Bodybuilding Guide

There are plenty of great benefits of getting into bodybuilding, which explains why it has increased in popularity recently. First of all, bodybuilding helps with weight loss and maintenance, it is also effective at combating depression and even decreases a person's risk of developing a wide-range of diseases including type II diabetes, cancer and cardiovascular disease. However, many people give up soon after they begin because they don't have the right information and make mistakes. The following information will help you and make you want to go to the gym every day.

When you begin bodybuilding, you will realize that staying away from carbohydrates is not your best choice because it is virtually impossible to have significant gains without them in your system. Muscle growth, and your overall performance when bodybuilding, is significantly enhanced because of the glycogen that the carbs provide your muscles.

However, not all carbs are equal, in that some types, such as fructose, will be stored as liver glycogen, which doesn't help your muscles at all. What's worse is that once the glycogen storage capacity of the liver has been filled, it will begin converting fructose into triglycerides. Since the liver can only store 100 g of fructose at a time, it can happen pretty quickly. To properly workout, taking a glucose supplement in order to boost muscle glycogen levels that will help you manifest significant gains which you would not see with fructose. Most bodybuilders recommend that you eat at least every 2 - 3 hours, except when you are sleeping. Your metabolism will slow way down due to the fact that you don't eat frequently. This is not beneficial to your bodybuilding goals. You really need to keep your metabolism burning hot. If you don't eat five or more meals a day, your body could assume you don't have an adequate supply of food and will try to process the food you eat more efficiently. By this we mean it will metabolize slower to prolong the availability of the food in your system. If it's running more efficiently, the result is that your body can run on fewer calories and the excess will be converted into fat. Keep the components of each meal varied. Don't fall into the habit of just eating one macronutrient at a time - such as just protein or carbohydrates or fats. Eat a combination of each food at each meal in the proportion recommended for whichever phase of training you are in.

During the bulking phase you probably put on more fat than you want, or need. The cutting phase is the stage where you'll want to get ripped and a good way to do that is by including cardio workouts in your weekly schedule. Strength training will enable you to lose some body fat, but don't depend on it for all your fat loss goals. When you're in the cutting phase and need to lose the excess fat you acquired during bulking up, cardio is a good form of exercise for burning fat. Not all bodybuilders agree that cardio is better than strength training in order to lose body fat. Craig Ballantyne, for instance, in his Turbulence Training program maintains that long endless hours of cardio are not an efficient way to lose body fat. He recommends, instead, full-body workouts. Diminishing returns is what happens after you've lost body fat but have 5 to 10 more pounds to lose. The closer you get to your goal, the harder it is to take off the fat. This is a truth of physiology. Just don't go overboard with your workouts to compensate for this slowdown. However, this won't be a problem if you limit your cardio workouts to one hour or less. If you want to use cardio workouts to burn off a lot of body fat, remember to do them before you eat in the morning, and plan to have six sessions each week. Give yourself one day off so your muscles can heal. The advice offered in the article is meant to make your life easier as you take your first steps into the world of bodybuilding. Even if you find it a bit intimidating, simply remember that bodybuilding offers so many benefits that a little initial discomfort is worth it.