How to progress in bodybuilding?

Progress in bodybuilding is the goal of every sportsman who practices his sport. Moreover, if you ask your colleagues in the gym, you will see that every day they devote time to achieve their personal goal. Take a closer look and you'll be surprised that not all fitness enthusiasts have the same way of practicenor necessarily the right way to do it. In fact, for performerBut it's not just the way you deal with machines that needs to be adapted. Many other parameters come into play. I'll give you right away the good attitudes to adopt to achieve this.

Learn the right moves and execute them perfectly

To progress in bodybuilding, the most important thing you must take care of is the perfect execution of your movements. Incorrect positioning can lead to pain or injury. Knowing how to lift is better when you know exactly what position to take. Remember that a poorly performed exercise will not only not use the right ligaments or joints, but will also give less good results than expected. It is not a waste of time to take the time to do it right. What do you think mirrors are for at the gym? They are not only there to admire you, they also have a preventive role. By visualizing your position, you can rectify your position if needed and perform a sequence properly. The important thing is to create the right technical patterns from the start.
Bad habits are very difficult to correct. Afterwards, the mirror will be secondary, because you will have the right posture. Besides, in all my programsYou have personal access to my videos. You can watch them as many times as you like, as long as you haven't memorized the right way to do it. Working with videos allows for optimal progress. I even recommend that you watch them some time later. A reminder never hurts!

Make efficiency rhyme with a proper warm-up

I've talked about this a few times, the warm-up is essential. When you start or if you are confirmed, you must not overlook on the most important part of your training. The purpose of these exercises is to prepare your body for the effort. The warm-up also allows you to prepare yourself mentally for the effort. A warm-up during which your body will gradually rise in temperatureThe warm-up should be done until your joints, tendons and cardiovascular system are ready. Warming up also helps to lower your blood pressure and improve your blood circulation. Your performance will improve. Thanks to the local warm-up, you can focus on the areas you want to work on during your session: back, pectorals, lower body, etc. Remember to adapt it according to different criteria:

• your level ;
• your age ;
• the rhythm of your day;
• the weather of course;
• your physical activity.

Need a training plan?

For a specific back warm-up for example, perform the following sequence:

• 90 degree lumbar bench extensions;
• for the upper body, hammer curl ;
• for biceps without weights, curl with low pulley ;
• for the deltoids, bird to the high pulley ;
• for triceps, neck extensions ;
• and finally, rowing Yates with the bar in pronation (vary the number of repetitions according to the weight of load of your machine).

Know how to progress by adapting your training time

Preconceived ideas are hard to get right. It's not because you train for a long time that you will progress more. So don't do it for more than 1 hour 15 minutes a day. That would be totally counterproductive. Count on 45 minutes to 1 hour for an intense training. This is a reasonable average for progress. Beyond that, the risk is that the level of your main hormones essential for building muscle (testosterone, growth hormones) will fall. The stress hormone on the other hand (cortisol) would increase. In the long term, this type of behavior would lead to overtraining and a limitation of your progress. Sport should be part of your life. You must look at it in the long term and not as peaks of effort.

Just as I don't recommend doing long sessions, I also don't recommend training 7 days a week. It is during the rest period that your muscles repair themselves to gain volume. So don't fall into bigorexia either. This addiction to physical exercise has devastating effects similar to bulimia or alcoholism. Don't succumb to the urge to do two intense workouts a day. If you want to progress, listen to your body. When certain signs appear, take a step back. A overtraining doesn't happen all at once. So listen to the signals your body sends you. Excessive effort, with all that this entails (unrepaired microtrauma, a body that has difficulty recovering) leads to significant fatigue throughout your body. Your metabolism will react less efficiently and you will not progress.

Eat a healthy and adequate diet

Nutrition alone represents 70 % of your bodybuilding results. Whether your goal is to gain mass, lose weight, tone up or slim down, it must be carefully calculated. You must therefore provide your body :

• the right ratio of macronutrients (proteins, carbohydrates, fats);
• the calories it needs;
• good nutrients through a judicious choice of foods.

Need calibrated nutrition?

Depending on your goal, but also your gender, age and body type, your nutritional plan will be different in terms of calories and macros. It is advisable, after having calculated all this precisely, toestablish your food plan and to prepare your meals in advance as much as possible. Do not skip breakfast, eat at least 3 solid meals and 2-3 snacks daily. Reduce your alcohol consumption as much as possible and drink 2.5 to 3.5 L of water per day. I can also help you by proposing a tailor-made diet, which would take into account all the parameters I have just listed. Losing weight or fat doesn't have to be synonymous with frustration. You just have to learn the right reflexes and forget about false beliefs like "eating fat is bad for you". It's all about balance.

Don't cut out all social life

Having a social life doesn't have to mean going out every night, drinking and eating whatever you want because you're at a restaurant. You can meet your friends at a party and not be guilty of doing anything. Most of us aren't like elite athletes who live in a bubble and have to cut themselves off from the world to prepare for big tournaments. Practice your sport and get out there. This will have a beneficial effect, because what could be more enjoyable than having a good time. It will also allow you to have a increased motivation if you feel you've lost it at any time. So get some fresh air, go to a restaurant or a party. Like I said: it's all about balanceJust don't overdo it and make up for it if you have.

Sleep to progress in bodybuilding

Just as recovery and rest days after working your muscle groups are necessary, you need to sleep well. By sleeping well, I mean ideally 8 h of sleep per night. This is the ideal time for optimal mass gain. Sleep is restful. It allows your body to regenerate, repair micro-tears and, as I told you, your muscles to grow. How does it work? Well, as you sleep, your body and brain will generate hormones essential for building your muscles. The growth hormone created during your sleep will play a vital role in recovery and (as the name suggests) muscle growth. It will also help metabolize fat during your workout, but for that to happen it must be present in sufficient quantities. Hence the importance of sleeping well.
On the other hand, lack of sleep automatically leads to a decrease in performance, recovery and consolidation of technical learning. To make it easier to fall asleep, avoid exciting the brain with so-called blue lights, emitted by a computer or laptop. Their exciting effect will prevent you from falling asleep.
Nutrition (here we come back to it again) can also have a positive effect. If you eat high-GI foods such as pasta, rice or mashed potatoes some 4 hours before bedtime, you won't take as long to fall asleep.   

Things to remember

To give yourself the best chance of progressing in bodybuilding, you must :

• be assiduous and show extreme perseverance over the long term;
• respect the 3 keystones of nutrition, training and sleep;
• Opt for a proper warm-up and clean movements.

You can also encourage yourself by writing down in a training manual the steps successfully completed. Once you have done all of this, and only if you have, you can start thinking about supplementation, primarily of vitamins and minerals that are essential to your body. If you apply all of these tips, you will most likely make progress.

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