When you hear about muscle and fitness , it does not automatically mean bodybuilding, weightlifting, or developing muscles that resemble the Williams’ sisters (although impressive).
Muscle and fitness programs vary for men and women. Most women are not looking for the beefy muscular look that construction workers have. And most men are not looking to use exercise balls to achieve their fitness goals.
Your fitness regime will depend on what part of your body you want to work on first. At the beginning of exercising, you have the most energy, so you put the most into those minutes. Some personal trainers recommend focusing on one part of the body during each workout session so your goals do not fall second to your energy levels.
When trying to build muscle, standard split training routines work on the chest, shoulders, and triceps in one day and back and biceps on alternating days. This means that whichever muscles worked out first are the ones that will be the most developed, because the most energy is put into those repetitions. Some trainers theorize however that muscle is best built through training the arms and shoulders exclusively in one workout, so that you get better results and those muscles get the attention they need.
However, building muscle also requires frequent cardio sessions and watching what you eat to prevent body fat from obscuring your muscles.
For men, some trainers say that 80 percent of the muscle and fitness results they see are determined through your diet. This does not mean losing weight, but instead about losing body fat while keeping muscle. As far as supplements go, the FDA does not advise using weight control supplements, unless severe obesity is an issue. Many websites and infomercials advertise supplements and Xenadrine (while showing lean trim bodies) as the answer to weight loss and the key to proper fitness. This ignores the tried and true method of exercise and diet control. Some websites also advertise “legal steroids,” which could be nothing more than chemicals thrown together. Magazines such as “Fitness,” “Men’s Fitness,” and others do not condone the use of steroids, but instead endorse hitting the weights in the gym for an increase in bulk and fitness levels.
When building muscle for men, most guys focus on building up their arms and chest, but building a big back and wide shoulders creates the V-shaped illusion, with wide shoulders, a thick chest and a tapered waist.
If you have the time, dedication, and interest in starting an intense weight lifting program to increase muscle and fitness, most magazines and trainers recommend consulting with either a trainer (most of the nicer gyms have a trainer on staff) or at least consulting a magazine for techniques and position. It would not be a good idea to pull a muscle or throw out your back before your muscle and fitness regime really gets under way!
By Virginia Zignego