Thread: Complete Newbies - Read this. – Newbie brain dump heaven !

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Please post your introductions in the Welcome Lounge.

Ok if you are totally new to this business there are many things you need to understand. But they are split in to 4 main categories.

Diet

Exercise

Supplements

Lifestyle and steroids.




Intro

It’s really important to understand that getting big / losing fat / toning up / changing body shape is a 4 pronged attack. Fail in one area and you are likely not to succeed in all.
As you will see from my own thread, I am not a huge guy, I am just starting on my journey… so you may be wondering why you should take advice from me, well here’s the thing, I have just had to go through all this and its fresh in my mind. Use this post as a base and the go to each area of the forum and read the stickys, then based on those sticky’s refine what you know.
In every walk of life knowledge is power. If you want to succeed you need to understand what to do to succeed.




Diet.

(All the below applies to all newbie’s regarding of the goal, i.e. lose fat or gain mass)

So forget the 3 meals a day you have been having in your life so far. This is not the answer. You need to switch so you eat every 2-3 hours. Its not hard and once you have switched it becomes 2nd nature, even if you have a demanding job.
Start by calculating what you eat each day at the moment. There are lots of things in the food you eat, but the 3 main elements to focus on are fat, PROTEIN and carbohydrates. So based on your daily diet currently work out the total amounts of fat, PROTEIN and Carbs.
Now compare it to what you should be having. You are aiming for something like APPROX 2.5 grams per KG of bodyweight from protein. It’s likely you will be having under half this and I suspect only just meeting the RDA of about 60 grams. Don’t worry, that’s the object of this exercise.
This link has a great online database of food facts;
http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/nutrient.htm

Carbs, this is vital to understand. There really are good and bad. You need to be eating good carbs. EG brown rice, lentils, sweet potato’s, brown pasta and bread as secondary’s. Don’t forget your fruit and vedge, great good but fast carbs. So make your 4+ grams per KG up from the good stuff.

Fat, don’t think that having no fat will make you thin, your body needs “good” fats. EG from eggs, nuts, seeds, lean meat. Fat amount should be about 30% of your total diet.

So, work out approx 30% protein 40% carbs 30% fat, as an example.


Ideally you want to be hitting the body with 30 grams of protein every 2-3 hours. Your body can’t absorb much more than that, so the idea of eating massive amounts in one sitting is not a good one for newbie’s. Remember the golden rules, balance, moderation and spread.

Ok they are the basic facts. Go to the nutrition forum and build from the stickies.




Exercise.

Right, depending on your age, but I am assuming you are 20-60… You need to find your resting pulse, your max pulse and your recovering heart rate. – Use these results to build a picture of your base fitness. Depending on this you can build a plan. Google for info on this.
Training is a highly personal plan. So all we will cover here is the golden rules.
1) You do not need to be training more than 1 hour in one session. I repeat. You do not need to spend 5 hours a day in the gym. Speak to the biggest guys here, they will tell you that even just 45 minutes is about right.
2) Rest day, DO NOT keep hitting the same muscles every day. Normally its 1 muscle group every 5-7 days. You will just ache and not grow. So don’t do your biceps on a daily basis!
3) There are many types of plans and ways of training but a good starter is a 3 day split. EG, do chest shoulders tris MONDAY, Tuesday is then a rest day or with some light cardio or fat burning. Wednesday is then Legs day, Thursday is the same as Tuesday, Friday is then Biceps, ABS , Back. Saturday / Sunday is rest- This is just an example, but DON’T over train
4) Warm up sets, as a newbie don’t just go a grab a heavy weight and lift it from cold, even if you have done treadmill, bike or rowing. Its well worth lifting a lighter loaded dum/bar bell for 10+ reps to get the blood flowing. – Remember if you pull a muscle you could be out for a week, a month or maybe a year!!!!
5) Correct form, don’t be like a 16 year old boy with something to prove in a gym, NEVER sacrifice form for weight. So if you can do an exercise properly at 2KG, don’t up it to 3KG if it means you do it incorrectly.
6) It is widely believed that big movements lead to the biggest gains over time. So that’s bench presses, squats, dead lifts. These use many different muscles and should be a core of your workout, it’s about developing a core to build on.
7) DO NOT abandon legs. We all do it as newbie’s. We all work to have bigger arms in the early days, but don’t ignore the legs, or you will look like a freak – but not in a good way! - -point 6 will help address this.
8) Abs, DO NOT think you can do hundreds of sit ups and strip fat from your gut. Its does not work like that. Your body fat is a % and you can’t chose where it goes from when you burn it. – There are 1000’s of men in the uk with a perfect 6 pack under 2 inches of fat. – Strip the fat and reveal the 6 pac.

