Building Muscles

Body Building Muscle 101| How to train and build a massive body| Recent Bodybuilders Building Muscle

Bodybuilding became more popular in the 1950s and 1960s. Joe Weider was one of the greats of bodybuilding who used various methods to promote the sport. He advertised in comic books and other publications. He was responsible for encouraging thousands and thousands of people to undertake weight training to improve their physiques and strength. There are numerous early bodybuilders who have helped to move bodybuilding forward. People like Reg Park a winner of Mr. Universe and Mr. America which were new titles created at that time and still in existence today. This paved the way for others like Steve Reeves who was another great in the sport. Bodybuilding opened up avenues in acting and both Reg Park and Steve Reeves played parts in movies made about Hercules, and Samson.  Dave Draper was another body builder who made a name for himself in various television series. Of course in latter times we have the legend Arnold Schwarzenegger who has become a super movie star. Now in the 2000’s we have the latest bodybuilders who have become even bigger than previously imagined. Bodybuilders like Lee Haney, Dorian Yates, Ronnie Coleman and Markus Ruhl. How big will body builders finally get, who knows?

I am into the natural look. I want to show and teach people how to build a good looking body regardless of how old you are. This is for men, women, boys and girls. Anyone can change the way they look and without too much effort.  Using weights will change your life forever and help you to gain confidence, pride and self-worth.  The most amazing thing about using weights is the fact that you become the sculptor who can mould your body to what you want. You can increase the size of certain muscles while you reduce the size of others. It is a wonderful sport and well worth taking up.

Bodybuilding Muscles 101| How to train and build a great body| The first bodybuilding competition

 

The planning of the very first body building competition was outstanding. This contest was advertised 3 years in advance. Eugen Sandow who is recognised as the father of all bodybuilding advertised the event in the first edition of Sandow's Magazine. They had a rather large audience attend this first competition with around 2000 spectators. The event was on Saturday 14th September 1901 at the Royal Albert Hall in England.

They offered a great deal of money for the time. The total purse for the competition was reported to be 1000 guineas. Apparently the first place winner won 500 guineas.  1st place also received a gold statue of Sandow with 2nd place getting a silver one and 3rd place a bronze statue. Judges were Sandow, Sir Charles Lawes, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

All the contestants had to have competed and placed in minor competitions prior to this event. There were 60 contestants wearing black tights, black jockey belt and leopard skins.

Al Treloar was placed 1st in this competition. What I found very interesting was the fact that Thomas Edison actually produced a film showing Treloar’s posing routine.

Bodybuilding 101| How to train and build a huge body| The history of bodybuilding

This is the information that I found on the internet. I'm sure there are many versions of where bodybuilding started depending on where you look. I like the idea of this. It would appear that the roots of bodybuilding go back to ancient Greece. The athletes seemed to use gymnasiums (Greek for "naked place") for the purpose of improving their bodies  for the sport they participated in. There were not building muscles for show.

There is a story of an Olympic wrestling champion Milo of Croton who would carry a calf on his back every day until it became a bull. You can see that this would have required progressive resistance training which would have resulted in developing strength.

Apparently it was in 11th century in India where the first athletes started doing bodybuilding as it is known today. The Indians would use primitive dumbbell weights carved from stone for the sole purpose of getting bigger and stronger. By the 16th century weight lifting had become a sport in India.

Taken from Wikipedia;
Bodybuilding developed in the late 19th century, promoted in England by the 'Father of Modern Bodybuilding', German-born Eugen Sandow. He allowed audiences to enjoy viewing his physique in "muscle display performances". Although audiences were thrilled to see a well-developed physique, those men simply displayed their bodies as part of strength demonstrations or wrestling matches. Sandow had a stage show built around these displays through his manager, Florenz Ziegfeld. The Oscar-winning 1936 musical film The Great Ziegfeld, depicts this beginning of modern bodybuilding, when Sandow began to display his body for carnivals.

Sandow became so successful at flexing and posing his physique, that he later created several businesses around his fame and was among the first to market products branded with his name alone. He was credited with inventing and selling the first exercise equipment for the masses: machined dumbbells, spring pulleys and tension bands. Even his image was sold by the thousands in "cabinet cards" and other prints.

