Body Building For Beginners
By Michael Russell

How many people are there that would love to add some muscle to their skinny frame? Or maybe you're carrying some extra weight around that you would like to get rid of and tone up your body at the same time. A lot of people would love to get started on a strength training routine but they don't have the necessary information to do so. Hopefully after reading this you'll have the information and confidence to give it a try.

The first rule to abide by when you're beginning to train is to only train each body part once per week. Many new trainees are so eager to get going that they often over train and instead of maximizing their muscle gains they actually lose muscle. It's often viewed as too little work to only do each body part per week, but as a new trainee it's more then enough. When training, another rule of thumb to go by is to train each body part in the order of largest to smallest. A good example of a routine that follows these rules would be something like, Quadriceps and hamstrings (legs) on Monday, Back on Tuesday, Chest on Wednesday, shoulders on Thursday and biceps and triceps on Friday. By using this sample routine for a while you will be able to see how much rest each body part is getting and change the days around if need be.

It is best to choose a compound exercise for each body part that you can use to track your progress. This would include exercises such as the squat or dead lift for your legs, weighted chin-ups or bent rows for your back, bench press for your chest, barbell military press for your shoulders and close grip presses for your triceps and barbell curls for your biceps. The key is to do these exercises at the beginning of your workouts so your energy levels are at 100 % which will make it easier for you to monitor your progress from week to week. It is also advisable to keep these lifts pretty heavy, which in return will tell you that you're progressing every time you can add some weight to them.

Now that you have the exercises we need to put them into a workout for you to get going. A great basic starting point is to do every exercise for 3 sets of 8 repetitions. You should also precede each initial set with 2 light warm up sets. For your first real set you should try to go as close to failure as you can, (complete the sets with enough strength to do 1 or 2 more reps) the second set should go fully to failure (unable to complete even one more rep) and the third set should utilize at least one forced rep (another rep completed with the assistance of a partner).

If you're willing to stick to the above prescribed routine and give it all that you've got, I guarantee you that you will start to see a noticeable difference in your musculature and overall well being. Take the plunge and create the body you've always wanted.

Michael Russell Your Independent guide to Body Building.

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