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| Back to the basics!; Credits: Aftershock | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jun 21 2005, 10:40 PM (555 Views) | |
| Captain | Jun 21 2005, 10:40 PM Post #1 |
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“The Basics: Newbie reading 101” By Aftershock If you’ve been on any popular bodybuilding board buzzing with newbie’s lately you will hear the same repetitive questions. Questions that are so general and reflect just how lost that person is that you know nothing you can say will even begin to scratch the surface of what is required, so you humbly advise them to check stickies and articles while all of them go into a degree of detail to a specific area. I will attempt to provide in the most basic way possible an article to get any lost beginner “jump started” by outlining the basics of exercise, routine, nutrition, and the overall lifestyle of a bodybuilder. ___________ NUTRITIION Ahhh, nutrition. One of the most important factors in bodybuilding. Nutrition is obviously going to vary depending on goals, of course unless your goal is to become a twig or fatass, one of three things come to mind concerning nutrition. These three are bulking, cutting, and maintaining. I will start off by addressing maintenance. Maintenance simply refers to how many Calories it takes to not gain weight nor lose it. If you’re anything like me, one of the most annoying questions is something like “How many Calories do I need to maintain?” After reading that I find it helps to repeatedly bang your head against a hard object, therefore; we will focus on the lesser of the two evils which goes a little something like “I know it’s different for everyone and I need to experiment to find out how many calories I need but, what is a good ballpark range to start at?” Well first off I feel the need to put emphasis on “ballpark range” and “experimenting.” With that being said a good rule of thumb is 18-25 Calories per pound of bodyweight. So simply take your bodyweight (in lbs.) and multiply from any number from 18-25 (pick a lower number for a slow metabolism and a higher number for a faster one.) Maintenance is achieved when Caloric expenditure is equal to Caloric intake. Now for those of you who have the IQ of doorknob, I will explain this. Calories are energy, Energy are Calories. If the amount of Calories you take in is equal to the amount of energy you exert, you will maintain your current weight; now keep that in mind as it will come up in the bulking and cutting phases. Now let us move onto bulking. Bulking is simply trying to add as much muscle as possible while keeping BF (bodyfat) levels to a minimal. In order to keep BF levels down two things are imperative: No.1- keep Calories only slightly above maintenance level to add weight SLOWLY. No.2-Get all Calories from clean sources (one cheat meal a week is allowed.) It is important to keep bf levels down for two reasons, the first reason being that the less fat you have when it comes time to cut the less mass you will lose. The second reason is so you look good while bulking (obviously.) In order to bulk anabolism must occur. To be anabolic you generally need a positive nitrogen balance, in simpler terms just simply eat more calories than you need. Anabolism is when food is converted into living tissue. Generally to become anabolic you need to eat more food than you need (as stated in the latter) hence the extra food will be converted into tissue therefore; bulking is achieved when Caloric Intake > Calorie/Energy Expenditure. Finally to finish off the concern of nutrition we will cover “cutting.” Cutting is simply the term used to describe attempting to get bf levels as low as possible while preserving as much muscle mass as humanly possible. This is similar to bulking in the aspect that you want to do it slowly. Keep Calories only slightly below maintenance level as losing the weight slowly will preserve the most muscle mass. To cut you need to obtain a negative nitrogen balance, or in simpler terms eating less Calories than you need (Sound familiar?) Catabolism is when living tissue is converted into food. Therefore, eating fewer Calories than your body needs would cause a lack in Calories and food hence the living tissue will be converted into food. In summary on how to go about cutting lower your Caloric intake and do cardio. You should always separate cardio and lifting however. |
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| Captain | Jun 21 2005, 10:41 PM Post #2 |
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EXERCISE and ROUTINES Finally we are down to the actual LIFTING! Now take your time to jump up and down with joy and then let’s get on with the article, shall we? The actual training part of this is just so general and so many factors are involved it would be impossible to even summarize. Because of this I will pick only the bare minimum of what you need to know in order to go out there and have yourself an effective workout. My information will contain overtraining, reps and sets, splits, which muscles on what days, and examples of sample training programs. First off let me explain that training is indeed not what makes you grow but instead the recovery from training. Because of this something like “the more training the better” is simply one of the biggest lies out there. If you’re training more than your body is recovering you are actually