Starting Out Right: How to Lay the Foundation for an Awesome Physique
By Rich Gaspari, First Arnold Classic Champion
Welcome to the iron family!
Reference: http://gasparinutrition.com/Default.aspx?tabid=212
So
you have just decided to become a bodybuilder. Congratulations! You are
about to start the most exciting and rewarding journey of your life in
what I feel is the greatest sport in the world. What other endeavor can
not only transform your body into something powerful, healthy and
exceptional, but also infuse you with self-confidence, vitality, and
carry over to success in so many other arenas?
Laying a solid foundation
The
first couple years of training are a golden opportunity. Because the
stimulus the weights provide is such a brand-new sensation to your
muscles and nervous system, they are forced to rapidly adapt. That
means you are about to make the absolute best gains of your entire
lifting career. I think back to my early days as a kid in New Jersey
and can’t help but smile at the thrill I felt seeing my body literally
change before my eyes from one day to the next. But, you are only a raw
beginner once, and you only get one chance to build your initial base.
My late father’s character was marked by his integrity and his intense
work ethic. Because of the example he set for me growing up, I took a
body that most said lacked the genetics to ever make it as a
bodybuilder and nearly managed to push Lee Haney off his throne three
years in a row during his Mr. Olympia dynasty, and won nine pro shows
in all – all while still in my twenties. My dad was a mason and worked
with bricks and cement blocks all day. Not only was I inspired by his
strength and muscularity, but I also think the nature of his job
instilled the concept in me that any great structure needs a solid
foundation. Before a bodybuilder can start fretting about adding
striations to his inner pecs or adding in a lot of detail work with
cables and machines, he needs to get big and strong first with cold,
heavy iron bars and plates. After all, how can you decorate a house
before you have put the cement foundation in, assembled the wooden
framework, installed the plumbing and electric, and so on? How you
manage your training, nutrition, and supplementation in the beginning
of your bodybuilding career sets the stage for your future success. Do
it all the right way, and eventually you will have the type of physique
you can only dream about right now.
Training – let the construction begin!
Probably
the biggest mistake many beginners make is to open up a bodybuilding
magazine and copy the training routines of their favorite pro. This is
a bad idea because these guys have been training for anywhere from ten
to twenty years or more and are at quite an advanced stage now. Many
aren’t even trying to gain any more mass, only to refine and add detail
to what they have. This is why their routines are often very high in
volume, incorporate a lot of isolation exercises, and use high reps and
supersets. You can be sure this is not the way they worked out when
they were starting out and just trying to get bigger. Workouts to suit
this purpose are far more basic and utilize mainly compound free weight
movements that work a lot of muscle mass and deliver the most ‘bang for
the buck.’ You will always be able to build more raw size and power
focusing on compound exercises like squats, bench presses, deadlifts,
rows, military presses, and weighted dips as opposed to isolation
movements like cable crossovers, leg extensions, cable curls, and
dumbbell kickbacks. Compound movements allow for use of maximum weight.
Do you think you can honestly build as much mass on your back, for
example, doing one-arm cable rows with 50 pounds compared to pulling
400 pounds off the floor in a deadlift? This is not the time to be
running from exercise to exercise with no rest, doing noting except
chasing a pump. This is the time to get stronger and add sheer muscle
mass. Reps should be in the 8-12 range for the most part. Do straight
sets, and give yourself time to catch your breath and recover before
launching into another set. Work hard and use good form, but always
keep in mind that your weights should be gradually creeping up week by
week. If you walk in the gym for the first time and can only bench 100
pounds, squat 150, and deadlift 135, I guarantee you that by the time
you can bench 300, and squat and deadlift 400, you will have so much
more thick and powerful muscle on your frame that you will hardly be
recognizable as the same person. Of course, building that type of mass
doesn’t happen simply from training – you have to feed the beast as
well.
Nutrition – the building blocks of muscle mass
Up
until now you probably never gave much thought to eating. It was just
something you did when you felt hungry or bored, or because you enjoy
the taste of food. That all needs to change. From now on, you must
adopt the concept that food is fuel. Everything you eat, or don’t eat,
has an impact on your body and particularly your bodybuilding goals.
Consider your body to be a high-performance sports car, like a Ferrari
or a Lamborghini. You know a car like that won’t run at all unless you
put gas in the tank, and for it to perform at peak capacity, you
absolutely can’t put cheap regular unleaded in there! No, you want only
the highest quality fuel. So it is with your body. For your muscles to
recover from hard workouts and grow larger, they need a very steady
stream of nutrients in the form of proteins, fats, and carbohydrates.
