I believe the first thing one should do before getting into any fitness routine is to first come up with what kind of fitness goals they wish to accomplish. Many people make the mistake of thinking there is some cut and dry method for which to get the body they want. They believe that simply just lifting weights, doing a bunch of cardio, and eating salads all day is the way to achieve a replica of the picture they have of themselves in their head as the form to which they want to aspire towards.
In reality, I believe that one should think critically on what kind of body type you want and then eat and train accordingly to achieve those goals. A bodybuilder would train differently than a power lifter / would train differently than someone who wants to just lose weight / would train differently than someone who wants to work on their cardio. I will discuss here what I believe should be focused on from a workout plan standpoint and a nutritional standpoint for someone interested in bodybuilding and someone interested in weight loss. I won't discuss power lifting and cardio endurance regiments, as my knowledge on both of these is limited.
*Disclaimer: Please consult your doctor before starting any fitness program*
BODYBUILDING
Source: http://swabi-info.blogspot.com/2011/10/arnold-schwarzenegger-bodybuilding_03.html
Bodybuilding is the art of using weights and a specialized nutritional program to maximize muscular size and aesthetics. A bodybuilder doesn't care how much weight they can lift, or how fast they can run a mile. They care only about attaining hypertrophy in their muscles and enlarging them in a way that creates a pleasing symmetrical look with clear muscle separation and definition.
Bodybuilding is a very involved way of life, as the interplay between muscle gain and fat loss is a battle that is constantly waged. While a power lifter could be concerned with just steamrolling through food (with no concern towards the kinds of food eaten) every day to give them the energy and size necessary for lifting insane amounts of weight, and someone who wants to lose fat would just be concerned with reaching a caloric deficit every day, a bodybuilder needs to constantly be aware and invested in keeping enough fat off of their body for good definition while also making significant gains in size and muscular development. What's more frustrating with this kind of program, is that the methods for which to cut fat and gain mass are very dissimilar from one another, and so "cut" and "bulk" cycles are often used by those who body build for a living. Cardio is also not as stressed as it would be for other fitness goals and programs.
Bodybuilding is a way of life. It doesn't end after the weights have been lifted. Along with lifting weights, proper nutrition and rest make bodybuilding a 24/7 endeavor. Unlike other sports that have a beginning and end (1st and 2nd halves, 4 quarters, etc), those who are thinking about going into bodybuilding or already do body-build for a living should be fully invested into it as a lifestyle change. Furthermore, those who wish to bodybuild need to also be invested in accepting that muscle growth is a very....VERY....slow process, and be willing to accept working really hard for results that are not noticeable right away.
What does a bodybuilding routine look like / My recommendations?
Let me first say that a lot of people have many different takes on this. But I will speak from what I've found to work for ME, which incorporates a lot of what I think is more or less the general consensus on achieving a nice bodybuilder-looking body naturally.
A bodybuilding workout routine is different from other forms of workout routines in that it tries to manipulate exercises, rep ranges, and muscle fatigue in a way that forces a muscle to grow and look more developed. Its most important aspects are muscle stimulation and dietary manipulation to achieve a certain muscular aesthetic.
I would say that when lifting, the most important things to keep in mind if you are trying to bodybuild are:
- A Full Range of Motion: Making sure you do the exercise in its full range of motion, and that you get a good stretch at the end resting range of motion, and try to flex and get a good pump at the end flexing range of motion and hold for half a second to a second. If you cannot complete a full range of motion in a good rep-range, lower the weight. If your muscles do not feel stressed enough after doing a bunch of reps in the full range of motion, increase the weight.
- Time Under Tension: It's not how fast you lift the weight. In fact, the longer you can put your muscle under tension is unbelieveably important for stimulating muscle growth. The goal isn't to lift the weight as many times as you can or see how fast you can lift it, but to make each rep count and communicate to your muscle that it will need the muscle mass necessary to sustain long periods of stress and tension. The way you do that is to slowly lift the weight to its end range of motion towards flexion, and ALSO to lowe the weight back to the resting range of motion slowly (known as negatives, which many people overlook). A good time under tension would probably be somewhere around 3 seconds up to 3 seconds down.
