Join Silvio Samuel as he trained for the 2007 New York Pro at Milos Sarcev's Koloseum Gym under the instruction of Milos himself. Be amazed as Silvio trains arms, legs, back, shoulders, and chest with giant sets. Get to know the man inside the body during an in-depth interview, and look forward to special appearances in the gym by Pro bodybuilders Dennis Wolf and Hidetada Yamagishi.
These are the building blocks most used by champions and children alike. They are the simple movements that involve the body’s complicated system of muscles, bones and ligaments advantageously, safely and joyously. They are the basics. They work best. The rest is up to consistent, strategic and intense performance supported, naturally, by sound nutrition.
Here’s my list, The Top 20:
1) Bench press 2) Dumbbell press, flat and incline 3) Lateral raise, sidearm, front, bentover 4) Stiffarm dumbbell pullover 5) Cable crossover 6) Pulldowns 7) Seated lat rows 8) Bentover row, one- and two-arm 9) Standing barbell curl 10) Dumbbell curls, standing, seated alternate, incline 11) Triceps pulley pushdown 12) Triceps extensions, lying and overhead 13) Dips 14) Chins 15) Squats 16) Leg extension 17) Leg curl 18) Calf raise, seated and standing 19) Deadlifts 20) Midsection, crunches and leg raise
The exercises listed above include 90 percent of the basics, though there are numerous more non-basic movements (thumbs-up curls, pullover and press, front squats) practiced to add variety and nuance. The truth is there are limitless movements when you consider grip and body-position variations, exercise finesse and the execution of personalized exercise grooves.
Of the Top 20, you can extract six or eight major moves on which to concentrate to avoid excessive instruction time and learning time and, therefore, devote more intense quality training time in the near-future workouts. This will assure greater muscle and strength response and a more solid training and musclebuilding experience.
Stick to the basic exercises that work the larger muscle groups completely and are responsible for fuller and more effective muscle growth. Exercise repetition is needed to gain the maximum an exercise has to offer. Changing exercises frequently for novelty is frivolous and defeats one’s purpose to grow in training understanding and muscle shape and muscle might. Isolated secondary exercises are important and are most beneficial at intermediate and advanced stages of training. They come just in time... later.
Your last rep of each set should be 10 or 12 and feel just right; near-perfect form and concentrated muscular action as you recognize 'muscle burn'-the sting within the muscle being worked increasing with each successive rep, a good pain, which when endured allows greater muscle overload and subsequent increased muscle adaptation. Look for the 'pump,' the full muscular feeling that is evident in immediate muscle increase during exercise as blood and water fill the muscle cells under demand of systemic support.
I cam across a few breakdancing bodybuilder video on YouTube today and remembered the guy I saw pop-locking (doing the robot) at the first bodybuilding show I ever went to. “How many robot bodybuilders are out there”, I thought to myself. It is such a strange sight, I thought I’d put a little group of videos together for you.
So here it is. My tribute to the bodybuilders doing the robot dance; Those brave few who aren’t afraid to be ridiculed, who don’t care how silly it is to bring back a dance from the mid-80s, who can get up in front of thousands of people in their Speedos and… get their robot on:
The first robot bodybuilder we have is the one and only King Kamali doing his Terminator impersonation at the 2004 Australian Grand Prix:
Next we have Heiko Dorfer, the big scary Arian:
This is Melvin Anthony PopLocking at the Mr. Olympia competition in 2006:
Now Vince Taylor’s Bodybuilding Robot:
And this one is my favorite. It’s actually pretty good, although kind of disturbing at times. Here’s Alexander Vishnevskiy doing his one-of-a-kind version of the bodybuilder breakdancing robot:
In nearly every bodybuilding competition, there are "rounds" of posing routines. Any of these standard competition poses are probably ones you have practiced in the mirror. The keys to good posing lie in endless practice! Get a technique down for each pose which makes you look your best and fully portrays your physique. I've found some great information from IFBB Bodybuilding Pro Bob Cicherillo.
Bodybuilding tips are so plentiful that you could fill a number of thick manuals discussing all of them.
However, the bodybuilding tips I am providing you on this page are some of the more basic, but important tips that seem to get left out of most bodybuilding magazines - both in print and online.
I am also going to provide you with other resources that provide you with even more tips on bodybuilding and take the tips a step further. Read on about 10 Bodybuilding Tips To Improve Muscle Gains.
# 1: This is probably the most basic of all body building tips but it's one that a lot of body building enthusiasts don't seem to "get". Wear the proper clothing. Your clothing in the gym must allow you to move freely and safely.
