Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Steps To Take To Ensure Safe Bodybuilding

By Colin Zane

The bodybuilding community has a famous saying that in order to get the most from your workouts, it must be "no pain, no gain". Unfortunately, anybody who abides by that is likely to cause long term and irreversible damage to their bodies through painful injuries. The only benefit pain has for us is telling us that we are doing something wrong and that it must be corrected, including bad form and dangerous exercises.

To get the most from bodybuilding, not only must you stick to sound training methods, but safe measures must be undertaken to protect your body. Steering clear of injuries is essential to making consistent progress. What can you do to achieve that?

1. Use free weight exercises as they are the only true safe movements that your body was made for. Exercises done using machines are mostly dangerous in a subversive way and it does not help that most mainstream exercise literature promote them. Machines force your body to move in unnatural motion planes that lead to injuries, while free weights force your body to adapt to pressure using movements that it is familiar with.

2. Concentrate your efforts on major movements such as the squats, deadlifts, chin ups and bench presses. These exercises utilize all your major muscle groups which are really what your body is built on. They also encourage a more balanced body to be built.

3. The minor muscle groups like biceps and triceps need to be worked on, but not as much. The major exercises will expose them to considerable amount of training. You can include a low number of sets of specialized exercises like bicep curls if required, but not too many so as to avoid overtraining.

4. Ensure that your body gets sufficient rest in between workouts. This must be done in tandem by having a sensible number of workouts per week, instead of training everyday. Having proper rest and nutrition is crucial to maximizing returns from bodybuilding, instead of doing too much.

5. Never go into a workout set with cold muscles. Perform a few warm up sets to get blood flowing to the muscles and keep them warm. This will also help your mind and body get in focus for the proper sets when the heavier weights are in place. Again, all this is done to avoid injuries that might result from ill preparation and a lack of concentration.

You will be able to enjoy safer and more productive bodybuilding workouts by observing the suggestions listed above. In order for muscles to grow well safely, you need to push them to their limits sensibly. Pain is always negative and should be avoided at all costs. - 16004

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