Keeping the form to prevent injury
We all know how important it is to keep critical form when bodybuilding. But did you know that if you lose the proper form of the exercise you are doing you can seriously injury your body? If you succumb to an injury, it may take weeks, months or even years to get the muscles back into a place of no pain, and is this really worth the pain issues you’ll encounter later?
The most damaging mantra from years ago in exercising is the phrase “no pain no gain.” This is because most people assume that if you are working a muscle to the point of pain, you are “doing good.” Bad English aside, you are not doing yourself any favors, and may be going up the road to a real injury sooner than later. If you work a muscle until you feel the burn, you can work it a bit more to make the muscle reshape itself. But if you work a muscle to exhaustion, you are over working the muscle and may be risking a tear, strain or sprain. How do you know the difference when you want to push yourself to the next level and feel ready for more? You have to learn to really listen carefully to your body.
The best advice is to work with a good partner. If you are bodybuilding and weight training with a partner, or better yet with a certified professional trainer, this person will tell you when your repetitions go out of form. This is critical to working the muscles the proper way and getting the most out of each and every workout (as opposed to some or “most” workouts). For example, if you lose form on a day you are really tired, if you work out alone, you may be tempted to keep going to the level of pain to make up the difference. But with a partner, you will be told the truth, which is “stop now, rest and do reps correctly later” or “stop now, let’s pick up again tomorrow.” You know and I know no one wants to hear this truth, that our reps are less than as tight as they can be. But if you are honest with yourself, and you worship your body for the temple that it really is, you will understand that poor form is sloppy and has no place in formal bodybuilding.
One way to develop a great and safe routine is not to skip the warm up. This will bring blood to the large muscle groups, and allow your body to pump blood and keep it flowing during your workout. Start with the exercise bike or on the treadmill. Always start slow and work your way up to a challenging pace. Remember, you are not working out on the treadmill, you are going to be bodybuilding in a few minutes, this is just the appetizer, not the main course. Do two or three warm up sets, then begin with seated dumbbell curls. If you are comfortable, start with your last weight session from the last time, or go back and work your way up from a lower weight. Remember to drink water and take frequent breaks to stretch in between. There is nothing wrong with starting with a lighter weight and then to go for more reps. As you get to the heavier weights, understand that this is where the form will slide. Each rep at each weight should be done perfectly, as correctly as possible. This is why there are mirrors in the room, use them!
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Diet Pains
Bodybuilders interested in dieting to gain weight or to lose weight should be careful with any new diets. There are several mistakes that bodybuilders make in regard to dieting and they are listed below for your review.
If the plan is to increase muscle mass, eating junk food is never a good idea to gain weight. Junk food is typically made up of fillers containing sugar, salt and other ingredients which have a high fat content. The increased fat will block amino acids from flowing to the muscle groups. It would be better to eat small meals more often, and to pay attention to the calories being consumed so that there is a distribution of calories from one meal to the next. In that scenario, imaging cutting out unnecessary calories to lose weight, and adding more calories to gain weight. But if junk food is eaten, this could mean adding fillers to each meal and not the best choice nutritionally speaking.
Bodybuilders can get ahead of the diet game by learning to prepare their own healthy meals instead of relying on fast food for quick meals. If you are a bodybuilder and do not know how to cook, it is easy to learn. You can take a cooking class, read about how to prepare easy recipes online or also watch videos of how to make simple nutritious meals.
It is also important not to skip any meals, or the body will lose a constant supply of the necessary nutrients which encourage muscle growth. If a bodybuilder skips a meal, his or her body may begin to store body fat as the absence of a well-balanced meal will trigger this automatic response.
Bodybuilders should not avoid fruits in an effort to cut sugar from their diets. Fruit has an added benefit since it contains fructose and this is a carb which can replace liver glycogen. If the liver glycogen is maximized it will increase the functioning of the thyroid. Many people have problems with their thyroids and do not know it. They should be checked regularly if something appears to be off or wrong with their health.
Many bodybuilders do not eat enough fats, but they should consider eating more. The fats are a good secondary energy source as well as offer support to the person’s cardiovascular, reproductive, immune and central nervous systems. We all have heard that eating oily fish are good, and almonds, and olive oil also fit the bill. Consider doing some basic research online to see how to get the oils from foods easily fit into an already healthy diet.
It is important to not make a substitute for whole food. Bodybuilders and those of us who are extremely weight conscious should still eat from every food group, take time to research how to get the proper nutrients from foods and take supplements with care. Drinking a power drink, eating a high calorie granola bar are all ways to supplement a real meal, which by the way, should be how you get most of your nutrients daily (not in a shake or in a granola square).
Overtraining is Still Good Right? Wrong!
We discussed “training to failure” and highlighted that there are definite pros and cons to this bodybuilding strategy. As a quick recap, the pros are that muscles can be reshaped rather quickly using this method and it is effective as a bodybuilding tool if done correctly. The cons are that it is fairly easy to get injured using these methods, and injures can be sever if the body has not had enough time to fully recover.
It is valuable to understand the mentality behind overtraining. If you believe that the clichés about bodybuilding, or even exercising in general are true, then you can count on getting a debilitating injury as a result of your efforts. The best bodybuilders in the business stress the necessity of performing reps correctly, not the “no pain, no gain” adage which is often the result of carelessness and sloppy showmanship in the gym.
Another problem is that habits once formed are very difficult if not impossible to change. If a bodybuilder is in the habit of training to sheer exhaustion, and loses form in the last sets of the day, the person will become used to always shirking responsibility for correct form at the end of the workout. The misaligned form in the last sets could be seen as a type of backwards “reward” for having done the other sets correctly. The bodybuilder may later begin to look forward to the last sets, which are done wrong, but “feel” better or appear to be “easier.” Those last sets are dangerous at that point, because they are done wrong, performed past the point of exhaustion, and are when the body builder is the most fatigued. The process of bodybuilding to develop strength should be respected and treated as a skill set that is developed slowly (not a rushed process to get it over with to force results). When bodybuilders are coached by qualified trainers, they are not pushed past the point of reasonable training. They never go to the zone where their body systems begin to silently break down, injuries result, and the brain registers bad habits as “good” ones.
If you think it is possible to over train your muscles forever, you need to take a step back, and think about this process more clearly. The athletes who train for serious minded national and global competitors, would never over train or workout to exhaustion during their workouts. They train carefully and with one purpose – which is to develop skill, strength and consistency of performing in their sport. At exhaustion you’ll lose your momentum and all powerful force of the exercise. Instead, you’ll be working small motor muscle units, and will be at the highest likelihood of injury. It is never a good idea to train the smaller muscles to fatigue – they are not made for this type of activity. They were made to work as part of an optimum team with the larger muscle groups. To bypass the large muscles in favor of weaker smaller muscles should be avoided at all costs. For these reasons, over training is not the way to go for long term results.