Muscle Building Techniques

Welcome to article number five in our 5-part series "Bodybuilding Sins That Cause Back Pain and Missed Workouts". In this article we are going to cover some basic, yet powerful training principles that are often overlooked and are responsible for nearly all bodybuilding injuries...

If you missed any of the previous articles, you can view them using the links below.

Here's a breakdown of the articles to look for:

1. Article #1 - Choosing The WRONG Exercises
2. Article #2 - Training Variations for Pain Relief and Maximum Results
3. Article #3 - Targeted Stretching
4. Article #4 - Targeted Exercises
5. Article #5 - Rest, Recovery, and Injury Prevention

Article #5 - Rest, Recovery and Injury Prevention

Many of the injuries that bodybuilders suffer from could be easily prevented just by allowing the body enough time to rest...

While most bodybuilders dread hearing the word "rest", many fail to realize that there is far more to rest than just avoiding overtraining. When you perform a tough workout you not only stress that muscle or muscle group, you also place stress on the cardiovascular, neuromuscular and components of the immune system...

For example, many bodybuilders will train their chest 2-3 times a week and spend an hour or more performing dozens of exercises just for the pecs...

While this may sound ok to some, when you add in the stress of other workouts it can quickly add up to too much stress in one or more ways. I hear bodybuilders all the time say "I let my body rest by splitting up my workouts" and "I worked chest yesterday so today I'll train my back"... that's NOT rest!

When you train your back, your chest still gets worked, stressed and it also slows down your bodies ability to recover from stress and repair damage from previous workouts...

So don't kid yourself and think that you can train this way over the long term... it may take years or just a few weeks, but sooner or later your body will break down!

Let me give you a real life example from my experience...

I, like nearly every single bodybuilder out there, created muscle imbalance unknowingly by following the workouts recommended in all the books, magazines, etc...

I trained 4,5 and sometimes even 6 days a week and thought that I was resting enough by splitting my workouts... to make a long story short, after just a few years I had tendonitis in both triceps because I worked chest, tri's and shoulder too often, too intensely and didn't balance out my training...

I also had lower and middle back pain, knee problems and IT band tendonitis because my lower body workouts weren't balanced... I spent too much time doing heavy squatting, too often and neglected important muscles...

These injuries stayed with me for months, years and I still can have an occasional flare up if I don't stay consistent with a balanced training program. I was able to create all this damage by the age of 22... I am now 28 and will have to spend the rest of my life trying to prevent these old injuries from coming back and causing more pain and problems...

Don't do what I did! And if you already have, you better act fast and take a serious look at your training and your goals because if you don't, you will spend the rest of your life in pain and frustrated by all the injuries, big and small.

So here's my...

5-Step Formula for Quickly Eliminating and Preventing Aches, Pains and Injuries

Step 1. Rest and Recovery

The first thing you need to do is REST! And no, I don't mean take a day or two off... I mean no workouts for at least a week or more... you need to give your body a chance to reduce the inflammation before you can begin work on eliminating or correcting the cause of the problem.
You may also want to use things like a heating pad, hot tub or massage to help reduce the inflammation and speed up the healing and recovery...

Step 2. Identify Muscle Imbalances

The next thing you need to do is find out which muscle imbalances have created your injury or are causing your pain and work towards correcting them... you can do this quickly and easily by performing physical assessments in which you are looking for strength and flexibility imbalances in all opposing muscle groups.

You can do these assessments yourself and they are covered in our Lose the Back Pain Video http://www.losethebackpain.com

Step 3. Increase Flexibility in Tight Muscles with Targeted Stretching

In order to correct a muscle imbalance, you need to increase the flexibility and range of motion in the muscles that are too tight and causing a problem.

As we discussed in the previous articles, you have got to know what muscles NEED to be stretched before you start stretching. General stretching may or may not help... it may even make things worse! You have got to target the right areas and the only way to ensure that you are, is to do assessments and find out.

Step 4. Strengthen Weak Muscles with Targeted Strength Exercises

The other major step in correcting muscle imbalances is to strength the weak muscles that are being overpowered by the strong and tight opposing muscle(s).

The same is also true for strengthening... you have to make sure that you choose the right exercises and the only way to know for sure is thru assessments... don't use guesswork when choosing exercises!