But the biggest problem is the fact that so many male body builders do not cover up. Why should everyone else in the gym have to smell your armpits during their workout? Do not wear a muscle shirt of any type. At the very least wear a T-shirt.
# 2: You must drink water regularly - before, during and after each exercise session. This is also true for any day of the week. It's a good habit to get into.
# 3: Make sure you use proper lifting techniques on every rep of every exercise. Using incorrect techniques or lifting form can at the very least prevent you from making any positive progress, but you can also pull or tear muscles, damage tendons and ligaments, break bones and worse.
Your arms, legs etc. are only meant to move in certain ways and directions so watch what you're doing.
# 4: Warm up properly before starting to lift weights. The first thing you should do is to warm up using a stationary bike or a treadmill for 5 - 10 minutes.
Do not make the mistake of doing too much cardio at this time. 5 - 10 minutes is all that's needed to get the blood flowing.
After you have finished your cardio warm up then you need to warm up with weights. The way to do this is to take about 40% of the weight you will be using on your first exercise for your first muscle group and perform a couple of sets of 10 - 12 reps.
You will only need to warm up each muscle group once.
# 5: Don't load the bar up with too much weight in an effort to look stronger than you really are. Using too much weight will obviously put you at risk for an injury. Leave your ego at home and use the weight that will allow you to work in the rep range you are supposed to while using good form.
#6: Use negatives. Without getting into boring scientific details, the lowering, or eccentric part of an exercise is vital to your progress.
If you're dropping the weight like a stone you're wasting your time in the gym. No matter the exercise in your body building program, try to lower the weight at a two to four second count, at least the majority of the time.
Negative reps are one of the most effective weight lifting techniques to stimulate muscle growth.
If you'd like to check out the rest of the body building tips on this page, continue reading. However, if you want to research other aspects of body building or additional body building tips that we have not included here, just click on the links located throughout this page.
Now to continue with important body building tips.
# 7: Focus and concentrate on what you're doing. If you're distracted or preoccupied when exercising you will get hurt. Proper focus will also enable you to lift more weight and use good form, all of which results in better muscle growth and fat loss.
# 8: Do not go to the gym without a plan. Don't wander randomly from exercise to exercise in the gym.
I know people who train legs three times a week and leave shoulders out of their body building program entirely, simply because they don't have a plan of attack. Know what you're going to do before you exercise. Keep a training log and write down your sets, reps, and the weight you used. Don't wander around or socialize. These are critical body building tips.
You're in the gym to get fit and healthy, so get to work as soon as you get there. Always use a watch to keep track of your time between sets, don't guess.
# 9: Your diet is an extremely important part of your body building success. You must adjust your diet according to your results. You will not have any body building success without a good diet.
# 10: Proper supplementation must be included with your body building program. However, this doesn't mean you should start buying every supplement out there.
There are literally thousands of different supplements on the market today, some work, a lot don't. With all the nutritional supplements out there, it's sometimes tough to figure out what to use when.
Remember body building tips like this: if you need to increase your testosterone use a product that will do just that. If you need to improve your health, use a supplement that is designed for that, and so on. It's counterproductive to just grab a handful of whatever supplements you happen to see and use them not taking into account your body building goals.
No supplements will do the job for you. Supplements can be added into your bodybuilding program to assist you. Some of them can give you a slight edge and you can make better gains by using them, but they will only work if you stick to your program.
Most body builders in general don't ingest enough essential fatty acids through their diet to support certain vital body functions and do not necessarily take enough to enjoy the benefits of fat loss.
Adding extra amounts of supplements like Omega 3 fatty acids into your body building diet may help your body to regulate its natural functions. Anyone can use supplements to help support to their physique development goals.
The trick is to figure out which one's work, which ones don't and which ones will suit your particular needs.
Important body building tips! Remember, it's important to note that no supplement is the magic answer to your bodybuilding or fitness goals. In order to see the benefits of supplements, you have to first ensure that you are participating in an effective exercise program and are maintaining a proper diet.
When you are, supplements can help you get better gains, faster and easier, but only if you use them properly.
Some exceptional health supplements that are not normally considered body builder supplements like the ones found by clicking here, may provide nutrients that are normally lacking in your bodies cells or are not available in the proper amounts through your diet.
Weight Training Tips - Six Keys to being Successful in Bodybuilding
To make clear the simplicity of bodybuilding I've arranged a list of six basic keys to successful training. They're nothing new and read like the same stuff in any motivational book on the market today. Yet they offer valuable insight and are essential to getting started and sticking to it.
