Let us first define that what a workout plan is? Workout plan means that you know every day that which exercises you need to be doing on a particular day. It also explains that how much weight you would be carrying and what should be the frequency of exercises. Getting big muscles demand that you bring perfection in your bodybuilding routines and having a workout plan is exactly for it.

It is a natural tendency among the bodybuilders to try lifting more what they can actually do. The trend is much more in beginners who try to lift heavy weights in the gym just by seeing their colleagues lifting heavy. Doing so, they forget that other guys are experienced and they have taken much time to reach that level of lifting heavy. A workout plan comes here to give you a direction and make sure that you do not do what is beyond your ability and capacity. In other words, a workout plan is a guard against various sorts of injuries which you may catch otherwise.
Secondly, a workout plan is important to keep you focused. You know each day that what you need to do and how much to do. Focus is the key for success. You do not just go and start doing exercises but enter the gym with a plan and approach.

Another indirect advantage of workout plan is that it caters to the need of body rest. You know which exercises to be done for particular muscles each day and what time and rest to be given to the body. It automatically prevents you from over-training your body muscles.

Question arises, how to get a good workout plan? I would say that your gym instructor or trainer could be the best choice. He is the one who is available all the time in the gym, knows your body structure and weather conditions around and is well experienced. So you should consult your trainer to help you in making a good workout plan and then get a diet plan in accordance with the workout plan that you get. This perhaps is another advantage of having workout plan that you know which exercise you need to be doing every day and which diet could be best for your body in accordance with the exercise. So do follow a workout plan to get better bodybuilding results.

One of the biggest advantages of joining a professional gym rather than doing exercise at home is availability of an instructor in the gym. Being a bodybuilder, we must consult our instructor at each and every step to get professional advice. Some of the guys try to do things at their own in the gym which is not a good thing to do. In this article, I am highlighting various benefits of having advice from instructor. These factors are as under:

1- A gym trainer can advise you about correct procedure and method of performing exercise. Many guys are doing exercise in the gym wrongly and this can lead to injuries. If not the injuries, it can lead to slow process of building muscles. In both the cases, bodybuilder is the one who suffers.

2- Not only exercise techniques, a trainer gives you a plan keeping in view the body structure and strength. He tells you best that which exercises you need to be doing and what should be the frequency and intensity of training for you.

3- Food is vital for bodybuilding and nutritious food is something that you should be looking to have in your daily diet. So a gym trainer knows what exercises you are going to perform and which food you need to make things happen. Another craze among the guys is use of supplements and there are different products available in this context. Some of these products are either substandard or have steroids. So, a trainer is the guy who can tell from his experience that which supplements are good and safe to be taken in.

4- Another good point for contacting your gym trainer is to get proper rest plan for each muscle or group of muscles. This is important because otherwise you may unknowingly over-train your muscles and this may again affect negatively.

Keeping above points in mind, you should constantly be in touch with your gym trainer during the exercise process and get the true benefit of having a professional gym joined.

A very important aspect of bodybuilding that I am going to talk about is regarding supplements. Bodybuilding is on the increase and so is the supplement industry. Different types of companies and vendors are providing their products in the market. Here the question arises, should we take supplements? Are they really required? What if we do not take supplements? In this article, I will answer all these questions which are as under:

1- First question is: should we take supplements? I would answer this question positively which means yes we should use supplements. Supplements actually add value to our bodybuilding results and bring in what cannot be achieved in a normal way. Supplements give you a bit of extra energy, vitamins and different other nutrients required by the body.

2- Next question is that are these supplements really required? Well answer to this question is no. Supplements are not a must. You may use these products if you want to expedite your process of bodybuilding and want good results earlier than normal. If you do not take these supplements but take good food which is nutritious, you can get good bodybuilding done as well. So supplements are not essential for our bodybuilding but intake can be good.

3- Next thing as I already explained is that if we do not use supplements, we are not going to lose anything. However, we may not get faster results.

This is not it. I have to tell you something really important about the supplements yet. Beware that most of the substandard companies add steroids to the supplements which really puts their use on the negative side. Steroids can result in giving you results which are beyond than normal and that too very quickly but if we see in the long run, they are fatal for our body and can cause some serious damage. Companies while advertising forget about such dangerous aspects and just want to make money which is really bad. So you as a user must research well before taking any sort of supplements from the market.

We all know that it’s better to join a gym for getting big muscles rather than trying to do things at home. Amongst various benefits of going a gym, one is that you get professional guidance of a trainer which is very important for you and it is something which you cannot get while exercising at home. I would briefly highlight in this article about the importance and benefits of having a gym trainer in the gym. These are:

1- He helps you and advises you correct and proper way of doing exercises. Remember, doing exercises wrongly can not only make your body look funny but it can also lead to many injuries which can be fatal. Not only this, a gym trainer customizes workout plans for you by keeping in view your specialized body needs and requirements. This perhaps is the most important of the things which a trainer does at the gym.

