Although bodybuilders lift weights to achieve their physical goals, bodybuilding is not an activity in which the absolute amount of weight you can lift is important. The goal of bodybuilding is to use a sufficient amount of weight for each exercise to cause adaptive changes in the body that result in the creation of an ideal combination of mass, musculature, symmetry and proportion.

Weightlifters also train with weights, but they are only interested in learning how to lift as much weight as possible and only for the few particular lifts that are involved in competition.

For a long time it was thought that bodybuilders weren’t really that strong, that the mass they built in the gym was somehow not “real” muscle. This is simply not true. Strength is a necessary by-product of mass development and the success of bodybuilders in recent strongmen competitions proves it.

But the use of weights in progressive resistance training is a common denominator among bodybuilders, weightlifters, athletes training for certain sports, injured people trying to rehabilitate their bodies, and all those millions who are now training to health and fitness.

Weight training, in its most general sense, just means doing some movement or activity using extra weight to increase the difficulty. This would include putting ankle weights on before running or swinging a lead-filled bat before your turn at the plate, but we generally restrict the meaning to contracting muscles in certain prescribed exercises against resistance from dumbbells, bars, or resistance exercises. machines.

Bodybuilders actually have more in common with the man who trains for fitness than they do with competitive weightlifters. After all, they are both more interested in physical improvement than breaking lifting records. But there is a big difference in degree. It’s as if bodybuilders are Formula I race cars and the average man or woman a dependable sports sedan. They both want a certain degree of performance, but on two different levels. Technology emerging from Grand Prix racing eventually seeps into the family car, and in the same way, discoveries made by serious bodybuilders in the gym can be adapted and harnessed by those who use weights to stay fit and healthy. .

You may not personally want to train for hours a day to become a Mr. America, but exercise physiologists have shown us how the athlete and the non-athlete are alike in their physical needs. By applying the techniques that work for champions, only at an intensity level that suits your own purposes, you will be able to participate in the same process that creates, shapes and firms the human body, melts away unwanted fat and builds a system. strong and reliable cardiovascular system.

Of course, the best results come from those with the right genetic potential, but that doesn’t mean there is no benefit of weight training for the average man. Quite the opposite; For all but a few, there is a definite increase in muscle strength and size along with an improvement in muscle shape and contour. The body becomes firmer as muscle fibers become denser and fat is burned. Some people will change a lot and others a little less, but even seemingly small changes can make a dramatic change in your physique. An inch or two added to your chest along with a couple of inches loss at your waist will completely transform your look. You can never get out of your natural somatotype, but you can achieve a lot within those limits. But remember, even if you really don’t want to get bigger, all you are doing is increasing your strength to its natural optimum and letting your muscles assume whatever mass and shape is natural to them. Everything depends on you.