1. Set a realistic goal - short and long term.
2. Plan an orderly and thorough routine to train the entire body.
3. Make a commitment to stick to your routine for 4-5 weeks - - to begin to see changes and benefits, develop perseverance and create a habit.
4. Enthusiasm for training must be recognized as the main and driving force to perform successfully.
5. Ease into a training program with a wholesome, thoughtful nutritional plan - proper food, order and amount of consumption.
6. Be confident from the beginning that the application of these sound principles will produce the desired results.
GOAL SETTING
Be realistic in your goal setting. It's important from the very beginning and throughout your training to experience victory in each and every workout. Ease into your training with good energy, being careful not to overload yourself and fall victim to mental and physical burnout. Planning to look like Rambo by the end of summer will be frustrating and you may give up your training entirely.
ORDER IN TRAINING
Decide how much time you have to devote to your training - how many hours per day and how many days per week. Based on this schedule, design an orderly and efficient routine that includes only basic exercises. Working your mid-section first, followed by chest, back shoulders, biceps, triceps and legs is always a good rule of thumb. Choose two exercises per bodypart, three to four sets of 8 to 12 reps with a day's rest between muscle groups if you're just getting started.
In organizing an exercise program, keep your eyes and ears open. Scan the Web, magazines and books, visit the gyms and get input from your friends and mentors. An orderly and intelligent training routine is the major tool in achieving your bodybuilding goals.
COMMITMENT
We now come to commitment, the Big Power Switch of our mental mechanism to see if we have the juice to crank over the engine and keep it running. Commitment is your personal promise - your word of honor - to realize your challenge and is vital in aspiration. The naturally occurring ingredients of commitment are consistency, persistence and determination. These gut disciplines engaged with patience and faith set you in positive motion toward your muscular goals.
ENTHUSIASM
Each workout is a unique and separate experience unto itself. Events of the day, mood, energy levels and tensions effect every performance differently. Gather up as much enthusiasm as possible before each workout so you enter the gym with energy and a positive attitude. Your training must not become drudgery or a chore that has to be done. This is negative energy, producing negative results and must be willfully resisted.
PACE AND ATTITUDE
Keep your workouts tight and efficient, leaving no room for boredom or idle thought. You should quickly develop a mature training attitude allowing no interruptions in the flow of exercise from start to finish. This is not to suggest that you hurry in your training. A hurried attitude produces anxiety, nervousness and agitation, resulting in negative performance and loss of concentration. Quite the opposite, here I encourage a steady lean on your training - setting a vigorous pace that reflects excitement, confidence and determination.
Become totally involved with each workout, each set and each rep. Focus on the performance of the exercise, the muscles involved and the feelings that result. Look for your particular groove and sense the burn. Training form is your priority and practice makes perfect. Learn to lift weights smoothly, sacrificing the poundage used to gain quality in your performance. Don't be anxious to overload your body and struggle to lift more than you can handle. This will create poor style and result in disappointment. These register as failures and drain your resources.
Valerie Waugaman has very nice balance of muscle and flexibility. She is in her best shape since her performance onstage at the 2004 figure international at the 2004 Arnold Fitness. Her latest project is playing "Siren" on the newly revamped version of American Gladiators.
If you are starting a bodybuilding program one of the best things you can do is to study what the professionals do. You can discover many tips and techniques from professionals that will enhance your workout. They have done it, know what works and have the great bodies to prove it, so why not copy them? You really don’t have to go it alone.
The following bodybuilding tips have been taken from experts and cover areas that they say many bodybuilders tend to ignore or overlook in their bodybuilding program.
1) Keep It All In Proportion.
If you are trying for a truly sculpted look, proportion is really important. One area that is often overlooked is the calf muscles because they are relatively small to begin with and are difficult to build. Just because they are difficult to work with doesn’t mean they are not important. The calves are just as important as any other muscle in your body and can make you look totally out of balance if they are ignored. Besides working them with specific routines, using both wide and narrow stances when lifting will help to hone the calf muscles.
2) Get A Training Partner.
This has been proven many times but is still ignored by many bodybuilders. A training partner will help keep you motivated and even share a few tips and advice now and then. And there is nothing that stimulates you during a workout like a little friendly competition that keeps you centered on your goals. Just don’t go overboard and end up with an injury because you let the partner push you a little too much.
3) Don’t Bend Over Backwards For Your Deltoids.
The deltoids get a lot of work by most bodybuilders because they are one of the most prominent muscle groups in the body and respond very well to workouts. Good delts make you look proportionally fit and trim. Lateral raises can pump up your delts to new heights, but do these raises leaning slightly forward. Many people builders have a tendency to lean slightly backwards when doing lateral raises but the delts will not be getting a full workout if you do this.