Step 5. Monitor and Modify Your Program

The key to long term pain relief and injury prevention is to consistently monitor your progress and adjust your program... for example, as you work on correcting and preventing muscle imbalances the strength and flexibility of your muscles will change and therefore, you must then re-assess and change your program and workouts accordingly.

You will typically see changes in your strength, flexibility and bio-mechanics in as little as 2-4 weeks so I recommend that you re-assess yourself at least every 4-6 weeks.

So there you have it... 5 simple steps that you can take right now to work on eliminating any pain or injuries you currently have AND make sure you never create any new ones to deal with in the future.

Following these steps will not only help you eliminate aches, pains and injuries and it will also allow you to train more intensely and productively to get you the results you want.

Hope you enjoyed and benefited from this article series and we look forward to hearing of your success.

About the Author: Article courtesy of Jesse Cannone of http://www.losethebackpain.com. Find out exactly what's causing your back pain and injuries and the steps you need to take to quickly get rid of your pain and become injury free.

Welcome to article number 4 in our series "Bodybuilding Sins That Cause Back Pain and Missed Workouts". In this article we are going to talk about how bodybuilders tend to create massive muscle imbalances and what you can do to not be one of them.

If you missed the first article, you can read it by clicking on the link below.

Here's a breakdown of the articles to look for:

1. Article #1 - Choosing The WRONG Exercises
2. Article #2 - Training Variations for Pain Relief and Maximum Results
3. Article #3 - Targeted Stretching
4. Article #4 - Targeted Exercises
5. Article #5 - Rest, Recovery, and Injury Prevention

Article #4 - Targeted Exercises

What is a Targeted Exercise and Why You Need To Be Doing Them?
While performing three different exercises for each area of the chest may sound "targeted" and it may work great for targeting the chest itself... this is NOT what we mean by targeted...

What we are talking about is choosing exercises with more than just size increases in mind... remember, there is far more to muscle than just how it looks... You can be really big, but also weak, slow and inflexible.

To drive this point home some more, remember the "Turtle Back Syndrome" we covered in article #1? So many body builders are plagued with this gruesome condition and they don't even know it! Are you?

The Turtle Back condition is a direct result of too much focus on building up the pecs and lats and not enough focus on the upper back. Also, the lack of focus on flexibility in the chest and shoulders makes it even worse...

Not only does this look stupid, but it sets you up for back, neck and shoulder problems like rotator cuff tears and the like... and I know you don't want any of those!

So by targeted, we mean exercises that will not just develop muscle strength and size, but more importantly work towards correcting muscle imbalances which will mean less pain and missed workouts, better performance and function, and most of all better and balanced total body development!

So How Do You Find Out Which Ones You NEED To be Doing?

As we discussed in the previous article on "Targeted Stretching", it's very important to know before hand what stretches you actually NEED to be doing... the same applies to exercises...

and the ONLY way to find out what specific areas you need to target is to perform physical evaluations so you can pin point the weak muscles that need strengthening and the tight muscles that need stretching.

We have developed a series of simple assessments you can do yourself to identify the muscles imbalances you have...

and while they are intended for people suffering from back pain or sciatica, as a bodybuilder you stand to benefit greatly because you train so hard, you are far more likely to experience injuries like bulging and herniated discs, rotator cuff tears, knee pain, etc...

Plus, even if you don't have any pain or injuries now, it would be very wise to learn how to assess yourself so you can target your training now before you create an injury, which not only will slow down your training and progress, but it can also become a life-long struggle with pain and a serious loss of your strength, size and fitness.

So be sure to check out our website to learn more about how you can quickly and easily identify and eliminate any muscle imbalances you have http://www.losethebackpain.com

About the Author: Jesse Cannone, CFT, CPRS, CSPN and Steve Hefferon, CMT, CPRS of http://www.losethebackpain.com. If you've got back pain or sciatic pain, you've gotta check out their website.

Welcome to article number 3 in our series "Bodybuilding Sins That Cause Back Pain and Missed Workouts". In this article we are going to talk about how bodybuilders tend to create massive muscle imbalances and what you can do to not be one of them.

If you missed the first article, you can read it by clicking on the link below.