going backwards, chances are you’d be better off not training at all. So what is overtraining? Overtraining is not lifting to hard or struggling with weight. Something such as struggling for that last rep etc. is simply just not overtraining, however the duration of training is where the secret lies. Training for more than an hour is not good. One reason is because after an hour your testosterone levels will begin to drop, reason number two is because lifting puts stress on your body. Stress will cause your body to release hormones…stress hormones…catabolic hormones. Yup you read that correctly CATABOLIC HORMONES such as cortisol. This will cause your body to lose mass rather than gain it. Another factor is too many sets for a muscle group. Chances are if your doing 50 sets per muscle group your going to be training more than you can recover thus the harmful effects of training outweigh and overpower the benefits. If you are actually following this article then there should be one question just buzzing in your head right about know, and that question may very well be “Then how many frigging sets do I do?!” This is a very good question and can depend. Assuming your after sarcoplasmic hypertrophy which you most likely will be if you are bodybuilding, rather than myofibrillar hypertrophy such as a powerlifter might go after. Sets for this should be around 3-4 sets per exercise and around 5 exercises ROUGHLY. You must also take into accounts that many if not all exercises are at least somewhat of a compound movement thusly while performing something such as a lat pulldown you must also take into consideration how much the biceps brachii (biceps a.k.a. bi’s) are being used. The amount of sets used in sarcoplasmic hypertrophy training is generally between 6-12, you must also experiment to find out what works for you and the rep number will most likely vary from muscle to muscle. Now we will move onto splits. A split is part of a routine, it covers what days you are working out on, which days you are working what muscle groups etc. While designing a split it is imperative to ensure that you are getting an adequate amount of off days in. Breaking it up into leg day, chest day etc. isn’t enough because lifting puts overall stress on the body no matter what you vary so it would make sense it needs off days to recover. When designing a split it is important to keep in mind there are major muscle groups out there that shouldn’t be mixed. Two examples of a major or large muscle group are quads and chest. There should be a day for quads while the other muscles you work out on that day should be smaller muscles such as the rest of your legs hence a leg day, likewise for the chest. Something like mixing quads and chest should not be done. As a beginner full body splits are a good idea. This should only be done as a beginner however. Now that you know how to develop a decent split I will provide names of some sample training programs to embark upon. HST (hypertrophy specific training) Max-OT Westside There are many others that can easily be found and researched. You may also hear someone tell you about DC (DoggCrap, yes you heard that right) now despite the uhh soemewhat… “odd” name this is one of the best out there however it is recommended by the founder to only consider it after having a solid four years of training under your belt therefore; if anyone suggests DC to you simply ignore them…for now. Also it should be noted that even the other routines posted still shouldn't be attempted before a beginner benefits from a basic split first. |
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| Aftershock | Jun 21 2005, 11:07 PM Post #3 |
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"Asskicking Moderator"
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IMPRESSIVE! Whoever wrote that article should get to PIITB of anyone of their choice. -PIITB HO |
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| Captain | Jun 21 2005, 11:08 PM Post #4 |
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Administrator
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I agree! -Steel |
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| IronBender800 | Jun 23 2005, 05:00 PM Post #5 |
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Flippin Sweet
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Make a supplement guide. Set up some example routines. Just some suggestions. |
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Stats: 5'9 214lbs compete 198 Squat 435 raw/505 in metal ace briefs with blue bands all done using monolift Bench 315 but have been good for at least 330 (225x15) Deadlift 505 455x10 495x5 | |
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| IronBender800 | Feb 26 2007, 04:24 PM Post #6 |
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Flippin Sweet
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The "dont train for more than 45 mins theory is bullshit"!!! Most of mine and many other top lifters workouts take 2 sometimes close to 3 hours. Just make sure you eat enough before hand so u have enough energy to get through the workout. |
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Stats: 5'9 214lbs compete 198 Squat 435 raw/505 in metal ace briefs with blue bands all done using monolift Bench 315 but have been good for at least 330 (225x15) Deadlift 505 455x10 495x5 | |
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4:40 AM Jul 11