Body Building FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions on Body building

Many young & even experienced body builders have asked many questions and here are a few selected ones

Q. If I were to work out once every nine days would I really gain more muscle mass than if I worked out three times a week?

A. The thing to remember is that your optimum training frequency is changing all the time. When you first start training you can probably work out three times per week and fully recover between workouts. But as you get stronger you begin to hoist some really heavy iron and it takes longer to recover from those workouts.

So the answer to your questions is “yes”. After training a few weeks the guy who sticks with three times per week is going to make zero progress while the guy taking time off to fully recover is going to make steady progress. I work with advanced trainees who work out once every six weeks and they show progress on every exercise every workout. They also hoist fantastically heavy weights and have never been so strong in their lives. Reason is a powerful tool.

Q. My name is Brad and I'm a 28 year old guy who went from 203lbs. to 170lbs. in the last year. My problem is that even though I'm glad that I'm much thinner, my upper body is way too skinny and I still have a little gut and love handles; I feel totally out of proportion. I started lifting weights in June and haven't really seen much gain (maybe I'm expecting too
much too soon).

I do a 3 day split with 3 exercises on each body part and I pyramid my weights from 10-8-6 with the last set to total failure (I've also been doing cardio 6 days a week, running 3 miles four days and doing some other
aerobic activity for 1/2 hr for 2 days).

I've been feeling frustrated so I started surfing the web for some more info. What I've found has been totally overwhelming, confusing, and sometimes contradictory. Do I need to be eating more to put on mass (I'm paranoid about getting fat again)? Should I be doing some sort of periodization or cycling, and if so, what's up with the whole "gaining" and "cutting" thing? When do you do these? I feel like I'm doing okay with making sure I have good form and being consistent, but is there other stuff I should be doing? Also, I'm not looking to become a professional bodybuilder, just beef up and slim down (which according to the stuff I've been reading online, you can't do at the same time). I enjoy the whole process of exersing, but let's face it, I also want to get some babes! It would be great if you could help me clarify some of this.

A. Hi Brad, I think what you did is totally awesome, losing 33 lbs of weight is great !. About your "problem". You are right to think that you must beef up. While dieting someone loses muscle along with fat, especially if he doesn't exercise, but even if he does. First of all I think that if you want to beef up then you should cut the cardio. If you like you could do cardio only 2 days per week, running 3 miles is just fine. The body adapts to the given stress. If you weight train then the muscles are getting bigger in order to be able to lift more weight, on the other hand, when doing cardio, lets saying running, the body adapts to this stress by making it more capable to do just that, so it reduces your weight. Since much muscle is not needed in order to run long distances, the body reduces your muscle mass as well. Just look at the bodies of long distance runners.

In my opinion the best you can do is to remain at the weight you are now and weight exercise. By exercising you'll gain muscle and while remaining at the same weight, that means that you'll lose fat as well. Gaining and cutting phases are for competition preparing athletes that can't stay at 3% BF all year long, and climb up to 8- 10% BF in the off season

As I see it, the only reason I can see why you don't make gains is the cardio, you are doing too much and thus you are training more like a long distance track athlete than a bodybuilder. Don't forget though to adjust your food intake, eat a little less since you won't be that active anymore.

Q. When I flex my muscles, they are really good and hard, the way I want them. When I am not at all flexing them, they are soft as jelly. I know they cant be as hard un flexed as when they are flexed, but what will make them feel harder? Is it just that I need to change my diet so that I retain less water? I used to just take a protein shake after training, as well as using creatine steadily. I have just started paying proper
attention to diet, and I have started to eat much more protein, making egg omelets etc. So perhaps this diet is better and I just have to allow time for results to show.

thanks for your help, Manolakis, it is much appreciated. Plus I am only 17, so if I get it right now and train well and hard, I can probably end up quite big by the time I am about 22 or 23.
A. Hi Danny, that is how muscles are, when you don't flex them they are not hard. Losing some fat would make your muscles feel harder either when you flex them or not.

If you train well and hard then most probably next year this date you won't believe your eyes on how much you have progressed. I'm not saying that you will be just like Shawn Ray, but man you'll look better than you are now. I think it is better to take a pic of yourself right now and another next year and compare them, you'll be astonished on how better you'll be. Sometimes we forget how we used to be last year and complain about the results we got, when very often the results are phenomenal and we aren't aware of it :).