2- You are not very sure about your diet plan, number of calories and types of food you need to take in. Again, a well experienced trainer can advise you about your daily food intake and recommends certain foods which bring muscle growth quickly. Not only this, he can guide you to have good and safe supplements. You may very easily start using steroid supplements by falling victim to various supplement vendors who do not care about the health of the guys but just want to sell their supplements ay any cost.

3- Next important thing is rest plan. A trainer at the gym tells you how many times you need to perform exercise for a particular muscle or set of muscles and ensures that your body gets proper amount of rest and you do not end up over training your body.

4- Last important point of this article is that he keeps you motivated and tells you exactly what you should be doing and when results are expected. Most of the guys want to see quick results and therefore start getting disappointed when it does not happen so.

As we all know that food is vital for bodybuilding and it’s proper intake can bring magical results for muscle growth, this article will bring some important tips for you to effectively use food for bodybuilding. Below is what you need to follow:

1- Very first thing which you might have heard a number of times is to use good protein food. Protein contributes a lot in muscle growth and it is normally recommended that you take 1 gram of protein per lb of your weight. Proteins are made up of smaller units which are called amino acids and contribute a lot for muscle growth and development. You can use protein in different forms including protein shakes, bars, capsules and in other forms. You can also use foods which contain protein in high portion.

2- Next important thing is that split your food intake and spread it over 5-6 times a day by decreasing the amount of food you take at one time. What I mean by saying this is that you should be consuming the same amount of food which you earlier used while eating 3 times. So say you take x amount of food 3 times a day, now you need to use same x amount of food but 6 times a day. It is important for effective bodybuilding because it keeps a steady supply of energy and nutrients to the body throughout the day which is vital for muscle development.

3- Last good tip is to take food before and after the exercise so that you can make your workouts more effective. Normally you can use protein shakes or other supplements as pre and post food items. It ensures two things. 1- your body gets energy and nutrients and prepares itself for hard training by having enough energy. 2- after you are done with your workouts, post supplements or food give the body what it lost during the heavy workouts. It helps the body to recover itself after extensive training.

Remember that food is one of the prime factors which contribute to bodybuilding and hence its proper use can produce enormous results for muscle development. Follow the tips as narrated above to make your bodybuilding plan an effective one.

Good and effective bodybuilding depends on many things. These include customized workout plan which suits your body needs, good healthy diet, use of quality supplements and seriousness towards your efforts to build muscles. But we should keep in mind that there is another important factor which contributes a lot to muscle development and that is ‘rest’. Rest is very important and contributes towards muscle development because:

1- It prevents you from overtraining your body. Excess of everything is bad and same is the case with muscle development. Muscles should be trained not more than twice a week because otherwise you may end up damaging them which would lead to more recovery time and slow down your muscle building process. Therefore you should take rest to make your process of building muscles an effective one.

2- Rest is important because it allows your damaged muscles to repair themselves and makes them to grow. Bodybuilding with heavy machines in the gym ruptures and damages muscle tissues which later re-grow during rest period and as a result we get muscles.

3- Most of the people have misunderstanding that muscle growth takes place during exercise but they do not know that it is actually the rest period which stimulates muscle growth. So rest is really important.

Now question arises that how much rest is important? I would say that 8 hours of daily sleep is highly desirable during bodybuilding and a gap of 2 days is also must between similar muscle exercises for same target muscles. A good way to achieve this is to perform compound exercises where you do not focus on individual muscle exercise but you target a set of muscles. As a result, you perform more exercises in less amount of time and get time for rest.

You must have read many articles on the importance of joining a gym and that too of professional gym. No doubt there are many advantages of joining a professional gym, but t the same time, home gym also has some advantages. Below I have enlisted some of the advantages of having a home gym:

1- First advantage that you get with home gym is that you do not have to travel to the gym. It’s there with you in your home and you can do exercise at your own will. So it’s a big plus.

2- Next important thing is that you save time. Time is very crucial for all of us. Some guys are too busy to get time for gym and stuff. For such guys, home gym can really be the ideal thing because they can really do their exercise easily at home in the gym. Apart from that, most of the guys initially do start gym but then they leave it just because they are not getting enough time for it. So home gym is good in this case.

3- Third is the cost factor. Most of the gyms now-a-days are charging heavy gym fees and most of the guys cannot really afford it. They have to pay heavy gym fees and also have to spend on food and supplements. So home gym can be a good idea for such fellows because they just need some basic exercise equipment and that is it.

4- Then at home you are at ease and you do not have any pressure. You can be relaxed and do your exercise easily.
5- You do not have to wait for any exercise at home but in gym, if some other guy is having his workout on a particular machine, then you have to wait for your turn which also wastes time. In home you are the only champion JI would advise that those guys who cannot afford gym fees or do not have enough time to go out and do exercise, should really focus on making a home gym.

