Bodybuilding Series: Entry IV; Building the "Perfect" Body
Bodybuilding is all about symmetry. This is what competitors are ultimately judged on because if one or more muscle groups are over developed in comparison to other muscle groups, it simply does not look good. Put the aesthetic appeal aside, you body needs equal work for all muscle groups to stay functional, prevent injury, and support maximal lean muscle growth. Let's look at not only why, but also how to build a symmetrical and well balanced body!
True Body Building
Your approach to bodybuilding needs to be exactly what the word implies. You must build, develop, and work your entire body to see maximal results. I do not mean that you must do this in one workout session. I mean that on a weekly basis, you should spend time developing each muscle group to ensure that your body is growing evenly and properly. Certain muscle groups require more attention and these are called primary muscle groups. To make things simplified, big muscle groups responsible for primary movement patterns require the most attention. The primal movement patterns are as followed: vertical push, vertical pull, horizontal push, horizontal pull, and the transverse plane (twisting). The big muscles for these movements are chest, shoulders, "upper back", "lower back", quadriceps, hamstrings, and abdominal muscles. Work these muscle groups evenly to develop the body you have in mind!
Secondary Muscle Groups
These muscle groups can be defined as the "helpers". These are very important to develop as well as the primary muscle groups, but never so much that you take away from your primary muscles. A great example here would be an amateur bodybuilder who needs to grow size every where but places a special emphasis on his triceps and biceps. If you work your primary muscles enough, these secondary muscles will have to grow as your bigger muscle groups grow because the strength of the smaller muscle groups tend to be the "weakest link" in the beginning of your program. You do not have to place a great emphasis on your secondary muscle groups in the beginning of your bodybuilding program. I would recommend introducing these specialized days as you progress your program into late phase two or early on of phase three. You secondary muscle groups are as followed: biceps, triceps, forearms, calves. With that said, each exercise you perform will always have a secondary muscle worked that assists the target muscle in achieving the repetition. These muscles work in a synergistic way as the primary muscle. This is not to be confused with the secondary muscle groups.
Injury Prevention
As mentioned above, the over development of one muscle group in relation to the others can be potentially dangerous. When you take this approach, you develop muscular imbalances. Muscular imbalances then manifest themselves as tightness in certain areas because of nonfunctional muscle that lacks proper range of motion. This range of motion issue then forces your body to develop bad habits and also hinders your body from activating the correct muscles while executing great technique. Often times, it is late in the process (years) before the lifter tries to fix these issues. By this time, your body must break bad habits and do even more mobility and flexibility work. This could potentially take thousands of repetitions to create a new neurological pathway from your body to change its technique. All this extra work means extra time for you and many of injuries along the way. DO IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME! NEVER SKIP MUSCLE GROUPS!
Approach
Your best approach is to plan. Just like your meals, you should find a bodybuilding program that fits your life and do your best to stick with it. Never miss muscle groups and never forget to do your mobility work. You want to look good AND feel good. No one has ever wanted to be HUGE meanwhile sacrificing their body with constant aches and pains. It is not worth it. Strictly plan your workouts and never neglect the mobility. I understand life gets in the way from time to time, but you owe it to yourself to stay on pace! You wouldn't be reading this if you didn't agree!
Full Circle
To bring this full circle, self reflect and write down the days you can absolutely commit to making it to the gym or exercising. Be honest with yourself. If it is 7 great. If it is 3, that's fine too. Put it down on paper and stick with it. This is for you. Do not over commit but definitely set the bar high! Now that you have that down, find the routine that will work for you. The bodybuilding approach would look something like this; If you can make the gym 3 times a week, program your workouts to do pressing movements one day, pulling movements another, and lower body exercises on the last. With that, you will still do your cardio and core stability and mobility. If you can make it 4 times a week, I would recommend one of the days being devoted to core and cardio in interval training fashion. The more days you add, the more variance you will get. For best results, strive for resistance training at least 4-5 times a week.
Bodybuilding Series Notes
- Starting Thursday August 4, we will be publishing a sample bodybuilding week workout split. These will be workouts on a 5-day split so you will have an idea of what a weeks exercise regime will look like as well as give you ideas of new exercises to try in your program!
- After the 5-day split workouts, we will finish the series with the Importance of Rest Days and the final entry GAINS!
Stay tuned with more to come!
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