How to Get Started Bodybuilding: A Beginners Guide

Beginner Bodybuilding – Introduction

How to Get Started Bodybuilding: The Complete Beginners Guide

Go to any gym, and you’ll see people lifting weights.

Some will be working out for fat loss, while others will be training for improved fitness.

You’ll also see athletes working on boosting their sporting performance, and some will be exercising for health and longevity.

However, you may also see people working out specifically to make their muscles bigger – the bodybuilders.

Bodybuilding is a competitive sport where the participants are not judged on their strength or athleticism but on their appearance.

Bodybuilders work hard to increase muscle size and develop a balanced, aesthetically pleasing physique.

Some bodybuilders have no intention of competing formally but are still in competition with themselves and their peers.

And so, without further ado, this guide reveals how to get started in bodybuilding, even if you’re an absolute beginner.

How Muscles Grow

The aim of any bodybuilding workout is to trigger muscle growth, a process known as hypertrophy.

While many types of exercise can make your muscles bigger, bodybuilders are experts at maximizing this growth.

The Stimulus for Muscle Growth

When you engage in intense strength training, you’re essentially creating microscopic tears in your muscle fibers.

Don’t be alarmed; this is a natural and necessary part of muscle growth.

These tiny tears act as signals for your body to initiate repair and rebuilding processes, leading to larger and stronger muscles.

What Happens Inside Your Muscles

After your workout, your body gets busy fixing those tiny tears, making your muscles larger and stronger.

It uses building blocks called amino acids to do this.

Imagine your muscles as a wall made of bricks; amino acids (derived from dietary protein) act like new bricks added to make the wall bigger and stronger.

However, your body doesn’t just rebuild the damage caused by your workouts.

Instead, it overcompensates and builds your muscles back slightly bigger than before.

This is a protective measure, so your next workout won’t be as damaging.

However, because you’ll train a little harder each time, you’ll trigger the same response, and your muscles will continue to grow.

The Role of Hormones

Certain hormones in your body, like growth hormone and testosterone, help this muscle-building process.

Think of them as the construction managers in the building project that is your growing muscle.

They make sure everything goes smoothly and efficiently.

Helper Cells in Muscle Growth

There are also special cells called “satellite cells” that help your muscles grow.

These cells add more material to your muscle fibers, strengthening them over time.

These effects don’t happen by accident, and bodybuilders use workouts explicitly designed to trigger hypertrophy.

By understanding these basics, you’re setting yourself up for a successful journey in bodybuilding.

The next parts of this guide will go into more detail about training, nutrition, and other important topics.

How to Get Started Bodybuilding: Nutrition

The right exercise and training is not the only part of the bodybuilding equation.

Your diet is critical, too.

The bottom line is that you cannot out-train a deficient diet.

Proper nutrition is the foundation upon which you build your physique.

So, just as a construction worker needs building materials, your body needs nutrients to increase muscle size and strength.

Because of this, many bodybuilders live by the diet mantra: if you want to get big, you need to eat big.

Broadly speaking, a bodybuilding diet must provide enough energy for training and the protein your body needs for muscle repair and growth.

This invariably means consuming plenty of calories and nutrient-dense foods and creating a slight calorie surplus.

Bodybuilding nutrition is a vast topic, but the basics that every beginner needs to focus on are:

Protein

Protein is the cornerstone of any bodybuilding diet as it supplies the amino acids your muscles need for repair and growth.

Too little protein will undermine your bodybuilding success.

Most bodybuilders consume around one gram of protein per pound of body weight or about two grams per kilogram.

Good sources of protein include:

• Chicken Breast
• Chickpeas
• Cottage Cheese
• Eggs
• Greek Yogurt
• Lean Beef
• Lentils
• Quinoa
• Salmon
• Tempeh
• Tofu
• Tuna
• Turkey
• Whey Protein

Carbohydrates

While low-carb diets are popular for weight loss, they’re less useful for bodybuilders.

That’s because you need carbs for energy, and consuming too few could undermine your workouts.

Carbohydrates are converted to glucose, which is your body’s primary source of energy during high-intensity exercise.

Good carbs for bodybuilders include:

• Apples
• Bananas
• Barley
• Beets
• Berries
• Brown Rice
• Chickpeas
• Corn
• Couscous
• Lentils
• Oats
• Quinoa
• Sweet Potatoes
• Whole Grain Bread
• Whole Wheat Pasta

Fats

Fats are much maligned, but they’re actually crucial in bodybuilding.

The right kind of fats are critical for the synthesis of muscle-building hormones, help regulate inflammation, and are a vital source of energy.