Sandow was a perfect "gracilian". This was a standard of ideal body proportions close to those of ancient Greek and Roman statues. Men were judged by how closely they matched these proportions.

Bodybuilding Muscles| How to train and build a flat stomach| 6 pack

I think, if we are honest, we would all like to have a flat stomach. It might not be killer abs but certainly a flat stomach is desirable. I know we justify how we look and say that carrying extra fat is not that bad for us - but it is.

I can remember when I was a youngster at home on a large property, we had free range chickens. There were tons of food for them to eat so they were quite plump. One of the things that was always very obvious to me was how much fat was around the heart and other important organs of a fat chicken.
When I got older I came to learn that it is not a lot different with humans. If you carry a lot of extra fat on the outside it is always on the inside too. This cannot be good or healthy for you. I know how tired a person would be if they carried around a 5 kg dumbbell all day long. Having an extra 5 kgs of fat is the same. It puts a strain on your heart and other organs.  I think if more people were aware of this they might try to have a flat stomach.

A 6 pack is not everyone’s cup of tea but if you had it I doubt you would want to get rid of it for a layer of unhealthy fat.

Bodybuilding Muscles| How to train and build big arms| Triceps push downs

Many people ask me -  how do you train and build huge arms ? Their concern is - from the side the arms might look quite big, but from the front or back they look a bit thin. I am not sure that there is any single exercise that will make a huge difference. Every time you train triceps you work all 3 heads. I have heard people say that if you do overhead extensions you will make your arms look thicker but that is not actually true. Like I said, every exercise for the triceps works all three heads.

The answer to getting thicker arms is to really work your triceps hard. Triceps make up 2/3rds of the arms - you need to really focus on them. I have seen some suggestions that if you make your rear deltoids look bigger it will help to make the arms look thicker. I am not totally convinced of this however I do think you should work rear deltoids anyway or you will look like you have round shoulders. I guess the answer is if you want people to see how big your arms are then stand sideways to them. LOL

I personally would not worry too much about it. The mind can play tricks on you especially if you think you have a weakness and you focus on that with your thoughts, the weakness will seem a lot worse than it actually is. Train and train hard and you will build big arms. Some people will never have really thick looking arms because genetically they are not built that way.

I did triceps push-downs today and as I trained them I imagined how big they are getting. This helps me to have an above average workout. I really do think if you use your mind to see your arms bigger in your imagination then the idea of them looking thin will not worry you.

Bodybuilding Muscles| How to train and build a lean muscular body|Breakfast

I have often spoken to my son about training with weights and both of us are totally convinced that a great looking body is not down to how much weight lifting you do but more about how well you eat. If you think about it, food is the fuel for the body which is not a lot different to a vehicle. Vehicles run on fuel and if you tried to run a diesel vehicle on petrol or water it will fail. If you eat rubbish your body will work rubbish. What you put in your body today is who you are tomorrow. I think that is a law we cannot change.

This morning I went to a business networking meeting with the 4Networking group. I gave a talk on how to best present yourself at networking meetings to get business. These meetings are normally held in hotels and so you get the hotel's breakfast. They are normally quite good but you have to be very careful you do not take food that is too fatty. I settled for 2 eggs, 2 slices of lean bacon, a tomato and a small amount of baked beans. I avoided the sausage and hash browns that are so full of fat and I really do not think they are very good for you. Even though the meal was mostly fried I tried to eat the best I could.

I decided that this evening I would do a bit extra on the stationary bike because of the breakfast so hopefully I will still lose a little fat today. 

Body Building Muscles| How to train and build massive arms| Bicep curls

I am still on the fat burn quest. Every day I feel just a little bit thinner even though I tend to cheat with my evening meal. I don't eat rubbish, I just eat a few too many calories so I have to do at least 30 minutes on my stationary bike the following day. I must admit I am getting better.

This morning was upper body training. I had very little break between the 30 minutes on the bike and my training. There is a good reason for this, I want to keep the momentum going with the fat burn. I did 5 sets of 12 reps for each set with some quite light weights. I know you can't build bulky muscle doing this but I am certainly feeling a lot harder all over. My wife has commented that the old solid me is coming back.

