1: Rotate Your Workouts
If you keep to a healthy and varied workout schedule, you’ll be able to improve all your muscle groups without over-straining or neglecting any areas. If you know much about bodybuilding or exercise in general, you certainly know that you should rotate through which muscle groups you’re working out. For example, if you do an intense ab workout two days in a row, it can actually cause injuries, and it’s certainly less effective at building muscles. Because your muscles can take one or two full days to repair themselves after a workout, it’s much better to spend one day working on your abs, and then the next day on your legs or some other area.
Even though this is one of the first things you’re likely to learn in any serious exercise routine, don’t dismiss the advice to rotate your workouts! Remember, if you lose sight of the basics, the more advanced techniques of bodybuilding will get harder for you to do as well. If you’re still unsure how to set up a good, healthy workout schedule for yourself, work with a personal trainer or with more experienced bodybuilders who can help you know when and how often to work out each muscle group.
2: Eat Well
This isn’t so much an exercise technique as it is a life-long habit that you should be trying to cultivate. Even if you’re not planning on participating in bodybuilding or other intense types of exercise for your whole life, easting healthy is something that will benefit everyone, no matter their circumstances. And of course, when you are bodybuilding, you need to give your body the right foods to work with if you want the most energy and the best results.
If you’re trying to build muscle and cut back on fat, it’s of course important to reduce your sugar and carb intakes and make sure that you get plenty of protein. Depending on your situation, you might find it helpful to join some kind of health group or program — even if you don’t need to lose weight, some health programs have excellent tools for tracking your eating, and using these resources can help you be more mindful about how you’re fueling your body.
3: Use Recovery Techniques
You’ve probably heard about workout recovery, and you probably also know why it’s so important: without time and nutrition put into recovery, you run the risk of overtraining and increasing your fatigue levels or even causing damage to your body if you push yourself too hard.
To make sure that your recovery goes well, you should (among other things) make sure that you get adequate sleep, hydration, and nutrition. All of these things will help you have the energy your body needs in order to fully recover. You might also want to consider using bodybuilding recovery supplements like BCAA in order to help improve your body’s natural recovery processes even more.