Good fats for bodybuilding include:

• Almonds
• Avocado
• Cashews
• Chia Seeds
• Coconut Oil
• Flaxseeds
• Hemp Seeds
• Macadamia Nuts
• Oily fish
• Olive Oil
• Sunflower Seeds
• Walnuts

Sample Bodybuilding Diet

While it’s beyond the scope of this article to provide you with a diet to follow, here is an example of a day of eating for a typical bodybuilder.

Breakfast

• Scrambled Eggs
• Whole Grain Toast
• A serving of Greek Yogurt
• Berries (strawberries or blueberries)

Snack 1

• Apple slices with Almond Butter

Lunch

• Grilled Chicken Breast
• Quinoa
• Steamed Vegetables (broccoli or spinach)
• Olive Oil dressing

Snack 2

• A handful of Walnuts and Cashews
• Banana

Dinner

• Baked Salmon
• Sweet Potato
• Lentil Salad
• Avocado slices

Snack 3

• Cottage Cheese
• Chia Seeds

Feel free to adjust the portions and food choices based on individual dietary needs and preferences.

This sample menu aims to provide a balanced intake of carbs, proteins, and healthy fats to support muscle growth and overall well-being.

How to Get Started Bodybuilding: Rest and Recovery

Rest and recovery are as critical for your bodybuilding success as training and diet.

That’s because, contrary to what you might think, your muscles don’t grow during your workouts but afterward.

So, train too often or pay too little attention to rest and recovery, and your progress will quickly grind to a halt.

While rest and recovery can happen naturally, albeit slowly, there are several things you can do to ensure you are as rested and recovered as possible when your next workout rolls around.

These include:

Avoid Too Much Additional Physical Activity

Additional physical activity, such as recreational sports, labor-intensive chores, and simply lots of walking, use energy that might otherwise be better spent on muscle growth and recovery between workouts.

Of course, you cannot completely avoid non-exercise physical activities.

Still, if you are struggling to build muscle, you should keep it to a minimum whenever possible.

As famous Australian strength coach Ian King likes to say:

• Don’t walk if you can ride.
• Don’t stand if you can sit.
• Don’t sit if you can lie down.
• If you can lie down, have a nap!

Conserving energy in this way can help boost muscle growth by enhancing recovery between workouts.

Get More Sleep

Sleep is critical to your bodybuilding success.

That’s because sleep is when your body repairs and builds your muscles.

Anabolic (muscle-building) hormone levels rise when you sleep, and muscle protein synthesis is highest.

As such, every beginner bodybuilder should strive to get 7-9 hours of sleep per night.

That doesn’t just mean weekends, but weeknights, too.

As there probably isn’t much you can do about the time you have to get up, invariably, this means going to bed earlier than usual.

Going to bed early is difficult for many people because they’re busy watching TV or doing other leisure activities.

However, getting more sleep will ensure your body has the time and resources it needs for muscle growth.

Other sleep-enhancing strategies include:

• Go to bed at the same time each night.
• Create an effective pre-sleep routine.
• Avoid screens for an hour before bedtime.
• Dim the lights to ready your body and mind for sleep.
• Sleep in a darkened bedroom.
• Leave your phone in another room to avoid being distracted or disturbed.
• Avoid caffeine at least three hours before bedtime.
• Unwind with a book or relaxing music.
• Consider a white noise generator to drown out extraneous sounds.
• Make sure your mattress and pillows are comfortable.
• Have a cool, clean, uncluttered bedroom. 
• Don’t have a TV in your bedroom.

How to Get Started Bodybuilding: Supplement Wisely

While you can build muscle without supplements, they can be helpful.

While no supplement will ever make up for a poor diet, too little sleep, or improper training, they can help make your diet/workout, etc., more effective.

So, think of supplements as effort multipliers; the harder you work, the more useful they become.

Good supplements for beginner bodybuilders include:

• Protein powder – to make getting enough of this vital nutrient much easier.
• Creatine – an energizer, muscle cell volumizer, and recovery booster.
• Pre-workout – for those workouts where you lack energy.
• Melatonin – natural sleep enhancer.
• Essential amino acids – the building blocks of muscle growth.
• Electrolyte powder – to replace lost fluids.

How to Get Started Bodybuilding: Training

Getting started in bodybuilding training can be overwhelming.

After all, a lot of bodybuilding training advice is aimed at more experienced lifters and is of little relevance to beginners.

Following a program that’s too hard too soon will undermine your progress.

It could put you off bodybuilding before you even start.

This section aims to simplify the essentials of bodybuilding training for beginners.

The Pillar Exercises: Compound Movements

At the heart of any effective bodybuilding routine are compound movements.

These exercises work multiple muscle groups simultaneously, offering a more efficient way to build muscle.

