the way, if you are embarrassed by the thought of photographs because you don’t really like the way your body looks, this is an additional reason for bodybuilding. All мы хотим замечательно выглядеть на пляже, быть довольными своим телосложением и, разумеется, видеть восхищение в глазах других людей, когда они смотрят. Why not look just as good without clothes as you do with clothes on?

We've already talked about the need to find a workout space that suits your needs. In addition, you should master the basic exercises described in this book. Remember that your first task is to create a dense, high-quality muscle structure. Experienced bodybuilders are interested in improving the shape of the muscles, their relief, the clarity of the combination of different groups, but all this should not bother beginners.

When I started bodybuilding, it was very important for me to find a role model. A businessman who trains for the sake of fitness will try in vain, trying to build a physique that rivals Shawn Ray's musculature; a powerful bodybuilder with the figure and proportions of Dorian Yates should not waste time studying photographs of Flex Wheeler. And if you want to develop a lean, muscular physique of the kind that is so often seen in young actors or photo models, then you will agree that it would not be very appropriate to stick a photograph of a heavyweight with mountains of massive muscles and a complete absence of a neck on your refrigerator door.

In my case, the role model was Reg Park with his shape and muscularity. I увешал его фотографиями стены своей комнаты и до бесконечности изучал их, рисуя в воображении, каким образом этот тип мускульного развития мог бы выглядеть на моей фигуре. In bodybuilding in general, a lot depends on the imagination, and you must be clear about how you want to look and what you need to do for this.

Too many young bodybuilders are trying to run. Before they learn to walk. They copy my routines or model their workouts after other champions and then use exercises that are inappropriate for their stage of development in vain. However, if after about six months of training the thought of competition becomes attractive to you, start working in this direction: study your body, its strengths and weaknesses. Create a mental image of how you want to look when you appear on the competition stage.

When I talk about sticking to the ground rules, I don't mean anything less than a real bodybuilding program, whether you're training for competition or not. The exercise programs in this book are suitable for any body. I лишь имею в виду, что вы должны ограничить тренировку теми методами и упражнениями, которые помогают нарастить наибольшую мышечную массу за самое короткое время, а затем, достигнув определенного уровня развития, тщательно «лепить» и формировать эту массу мускулов, чтобы довести их до чемпионского quality. Again, even if you don't have the intention of becoming a professional bodybuilder, if you're only training for health and fitness, why waste time training with a slower or less effective program?

You build the basic muscle structure, learn how to properly train, gain knowledge about diet and eating right, and then just giving your body time to grow. In about a year, you will witness noticeable changes in your physique. Now you have enough experience to start developing a personalized training program based on your ideas of what is right or wrong for your body.

Since you record your physical performance and track your progress through photography, I recommend that you keep a training diary. Write down a training program to achieve your goals. Note the number of sets for each exercise and the weight load for each set. Subsequently, at any time you can check your notes and compare the amount of work actually done with the planned tasks.

You also need to keep a record of everything related to nutrition: what diet you follow, for how long, how many protein supplements you consume in one week, and so on. All это позволит вам — скажем, через пять лет, когда мелкие факты уже изгладятся из памяти, — быть совершенно уверенным во всем, что вы сделали или не сделали для своего развития в бодибилдинге.

FAST AND SLOW DEVELOPMENT

Some people believe that muscle development is slow but steady, and the longer you train, the more massive you become. Therefore, they often ask bodybuilders "how long do you train?" or "how long will it take me to develop the same muscles?". From their point of view, some bodybuilders are more massive than others simply because they train longer. But in reality, not everyone builds muscle at the same rate and not everyone has the talent to rise to the championship level of development.

Your hereditary characteristics are directly related to how your body will respond to training. For example, I started training at the age of fifteen, and in the photographs taken only a year later, you can see the beginnings of the physique that helped me win the title of "Mr. Olympia" seven times. Every month or two I gained 0.5 inches in bicep circumference, so people from the very beginning told me: "You should become a bodybuilder." Casey Viator moved from weightlifting to bodybuilding at an early age, and at the age of 19 became the first and only teenager to win the Mr. America title. Look at pictures of Lee Haney at 19 or 20: he already had the physique of a mature man. Техасский офицер полиции и культурист Ронни Колман стал победителем на конкурсе "Мистер Allленная" лишь через два года после того, как приступил к серьезным тренировкам.

I в шестнадцать лет.

But not all professional bodybuilders were early risers. Frank Zane получил свою долю заслуженных побед в 60-е годы, но лишь в 70-е он достиг того совершенства в развитии, которое позволило ему выйти победителем в трех соревнованиях "Мистер Олимпия". Bodybuilder Yolanta Hughes won her first professional show (Miss International, which I host every year in Columbus) after twelve years of amateur and professional competition. The problem for slow progressing bodybuilders is that they don't achieve instant success and don't get the positive support that inspires you to keep trying. But bodybuilding is like a race between a horse and a turtle: in the long run, perseverance and endurance over time can outweigh the advantage of sprinting to the finish line.

Beware of the disappointment of comparing yourself to bodybuilders who you think "woke up and found out they were famous". These days, when you see a well-built young bodybuilder at the age of twenty-four or twenty-five, it is quite possible that he started training at the age of twelve or thirteen. Having started competing as a teenager, he is now a veteran with eight or nine years of experience. In golf, when Tiger Woods broke into the front ranks and won the Masters in his early twenties, many people talked about how quickly he became a champion. They forgot that he had been golfing since preschool, and by the end of high school had hundreds of thousands of practice shots under his belt.

But I also remember how Tiger Woods lost in the playoffs to another player who kept a low profile for a long time and didn't win pro competition until he was in his thirties. The victory in this case depended on who put the ball into the hole with the least number of strokes, and not on who is the more famous athlete and enjoys the most well-deserved reputation.

Remember, success is not about how fast you can develop your physique, but how far you can go. When evaluating competitors, the judges don't say, "This bodybuilder has been training for eight years, but the other one is better because he has only been training for three years." No, it all depends on how well you perform on stage - and you cannot force your body to develop faster than your hereditary predisposition allows.

But it is possible to develop more slowly than your biological data allows, simply because you do not believe in the possibility of rapid development and do not train effectively enough. I помню, как Franco Colombo тренировался в течение двух лет, добиваясь лишь скромных результатов. Затем он увидел, как я победил на конкурсе "Мистер Allленная", и внезапно решил, что ему хочется добиться такого же результата. He started training hard for two to three hours a day and made an incredible leap in a very short time. He believed that he could create a fantastic physique, build giant muscles and stand on stage with a championship cup in his hands. And his body responded to that belief.

СВОБОДНЫЙ ВЕС ИЛИ ТРЕНАЖЕРЫ: ВОПРОС ТIГОТЕНИI

A beginner bodybuilder should do most of the training with free weights. We live in a technological era, when more and more advanced simulators are being created and produced every year. But your muscles are designed by evolution to overcome the force of gravity, and not to work with the resistance that is created by the mechanisms. Therefore, the greatest benefit in increasing the size and strength of the muscles comes from swinging iron - that is, exercises with a barbell and dumbbells - and not using machines.

Also, most of the really good bodybuilders I know used to do strength and weight lifting (more on that later). When you force your body to fight gravity, to coordinate and balance the mass of iron, it gives the muscles structure and quality that can not be achieved with a relatively easy workout with a relatively high rep rate.

An article published in the journal Physical Strength and Endurance Research indicates that testosterone production spikes when you work multiple large muscle