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Natural bodybuilding, whether you are a beginning bodybuilder or a seasoned pro requires that your bodybuilding program is a complete system. You simply cannot build masses of muscles quickly and maintain a toned, sculpted body by going about bodybuilding in a haphazard fashion. Natural bodybuilding is not about tossing all of the bodybuilding supplements in the trash and then spending countless hours in the gym training hard. This will only lead to exhaustion and potential injury.

There are many bodybuilding programs available to choose from that offer natural bodybuilding methods. Most of these programs are good as far as they go. But many of them only provide part of the picture and do not provide a complete system for natural bodybuilding.

Building muscle requires that five elements be included in any natural bodybuilding program:



Strength training

Aerobic Exercise

Endurance Training

Proper Diet With Healthy Nutrition

Rest – Including Adequate Sleep



If you make sure your program includes all five elements, you will build muscle faster and actually spend less time in the gym.

Strength training is usually done in the gym and can take very little time if done correctly. Your workout can take as little as three minutes, three times a week, working two muscle groups each day, for roughly one and a half minutes. But you need to put maximum effort into it. If you can do more than 6 or 8 reps, you are not working your muscles hard enough.

Follow strength training with aerobics to build endurance. You really don’t need to think about this as long as you are doing everything else. Endurance will build on its own, naturally.

Don’t think of aerobic exercise as something you do just to lose weight. Even if you are not trying to lose weight aerobic exercise is still necessary. It helps build muscle, keeps fat off, builds endurance, and strengthens your heart. Some type of aerobic activity three times per week is essential in a natural bodybuilding program.

You have to feed your muscles if you want them to grow. If you do not get enough proper nutrition, they will actually feed on themselves. Follow a good, healthy diet for muscle building. Include protein, as well as other needed vitamins, minerals, and nutrients.

Rest is something that is often overlooked in our busy world but it is crucial to build muscles. You are not building muscles while you are lifting weights. Your muscles grow when they are at rest. They need this down time to rest and repair themselves. If you are tired, so are your muscles. Get adequate rest and help you muscles grow.

The best natural bodybuilding programs cover all of the essential elements in several ways. Most programs include ebooks, special reports, audio and sometimes video. The top bodybuilding programs also include ongoing coaching as well software to track your nutrition and workout progress.

Reviews of two of the best natural bodybuilding programs can be found at The Musclehead and No-Nonsense Bodybuilding.

If you’ve decided to get into bodybuilding, it’s important to remember that the right bodybuilding routine is crucial for best results. Just like the bodybuilders who design them, bodybuilding routines are also equally different in many ways. The best bodybuilding routine is ideally the one that achieves the maximum result in the minimum amount of time.

It’s a common mistake for rookie bodybuilders to think that they can attain a physique like that of a certain Mr. Schwarzenegger by simply renting a copy of “Pumping Iron” and imitating Arnold move for move.

Now, borrowing bodybuilding techniques from a world-class bodybuilder is fine, however, expecting those same techniques to give you a sculpted body within ten months is really just building castles in the air.

Here are three fundamentals of bodybuilding routines that work which you should keep in mind when choosing a workout routine for yourself.

Fundamental #1 of Bodybuilding Routines That Work: No such thing as One Routine Fits All

When it comes to bodybuilding, what works for one individual doesn’t ever work for the other. You can see this by spending sometime observing builders at your local gym and you will realize that each one of them is performing separate exercises for different rep counts and with different weights in order to tone, sculpt or build different body parts. Experienced bodybuilders have all found their routines through a basic trial and error process and so shall you if you proceed diligently.

Fundamental #2 of Bodybuilding Routines That Work: Different Strokes for Different Muscle Folks

In order to choose a bodybuilding routine that actually works for you, make sure to pick one that suits your body type. There are three basic body types as far as gaining muscle mass is concerned. These are Endomorphs, Ectomorphs and Mesomorphs:

Those with the Endomorph body type are able to easily build muscle mass but are also prone to putting on weight. This type has to watch their diet carefully and need some amount of cardio in their workout routine as well.

Ectomorphs on the other hand are of the tall, thin and lean body type with long, slim limbs. Ectomorphs don’t put on weight or muscle mass easily and need to eat the right kind of food to increase their calorie and protein intake. They must also weight train to a great extent instead of cardio in order to sculpt a good body.

The final body type is Mesomorphs and those with this kind of body type are extremely lucky since they don’t put on weight easily and are also able to gain muscle mass fast. If you fall in this category, do not change the amount of food you eat, only eat healthier and start bodybuilding immediately.

