While there are some individuals who participate in weight training to increase strength and physical function, many of us are truly interested in the aesthetic advantages of lifting weights. Putting on muscle mass is seen by many as attractive, whether it’s significant muscle growth or toning up. To effectively build muscle, you need to follow a bodybuilding, or hypertrophy, training program.
Time Commitments
You may notice that bodybuilders typically spent long periods of time in the gym. Building muscle takes a high volume workout, or one in which you overload the muscles with a significant number of exercises, sets and repetitions. It also requires workouts to be done at a high frequency. Although two days has been found to be adequate to develop muscle mass, because of the high number of sets necessary to overload muscles, it’s very common for many bodybuilders to split their workout sessions into different days. For example, they may workout their chest and shoulders on Monday and Wednesday, their back and legs on Tuesday and Thursday, and their biceps and triceps on Friday, ultimately working out six days per week.
Program
A bodybuilding workout session typically consists of a battery of eight to 10 exercises. Each exercise should be completed at three to five sets of eight to 12 repetitions. In between sets, a one to three minute rest period is necessary. The more complex exercises that develop large muscle groups should be performed first before moving onto simpler, smaller muscle group exercises like bicep curls and tricep extensions.
Rest Between Workouts
Although bodybuilding requires a high volume and high frequency workout program, allowing yourself adequate rest cannot be stressed enough. Getting enough rest in between workout sessions is the period in which muscles heal, develop and grow. Preventing your muscles from getting at least 48 hours of rest in between workout sessions will adversely affect your results. Rest is just as important as training.
Additional Tips
It’s important to understand that muscle is completely independent of fat cells. Fat does not turn into muscle as a result of strength training, and muscles don’t convert to fat when they’re untrained. Fat layers lie on top of muscles, so in order to truly see bodybuilding effects, it’s advantageous to also incorporate a significant amount of cardiovascular training in your workout. Cardiovascular exercises, such as running, walking, elliptical and biking are the most effective way to burn calories, and it takes a healthy body fat level for muscles that you’ve been working so hard to develop to be displayed in the way that you’d like.
Considerations
Despite common misconceptions, the more muscle mass that you possess does not linearly equate to strength levels. To increase your strength, you would want to participate in a different type of training program. Many beginners who participate in a bodybuilding program will see significant gains in strength at first because of neuromuscular adaptations. However, those increases will plateau unless you follow a strength program.
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