9) Train with different people. Find a way of training with some big guys. Do not interrupt the huge guy in the gym when he is about to bench 200KG, but afterwards offer to help by being a spotter, show interest, ask questions. You may find that you have skills you can trade with him. MOST people are friendly and will offer advice and help for free if you go about it correctly. Do your learning first, and then ask intelligent questions.
10) Don’t over train. This has been mentioned above, but its worth a second mention. YOU MUST have rest days, You MUST NOT spend more than 45-60 minutes on your routine.




Supplements.

Like everything there are different ways of going about this, however there are some normal rules… You will need to supplement, you are pushing your body and stressing your immune and rebuilding systems. –Give it some help. Supplements ARE NOT an alternative to good diet. Your minimum 5 a day fruit and vedge rule still applies! As does quality protein from different sources, get some fish, chicken, beef, ostrich, whatever different type you can. But remember chicken is often the staple because it’s low fat and cheap.

Some medical studies have shown the body can’t absorb much more then 30grams of protein in one hit. So that tells us we need to spread the load. The minimum ideal is 30grams Whey protein when you wake up (with breakfast – you are having porridge with fruit right?). Then post workout you need some carbs and protein. An all in one could be beneficial for this. Something with Creatine, protein, carbs, Glutamine, vitamins.
Before bed is also very important. Remember how through the day you fed your body protein every 2-3 hours, well what happens at night? You need to feed the body some slow releasing protein like Casein, its like a thick milk shake…
So that’s 3 basic protein mixes to have each day.

Its really important to have the post workout protein shake within 30 minutes of exercise. Remember the body calls for protein, if you don’t feed it when it calls it won’t get the elements it requires and won’t grow. Remember you grow and repair most at night, so get the Casein protein in.

Creatine, -right, I am unable to find an proof of creatine directly causing liver or kidney damage. So lets park that here. Creatine is proven to help athletes push that little bit more at full burst, eg just have a little extra shove to get the weight up before exhaustion . It will not help as much for running long distance, or slow drain energy uses. Opinion differs but I think a dosage of 5-10grams a day seems to be about what is commonly used. –You must however make sure you drink plenty of water and some say to cycle and have off times. I assume this is to allow your body to recover…

Glutamine, This is a natty little add in, when given to AIDS patients they lived longer! (according to a sited article on Wikipedia). It was also given to stroke patents with positive effects. It is fuel for the immune system; it has links to muscle recovery and development. Maybe 5-10 grams a day, but remember spread it out and after exercise.

Caffeine, Look at the back of any “pre workout” supplement and you will see caffeine. If you cut back on your caffeine and then have it as a pre workout pump, it can give results. – Your choice. I can’t have caffeine so I have Touraine. It’s the best I can do. Its also worth noting that caffeine speeds up the metabolism, so if you want to lose fat strong black coffees may be a help!!!

Daily supplements, apparently a mulit-vitamin, fish oil and glutamine are good ones to start with.

There is varying research on BCCAS, (Branched Chain Amino Acids.). Feel free to get in to them, but first things first, get your protein and other bits in place first.


You can buy all the powders on line from myprotein or bulkpowders etc. These on line sites are typically half the price of Argos or Tescos. Its worth buying on line. I’m not sure what proof there is that some of these designer or pharmaceutical grade proteins are any better… At the end of the day you pays your money and you takes your chance!




Lifestyle and Steroids.

No, no no no and no again. As a newbie steroids will not help you.
No, no no no and no again. As a newbie steroids will not help you.
No, no no no and no again. As a newbie steroids will not help you.

What will help you is diet, protein, training, planning and research. Before you consider artificially helping your body you need to make sure you have fulfilled your potential.
It is important to understand that yes steroids do play a part of Bodybuilding and yes the bigger guys stab them in to muscle or swallow them, for you and me at this stage it’s not a good idea.
In my opinion{added for legal reasons, as I cant afford to go to court} -(DO NOT buy these roids.com type “steroids”, they are not steroids. It’s a con, they are vitamin tablets. – Just google and you can find the ingredients. It’s the same a Asda multi-vitamin.)

As for real steroids…I’m not going to go in to the ins and outs of why you don’t need them, or why you could hurt yourself or just get conned (most likely). For now put that thought on a back burner, spend time and energy getting the basics right…



Lifestyle, its so important to make this fit with your life. You can’t hope to succeed unless you can live with the effort you need to give. Over the first few weeks get a basic diet sorted, then get a basic routine together, then make sure you supplement appropriately (protein etc, not steroids).
If like me you have a busy office job, tell people, they will happily make allowances for you, allowing you to eat in (non customer facing ) meetings for example... In a recent meeting my boss got the cakes in, but for me a got a lean chicken breast and brown bread roll!
Find ways of making this fit with your life. If for example you are not a morning person don’t try to get up at 5am and bench press. Similarly if you have kids at home don’t do your routine until they have gone to bed. But not too late or you may struggle to sleep!