Q. Dear sir, I have a very narrow shoulder structure, have been training for 10 years yet I could' t add width to my delt, what do u recommend?
A. I don't know if I can be helpful since it seems that you have been training more than me (I train for 7 years only) and I must assume that you have tried different techniques, routines etc. Anyway here are my thoughts. I believe that the best (and only) width adding exercise is dumbbell side lateral raises. Adding them to your shoulder routine should give you the width you are looking for. The tricky point in doing them is not to let the traps get in the way. That means that you should train with less weight and when lifting the weights concentrate on feeling the working muscle. Also be careful to raise the whole arm above your shoulders and not just your hands.

The only reason I can think of, why you are not making "width" gains is the your traps are getting in the way.

Q. Hi. I understand about ab training, and I am making good progress. But when the time comes to lose the fat and get them to show, I have no idea what level of body fat to aim for. I want clear and defined abs, but not the sharp, chiseled abs the pros have (not that I could get them anyway).
Thanks.
A. I have found over the years the abs to be the most difficult body part to show. Unfortunately, us, men, have this genetic predispose to store fat on the waist, and that means that all other body parts will show cut, except abs !. That is until we lose all the fat we have to. I think that a BF of 8% allows abs to show defined, even cut. About clear, that depends on what you eat. To be specific, eating too much carbs (or too little protein) will make you retain water and thus the abs will not show that clear. A good bodybuilding diet of 25- 35 % protein and 20%- 30% fat (the rest carbs) will get rid of the extra water and will make the abs to show exactly as you want them. Except that drinking a cup of coffee once a while will help also, since coffee is a natural diuretic.

Q. I am a French Canadian 26 years old 140 pounds. I'm a professional curler (winter sport curling) I started bodybuilding about a month ago because my curling trainer said that by getting stronger I will get more in shape and more powerful for curling (getting less tired on tournaments etc.). That's ok. So I went to the gym witch is across the street witch is a fitness gym. What ever it's the only gym in the town.

The owner made me a small program witch I follow exactly as he said. It's made up of 3 sets of 10 reps for every thing biceps, bench press, triceps, back He never really show me the form of the exercises just strictly basic. I go tree times a week. The question I am asking is I do bench press and I put the maximum into it, my maximum 1 rep is 90 pounds. I do my sets of ten with less weight and I increasing weight for the next 10 or 8 reps. The thing is that I do not feel any pain heat or any thing on the breast muscles it's mostly arm and triceps. And the next morning there is no pain anywhere, it's like I watched TV the day before! It is the same thing with every muscles there is no pain at all the next morning. When I stop training there is no way I can continue cause if I want to continue with the same amount of weight I have to cheat, and when your cheating your not working the specific muscle right? If I go with less weight I can do more and it's very easy, training to gain mass is not suppose to be easy right?

They put me on weight gainer and I put on 5 pounds since I started, those pounds are probably fat but I don't care at 140 (now 145) and 5f.10 I can put on 15 pounds of fat. But muscles are better pounds and to make muscles grow your suppose to feel something is happening in your muscle -No Pain no Gain- ?

I started training for curling but I really like that sport, but I feel I'm doing something wrong.

A. Don't get confused, things are quite simple, unfortunately the gym's owner didn't take any time to explain them to you. If you are not feeling anything then simply you must do more work in order to get sore. The main thing is to take to a point of temporary muscle failure a number of sets. After you warm up, you put a weight on the bar for the appropriate number of reps and then you perform as much as you can, until you reach failure. Then you reduce the weight and you do another set in this way, for the needed number of reps, until failure etc. The recommended sets to failure for any given exercise are 2- 3 sets for the big body parts, and 1- 2 for the smaller. Since you don't get sore, you must increase the work you do, thus increase the sets to failure.

