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Bodybuilding and your Training Errors (Part 1)

Eating like a pigeon: There's nothing simpler than the fact that if you are not putting on weight, you just have to eat larger quantities so you can grow more body tissues. That means not only more proteins but also more carbohydrates and even fats.

I would like to clear up the myth that you can gain muscle tissue by training alone. It is only possible if you eat enough and then you will gain weight and consequently bigger muscles. Otherwise the weight you lift is irrelevant, but if you are gaining weight then you are both performing and eating in the correct manner.

Intensity Intensity: Bodybuilders love to train hard, boast of training hard, and do the impossible, triple drop sets and forced reps, and all sorts of other extremely tiring techniques. The difficulty with this is that although their musculature can recover from this beating in a couple of days their central nervous systems are absolutely poached. The CNS can take over a week or more to recover from this type of repeated attempts to failure training, which makes repeating the workouts with a similar or greater weight just impossible for several weeks or more.

Why any bodybuilder should want to do this, I really don't know. Although normal tissue recovery takes about 72 hours; at which point you can push on with your training, if your CNS has been over stressed in any way, then you will become under-trained until the CNS has fully recovered. So when you can begin to train at your pace you will have lost any previous muscle gains...so just think about it in future.

To start with this will work out fine but on the long term it will have a very negative affect on training, forcing you to start back at your initial training loads. Frequency and total load are the two determining factors in correct training for size and strength! So why on earth would anybody minimise either of them on purpose?

Single factor training: Virtually all gym goers like to train according to single factor training theory, or the principle of super compensation. Only around 5% of so called strength athletes train through this method and they are curiously all bodybuilders. It's quite clear that the most people don't even realize what dual factor theory is, so I am going to try and give an explanation of what is means. Firstly single factor theory relates to fitness and fatigue as existing to the exclusion of each other.

The best example being that if you are tired with sore muscles post training, then you should completely recover before beginning to train again. This is called super compensation theory, which states that fitness is begins to decrease at this point and then will gradually rise back to its initial point just before you begin your next work out. Training should then take on a slightly increased weight load which pushes your fitness up a level. And so on.

Dual factor theory considers fitness, fatigue and preparedness as being factors apart but not exclusive to one another. Your long-term ability is considered to be fitness and it changes gradually and is not related to fatigue. Your immediate ability is considered to be preparedness which is what you can do NOW but is not influenced by fatigue.

Dual factor theory states that you are able to train until extreme fatigue and even under the condition of negative preparedness but still able to see improvements in fitness on the long term. To put it another way it's not that you can't recover between workouts, YOU SHOULDN'T.

Macronutrient fascism: "Carbs suck", "Eating fats will make you fat" and "Just eat protein if you want to build muscle". No, no, no...We require all three in some form or other. Each person may differ in the needs of each one and depending on personal objectives, but to completely cut out one of the macronutrients from our diet is just madness.

Certain macronutrient combinations have certain effects and to completely remove one from the equation (e.g. no carbs or no fats) just isn't going to cut it. Personally I would take an isocaloric diet as being a good starting point for health and strength.

Lifestyle what lifestyle?: So if you are the type of bodybuilder who does biceps on a Friday night just to get that pumped up look to go out clubbing, then you need a good kicking. If really do want to achieve a bigger and stronger look then you need to keep a check on your whole lifestyle. Otherwise all your good hard training efforts will produce zero gains.