Junk food, Alcohol, fags, and recreational drugs. This is again personal preference, you need to decide how your life is going to run. I haven’t heard of many successful Body builders who are heroin addicts, In fact I’m not sure I have come access many successful heroin addicts full stop.. I guess the point here is you are training your body, it seems crazy to put it back on a night out with some powder or a roll up. Smoking, I’m not going to even bother covering this, you know the score.

There is one noticeable exception to the rule here. Cheat days! No this is not where you can shoot up with meth and go out killing, cheat days are when you can eat junk food or whatever you want. Various studies and anecdotal evidence show that the odd day out can help you in your training… I assume it’s something to do with totally different fats, proteins and carbs hitting the body. But remember a cheat day every day is not a cheat day!




This guide really was designed for complete beginners, you need to use this as a base and go forth and flourish!


Gent says.
This document is submitted for peer review. Remember this is aimed at complete beginners. I found there was so much to take in at first I couldn’t work out what to do and where to start. This gives Newbies an action plan.
Obviously this is not designed to replace the sticky’s in each section. It’s a pointer to them…


http://www.uk-muscle.co.uk/members/g...9-cimg0998.jpg

DO NOT POST INTRODUCTIONS ON THIS THREAD.
Please post your introductions in the Welcome Lounge.

NICE POST

Originally Posted by iron head case

NICE POST

Hopefully this thread wont vanish down the forum aging list before it gets chance to be read by those who need it!!!

Good post mate, concise and to the point

Originally Posted by Greekgoddess

A good, helpful post mate, but you forgot the other main ingredient that is essential- that of getting enough rest and sleep.

Thankyou...

Yes, fair point on the sleep, maybe! Although it has to be said the links between HGH being released in deep sleep, after REMS and growth are still not fully understood. Infact Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jay Cutler have both gone through training periods were they deliberately woke up in deep sleep and ate protein. – I didn’t include the sleep point as I feared it would be too controversial. I know i feel better after a good nights sleep, so maybe thats a good enougth reason to add it.

I did say;

2)Rest day, DO NOT keep hitting the same muscles every day. Normally its 1 muscle group every 5-7 days. You will just ache and not grow. So don’t do your biceps on a daily basis!

and

10)Don’t over train. This has been mentioned above, but its worth a second mention. YOU MUST have rest days, You MUST NOT spend more than 45-60 minutes on your routine.

excellent post
You are obviously very interested in learning gent, respect to you mate and keep at it

Yes, fair point on the sleep, maybe! Although it has to be said the links between HGH being released in deep sleep, after REMS and growth are still not fully understood....

Sleep does much more than just regulate endogenous GH. It is critical in: Cardiovascular recovery following exercise challenge ; Neuromuscular adaptation/recovery ; Endogenous antioxidant adaptation ; Fine motor skill function ; Proprioception development ; Immune function ; Psychological health

Sleep is like water - people often forget about its importance, but when it is absent, you soon become aware of its importance. The importance of sleep in the above functions become rapidly apparent when one deprives an organism of sleep.

There is good reason why tormentum vigilae has its legal status and fearsome reputation.

Longer term, sleeps is involved in the regulation of multiple ultradian rhythms (via photoperiod). These ultradian rhythm are not to be sniffed at either (presumably from one's sleep deprived immune function ). There is evidence of shift workers and those with variable sleep phases having increased risk of cancers, cardiovascular disorders and psychological disorders. If you feel that these links are too distant from the goals of bodybuilding (skeletal muscle hypertrophy and fat loss) then maybe consider the ultradian regulation of corticotropin-releasing hormone (involved in stress response, how much gut gain (visceral adipose tissue) one gains in response to insulin or androgens, endophin response to exercise, endogenous LH regulation, etc) or Neuropeptide Y (involved in appetite regulation, hunger and satiety). Ultradian regulation has been found in the androgen receptor agonists: DHEA, testosterone, and DHT. They are also found in DNA repair (periodic histone acetylation) regulation.

Outside the direct involvement in muscle hypertrophy and fat loss, there are massive impacts of sleep on general health and wellbeing - too many to mention here.

If the evidential chain above is too shaky or theoretical for your liking, I can assure you that depriving humans (and several other animals) of sleep rapidly destroys psychological integrity and this is shortly followed by a failure of multiple physiological systems.

Sleep is the single most important recovery modality - bar none.

J

Originally Posted by Joshua

Sleep does much more than just regulate endogenous GH. It is critical in: Cardiovascular recovery following exercise challenge ; Neuromuscular adaptation/recovery ; Endogenous antioxidant adaptation ; Fine motor skill function ; Proprioception development ; Immune function ; Psychological health

Sleep is like water - people often forget about its importance, but when it is absent, you soon become aware of its importance. The importance of sleep in the above functions become rapidly apparent when one deprives an organism of sleep.

