Bodybuilding Routines

Many men and women want to burn unwanted body fat and build muscle to get into shape. However, most of them wouldn't consider themselves bodybuilders. Even if they don't realize it, building muscle mass and burning fat is basically what bodybuilding is.

You don't have to compete in contests to follow bodybuilding routines. You just have to want to get a leaner and more muscular physique. If you start following a bodybuilding routine that includes weight training to build muscle and doing cardiovascular exercise to burn fat you'll see results quickly. It will take some hard work, but if you have enough determination you'll reach your goals.

When you first start on a bodybuilding routine, you may find that it's best to train all of your muscles during each workout with only a few compound exercises done for each muscle. This will give you a chance to learn how to properly perform the major exercises and how much weight you can handle on them.

Eventually you'll want to split up your bodybuilding routines to get more work and rest for each muscle group. Building muscle mass will take intense training and you have to give your muscles enough recovery time to get bigger and stronger. The best option is to split your routine into 3 workouts with an off day between each workout or after every 2 workouts. The kind of bodybuilding split routine is called the push-pull routine. When you follow this muscle building routine you do chest, shoulder, and triceps at the first workout; back and biceps at the second workout; and legs during the last workout then start the cycle over again. This will allow you to do more sets per muscle group and get plenty of rest between training each muscle.

As you get more advanced, you may want to split up your bodybuilding routine into 4, 5, or even 6 workouts. You can also focus on muscle groups that may be lacking in development when compared to other muscle groups. Everybody's different, so find what works best for you.

Workout 1 - chest, shoulders and triceps

Workout 2 - back and biceps

Workout 3 - cardio and abs

Workout 4 - legs

Workout 5 - chest, shoulders and triceps

Workout 6 - cardio and abs

Workout 7 - back and biceps

Workout 8 - legs

Workout 9 - cardio and abs

Go back to workout 1 and repeat

When you follow bodybuilding routines you need to do exercises to build size and shape in the muscles. This means that you must do compound bodybuilding exercises that involve many different muscles groups to build mass and isolation exercises to shape them. There are many weight trainers who don't do as much training for their legs as they do for their upper bodies or as much work for their backs as they do for their chests. This will lead to a physique that doesn't have proper proportions. You need to be sure to train each muscle and not neglect any when you follow a bodybuilding routine so you build a proportionate physique

One of the most popular muscle group to train when you follow a bodybuilding routine is the chest. The best chest bodybuilding exercises are bench presses, incline presses, decline presses, dips, and flyes.

The upper back makes up the largest muscle group of the body when you put all of the muscles together and needs to be trained hard so you gain width and thickness throughout it. The best upper back bodybuilding exercises are pull-ups, cable pulldowns, bent rows, dumbbell rows, and cable rows.

The shoulders are involved in some way in just about every exercise you do for your upper body. They also make your upper body appear wider when they're well developed. The best bodybuilding routines should include shoulder exercises such as military presses, dumbbell presses, laterals for each head of the deltoid muscles, and shrugs for your traps.

The biceps are a very popular muscle for most bodybuilders to train because they are so easy to show off. The top bodybuilding exercises for the biceps are barbell curls, dumbbell curls, hammer curls, and preacher curls.

The triceps seem to take a backseat to the biceps to most weight trainers, but they actually make up more of the upper arms muscle size. Triceps exercises such as close or reverse grip bench presses, lying triceps extensions, standing triceps extensions, seated dumbbell extensions, and cable and rope pushdowns should be part of the top bodybuilding routines.

The lower back is involved in many different exercises and while it's not a very large muscle group, it does need to be strengthened with deadlifts, good mornings, and hyperextensions.

The quadriceps are the largest muscles of the legs and must be trained hard for big legs. The best quadriceps bodybuilding exercises are squats, hack squats, leg presses, lunges, and leg extensions.

The best bodybuilding routines need to include exercises for the hamstring muscles on the backs of the upper thighs. The top hamstring builders are stiff-legged deadlifts and leg curls.

The calves of the lower legs are a muscle group that recovers quicker than most others and must be trained very intensity for a growth response. The top bodybuilding exercises for the calves are standing calf raises, leg press calf raises, and seated calf raises.

To complete your physique you must train your abs regularly. Abdominal exercises that should be part of any bodybuilding routine include crunches, leg raises, twisting sit-ups, and side bends.