Bodybuilding for Beginners -About Weight Training

Muscle Size and Strength

Muscle tissue is composed of bundles of fibres which are wrapped in a sheath for strength. Each of us has, from birth, a certain number  of muscle cells, which cannot be increased no matter what we do. All we can do with what we have got is make the most of them by increasing their size and strength. Muscles that are not used shrink. This is called atrophy. Increasing muscle size is called hypertrophy.

Our strength is governed by the number of fibres in a muscle, how we use them, and the thickness of the individual fibres. We do not use all the fibres available in any given movement. Strength comes from engaging more muscle fibres in the movement and this happens when we use heavier and heavier weights or resistance. From this you will realise that there will be a physiological limit - we cannot change that. Other things happen to a muscle when you train

• the sheath covering the muscle gets tougher
• our marvellous bodies create more capillaries to carry blood to that area.

Training, using aerobics - cycling, running, swimming - this is fixed resistance. In fixed resistance training :-

• you are always contracting the muscle fibres against the same amount of resistance
• you will never get stronger
• you will build up endurance which means you can do it for longer and longer
• you will not get any more strength.
• you will alter your body size if you eat correctly with your training, but you will hardly change your shape.

For example, with fixed resistance training, if you are a big pear shaped person then you will become a smaller pear shaped person. You might have noticed this with people who you see running regularly on the road. I have. I see them them start out quite large and overweight and then a good few months later I see them a lot smaller and obviously better looking. But if the had a big bum and narrow shoulders then, now have a smaller bum and still narrow shoulders. If that is what you want - that is great. You need to join a gym where they have what is called spinning and other aerobic classes. There is a big business for this.

Most of us are ignorant with regard to resistance training  or lifting weights training (bodybuilding). Both men and women believe if they lift weights they will become muscle bound. Their biggest fear is the muscle will turn to fat if they stop training for any reason. This is absolute rubbish. I want to clear up this misconception here and now. You cannot. under any circumstances, turn muscle into fat or fat into muscle. They are composed of entirely different cells. A muscle cell cannot turn into a fat cell and vice versa. All resistance training will do is change your body shape and make you stronger - you will be engaging more of what you have been born with. That in itself has to be excellent. You will put on weight if you eat more. You will get fat if you stop training and keep eating more than what you require. It is all common sense, there is nothing miraculous about it. If you train hard and do not eat enough you will lose weight and eventually probably get ill. You need to use common sense.

You need to know what you want. If you want to build bigger, you train harder and eat more...but in a certain way - not just any old way. If you want to become lean and mean and really looking good, you train and do not eat as much until you achieve the desired result.

The beauty about this is - if you have narrow shoulders you can make them wider; if your thighs are too big, you can reduce them - you become the artist and the sculptor. What could be more exciting than that ?

If you choose to enter competitions, once you have the foundation, it will depend on your genetic make-up, not just on a few years of dedication and training. Some of us might want to excel in competitions. Unfortunately it will never happen. I wanted to be a sprinter. I could train as much as I wanted. I would reach a certain level, but I would never be able to break the world record. My make up will not allow that.

There are some thing we can change in life and some we cannot. All we need to know is how to handle what we cannot do - that is what makes us the best we can be.

Comments

[Andreas, Sweden]

Very good article!
I think this is very important information for anyone to keep in mind. I really like your down-to-earth approach. Keep up the good work!