If you want to lose weight quickly and have a muscular body , the sport you need is obviously bodybuilding . For some, it is an aesthetic or functional goal such as rehabilitation or muscle strengthening. Bodybuilding is indeed a sport aimed at stimulating the hypertrophy of the muscles of the body through exercises performed with loads (weights, bars or core dumbbells). It must be recognized that in the majority of cases, bodybuilding practitioners s exercise to build muscle or burn excess fatwhat their bodies contain. Whatever the goal, it is essential to apply rigorous training with well-defined objectives. A well-developed bodybuilding program based on your personal pace will allow you to effectively achieve your goals.

Your starting goal

Generally, when you decide to do strength training, it’s to lose weight or to gain muscle .If your goal is to gain muscle , you must maintain your body by providing it with the elements necessary for its stability. Indeed, the period of muscle mass gain is a delicate phase where you must have significant calorie intake in order to maintain a positive caloric balance . The goal should therefore be to minimize muscle catabolism . This promotes muscle hypertrophy. It is necessary to provide this caloric load , because you spend a lot of it during training and building muscle requires a lot of calories .

Moreover, by taking weights, you have the possibility of building impressive muscles. Similar to bulking, building muscle allows you to build muscle without heavy lifting or high calorie diets. This practice is most often seen among bodybuilding competitors. They alternate heavy and light loads.

Weight loss: burn fat

Unlike mass gain, the process of fat loss involves the stimulation of the mobilization of stored fat so that it can be used as fuel (energy). For there to be lipolysis, the daily caloric balance must be negative . That is, your body expends more energy than it receives through food.

In the process of losing weight , your training can be adapted. Some will prefer to maintain heavy loads with the absence of carbohydrate. Others will opt to achieve their goals with longer series and intensification techniques.

In order to achieve adequate muscle development , it is recommended to perform 4-5 exercises for large muscle groups and 3-4 for small muscle groups.

If you want to have a good muscular development , it is advisable to prioritize the basic exercises at the beginning of your training and to supplement them with isolation movements.

Some examples of exercises for the pecs that we develop more on our special chest blog :

Barbell bench press: a basic strength training exercise that will help you build pecs of steel. This exercise requires good technique.
Bench press with dumbbells: practiced on a bench, it allows less restrictive movement than with a barbell, better contraction of the pectorals and extensive stretching of the muscles.
Push-ups on the ground: this exercise will allow you to work the entire bust and particularly the muscles of the shoulder girdle such as the pecs without equipment.

Find a complete file on back exercises in our blog .

Opt for the barbell or dumbbell military press, lateral raises, front raises or even the bird for the back of the shoulder.Having big thighs is the dream, right? For this, there are thigh exercises not to be overlooked such as the squat, the 45° press, the leg curl, the leg extension . Beware of the squat for beginners, this is a technical movement requiring a lot of resources.

Same as thighs, having big arms isn’t it either?!!

For harmonious muscle development , we often speak of a total of 16 sets per muscle group (i.e. 4 exercises of 4 sets each). This will allow you to really get the most out of your strength training sessions . Conveniently, you don’t need to stack sets. This would be counterproductive, because a workout of about 1 hour, testosterone levels drop in proportion to the secretion of cortisol, which in turn reaches high levels. Indeed, cortisol is the stress hormone .. It is certainly essential for survival, but remains deleterious for those who wish to work their body and thus achieve sports performance. Once secreted in the body, the body is responsible for mobilizing resources to bring glucose and amino acids to the organs.

The number of repetitions

In order to consistently build your muscles through hypertrophy and hyperplasia, the rep range is between 6 and 15 . It goes from relatively heavy to relatively light. Indeed, we speak of relatively, because it is not a question of obtaining only capacities of force or endurance.

Your muscular construction must appeal to the two forms of hypertrophy , namely: the myofibrillar and the sarcoplasmic . If the first promotes the strengthening of existing myofibrils in muscle cells, the second is the result of the swelling of the sarcoplasm caused by a high concentration of substrates following efforts recruiting endurance and strength capacities. To gain mass, you need to alternate between sets of 6 to 10 and sets of 10 to 15 repetitions.

dravel exercise

Depending on the number of repetitions to be performed per series and the chosen load, you can define the rest times. Indeed, when you evolve in slices of 6 to 10 repetitions, you can allow yourself 1’30 to 2 minutes of rest between each series. This will allow you to recover so that you can produce the efforts again. Note that this heavy series results in considerable mechanical stress which is the basis of myofibrillar hypertrophy.

For those who train in a 10-15 rep range, you can observe about 1 minute of rest between sets. High reps stimulate sacoplasmic hypertrophy . Therefore, reduced and incomplete rest times boost efficiency. At this level, it is a metabolic stress.

Training for weight gain

When you engage in a mass gain process, it is advisable not to exceed 4 sessions weekly. In practice, you will place a day of rest between the interval of each session. Do not neglect the day of rest since it contributes to the hypertrophy of the muscles . Rest is essential to avoid the risk of injury and feeding difficulties.

As for the muscle building process , you can allow yourself 4 to 5 sessions per week . Likewise, a day of rest between two training sessions is essential. Thus done, you will be able to recover gradually and optimally. This saves you the monotony of a program where each day is dedicated to a given muscle.

Workout for weight loss

If your goal is to burn calories , you will need to plan regular sessions throughout the week. Indeed, for this type of exercise, the frequency will be denser than when it is a mass gain or muscle building program. At each session, you will observe 30 minutes of cardio training and 45 minutes of weight training.