Fundamental #3 of Bodybuilding Routines That Work: Change is the Name of The Bodybuilding Game

Finally, if you do find a bodybuilding routine that works amazingly well for more than three months, then chances are that you will probably have to add some variations as you go along, doing what’s necessary to get the desired results as well as adding or removing exercises to build different muscle groups and parts of your body.

To conclude, no bodybuilding routine that works is complete without the right kind of nutrition. And also no bodybuilding routine includes workout sessions longer than 75 minutes or more than 5 sessions per week. If you push your body beyond its limit, you must be ready to face the consequences such as injury and long recuperation periods. This is why it’s especially important to choose and follow a bodybuilding routine under the watchful eye of a professional natural body builder or trainer.

Apart from that, keep the above-mentioned bodybuilding fundamentals in mind to find the perfect bodybuilding routine that works for you and before long you will be well on your way to attaining that dream body you’ve always wanted.

The debate on whether bodybuilding should be an Olympic sport has been raging for years amongst the bodybuilding community and those interested in the Olympics. Ardent fans argue that weightlifting has been an Olympic sport for years, so why not bodybuilding? To diehard fans, bodybuilding and the Olympics seems to be a perfect fit, and questions like “Why is bodybuilding not already an Olympic sport?” are routinely aired.

Perhaps the more telling questions to ask are “Should bodybuilding be an Olympic sport?”, and “Would making bodybuilding an Olympic sport help the Olympics?”

Bodybuilding And The Olympics: Why It Is Not Already An Olympic Sport

The current Olympic program consists of 35 sports, 53 disciplines and more than 400 events, ranging from archery through to weightlifting and wrestling. The bodybuilding fan base, competitors, and sponsors are all ready and willing to take the step to Olympic level. The stumbling block is the International Olympic Committee and the OPC, who state simply that according to their criteria, bodybuilding is not a sport and there has no place in the Olympics.

This stand begs the question, “what determines a sport in the first place?”. A simple definition by the Australian Sports Foundation says that sport is “a human activity capable of achieving a result requiring physical exertion and/or physical skill, which, by its nature and organization, is competitive and is generally accepted as being a sport.”

Arguably, bodybuilding fits within this definition, and one would think this should be enough for the IOC. However, the primary problem the IOC has with allowing bodybuilding into the Olympics concerns drug abuse. They claim that the widespread use of performance enhancing drugs by bodybuilders would prevent bodybuilding from complying with Olympic drug policies. There are harsh and vigilant doping rules for Olympic competitors, which would certainly exclude many professional bodybuilders.

However, the natural bodybuilding fraternity does not use performance enhancing drugs. The Olympics could uphold their drug policies, allowing only natural bodybuilders to compete at the Olympics. This also aligns with the tradition of the Olympics being a competition for sporting amateurs, not professionals.

Another reason stated by the IOC for excluding bodybuilding from the Olympics was that the judging in competitive bodybuilding was far too subjective for an Olympic judge to critique. Given the controversy surrounding the subjective judging of sports such as ice skating, diving, and gymnastics this argument hardly seems to hold water. In fact, bodybuilding would seem to be a perfect fit!

How Bodybuilding Could Help The Olympics

As competitive bodybuilding has never been a mainstream sport, including it as an Olympic Sport would allow the sport to be better known and recognized. It would also make the sport more accessible, allowing people to learn more about bodybuilding, and possibly participate themselves.

Bodybuilding would also help the Olympics by widening the scope of sports on display. By showcasing bodybuilding, the Olympics would be encouraging people of all ages to eat good food, work out, become fit, and look after their health. These are important messages in a world where so many people are overweight.

A look back into history reveals that the Olympics were first introduced by the Greeks, who idolized and revered well toned, aesthetic bodies with healthy strong physiques.

Bodybuilding And The Olympics: The Main Argument Against

Besides the drug doping issue, perhaps the most prominent argument against including bodybuilding in the Olympics is the subjectivity of judges and the fact that there is often no clear winner. Even though other Olympic sports like ice skating are also in this category, the majority of Olympic sporting events feature clear winners, either by time, distance, height or lifting weight. No one can argue that judging mistakes have been made when a competitor clearly wins an event.

Although the jury is still out on bodybuilding and Olympics, it seems for the time being at least, that the Olympic Committee has no intention of including bodybuilding as an Olympic sport. Despite the fact that the bodybuilding fraternity is ready and willing to take the step to Olympic level, it looks like they will be waiting for some time yet.