Don’t sabotage your efforts by eating a bunch of garbage like fast
food, potato chips, ice cream, white breads, cookies, French fries,
donuts, and candy. Instead, get your proteins from chicken or turkey
breast, eggs, fish, nonfat milk, and leaner cuts of steak. Good
carbohydrate sources include rice, oatmeal, potatoes, yams, and
whole-wheat breads and pasta. Get your healthy fats from raw nuts,
whole eggs, and salmon. Raw fruits and vegetables will give you plenty
of vitamins and minerals and also provide fiber to help with the
digestion process. How you prepare your food also matters. Baking,
grilling, roasting, and steaming are definitely better than frying, and
you should avoid creams, sauces, and oils (though olive oil is fine).
Avoid simple sugars like soda and candy. Most importantly, you need to
forget about eating like a ‘normal’ person, three times a day at
breakfast, lunch, and dinner. From here on in, you eat ‘meals,’ every
two to three hours from the time you wake up until the time you go to
sleep. This ensures that you have all the building blocks your body
needs to synthesize new muscle tissue. Remember, you stimulate muscle
gains by training hard, but unless you support that training with
proper nutrition, you will never really see the results you should.
Supplementation – rocket fuel for your physique
In
a way, I’m a little jealous of the young guys starting out in
bodybuilding today. The supplements of 2008 are light years ahead of
what was available to me back in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s when
I was a beginner. Back then, most of the products were all hype and
typically did nothing but drain your wallet. It’s a big part of the
reason that when I founded Gaspari Nutrition, my top priority was that
my products would be effective. You would know they worked! Over the
past few years, my research team has developed a solid arsenal to
support massive muscle gain in the shortest amount of time possible.
SuperPump 250 will jack you up with explosive energy and acute mental
focus so you can train like a wild animal, while our latest
breakthrough Nitric Oxide product PlasmaJet will give you skin-bursting
pumps, sick vascularity, and more power to rep out with heavier and
heavier weights. I am sure you’ve heard of the muscle-building and
muscle-volumizing effects of creatine. We have developed the most
advanced creatine product on the planet in the form of Size-On. And
when it comes to products that deliver genuine ‘steroid-like’ effects,
nothing you can buy today comes close to stacking Halodrol liquigels
with Novedex XT, a one-two knockout punch that boosts your testosterone
levels while at the same time keeping your estrogen levels in check.
Finally, getting all the high-quality protein you need from food can be
a real challenge. That’s why we developed Intrapro, our
anabolic/anticatabolic pure whey protein isolate formula (the best whey
source available, bar none) that also happens to be the best-tasting
protein shake you’ll ever drink. Why? Because we know it doesn’t matter
how wonderful and advanced it is, if it doesn’t taste delicious you
won’t drink it!
Start building your body, bodybuilder!
I
hope you’re excited. You should be! Over the coming months and years
you are going to see some incredible changes in your body. Your muscles
are going to go from nothing special to huge and powerful. Your
physique is literally going to become your masterpiece that you can
spend years perfecting like a Michelangelo sculpture. Who knows? Maybe
you’ll win contests and your picture will be in all the bodybuilding
magazines. If not, you can still be sure that you will look and feel so
much better than you did before you became a bodybuilder. Again,
congratulations. Thanks to bodybuilding, you won’t decline in health,
vitality, and strength the way most of the world does. You won’t be
ashamed of your body. You will only continue getting bigger and better
and truly be the master of your own physical destiny and take pride in
a muscular body that is a testament to your hard work and dedication.
Welcome to the iron family!
Beginner Workout
(Note: always warm up properly before attempting heavy weight)
Day One
| Barbell bench press |
|
4 x 8-12 |
| Deadlift |
|
4 x 8-12 |
| Seated military press |
|
4 x 8-12 |
| Barbell curl |
|
4 x 8-12 |
| Weighted dip |
|
4 x 8-12 |
Day Two
OFF
Day Three
| Squat |
|
6 x 8-20 (pyramid up in weight, down in reps) |
| Stiff-leg deadlift |
|
4 x 10 |
| Leg press |
|
3 x 10-15 |
| Lying leg curl |
|
4 x 10 |
| Standing calf raise |
|
3 x 10 |
Day Four
| Chin-up |
|
4 x 8-12 |
| Incline dumbell press |
|
4 x 8-12 |
| Barbell row |
|
4 x 8-12 |
| Seated dumbell press |
|
4 x 8-12 |
| Alternate dumbell curl |
|
4 x 8-12 |
| Skullcrushers |
|
4 x 10-12 |
Day Five
OFF; repeat cycle
