The Ultimate Guide on How to Become a Bodybuilder

Do you know how to become a bodybuilder? Do you know that an average person starts losing muscles as early as the age of 20s?

It’s estimated that muscle loss on average is 8% per year and accelerates to 15 percent after hitting the age of 70. Muscle loss should not be taken lightly as it can lead to cognitive and physical decline.

The good news is, it’s possible to slow, prevent or reverse much of this muscle loss. Bodybuilding is the best way to prevent and reverse muscle loss.

Bodybuilding can also be a beneficial hobby if you want to go to competitions or just sculpt a lean, muscular physique. You will become the healthiest, strongest type of yourself along the way. You’ll also learn patience, self-discipline, and commitment.

However, becoming a bodybuilder will not be easy. You’ll need to alter your way of life so that it revolves solely around your nutrition and workouts. The first step is to figure out how to be a bodybuilder!

Continue reading this article for an ultimate guide on how to become a bodybuilder.

1. Stick to Free Weights

Do not rely on the complex high-tech machines you find at the gym to build a solid foundation for your muscles. Such high-tech machines will only make you prone to injuries. Dumbbells and barbells are the game changer when it comes to muscles as a beginner.

Free weights offer a wide range of motion which improves muscle force and flexibility. They also stimulate muscle growth and stability, a crucial aspect for a bodybuilding beginner. However, before lifting dumbbells and barbells, it’s always important to warm up your muscles.

Warming up your muscles improves the flexibility of the muscles reducing the risk of injuries.

2. Carry Out Compound Lifts and Movements

As a beginner, chances are you may be forced to attempt all the exercises and weight lifting that you see on fitness magazines and websites. If you do so, you will end up injuring your muscles or tearing your ligaments.

To avoid such hustle, stick to the basic movements. These include squat, deadlift, the barbell bench press, and military shoulder press. Such compound movements and lifts help develop major muscle groups, including your triceps, upper chest, shoulders, biceps, and even your lats.

However, to get the most out of your compound lifts and movements, you must use the right techniques, such as proper positioning of the shoulder, chest, legs, among others.

3. Find a Program and Stick to It

To achieve success with bodybuilding, you must be disciplined and committed. Being disciplined means coming up with a strict routine that you have to stick to. Missing even a single day of workouts might derail your bodybuilding career.

However, a bodybuilding program is not something that you can just come up with. A good bodybuilding program should include aerobic fitness, strength training, balance training, among other elements you might not know as a beginner.

Therefore, consider asking for help from a personal trainer or an advanced bodybuilder for a good bodybuilding program. A personal trainer or an advanced bodybuilder will guide you on the exercises and the number of sets you must complete.

4. Don’t Train Every Day

The personal trainer who helped you come up with the program should include four workouts per week. As a beginner, your muscles might not withstand training that goes beyond four workouts per week. Training every day can cause muscle strain that eventually can lead to debilitating injuries.

Furthermore, every bodybuilding routine involves fiber muscle tearing. If you carry out the routine for seven days consecutively, your muscle fibers might undergo permanent damage. To give your muscle fibers time to heal, skip at least one day before the next workout.

5. Train Each Muscle Group Every Week to Become a Body Builder

Going to the gym every day might not translate to larger muscles. Correct workout and weight lifting techniques are what will determine whether your muscles will grow.

Muscle growth is not all about the size of the muscle. It’s also about developing proportional and symmetrical muscles.

Training each muscle group at least once a week is the only way to achieve larger, symmetrical, and proportional muscles. At the beginning of every week, ensure to increase the weight you are lifting. This way, you will challenge your body to keep on building muscles.

6. Learn the Correct Form

After a few days of weight lifting, you might be tempted to test your weight lifting limits. However, this might not be a good idea as you might end up hurting your muscles.

For the safety of your muscles, start with lower weights accompanied by the correct form of exercise.

To learn the correct form of exercise, you can seek help from the gym trainers. If you find that you still need more guidance, you can hire a personal trainer.

By learning the correct form of exercises, you will be safe from muscle injuries that could derail your progress.

7. Increase the Weight Gradually

The weights you lift on your first day will not be effective for muscle growth after one week. Staying in one weight for long makes your body to be at comfort, hindering any further muscle development.

Therefore, after mastering the correct exercising techniques, you need to add heavier weights gradually.

As your exercises become harder, your muscle will become bigger and stronger. However, ensure to record how much you lift every week. You might think that you will remember all the info involving your workouts only to lose count of how much weight to add.

8. Be Cautious

Big weights usually cause a lot of strain to your body. If not well handled, you could injure not only your muscles but other parts of the body. When lifting big weights, it’s advisable to wear a safety belt.

A safety belt reduces the stress applied by the heavyweights on your lower back.

When lifting weights, it’s also advisable to wear shoes with good traction.

The last thing you would wish for is sliding when having a big weight over your head. Shoes with traction offer stability even when the floor is slippery.

9. Eat a Lot of Protein

During the bodybuilding routine, your muscle fibers undergo tearing and breakage. For such muscle fibers to heal, you will need a lot of protein. As a bodybuilder, your definite goal is to have larger muscles. Such muscles can only be achieved if there are enough bodybuilding foods in the body.

Therefore, you must eat food such as chicken, fish, milk, eggs, and nuts rich in Protein. For maximum muscle building, it’s recommended you take at least one gram of protein per one pound of body weight.

If your diet doesn’t have enough proteins, you can consider using supplements.

Do you know some of the best supplements to use as a bodybuilder? Worry no more. Wilson supplements have all the nutrients that you may need for the bodybuilding process.

10. Have a Caloric Surplus

When working out, you burn a lot of calories. To develop muscles, you must eat more calories than you burn. Otherwise, if you don’t have enough calories in your body, the body will start burning the muscles you are building for energy.

To determine the caloric surplus that you need, you can use a caloric calculator. By putting information about your activity level, age, height, weight, and sex, you can determine your basal metabolic rate.

11. Eat More Frequently

If you are bodybuilding, the basal metabolic rate of your body will be high. To meet the increased energy demand, you need to eat at least four to five times a day. Ensure not to go past four hours without eating food.

The kind of food that you eat should have high levels of protein and carbohydrates.

12. Avoid Junk Foods

When bodybuilding, the aim is to gain muscles and not fat. Junk foods have high levels of fats that are hard to digest. For optimum bodybuilding, focus on healthy food such as lean proteins, complex carbs, and healthy fats.

13. See Your Doctor

Bodybuilding routine involves weight lifting and other exercises that cause stress to the body. If you have underlying medical conditions such as back issues it could be made worse by weight lifting.

Furthermore, handling the high protein diet might be a challenge if you have kidney or liver diseases.

Therefore, before starting your bodybuilding routine, seek the advice of your doctor. After a series of medical examinations, the doctor will determine whether you are fit for bodybuilding.

Use the Above Ultimate Guide on How to Become a Bodybuilder

Becoming a bodybuilder can help improve your health and boost your self-esteem. However, bodybuilding is a process that requires planning and following the proper bodybuilding tips.

Follow the above guide on how to become a bodybuilder and get it right.

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