Year: 2021

Many articles are written by Theislandnow about bodybuilding nutrition, training, and supplementation. However, one key element of bodybuilding success is often overlooked. Despite being the foundation for all other bodybuilding success, most trainers don’t even consider thinking about injury prevention until they experience their first injury.

Injuries to the body – whether they are muscle, tendon, or otherwise – prevent bodybuilders from training to their full capacity, and therefore result in lost bodybuilding progress. Here are six keys to remember which just might keep you in the gym, and off the injured reserve list.

Consistency

Many injuries occur when a trainer is attempting to come back from a short or extended layoff. Ten reps on the flat bench with 225 might have been a good warm-up when you were training all the time. But after a break, your body isn’t prepared to move that much weight. In order to get in front of the inevitable collisions between ‘what you used to be able to’ and ‘what you can do today, try to avoid missing the gym time in the first place.

Warm-up completely

Very often, we’ll hit the gym with a very limited 30, 45, or 60-minute window to get “in and out the door” before the next engagement of our life occurs, whether it be family, work, school, or otherwise. Despite this, spending 5 to 7 minutes on the treadmill warming up the body, and 2-3 minutes stretching the body part group about to be challenged, is essential for avoiding injury.

Watch the clock

Injuries often occur when trainers spend too much, or too little, time resting between movements. Try to keep a very steady 1 to the 3-minute window. Anything less than one minute between sets and you’ll be starting with lactic acid present in the local muscle group and a still-racing heart rate. Anything longer than 4 minutes of rest and chances is, there isn’t adequate blood in that muscle region anymore. Use the clock, rest properly, and lifts should go smoothly.

Note the little things

Very often, major injuries start as small injuries. If you have a strange pain in your forearm, it might be a good idea to have that checked out before attempting to overhead press three wheels. If your knee is feeling odd today, it might not be the best day to complete 20-rep breathing squats. Analyze each small “ding” and determine if the risk of turning that small ache into a serious injury is worth it.

Keep your mind in the game

If you’re at the gym, your mind should be on training. Flipping thru your PDA or chatting on your cell phone means your workout is being shortchanged. It also means you aren’t going to be aware of those little things mentioned above. If your mind isn’t on training, go home and deal with those things, and return to the gym when you can put 100% of yourself into the workout.

Check your ego at the door

This one should be common sense, but it is very often not the case. The ego is very often the very mechanism, which drives us to join a gym in the first place. The self-pride and satisfaction that come from building that first 10 pounds of muscle are what keeps us training to gain the next ten pounds. But when your ego encourages you to lift something beyond your capabilities, close your eyes and picture yourself missing 6 to 8 weeks with an injury. Mr. Ego should quietly sit down, and you should be able to complete your workout intelligently!

Rest Times for Maximum Muscle Growth is very important in Bodybuilding. When done incorrectly, it might be the number one reason why beginners never see results. There are different times you need to rest when building muscle. Knowledge of how long and when is very important to the growth of your muscles

• Days Between Workouts
• Length of your Workout
• Rest Time Between Sets in Circuit Training
• Between Sets
• The Time Periods you need to rest are…

• The time between sets is very important and changes depending on whether you want to Build Muscles or Tone Your Muscles, also referred to as Getting Ripped.

Building Muscle Mass

When building muscle mass, your rest time between sets should be between 60 to 90 seconds. You don’t want to go past 90 seconds because the muscle will recover too much and will already be starting to heal. On the other hand, below 60 seconds will not allow the muscle to recover enough to push out the energy required to break down the cells.

Getting Ripped

When you want to get ripped which is lifting weights to burn calories to reduce the fat layer between the muscle and skin, a good rest time is 30 seconds. This is ideal because you do allow the muscle to recover enough so it isn’t completely fatigue and you don’t allow your body to fully recover giving you a more of an aerobic exercise.

Days Between Workouts

The rest interval between days is also important. Some people are so gun ho that they workout every day and work the same muscle groups day after day. This is the worst thing you can do because you will shrink your muscles instead of growing them.

When you work your muscles to the maximum, your muscles need time to recover. After a good workout, you have teared down the muscle cells and actually split the cells in two. When you rest, the two new cells grow from the protein in your body and become bigger.

If you do not give the muscle enough time to fully recover, you cease the growth progress. That is how your muscle will shrink.

It’s always good to give about 48 hours of rest between muscle groups. You can even go 72 hours when you’re first starting out. It’s better to rest more rather rushing into your next workout.

Length of your Workout

Since we are talking about Time Periods as well as Rest Periods, the total time of your workout plays a roll. You should not workout more then an hour straight when lifting weights. This is because you will start to lose the necessary energy that you need to push those weights to your max. When you are not pushing as hard as you can, you are not getting the full benefit of your workout.

Rest Time Between Sets in Circuit Training

When you are doing circuit training, you will need a little bit more time of rest between the sets. Since you are doing between 5 to 9 exercises back to back without any rest within a set, you need to extend your rest period. I usually like to keep my rest period around two minutes between each of the circuit sets. This will give you the benefit of an aerobic exercise with the benefit of muscle growth.

Improve your rest effectively

Even if you are resting, your body might be in a state of fatigue or anaerobic respiration, which might not be useful for recovery after a tough gym session. Additionally, a good night’s sleep and regulation of energy are essential. Supplements like Testogen are popular for recovery and rest.