Bodybuilding: Differentiating Between the Sport and the Lifestyle By Benedict Smythe At Isnare.com Ezine Articles

For a good many people, bodybuilding means getting “ripped” and being able to compete in bodybuilding competitions, where competitors look as if they can tear any Ordinary Joe in half in one movement. The competition part of this misconception is partially true: some bodybuilders do compete in competitions to exhibit professionally what they have achieved through months or sometimes even years of discipline and training.

However, this misconception, for all its usefulness for marketers of power drinks and protein bars, should be treated as such and nothing more: a misconception. Bodybuilding is not merely getting muscles and looking good. The bodybuilding lifestyle in itself, when adapted, can save your life.

The sport existed because of discipline and not vice versa. The discipline may be adapted for the following reasons:

• Reduction of fat and cholesterol

• The possibility of reducing the risk for heart diseases

• Reversing years of sedentary living

• Improving the over-all physique

Bodybuilding as a lifestyle

Bodybuilding is an entire lifestyle that is built around three basic precepts:

• Regular and systematic workouts

• Avoidance of harmful and addictive substances

• Daily consumption of a healthy diet geared in building muscle and reducing fat

As opposed to mere diets, the bodybuilding lifestyle focuses on a more holistic approach to making the human body fit and strong. The diet sustains the body while working out continually improves the physique and “heals” the human body by burning excess stored fats and strengthening the cardiovascular system.

The cardiovascular system is composed mainly of the heart and the lungs, two of the strongest organs in the human body that are responsible for gas exchange (oxygen in, carbon dioxide out) and the circulation of blood throughout the human body.

The success or failure of a bodybuilding regimen depends largely on the efficiency of the cardiovascular system. For one, the body must be able to sustain the regimen until the body starts to build muscle from the regular strain.

A bodybuilding lifestyle will accomplish two things:

• Build muscle (this is one of the most visible signs that the regimen is working)

• Improvement of strength, endurance and stamina

Depending on the bodybuilding regimen that you will be adapting for yourself, the effects of the lifestyle itself will vary from person to person. If a person focuses on resistance training, then most likely endurance and stamina will increase, while the muscles will start building themselves only after a while.

The principle that is most often used in regular bodybuilding is the progressive overload principle, which states that the human body will build muscle when it is progressively “overloaded” with increasing resistance. Resistance in body building is the mass of the weights used in training.

The progressive overload principle is basic to bodybuilding. Another well-used principle is known by many names, but is generally recognizable from other systems through its execution: weights are lifted in a fast, jerking muscle, forcing blood and glucose to the tissues. This system may only be safely used by those who have been sculpting their muscles for a long time, because injury is common when one uses the “burst” method.

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