The Two Main Body Building Programs Explained
By Dave Kettner

Body building is a sport many people are not entirely familiar with mainly because they generally only hear about the results of contests and generally not about the actually training that is involved in such preparation for the contests. Additionally, most people work out in gyms to keep in shape and generally follow the same workout all year round. When one is training for a competition there will be a need for two separate programs in order to achieve the ability to enter a contest. These two phases will be clearly examined and explained herein. The programs are the off-season phase, the pre-contest phase and the contest phase.

Off Season Phases

The off season phase involves programs that center on mass building. That is to say, during this phase the goal is to get as huge as humanly possible and not worry so much about definition. Now, this weight gain must be primarily muscle because packing on excess fat will not do anyone any good. It will simply make the pre-contest cycle significantly more difficult and that is a self-defeating venture. So, instead one needs to watch diet closely and to perform a significant volume of mass



building exercises. That means the primary exercises to be performed during this phase will involve serious compound exercises such as military presses, bench presses, etc. This cycle usually runs several months and requires much consistency in order to effectively be undertaken.

Pre-Contest Contest Phases

The pre-contest phase is usually refers to the six to eight weeks that precede a competition and involve a “shredding” process where the goal to be achieved is definition of the muscles. This involves a significant amount of isolation exercises that target single body parts as well as a great deal of cardio…repeat…a great deal of cardio. Of course, the other area of consideration that is critical during this phase is diet. Often, when people think of programs they often think of exercises as opposed to the quality diet that is the epicenter of all programs. No matter how hard a person works out or how much time they invest in exercise, all work will be completely thrown out the window if a poor and sloppy diet is employed. As such, it is critical not to eat poor quality foods or to eat any type of food at levels of excess that could prove self defeating.

Here are some more body building articles...