Get Physical

It’s a common misconception that you have to train hard all the time to achieve a muscular physique. Whilst professional bodybuilders will have routines and exercises that are geared towards competition and blasting muscles from time to time for the mere mortal falling into the trap of overtraining is an easy one.

Overtraining is arguably the biggest reason why weight trainers lose interest and make few gains. The muscles just can’t cope with the strain. Professionals are on a much focussed regime and can incorporate the strain of three times per week training on one particular muscle. For the rest of us we must look to more achievable and realistic goals.

Training one area of your body once a week may be sufficient to let you see relatively pleasing gains month on month year on year. This doesn’t mean to say that you train once a week though. The idea is that you create a routine that can be done three or four times a week. These types of routines are called ‘split routines’- where you train one body part once a week, using a 2, 3 or 4 day split routine per week. This type of training works really well for results and motivation!

What can be better for marathon runners than beating a PB (personal best) time? Not very much, let’s say. For these athletes time is everything. Have you ever waited at a pedestrian crossing with a jogger? They’re up on their toes keeping warm and keeping an eye on their watch to clock how many seconds the beastly crossing is depriving them of.

There’s been an interesting debate as to how marathon runners can improve on their times and there seems little doubt that sports supplements have helped many athletes. For example, carbohydrates keep a marathon runner going through their punishing schedules. What better way to help your body through this than by boosting your carbohydrates?

In addition, scientific experiments with glutamine have shown that the body’s immune system is weaker the more glutamine is used. Indeed, athletes who took part in the study also reported less incidence of infection within 7 days of intense, exhaustive and prolonged exercise after taking glutamine supplements. Therefore wouldn’t it be prudent to add glutamine supplements to your diet?

It would make sense to fuel your workouts with good quality carbohydrates. After you have finished a session take some form of glutamine supplement to help the body recover and ward off any infections that might occur through depleted glutamine levels.

There seems to be many footballer’s ‘out’ at the moment with hamstring problems. It is one of those muscles that can pull quite easily especially if not warmed up correctly. Another way of avoiding pulled hamstrings ids to really exercise them so that they grow stronger and, as a result, are less prone to injury.

A good exercise for hamstrings is the barbell lunge. You can also do dumbbell lunges that are very similar in technique. Get the barbell and place it behind your neck and slowly bend your knees forward whilst lowering your hips so that your back leg and knee just clears the floor.

Pause for a second in this position, then slowly straighten your legs and raise your body back up to the standing position. Complete a full set, then switch legs and repeat the exercise. As an alternative you could alternate legs for each rep. Note that your knee should not travel past your toes in the down position!
Another exercise for hamstrings is a leg flutter or flutter kick as they’re more commonly known. Lie on a bench or bed face down and squeeze your hamstrings until your legs are level with your hips; then lift one leg above the other in a ‘change over’ motion. You should be able to do three sets of twenty.

Large muscles take an accumulation of different disciplines to come together to create the kind of look and body shape you want. Healthy dieting is one such discipline. The diets of professional bodybuilders are focussed and measured to the last calorie. They work out menus and when to eat so that the energy created by eating is used to its full potential.

Similarly, sports supplements are used to support diets. They are used for weight gain and energy enhancement during training sessions. Sports supplementation is almost a science in itself. Sticking by the basics of: protein supplements, vitamin and minerals plus energy supplements, will help you avoid being too sidetracked by what supplements to take though.

Exercises that are simple and designed to get the maximum returns for the muscle are the best routines to start of with. Barbell curls, dumbbell curls, squats, calf raises, bench press and abdominal exercises are the mainstay of all good bodybuilding routines.

Always remember to warm up before a session too as this will help you avoid any injury. The main thing to remember though is to enjoy doing the routines and training exercises. Get yourself into a good frame of mind and feel the fitness and energy pulsating through your body.

Weight training takes a great deal of dedication but the rewards are very fulfilling. Muscles that look good take great techniques and the right exercises. One of the harder areas to train is the quads.  By far the best exercise for quads is the squat. There maybe some bodybuilders who can build up this area without squats but not many.

The problem with quads is that they take so much energy and intensity to see such little gain and as the objective of bodybuilding is to see the body looking proportionately symmetric then it’s difficult to avoid training this area. Squats build more mass than any other exercise and you can really blast the muscle.

For mass you need to be looking at about four sets working down to four repetitions on the last set. If you were working a pyramid set for instance you might do 8, 6 and 4. As a variation to the normal squat try doing ‘rock bottom’ squats. The idea here is to put a lighter weight on the bar and squat right down until your bottom touches the floor then rise back up again.

Additionally, you’ll have to look at products like creatine, whey protein and other sports supplements to help you gain good muscle. Also, you should remember exercises like: lunges, hack squats and front squats, to get an all around tone to the muscle.