They’re also the best way to build strength, and stronger muscles are invariably bigger muscles.

Key compound movements include:

• Squats
• Deadlifts
• Bench presses
• Bent-over rows
• Overhead press
• Pull-ups/pulldowns

You can then use secondary isolation/single joint exercises such as cable crossovers, lateral raises, and biceps curls to plug any developmental gaps and round out your program.

Focusing on these exercises will lay the foundation for future progress and more demanding exercises.

Aim for 3-4 sets of 8-12 repetitions for each movement.

The Structure: Split Routines vs. Full-Body Workouts

When it comes to organizing your workouts, you generally have two options:

Split Routines:

These divide your workouts by muscle groups.

For instance, you might train chest and triceps on Monday, back and biceps on Wednesday, and legs and shoulders on Friday.

Full-Body Workouts:

In this approach, you work your entire body in a single session, typically three times a week.

Both methods have advantages, but full-body workouts are often more manageable and effective for beginners for overall muscle growth.

Details That Matter: Workout Essentials

There are lots of different bodybuilding training programs to choose from, and they can all work.

However, the most effective plans adhere to the following essential principles:

1. Training Volume: Each muscle group needs 12-20 weekly sets for optimal growth.
2. Training Frequency: Train each muscle 2-3 times per week for best results.
3. Recovery Between Workouts: Muscles generally take 48-72 hours between workouts to recover fully.
4. Intensity: Take most of your sets to within 1-3 reps of failure to trigger hypertrophy.
5. Consistency: Skipping workouts will undermine your progress and could even lead to regression. Create or pick a program you know you can do consistently.

The Technique: Proper Form and Breathing

Executing exercises with proper form is crucial for both effectiveness and safety.

Start with lighter weights to get the technique down before adding more weight.

Pay attention to your breathing as well; generally, you’ll exhale during the most challenging part of the exercise and inhale during the easier portion.

It’s usually best to avoid holding your breath during your workout as it can lead to elevated blood pressure and dizziness or faintness.

The Progress: Tracking and Progressive Overload

Consistent progress is the name of the game in bodybuilding.

Keep a workout log to track your performance, and aim to either increase the weight or the number of reps as you get stronger.

This principle, known as progressive overload, is essential for ongoing muscle growth.

Sample Workouts

Not sure where to start your bodybuilding training journey?

Here are two beginner programs to try – one full-body and one three-way split.

Do the following workout 2-3 times per week on non-consecutive days, e.g., Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Remember to spend 5-10 minutes warming up beforehand to prepare your muscles and joints for what you’re about to do.

Full-Body Workout

Beginner Bodybuilding Full-Body Routine

Do each of the following once per week, e.g., Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

As before, spend 5-10 minutes warming up beforehand to prepare your muscles and joints for what you’re about to do. 

3-Day Split Routine

Beginner Bodybuilding 3-Day Split Routine

Chest and back – Workout 1

Legs, calves, and abs – Workout 2

Shoulders and arms – Workout 3

Take the First Step

The most challenging part of any new endeavor is taking the first step.

Armed with these basics, you’re ready to begin your bodybuilding journey.

Start with simple routines, be consistent, and don’t hesitate to seek guidance from those with more experience.

How to Get Started Bodybuilding: Wrapping Up

Congratulations, you’ve made it to the end of this comprehensive guide on how to get started in bodybuilding.

You’re now equipped with the basics of nutrition, rest, supplementation, and last but not least, training – each a crucial pillar for successful bodybuilding.

Here’s a quick recap of what you’ve learned:

• Nutrition: Fuel your body with the right balance of protein, carbohydrates, and fats.
• Rest and Recovery: Prioritize sleep and manage additional physical activities to optimize muscle growth.
• Supplementation: Choose wisely to complement your diet and training.
• Training: Focus on compound movements and adhere to the principles of training volume, frequency, and intensity.

Now that you’re armed with this knowledge, here’s your step-by-step action plan:

1. Start Simple: Choose a beginner-friendly workout routine and stick to it.
2. Eat Right: Plan your meals around your training and recovery needs.
3. Rest Well: Aim for 7-9 hours of quality sleep per night.
4. Track Progress: Keep a log of your workouts and dietary intake.
5. Seek Guidance: Don’t hesitate to consult experts or more experienced bodybuilders for advice.

Don’t Delay, Start Today!

The road to bodybuilding success is long and filled with challenges, but the rewards are well worth the effort.

Don’t waste another moment contemplating whether or not you should start.

You’ve got the knowledge; now it’s time to apply it.

Take that first step into the gym, lift that first weight, eat that first protein-rich meal, and embark on a journey that could transform not just your body but your life.

So, what are you waiting for?

Your bodybuilding journey starts now!

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