4) Proper Nutrition Is Important.
A bodybuilder’s best friend is what he/she puts into his body. Get or develop a well-balanced diet and stick with it. Eat 5 or 6 smaller meals during the day rather than the traditional 3 larger meals. Maintain a good balance of proteins and carbohydrates in your diet. A bodybuilder needs both. Carbs will give you the quick energy and the protein builds the muscle providing long-term sustained energy. And stay hydrated. Water is critical to your metabolic process.
5) Supplements Are Important In Building Muscle Mass.
The problem is that some bodybuilders want to cheat nature and use a lot of chemical supplements. You do not need to do this. The best nutrient you can put into your body to help grow muscle mass is protein - not something from a drug lab. So look to protein supplements. They will not only help pack on muscles but they bring up your energy level so you will be able to do your routines with more ease and feel a better sense of well being during your rest periods.
6) Keep An Open Mind.
Always be open to new advice and tips. This does not mean to jump from one program to another but we can always use a little fresh insight now and then. Most bodybuilders love to share what they have learned. Body building tips are everywhere. Ask the buff guy at your gym for the one most important tip he can offer. If you are sincere, you will end up getting many tips on bodybuilding.
A Colorado native, one of my favorite modern-day bodybuilders, a former Mr. USA and an all-around nice guy - check out this video clip of Phil Heath posing at the 2007 Arnold Classic, where he placed 5th against the likes of veteran bodybuilders Victor Martinez and Dexter Jackson:
High Protein, Low Fat Foods For Bodybuilding and Fitness
For bodybuilding and fitness enthusiasts there are a number of high protein low fat foods that should ideally be a part of your regular diet. High protein low fat foods provide the best sources of branch chain amino acids which are the building blocks for muscle growth and muscle repair. Without adequate high quality protein your body simply will not grow after stimulation through your gym workouts or from any other form of exercise. By sticking to low fat food you benefit in so many ways from a health perspective from minimizing your chance of heart disease to avoiding posture and back problems due to carrying excess bodyfat.
On top of the list of high protein low fat foods would have to be fish. Whether the fish you eat happens to be canned tuna, fresh water fish, hake or just about any other fish you could imagine, most fish are extremely low in fat and are full of high quality protein for building muscle and muscle repair. Fish is light, easy to eat, although high in protein fish is relatively low in calories and is digested faster than most other forms of protein.
Skinless chicken breast is a long time favorite with bodybuilders and fitness enthusiasts and is mainly due to it being a high protein low fat food that just happens to taste great when it’s cooked in so many ways. Lean fresh chicken can be cooked before you go to work and can be eaten at any time throughout the same day without being refrigerated and is perhaps the most widely eaten high protein low fat food in the world.
My personal favorite high protein low fat food is lean beef. For a bodybuilder you simply cannot go past lean beef as the ultimate high quality protein that is arguably the number one food for building muscle tissue. Beef takes a little longer to digest than fish or chicken but tends to be the most filling and satisfying form of protein to eat. Some blood types like A might have a little trouble digesting too much beef in their diet so in this case having beef just 2 or 3 times per week might be sufficient. However, if you are an O blood type which accounts for about 50% of the global population you can easily consume lean beef everyday. If you are an O type bodybuilder eating beef even more than once per day is ok as it in my opinion numero uno in high protein low fat foods.
If your goal is to build muscle, maintain the muscle you have or lose fat you simply cannot go past the benefits of whey protein powder as an easy to eat and easy to digest high protein low fat food. Whey protein is not just for bodybuilders and weight trainers, it is ideal for all active people from busy mothers to Olympic athletes. Whey protein powder can be blended with fruit or my personal favorite is to blend my morning breakfast protein shake with oatmeal and fruit for a complete breakfast of high protein, low fat, high complex carbohydrate, high dietary fiber and high antioxidants from the fruit. In fact the blend I just mentioned is probably the ideal breakfast food that only takes a minute to make and gives you enough protein and energy to start your busy day.
I can’t forget to mention egg whites as they are another fantastic high protein low fat food that are super fast in digesting and can be added to so many other types of foods. One thing that is important when eating egg whites is to still mix in a little bit of the egg yolk when you cook them. The yolk simply allows you to digest the protein in the egg whites much easier and completely. I normally mix in 1 full egg yolk for every 6 egg whites I eat. If you cooked 3 egg whites just blend in about half of one yolk into the mix.
The high protein low fat foods I have mentioned are all foods that are easily available all over the world and the ideal foods to eat if your goals are to build muscle or maintain a solid level of muscle while keeping your bodyfat to a minimum.
