Train Like An Athlete
To build a strong physique, it’s important to adjust your training for a desired outcome. Bodybuilding is considered competitive sport that draws audiences from around the world, yet bodybuilding can also be thought of as a form of art.
You’re trying to develop the greatest potential within your body by focusing on an image and making progress each week to get stronger. This is a creative endeavor that requires you to use your imagination and tools at your disposal to create art, like a sculptor and his chisel.
Many trainees in weightlifting prefer an athletic physique, one that is muscular and defined with very little body fat around the upper/midsection. The actual bodybuilder look is not nearly as desirable as fans and innovators of the sport are disgusted by the current state of the physiques appearing on stage.
Proportion and balance has always been the major categories of critique in bodybuilding. In spite of this, most trainees are training for overall attractiveness and not for physique of a professional bodybuilder.
Building an aesthetic frame that appeals to the eye requires a good foundation of training and attention to details that make a difference.
How to Build The Perfect Foundation For Your Physique
A great physique is one that not only looks great, but can perform at its best as well. Having big strong muscles is essential worthless if you can’t perform functional movements that are common to everyday life.
Functional movements can be exercises that test your balance and flexibility while still challenging the strength of your smaller muscle groups. This can be seen with yoga training and tai chi movements that uses time over tension to stretch and loosen the muscles.
The foundation of a great physique should be started with the functional training of using bodyweight exercises (calisthenics) and being completely flexible in all lower and upper body exercises.
As you continue to lift weights over time, there should be a focus on developing areas of your physique that are lagging despite your consistent overall progress in the gym. These will most likely be the muscle groups that give the body a more athletic appearance (shoulders, forearms, upper back, and calves).
Once these muscles have become properly developed then you can to fine tune your physique for balanced proportions, which is commonly known as aesthetics. Aesthetics should be the last phase of bodybuilding training for newer trainees as you need to develop a certain level of strength and developed muscle.
Proportions for aesthetics are body measurement ratios that give the body a well balanced appearance. As an example, the width of the upper arms would be matching lower limbs of the calf muscles. The width of the shoulders would be twice the width of your waist (see How to Develop The Physique of a Greek God).
To develop wide shoulders and upper back, concentrate on progressing with the overhead barbell press and wide grip pull ups in your weekly routine. These two exercises alone will develop the silhouette muscles surrounding your frame to give you a more athletic appearance.
Posture
Posture is one of the most disregarded aspects of exercise training, as many of us have bad habits that effect of shape of our spine and tension within the upper back muscles. Just changing posture alone will improve your physique and make you appear more athletic.
Most people sit in a hunched position during the day for an average of 6-8 hours per day, which over time tightens certain muscles and weakens others as a way for the body to adapt.
The muscles of the glutes are also weakened as sitting continues for long periods of time. The hip flexors that compose of the upper thigh muscles are flexed and stiffen in a phenomenon known as adaptive shortening.
To avoid tightening of the muscles, try to stand for a brief period of time each hour of the day or change your sitting routine by switching your leg positions. Walking more often can also correct this and prevent the condition of anterior pelvic tilt that gives you the appearance of a ‘walking duck’ with protruding glutes and lower back.
Wearing shoes with raised heels can also contribute to this anterior pelvic tilt, which is why it’s recommended to use yoga stretching exercises (preferably deep lunges) to correct the positioning of the ankles and hip flexor muscles. This can also be corrected using flat footwear, such as barefoot shoes, that can strengthen the foot muscles without the support structure of an ordinary shoe.
Lastly, posture can also be corrected by training your abdominal muscles on a regular basis. Core stability can be improved using planks and side plank exercises.
The Wrap Up
There’s certain principles that should be applied when building the physique of your dreams. A great foundation starts with body weight training in combination with free weights that will develop the silhouette muscles of a strong, athletic frame. Proportioning of aesthetics is the next level of muscle development to create beautiful contour lines within your frame. Once you’ve mastered these key aspects of bodybuilding, work on correcting your posture and replacing bad habits that stiffen and weaken the body’s muscles.
What else do you want to know?
How to Build The Physique of a Greek God
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