There is good reason why tormentum vigilae has its legal status and fearsome reputation.

Longer term, sleeps is involved in the regulation of multiple ultradian rhythms (via photoperiod). These ultradian rhythm are not to be sniffed at either (presumably from one's sleep deprived immune function ). There is evidence of shift workers and those with variable sleep phases having increased risk of cancers, cardiovascular disorders and psychological disorders. If you feel that these links are too distant from the goals of bodybuilding (skeletal muscle hypertrophy and fat loss) then maybe consider the ultradian regulation of corticotropin-releasing hormone (involved in stress response, how much gut gain (visceral adipose tissue) one gains in response to insulin or androgens, endophin response to exercise, endogenous LH regulation, etc) or Neuropeptide Y (involved in appetite regulation, hunger and satiety). Ultradian regulation has been found in the androgen receptor agonists: DHEA, testosterone, and DHT. They are also found in DNA repair (periodic histone acetylation) regulation.

Outside the direct involvement in muscle hypertrophy and fat loss, there are massive impacts of sleep on general health and wellbeing - too many to mention here.

If the evidential chain above is too shaky or theoretical for your liking, I can assure you that depriving humans (and several other animals) of sleep rapidly destroys psychological integrity and this is shortly followed by a failure of multiple physiological systems.

Sleep is the single most important recovery modality - bar none.

J

I am not doubting the validity of sleep. Nor am I disputing the medical proof; that for example shift workers are more likely to contract cancers and have higher free radicals. I agree that sleep is essential. However, I have not seen conclusive proof that in the normal run of things a 7 hour night, an 8 hour night and a 9 hour night adds any benefit over a 6 hour night.

I think I will add the below line to the initial post.

“get enough sleep. Sleep aids recovery. The ammount varies person to person but 8 hours is concidered standard”


I would disagree that sleep is the single most important thing for recovery, I would say water is. You can go for sleep for more than a week or so before you die. However 3 days without water see's most people dead!

OK.

I am not doubting the validity of sleep. Nor am I disputing the medical proof; that for example shift workers are more likely to contract cancers and have higher free radicals. I agree that sleep is essential. However, I have not seen conclusive proof that in the normal run of things a 7 hour night, an 8 hour night and a 9 hour night adds any benefit over a 6 hour night.

I think I will add the below line to the initial post.

“get enough sleep. Sleep aids recovery. The ammount varies person to person but 8 hours is concidered standard”

Anecdotally, as training effort increases sleep demand increases before overtraining kicks in [IME]. My gut feeling is that this is independent of the amount of sleep that a person usually needs, without increased training. If a person normally requires 6hr.d-1 if their training load doubles then their sleep demand may increase to 8hr.d-1. I am not saying that a person who is fine on 6hr.d-1 would necessarily do better on 8hr.d-1.

I would disagree that sleep is the single most important thing for recovery, I would say water is. You can go for sleep for more than a week or so before you die. However 3 days without water see's most people dead!

Sorry for the confusion with regard to recovery modalities - It was poor communication on my part. I was referring to recovery modalities as a specific term used in sport science [checkout pubmed], ie interventions/methods used by people to enhance recovery eg( sports massage, hydrotherapy, electromuscle stimulation, etc ). I would consider water intake to be part of diet, but I suppose that this is just a matter of classification and definitions. Diet certainly has impact on gross recovery capacity and 3d without water would not be my idea of fun .

J

This thread was aimed at complete newbies, not advanced training. There is a complete section for that!!! The in's and outs of sleep can be covered elsewhere.

So, ill add; -Which i think addresses the point.

“Get enough sleep. Sleep aids recovery. The ammount varies person to person but 8 hours is concidered standard”

"Get enough sleep" is fine IMHO. My contention was more with

Yes, fair point on the sleep, maybe! Although it has to be said the links between HGH being released in deep sleep, after REMS and growth are still not fully understood

btw - a good article by you Gent. So many questions get asked again and again. Putting some links to existing threads and pointing out the utility of the search function maybe good too.

J

Good stuff.

I like the 40/30/30 carbs/proteins/fats macro's, Dr. Barry Sears has studied these macros in those ranges for years with fantastic success on athletes.

Originally Posted by hackskii

Good stuff.

I like the 40/30/30 carbs/proteins/fats macro's, Dr. Barry Sears has studied these macros in those ranges for years with fantastic success on athletes.

Danka...
I got my 40 /30 /30 from Susan Kleiners best selling book Power Eating.

It seemed logical!!!

Good to know its the right track.

Reps to you Gent!

A really useful concise post!

Great advice, Thanks for this!!