One of the cardinal errors a bodybuilder can make is to rely for their physical improvement entirely on a routine of weight training or other progressive resistance exercises. Some routines will undoubtedly be more effective than others, but there is no one schedule that will bring sensational, unending gains. And like any other endeavour, bodybuilding has its pitfalls, and you must attempt to avoid them at all costs.
It is very difficult to overwork the muscles of a trained athlete, but very easy indeed to drive the nervous system too hard. Clinical and laboratory experiments indicate that the muscles themselves can withstand phenomenal demands. But when a bodybuilder continues an exercise until they cannot perform another repetition, runs the risk, especially if this is done for a prolonged period. Of causing an injury, or at least a breakdown. It is the nervous system rather that then muscle fibre which is unable to cope. According to physiologists, the first to fatigue in the neuro-muscular system are the motor cells in the brain, next come the nerve end-plates, and in the third place, the muscle fibres themselves. The nerve itself is almost unfatigable. As a result of repeated consecutive muscular contractions, chemical changes occur at the nerve ending which make the transmission of the nerve impulse increasingly difficult, so that the brain has to provide a stronger stimulus via its motor cells to keep the repetitions going.
Forcing oneself in an exercise on a regular or prolonged basis past reasonable fatigue to exhaustion is therefore very expensive in nervous energy and can, shut your insulin production down. It is quite evident that the best bodybuilding gains are made by those who either limit their all-out training to infrequent intervals or drive themselves just far enough, but not too far.
Are, especially if you are young beginning bodybuilding, getting adequate food for your muscle to grow? Often, the younger you are, with so much energy to burn with high metabolism, can burn fuel at an unbelievable rate. To make matters worse, many of these fellows actually miss breakfast. How can you expect to have sufficient energy to supply your ordinary needs and have enough fuel also for adding solid muscle to your frame?
It not’s necessary to “pig out” or force feeding the body to bring about body weight gains, but you can’t create something out of nothing. Maybe Rome wasn’t built in a day, but let’s face it; Rome would not have been built in even a trillion years without the bricks to do the job.
In its way, eating too much is as bad as not eating enough and it is just common. The unfortunate result is that for every inch you gain on your chest you add two inches to your waist. A trip to fat city seldom reverses itself. At least not without enormous dedication and perseverance. Once fat is comfortably sitting around your tummy, your lower back, and your hips, it is not easily dislodged. Like a dog that is chased from a comfortable bed, it will return at the slightest opportunity, and often when you are not aware of it.
Fat kills your appearance. Ironically, a covering of “lard” will make you look bigger in clothes, but when stripped at the beach, pool, or lake, you will look smaller that if you carried almost pure muscle. The things that make a shaped up, muscular bodybuilder look good are the curves of their muscles, the way the delts run into the arms, the “peak” of the biceps, the delineation of the three heads of the triceps, the separation of the quadriceps, not to mention the absence of fat around the knee, ankle, and elbow joints. All these eye-catching phenomena are lost if there is a preponderance of fat. Superfluous weight fills in the crevices between the muscles which would add to their dramatic appearance.
When your waist -chest differential diminishes instead of increasing, you know you are in trouble. Cut the calories before it is too late. You’ve become a resident of fat city without even knowing it. Get out of town quick!