Selecting a gym is very critical to your bodybuilding because gym is the place where you have to go on daily basis and perform exercises. It is therefore advised to pay special attention when selecting a gym. Now one might ask, what factors to be considered before actually finalizing gym. My answer is to focus on the following important things:

1- Give importance to the distance of gym from your home. Why I am saying this is because if gym is far, you might gradually start losing your interest in daily going gym and doing exercise. If gym is in a comfortable range, you can easily get time out for going there and do exercise easily.

2- Be sure that the equipment available in the gym is of good quality and available in sufficient number so that every bodybuilder can do the exercise without having to wait much for it. We all know that once we are into the workouts, we should not delay reps or sets. It is only possible if there are more machines any no one has to wait for his turn.

3- Trainers are very important to provide you guidance in the gym. You have to take guidance from them in a number of things including workout plans, diet plans, use of supplements, rest plans etc. so before selecting a gym, you should pay attention to the available instructors there along with their qualifications and number. Trainer or instructor is just like a school teacher. Like any school cannot run without a teacher and students cannot learn without him, in the same way you cannot do your exercise without a proper trainer.

4- Last but not the least, you should see that gym is clean and proper cleanliness standards are maintained. Equipment and machines should not be rusty and properly cleaned and maintained so that you do not get infection.

In this article, I am going to give you a number of tips that can lead you to have good bodybuilding results. These are listed below:

1- You should be eating lots of protein food and try to avoid eating too much at 1 time. Good way is to split your meals to 5-6 times a day by lowering the amount of food but increasing the number of intake intervals. It will help you to give your body a continuous flow of nutrients and energy.

2- It’s better to follow a good workout plan rather than doing exercise at random. It will help you to concentrate, focus and get results.

3- Give your body good amount of rest and sleep, may be 7-8 hours a day.

4- Prevent your body from getting dehydrated especially in summer because otherwise you may fall sick and lose energy to exercise.

5- While exercising, keep your number of reps from 10-12 with 3 sets to make sure that you avoid over-training of your body.

6- Instead of working out every single muscle, make a target of doing compound exercises so that you train more muscles in less time and get time to give rest to your body and muscles.

7- Avoid use of alcohol because it really stops your muscles from getting bigger.

8- Do your exercise regularly and be consistent because it is perhaps the most important of all things which contribute to bodybuilding.

9- In order to keep yourself motivated, you can make a partner for your exercises in the gym who can help you at the same time.

10- Focus on doing the exercise in correct way no matter even if you cannot lift heavy weights this way. Time will come when you will have enough stamina and power to lift heavy.

11- Always use good quality supplements under the guidance of your gym trainer or doctor.

12- Always select a gym with good equipment, instructors and food shop. It should not be far away from your home or office so that you can maintain regularity and it doesn’t take you long to reach there.

13- Take some protein food before and after your exercise for good results.

14- Always warm your body up before starting your exercise. It will help you to stay away from certain injuries.

Alcohol brings in many side effects which negatively affect our bodybuilding and muscle growth. Most of the guys take too much of it while others take it in moderate fashion. But believe me that if you want muscle and body growth, alcohol can be a big stoppage in that. Below I will explain how:

1- Use of alcohol significantly decreases the production of human growth hormone in the body. It is said that it reduces the production to 70% of original production in the body. Keep in mind that human growth hormone is there to develop and grow your muscles, body cells and bones. This hormone is produced most in the night when we are sleeping and use of alcohol really stops its production and as a result our body growth and muscle growth gets affected.

2- Another important hormone for muscle growth is testosterone. Use of alcohol becomes toxin against those elements which stimulate production of testosterone in our body. As a result, its production gets severely affected.

3- Alcohol contains certain such elements which can easily make us gain weight. So it increases the fat level of our body which is not good for body.

4- Use of alcohol can cause your body getting dehydrated because it is diuretic. So when you are in gym and putting your body under lots of stress and hard work, you lose your body water and minerals in the form of sweat and need to regain it fast. Use of alcohol further dehydrates your body and hence you lose your energy that should have actually been utilized in muscle building and growth. Dehydration becomes critical in summer when lots of your body water goes out in the form of sweat and hence you should completely stay away from alcohol.

5- Alcohol can really make you a patient of high blood pressure and high hear beat. For a bodybuilder, both these diseases are fatal because he has to do hard training in machines and put his body under lots of effort and stress and cannot afford to have blood pressure or heart beat diseases. Use of alcohol also decreases the ability of the body to repair itself by increasing the recovery time.

In general, use of alcohol for body builders should be strongly prohibited because it does not let muscles to grow fully. Also, alcohol is not good for body in general as well because it causes certain diseases to grow in the body.