Whenever you hear the word, “bodybuilding”, your mind usually flashes you images of bulging muscles, steel, sweat, the shouts of weightlifters, and ripped, muscular bodies of men and women in skimpy spandex. Your mind instantly takes you to the gym followed by wishful thinking that you can have a sexy body and bigger muscles. However, it takes more than just time and effort. It also needs discipline and commitment. After all, there’s nothing easy with consistently performing bodybuilding routines and sticking to your diet. Healthy bodybuilding diet includes chicken, beef, fish, turkey, pork, eggs and lots of water. Bodybuilders incorporate as much carbohydrates that they can to supply what the body needs for bigger and stronger muscles.
Aside from bodybuilding exercises, it also involves improving your diet according to your needs and preferences. If you want to build bigger and stronger muscles, then you will have to modify your usual diet. You need to make necessary changes in order to make way for food items that help your muscles grow bigger, harder, and stronger.
Simply defined as a sport which involves strenuous physical activities and exercises to increase the muscle size as the strength of a person, most people would equate it to sweat and pain. However, there is more to bodybuilding than just big muscles. In the process, you will realize how it improves your general health and wellness. You will notice that it also relieves stress, boosts your self-confidence, your stamina, your energy, and a lot more. Aside from your body, it also improves the condition and functions of a person’s mind. A fit and beautifully shaped or sculpted body is just a latent effect which is definitely a pleasant one.
What are the advantages of bodybuilding?
- Good for the heart. Bodybuilding dramatically decreases your chances of getting different kinds of heart diseases. It also helps you maintain healthy blood pressure and healthy cholesterol levels.
- Weigh a minute. It helps you lose unwanted weight. Bodybuilding helps you win your battle against obesity. With consistency, your body will look fit and fabulous all the time. You will look great no matter what you wear, and people will admire your beautifully sculpted body as your lean muscles will show once you burned your body fats.
- Bone it. Own your stronger bones because bodybuilding is not for your muscles alone. Along with your muscles, it also helps improve the condition of your bones as well as your joints. It prevents arthritis and osteoporosis which are both common among aging people. Now, nothing can stop you from living life to the fullest with healthier muscles, bones, and joints.
- Brain showers. Refresh your mind with bodybuilding just like how showers refresh your body. Bodybuilding improves your mind’s health condition as well as how it works in two ways. First, it boosts your self-confidence as it improves how your body looks and how you feel about yourself. Second, it puts you in a cheerful mood so you start to take things positively, thanks to the endorphins that are released in your brain with each bodybuilding session.
- Sleeping beauty. Appreciate the beauty of sleep once again as bodybuilding frees your mind and body from the things that prevent you from getting a good night sleep. It frees your body from fatigue, it helps you relieve stress, it saves you from anxiety, and more.
- Love yourself. Bodybuilding helps you love the skin you’re in. Although people usually do it to look and feel better, it also teaches you how enough time and effort can help you reach your body goal. With improved total wellness, you will learn to value yourself and realize that you have the power over your body. You get t control what happens to your body and what doesn’t.
What you need to remember about bodybuilding:
- Go Pro. Go to a professional. Although some bodybuilders may say that they were able to make it without the help of a professional, you can ensure safety and better results when you do. First, you need an expert’s assessment about your health condition. It will help you identify the things that you can do and the things that you should not do with your bodybuilding workout. Second, it will help you identify which kind of diet and exercise will help you reach your body goal more efficiently. These professionals include both a personal fitness trainer and a nutritionist.
- Trauma-rama. Who knows that your muscles need trauma before they grow? Well, with muscle damage, your body repairs it and your muscles grow bigger in the process. This is why pain is usually a sign that what you are doing is taking effect on your body. There are two ways on how to make your muscles grow bigger through trauma. The first one is increasing the number of times that you lift weight while the other one is increasing the weight that you lift once your body does not feel pain with the usual weight that you lift.
- Mighty metabolism. You need to regulate your metabolism in order to optimize bodybuilding and diet effect. Often, bodybuilders eat at least five times a day with regular intervals. You also need to drink as much water as you can when building your muscles. You need to keep your body hydrated all the time. Hydration means health not just for bodybuilders but for everyone.
- Sleeping Feels. You need to get at least seven hours of sleep to help your body recover from the damages in your muscle as a result of your bodybuilding workout. With enough sleep, your muscle damages heal faster.
- Perfect Timing. There is no perfect time for everybody when it comes to bodybuilding. If you think about it, the most suitable time for it depends on our body’s metabolism rate. Those who have slow metabolism should workout in the morning so that their bodies can use the stored energy for the rest of the day while those with fast metabolism rate should workout in the evening so the body can use the stored energy in the body for the workout.
Aside from recreational and regular bodybuilding, you can also go for professional bodybuilding which involves joining in competitions.