- Line of Drive: I'm not sure too many, if any, people take this into account when lifting. I've actually never seen it talked about in length in any bodybuilding articles / forums, or seen videos on it. But I think that line of drive is very important. I'm not sure if it's the technical term for it, but what I mean by it is that you need to lift the weight as if on an imaginary track that pumps your target muscle the hardest, and fatigues it the best. Each muscle group (and sub-muscle groups of that muscle group) in my opinon has a specific line of drive with differing degrees of difficulty. For example, muscle groups like your biceps and triceps (arms) are easily stimulated without any real attention to line of drive. For that muscle group, simply lifting the arms up and down with the weight stimulates them effectively without any real concious thought towards body placement or movement to get an adequate pump. Conversely, muscle groups like the upper back require concious effort to pull (in my opinion) under the lat on row exercises, for example, to get an amazing pump in that target area. As another example, chest exercises greatly stimulate the pecs when a fly-like movement is performed, even when doing chest press (you could not do this with a barbell on chest press though).
When I first started out, I made sure that I would dedicate at least three exercises to one muscle group and do three sets of that exercise at least once a week. I would do exercises that greatly targeted that muscle (called isolation exercises) along with exercises that were good for mass that mainly targeted that muscle as well, but also incorporated other muscle groups (called compound exercises). I would make sure that when I lifted, that I lifted a weight until failure (when I could no longer move the weight in its proper range of motion no matter how hard I tried). Moreover, the weight that I picked was a weight where I failed at 8-12 repetitions of the exercise. I didn't care what the number of the reps were or what the weight was, but that I achieved failure within an 8-12 rep range. Sometimes I would even start out with a weight that I would fail in the 6-8 range. I'm not saying that 6-12 is the magic number, but it's a good place to start, and it gave me great results over time.
Some bodybuilders swear that doing 15-20 reps of an exercise is really good for stimulating hypertrophy. My opinion is that you want to lift for a decent amount of reps, but never stay at a weight where you can do over 20 repetitions easily. And try not to only do a weight you can only lift a maximum of 1-4 repetitions. And ALWAYS lift until failure. Your goal is to fatigue your target muscle as much as you possibly can and then rest it for a week. I buy into the idea that it's good to incorporate sets that include "high weight" that you can do for 6-8 reps, but also doing weight that you can do for 15-20 reps. They both stimulate muscle growth in different ways. They way I've done it for years, which is backwards based on how a lot of other frequent gym members and pro bodybuilders I've talked to and watched on Youtube, is that I would start off with fairly high weight in comparison to what I'm capable of and on the last two sets of what is now four sets for each exercise focus on pumping out 12-20 reps for a nice burn and hopefully stimulate hypertrophy in my muscles. I also start off my workouts with nice compound exercises that work a lot of different muscle groups at once if I can. As a general rule of thumb (based on what I've read and watched on many articles / videos), high weight with low repetition is typically used for putting on mass, while lower weight with higher repetitions are used to stimulate hypertrophy.
Also, incorporate drop sets. A drop set is a set where you lift weights as you normally would until failure, but once you fail you immediately go to a lighter weight (I like 15-30 lbs lighter) and rep them out until you fail again. I used to do that for my very last set, but at the time I write this will do drop sets for my second to last and last set. But sometimes it's what you feel. Sometimes I feel that maybe my first or second set wasn't good enough, so I'll do some drop sets after those reps. A spotter / workout partner are good for drop sets as well (I actually call them living drop sets...but don't tell them I said that).
What does a bodybuilding diet look like / My experience?
Don't get it twisted. Nutrition is THE most important part of not just a bodybuilding routine, but ANY fitness routine. It's not up for debate, and there is no way around it. You can have the best builders in the world, but if you do not give them brick and mortar, they cannot build you a house.
