Did you know that bodybuilders have to eat more than 1 g of protein per kilo of body weight? Or that they need to eat every 2-3 hours? Did you know that they go to the gym a lot, but you will be surprised how long they stay in the gym and what they do there? I thought I’d write a quick article to shed some light on some things bodybuilders do.

Most people think of bodybuilding or bodybuilding as a brutal sport full of big, dumb, insensitive jerks trying to make up for something and carrying a serious inferiority complex with them. Have you seen the recent hit on bodybuilders by Planet Fitness gym lately? In it they portray anyone with large muscles as dumb dumb. Well, maybe some are like that, but you can say the same for many people from all walks of life.

A bodybuilder has a relentless urge to work his body, sculpt his body if you will, by using resistance training into a work of art. A hard, chiseled body, perfect in shape and symmetry and based on a healthy diet. In fact, a bodybuilding diet is really amazing. It contains a low fat, high protein, complex carbohydrates and tons of vegetables. All foods cooked to perfection without added salt or fat. It may not be the most exciting diet to live on, but it serves them well in the body department.

Common Bodybuilding Myths:

#1 – The bodybuilder goes to the gym all day and almost every day of the week. This is simply not true. Most serious professional bodybuilders and amateurs will hit the gym 3-5 days a week and usually for about an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes at a time if they are training alone. They learned long ago that if you train past this point, the body releases cortisol and only uses your new hard-earned muscle for fuel instead of carbs or fat as it should. Train for an hour, go home… grow up.

#two – All enormous bodybuilders are in the juice. Is not true. With new advances in supplementation and a better general understanding of the body’s functions with regards to muscle growth and fitness, natural athletes have reached new ground in muscle building.

3# – Bodybuilders go to the gym and train their entire body during their workout. It is usually like this; Go to the gym, work out your chest and maybe a part of your arm (be it the biceps or triceps), hit it from every possible angle. Do about 30 sets of exercises in total. Go home. Come back the next day or the next day, do legs, go home, etc. This grows a lot in your muscles.

4#- All that muscle will turn to fat if they stop exercising. Again, not true. First of all, muscle cannot be converted to fat. Fat is fat and muscle is muscle. Also, most bodybuilders keep most of their muscles forever. Once it grows, it stays. Sure they can be made smaller. Muscle may shrink, but you’d be surprised how much is left forever. Normally, just overeating with inactivity will make you fat.

Here are some other facts that are interesting. Your muscle grows while you sleep. Exercising in the gym with heavy lifting will break down the muscle. The bodybuilder goes home and eats properly and then while resting (especially sleeping) the muscles will grow to compensate for the lifting. Another fact that is interesting is that a typical natural bodybuilder will only gain 8 lbs. of muscle in his body each year. Yes, there are some stories of lifters who put on 20 to 30 pounds. a year but firstly that’s not all muscle and secondly some are enhanced bodybuilders and get a little help with a needle. A natural bodybuilder can gain up to 25 or even 30 pounds of muscle in a lifetime of lifting. And believe it or not, this looks like a ton of muscle. Huge, powerful, hard, dense muscles packed into a frame. Think 175 lbs. skinny guy and now he thinks he weighs 205 lbs. or even more if genetics and proper training come into play.

Well, I could go on with this a bit longer, but I thought some of the basic facts would be interesting for someone who hasn’t lifted weights yet. Here’s a tip. Don’t worry about going to the gym getting too big. You’re not going to get as big as Arnold Schwarzenegger just by working out at the gym. If you could, a lot of people would and we’d have like 200 million, rich (bodybuilding) Mr. Olympia running around the planet. It just doesn’t work that way. If you want to start lifting weights, get a trainer or read about it and go for it. You’ll get hard in all the right places and you won’t look like the giants in popular bodybuilding magazines. Trust me.