Dedicated body builders have two major seasons – the off peak season when they bulk up on muscle, and the competition season where they concentrate their training on stripping off fat to reveal the muscles and expose the body’s striations.
Cardiovascular Training
Cardiovascular training is crucial for burning calories and stored body fat. No matter how heavy the weights you can lift, if you want to look toned you must burn off those excess carbs and fat! Looking toned is simply allowing the muscles that have been built up over time to show through a relatively thin layer of fat.
To achieve an aesthetically pleasing body it is important to develop the efficiency of one's heart, lungs and circulatory system so that one can undertake more intense training sessions with weights. Even for those who have nine-to five jobs and merely want to get fit, both cardiovascular training and weights (resistance) training should be incorporated into the schedule. For those who have diabetes, it has recently been shown that doing regular resistive (muscle building) exercises can improve blood sugar control and reduce the amount of medications needed.
Regular Gym Workouts
These should be based on on progressive resistance training – making the body adapt and grow in response to increasing amounts of stress. In order to grow, muscles must be challenged over time so they can adapt to these repetitive stimuli. Taking long breaks between workouts cannot improve body performance. Workouts must be done with regular frequency and consistently built upon to be efficacious.
Muscle Building
Ideally one should target each of the major body parts (chest, back, arms, shoulders and legs) once a week. The Abdominal muscles ("Abs") however, being a quicker recovering muscle group, can be trained twice a week. If one finds it difficult to hit the gym five days a week to focus on each major body part separately, compromise by going three times and focusing on two body parts at a time.
It is a useful technique to alternate between increasing your Poundage (the weights you use) and your Volume (the number of sets multiplied by the number of repetitions that you do). This will “shock” the muscle fibres causing them to grow over a period of time.
It is important to remember that there is no “right” number of sets or reps that should be done. One can start with eight to ten reps per set and do three to four such sets. If the objective is muscle building (Growth), then each muscle group is best targeted with a combination of three different exercises - using three sets per exercise making nine sets in all.
Dumbells or Bars?
Experiment with both dumbbells and bars. Using dumbbells is harder as they require more control – which can be beneficial as both strength and stability are enhanced. The trick is to experiment until you find a weight with which you are comfortable. There are a host of exercises that one can do – so read, learn and get advice from those who have experience. It is your body – so it is your responsibility to educate yourself about how best to look after it!
Exercise benefits the body in many ways - it cuts down fat, builds up healthy muscles, helps reduce the risk of heart attacks, modifies cholesterol levels and lowers elevated blood pressure. But don’t physically over exert yourself. Stop immediately if at any time during your workout you feel nauseous or light headed.
Eating regular small meals containing a balance of nutrients is essential to complement any form of exercise. Burning up calories during a jog every morning is useless if they are going to be piled on again during the day. Many men are too used to eating large meals that are loaded with high levels of carbohydrates and fueled with fat!
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