As far as not getting the chest sore and getting the triceps, there are some things you may do wrong.
You may use a narrow grip on the bar, and thus you take stress off the chest to triceps. Try to use a wider grip and see what happens. How wide ?. There is no rule, you got to find the best position for you by experiencing.
You may hit triceps in the same day before you hit chest. If this is it, then try to train triceps after chest.
You may over train the triceps while under train chest. Usually for the bigger muscles, chest, back, legs, shoulders we do more work than the smaller. Try to cut a little on the triceps and do more work for chest.
Maybe your triceps aren't as developed as your chest. If this is the case then you must train better your triceps in order to strengthen them. You can increase the stress to your chest muscles by using burns, thus partial moves after you can't do anymore full reps.
As far as gaining fat, I don't think it is a good idea. Of course if you want to bulk up, along with the muscle you'll gain fat, just be careful not to overdo it, cause then it will be too difficult to become cut.

Last, but not least, demand from the gym's owner to teach you the correct form of each exercise, after all you pay him, don't you ?.

Q. Most people I know say an hour is enough or your over training if u go over that cuz I worked out today for an 1 hour and a half and IM not sure if I should cut down. In my workout I do bench,triceps,shoulders,biceps,, is an hour and half to much?
A. Overt raining has nothing to do with how much time you train. You can train with no intensity for 5 hours and you won't get over trained even if you train every day, and you can workout with maximum intensity for 1 hour and get !. Anyway, every person has his own recuperative power so there's no rule in how often, how much time and in what volume it's optimal for everybody to train at. I think that for most people 1.5 hours 3- 4 times per week is very good, but again that is not a rule. You can tell if you are getting over trained by several factors. First and most important, if you are getting too tired it doesn't mean that you had had a great workout, in contrary, it means that you over trained. You must feel tired of course, but not exhausted. It is normal to feel sore one day or two days after your workout, but if you continue to be sore after that point, then it's most likely you overdid it. If you are feeling strong and you increase the poundage you are using in your basic exercises, then you are on the right track.

Q. I am 14 years old I am into weightlifting,, i probably bench 190 and i weight a little less than 150,, should i work out hard or should i go slow everyone is saying i need to be older but IM in good shape and everything .help me out
A. Hi Alex, it is a wise choice to workout, especially at that age. A 190 pounds bench is very good at the age you are at !. About training, the best workouts are infrequent and hard. The main problem with this kind of training is the increased possibility to get injured. That can be avoided by getting a good warm up, perform the exercises with strict form and cycle the loads that you are using in order to have a time off of heavy lifting. If you judge that you perform with good form the exercises that you do and you are in good shape and can tolerate hard training, then I think that it is absolutely safe to go hard, although in order to switch to a high intensity way of training a time is needed for the body to adjust. If you switch immediately then it is most possible that you'll get hurt. The correct way to do this is slightly increase the intensity over time and see how your body reacts. Due to the fact that your bones aren't that strong yet, I wouldn't go for dead lifts and squats that put the bones under a great stress, and maybe I wouldn't do overhead presses. Of course training hard doesn't mean to do 1 rep maximum lifts, it means to carry your working sets to a point of temporary muscular failure, but I think you already know about this. Working hard isn't everything, you must combine it with smart training as well in order to enjoy the results. Since I can't watch you training, a good idea would have been to have an advanced athlete to monitor you while exercising (preferably a trainer), in order to inform you about possible errors you may do. Note that I started training with weights at 18, so I don't know how it is to weight lift when you are 14, the best advice you can get is from someone that has such an experience. The weights do reward whom fights with them but also they punish the one that doesn't respect them, so be aware of it and good luck.

Q. How can any 1 manage to ingest 12 egg whites daily?can i just eat them raw?
A. The main reason that you should eat egg whites is because here in Greece protein powders are way overpriced. A quality protein powder costs around $63 per 2 pounds !, while 30 eggs (60 garam each) cost $3.3 so from egg whites you can get 2 pounds of protein for only $16.8 (1 big egg white = 6 gar of protein). you can have 4 egg whites in the morning with my breakfast, 2 egg whites 30 min before training, 2 egg whites immediately after training and 4 egg whites just before you go to bed. just try to have 0.7-1 gar of protein per day.

Q. I am interested in body building for muscle and shape is it really true that you don't need any drugs ?

A. It depends on what you are after. If you want a big lean muscular body, then yes, you don't need drugs. If you are after a pro- bodybuilder's physique, then drugs use is a must. That kind of body can't be built without the aid of various kinds of drugs.

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