Bodybuilding Beginner Program

So, you want to pack on some serious mass and carve out those abs? Here's a step-by-step introduction to the iron game that will get you started on the right foot.

Don't expect overnight miracles—building a body takes time, focus and consistency. The good news is that the first 6-12 months is the time when you will probably make the most dramatic gains.

However, it is important to learn proper form and basic safety rules now to make sure you don't injure yourself down the road when you're pushing heavier weights around.

As a beginner, you can train more frequently than intermediates and advanced trainers. The reason is simple: as you get more experienced, you learn to push your muscles harder and inflict more damage that takes longer to recover from. Beginners, on the other hand, get sore but bounce back quicker since the muscular damage isn't as severe.

If the word "damage" makes you flinch, don't worry. It's a good thing for a bodybuilder to incur limited muscle damage, because it nudges the body to recover and overcompensate (grow) slightly to prepare for future workouts. This is what bodybuilding is all about—a continuous cycle of one-step-back, two-steps-forward, repeated over and over on a weekly basis.

With this in mind it is also easy to see why rest and sleep is extremely important, since this is the time when the body does the two-steps-forward phase.

So, instead of training each muscle group once a week, you can start with a twice a week-schedule and play it by ear from there. Furthermore, we're going to split the body into two separate days: Upper body except abs on day 1, lower body plus abs on day 2. Since we're aiming to train each muscle twice a week, this means we can do day 1 and 2 on Monday and Tuesday, for example.

Then we do day 1 and 2 again on Thursday and Friday, leaving Wednesday and the weekend open for rest and relaxation. The following week you start over on the Monday-version of day 1 and so on.

We want to learn the basics, so I'll focus primarily on classic exercises. Once we've mastered these simpler exercises we'll move up to Intermediate territory with a new focus on more complex compound exercises. At this point, it is more important to learn the form and get the right "feel" for each exercise rather than lifting as heavy as possible.

Some exercises, like lat pulls and most shoulder raises, are particularly hard to target the right muscle do the work if you use too much weight. Start easy; pick a weight you can do 10-12 strict reps with and work your way up when you've got the technique down pat. Keep track of your workouts—jot down your poundage and number of reps in a notepad or designated training log for future reference.