One of the exercises I love doing when I train upper body is standing bicep curls. At my age I have nothing to prove so working light suits me fine. You will get an incredible workout doing each rep quite slowly but with a lot of focus. I find that by the time I get to 12 reps my arms are burning quite a bit which is a wonderful feeling. You will know instantly that you are trying to lift too heavy if you have to start swinging the weights up long before you get to the end of the set you are doing. I think you do a lot more for your muscles when you are strict with the form you use with each exercise.

I'm finding the more I'm training the better I am feeling.

Bodybuilding Muscle| How to train and build huge muscles| legs home workout

I did my legs this morning along with 40 minutes on the stationary bike.  It was a fantastic workout that I really enjoyed.

Training legs is so important. Many people don't think it is important to train legs but it is. I recently read an article about the benefits you get when you train your legs properly. The leg muscles are the biggest in the body so they take a lot out of you when you train them. I understand that when you train them properly you will aid the overall growth of all your muscles. The reason is because growth hormones are released when you do things like squats and dead lifts. Another massive benefit is that you burn extra fat because they take so much energy to train. I think a lot of people conveniently forget to train them because of the amount of effort it takes. It is far easier to train biceps or chest.

I have heard a lot of people claim that they do a fair amount of walking so it is not necessary to train their legs. Walking is good for you but doesn't come close to training with weights. When you put a muscle under resistance it has to adapt. That means it will grow and get stronger. Training your legs with squats, calf raises and leg curls do not take a lot of time and once you get into it you will find you will actually look forward to your leg training days. 

Body building muscles| How to train and build a big body| Training routine

I think one of the most important things to consider when you want to train is the routine you are going to use. My wife buys me the odd Muscle and Fitness magazine as I find some of the articles very interesting. I can see how confusing it will be for a beginner who is unsure of what type of training they need to do. Most of the routines in these magazines are for people who are quite advanced in bodybuilding. The beginner needs to find out information about basic simple exercises. Once you have learned these and you have built a great foundation you can move on and incorporate the wonderful routines you find in the various magazines.

Most people will never need to move past using simple basic exercises as you can build an amazing body doing simple flat bench press, shoulder press, lat pull downs, triceps push downs and bicep curls. For legs you must do some normal squats, good mornings and calf raises. Abs needs any of the abdominal exercises and I think the best are crunches with some leg raises.

Work light when you are not used to training. I would suggest doing about 5 sets of 12 reps. Get the movement right.  Never cheat with the exercises and always do them strictly so your form is as perfect as you can make them. Most people lose form when they try to go too heavy and then cheat with the reps.

Try to allow about 48 hours rest between working the same muscle again. I love a 6 day split and work out as follows.
Mon/Thurs - Chest, Triceps and Biceps
Tue/Fri - Back, shoulders and Abs
Wed/Sat - Legs (Quads, Hamstrings, Calves)

If you are wanting to burn fat you can do some aerobics every day for about 20/30 minutes provided it is quite intense.

Body Building Muscles| How to train and build huge muscles| Heart Conditioning

The heart is one of those parts of the body that is always referred to where love is involved. We never say I love you with all my brain yet that too is an extremely important organ. We need to love our hearts as much as we love with the heart.

I was reading some research done by Harvard University in conjunction with the University of Western Australia where they studied over 44,000 U.S. men between 1986 and 1998 on the risk factors of the heart. They found that doing aerobics for an hour or more a week reduced the risk of coronary heart disease by 42%. It also showed that lifting weights for 30 minutes a week or more reduced the risk by 23%. The previous published material said that lifting weights would increase the risk of heart problems. They also found that by lifting weights each week the people studied had an increased metabolic rate when resting, improved oxidation of glucose, prevention of diabetes, lower levels of cholesterol and hypertension.

I guess you could say that if you really love your heart then you should train.

Today I did both aerobics for 30 minutes on my stationary bike and about 30 minutes of weights.
The bike is more for fat burn as I am still on the quest of reducing my body fat. I also am not really worried about muscle building at this stage so did 5 sets 12 reps per set of light weights also mainly to burn fat. The very best time is when you have had a long bath or shower after training and you then get that real feel good about you feelings. It sets you up for the rest of the day.