I will get more in depth with nutrition on another page of my blog, but a bodybuilding diet is highly focused on ingesting enough protein to repair muscle damage (and therefore increase their size over time) done during weightlifting sessions, while also paying close attention to carbohydrate intake and fat intake.
While bodybuilders are very much concerned with protein intake (from good protein sources), carbohydrates may be the most complex macronutrient to manipulate, and is often overlooked when compared to protein in its importance to muscle size, shape, and aesthetics. Carbohydrate type (simple, complex, fibrous, etc), timing, and amount consumed during each day is extremely important for muscle fullness and energy. Often times, people will confuse large carbohydrate stores holding onto water in the muscle as actual muscle size.
Getting enough healthy fat in a bodybuilder's diet is also important, as fat is needed for the production of many important hormones necessary for stimulating muscle growth.
For the first say....85%?.....of my bodybuilding career I was only concerned with one thing....protein intake. I'd like to sit here and tell you I was a pro with fully tracking my macros (protein, carbs, fats), but I wasn't. The ONLY thing I cared about was getting in at least my bodyweight in protein and eating a Dunkin Donuts bagel with peanut butter and a large half and half tea every day. And I guess I got big off of that. While I no longer think it's important, I also tried to eat throughout the day every 2-3 hours and spread out my meals so that I didn't get hungry and tempted to snack and would be fuller easier when it came time to eat. Again though, I've found that it's not really meal frequency that is important so much as it is consistently hitting your macros each day along with consistent working out. Consistency is the name of the game in bodybuilding. And I don't use that word lightly. When I say consistency....I'm talking about an almost psychopathic dedication to doing the same thing every day, day in and day out, for years, for both nutrition and your workout routine.
WEIGHT LOSS
A weight loss program will not be as involved as a bodybuilding fitness program, and does not require as much tending to and tracking of many different variables.
Source: becomegorgeous.com
What does a weight loss routine look like / My recommendations?
Losing weight / fat is a game of calories.....and nothing else in my opinion. Some of you will read that and say, "BUT JTRAIN! YOU ALSO HAVE TO EAT GOOD FOODS!!!". But do you? The goal here is weight loss. I'd like to reinterate my ideal of developing a fitness plan that revolves around what your goals are. The way you would eat and train on a fat loss routine in my opinion may not necessarily be the same way you would eat and train if your primary goal was to be healthy. For example, when the Baltimore Ravens run onto the field on Sundays, are they shouting, "YEAH! HEALTH!!!!". Of course not. Does one of their star players, Haloti Ngata, eat and train in a way that makes him the healthiest player in the NFL, or does he eat and train in a way that allows him to throw around offensive linemen like a monster so he can sack the quarterback? I think you know the answer.
That's the same mindset you want to have with fitness programs like a weight loss routine. If your primary goal is just to lose weight, then you simply need to eat less calories than you take in for the day, and ultimately be at a caloric deficit by the end of the week. Can you eat any foods you want and still lose weight so long as you are at a caloric defecit? Sure! But keep in mind, you'll hit say 1800 calories a lot faster with cookies than you will with veggies. And the veggies will keep you full throughout the day while the cookies will not keep you satisfied long enough for you to not be tempted to snack.
So how many calories is that? I get into that on my "nutrition" page. Go check it out!
Cardio can also play a role in weight loss. But you don't even need to see the gym on a weight loss routine. And I think that a lot of people think that the treadmills / ellipticals/ stairmasters of the world are magical tools sent from the heavens that have some otherworldly power to zap the fat right off of your body.............no. Cardio is merely a calorie-lowering device. It just increases the number of calories you can eat and fit into your macros for the day, because it uses up calories in the process. However, to me, simply deciding not to eat a 700+ calorie burrito at Chipotle is a much easier way to burn calories than running the 7-10 miles or so it would take to burn off the same amount of calories.
Also, I have good news. You can expect more noticeable results on a weight loss routine in a much shorter amount of time than you would on say a bodybuilding routine. Your body stores fat, but it has to build muscle. So long as you are consistently at a caloric deficit, you will lose weight dramatically depending on how big your deficit is day to day and week to week.
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