Here's a breakdown of the articles to look for:

1. Article #1 - Choosing The WRONG Exercises
2. Article #2 - Training Variations for Pain Relief and Maximum Results
3. Article #3 - Targeted Stretching
4. Article #4 - Targeted Exercises
5. Article #5 - Rest, Recovery, and Injury Prevention

Article #3 - Targeted Stretching

Stretching can be great, but it can also make existing injuries worse or even bring about new ones!

The key to making stretching work for you is knowing which stretches you need to be working on... and just because a muscle feels tight, that doesn't necessarily mean it needs to be stretched.

For example, many people stretch the hamstrings because they feel tight and they think the hamstrings are limiting their flexibility...

the fact is, most of the time the hamstrings are "tight" because they are constantly being pulled / lengthened due to muscle imbalances that tip the pelvis forward.

As you can, when the pelvis tips forward the hamstrings get pulled upward and are constantly held in a stretched position...

And this is why millions of people can stretch their hamstrings every freakin day and never make any improvement in their flexibility....

Are you one of those people?

If you are, you need to stop stretching your hamstrings and find out exactly which muscles you need to be targeting by reading the rest of this article...

Not only does this forward tipping of the pelvis (which is caused by muscle imbalances) keep the hamstrings tight and make it very difficult to make improvements in the muscles flexibility, but it also leads to the following:

- increased stress / wear and tear from the ankles all the way up the spine

For example, the forward tipping of the pelvis places uneven pressure on the ankle, knee and hip joints and also many of the vertebrae in the spine.

- weakens the hamstrings, inhibits normal functioning and increases the likelihood of hamstring pulls

When the hamstrings are constantly being strained because of the muscle imbalances, the muscle is weak, not able to function as it normally would, prone to injury and without correcting the muscle imbalance recover can take up to 9 months to a year, or longer!

- creates excess curvature in the lower and middle spine

This tipping of the pelvis places excessive amounts of abnormal stress on the muscles, vertebrae and discs in the lower and mid spine and this sets you up for potential injuries to the muscles of the lower and middle back...

Plus, it also causes the discs between your vertebrae to wear down and deteriorate much faster than they normally would and this sets you up for degenerative, bulging, protruding and herniated discs along with numerous other spinal conditions like arthritis, spinal stenosis, and the oh so popular sciatica!

This hamstring example is just one of many... muscle imbalances are responsible for nearly every ache, pain, injury and condition out there!

Here are a few more examples of injuries / conditions that are caused by muscle imbalances and can easily be prevented and/or eliminated with targeted stretches and exercises:

- upper back and neck pain
- shoulder injuries (rotator cuff)
- elbow and wrist pain (carpal tunnel, tennis/golfer/baseball elbow, etc)
- knee pain (runners knee, chondromalacia, ligament tears, etc)
- hip pain (IT band syndrome, bursitis, etc)
- ankle pain (Achilles tendonitis, shin splints, plantar fasciitis, heel spurs, etc)

All of these conditions are caused by muscle imbalances and will NOT go away unless you work towards correcting the imbalances... and the only way to know for sure which imbalances are causing your pain or injury is to do a series of physical assessments like the ones covered in our "Lose the Back Pain Video" which is designed for anyone suffering from back pain or sciatica.

What the heck is a targeted stretch?

This is a question we are asked often and here's the definition we give it:

Targeted Stretch - a stretch or stretching exercise that is chosen, based on physical assessments, to target a specific muscle or muscle group to increase the flexibility and range of motion in that area and bring the bones and or joints back towards the normal position.

When you compare a targeted stretch to general stretches like the ones found in Yoga, Pilates and the corny ones your doctor, chiropractor or physical therapist gives you, it's no surprise they give little or no pain relief and almost always fail to get rid of the problem.

Conclusion

Remember, the key to eliminating injuries and preventing future ones is to identify what areas you need to target. In the next article we'll be discussing in detail, how to address various injuries like back, hip, knee, and shoulder pain with targeted exercises. In the meantime, be sure to read thru all of our detailed Back Pain Articles and if you have questions, please post them in our Discussion Forum.

About the Author: Jesse Cannone, CFT, CPRS, CSPN and Steve Hefferon, CMT, CPRS of http://www.losethebackpain.com. If you've got back pain or sciatic pain, you've gotta check out their website!