TONE UP THE MUSCLES AND BUILD AN ATTRACTIVE PHYSIQUE

TONE UP THE MUSCLES AND BUILD AN ATTRACTIVE PHYSIQUE



ANKUR BARUA, M.A. BASILIO



Department of Community Medicine, Sikkim-Manipal Institute of Medical Sciences (SMIMS), Sikkim, India



Contact Address of the Corresponding Author:

Dr. ANKUR BARUA
BLOCK – EE, No. – 80, FLAT No. – 2A,
SALT LAKE CITY, SECTOR – 2,
KOLKATA – 700 091.
WEST BENGAL, INDIA
Email: ankurbarua26@yahoo.com
Tel: +91-33-23215586
Mobile: +919434485543.

TONE UP THE MUSCLES AND BUILD AN ATTRACTIVE PHYSIQUE




Introduction
Many people want to have nice muscle tone and an attractive physique, but they often do not want to have big muscles and a muscular body. So they just lift lightweights with high repetitions. But this is not very effective, as we need to first build up our muscle bulk before toning them down into good shapes. So, in the first step, we need to lift heavy weight at regular intervals in order to force our muscles to grow.


Once we are satisfied with the size of our muscles, we need to cut our subcutaneous pad of fats for muscles to show up well. This is the second step to develop nice muscle tone for shaping an attractive physique. However, we need to have a firm commitment and knowledge to build an attractive muscular body and develop nice muscle tone. Before we commence weight training, we need to warm up and do some stretching exercises.



Train with Free Weights
All professional body builders almost exclusively use free weights. At the beginning of body building exercises we need to concentrate on free weights and work exclusively with barbells and dumb bells. Free weights recruit many stabilizing muscles for balance and control. That means we shall work a lot more muscle parts other than the intended ones. This will give rise to little bumps, striations and definitions all over your body instead of one huge lump of muscle on your intended muscle. Because of this extra stimulant created, our muscles will grow faster too.


Train with Compound Exercises
We should always try to incorporate as many compound exercises as possible to our routines. Compound exercises are exercises that involve 2 or more joint movements. Because they utilize more joints, greater muscle mass is involved. Involvement of greater muscle mass is equivalent to work with heavier weights. Heavier weights mean encouragement of greater muscle growth. Greater muscle growth means more tone to your muscles. The examples of some excellent compound exercises are the Squat, Deadlift, Chin ups, Dips, Bench press, Barbell Press, Lunges and Bent-Over Barbell Row.




Train Intensively Avoiding Over-strain
We must train intensively for our muscles to grow and try to do more repetitions or add more weight than the previous session. It is important that every time we train hard, we should also give our body enough time to recover as it has suffered strains and actually sustained many small scarring. Our muscles grow when we rest, due to the effect of growth hormones, especially when we sleep. So, we need to sleep at least 8 hours a day. There is no need to train everyday. We should work the same muscle group only once or twice a week. If the training is vigorous enough, we should not exercise for more than an hour per session. The cardio work should be directed at cutting body fat in order to develop the muscle tone. During the muscle-building phase, we should do less cardio work as the aerobic exercises burn muscles bulk. So, we should not do cardio work on the same day as our weight lifting work.


Technique and Form
This is the most neglected fundamental of bodybuilding. Everywhere, everyday, we can see people using wrong forms and techniques. This not only compromises our growth, but also makes us susceptible to injuries. Deformity occurs usually when people try to lift weights that are too heavy. So, we should always lift weight with strict focus on that particular exercise for the muscle, which we intend to build. So, we should be careful enough to lift the weights deliberately and slowly. We should never swing our weights up especially while doing bicep curls or the military press.

Perform Lower Body Exercises
This is what most people never realize. Our lower body makes up about (60-70)% of our musculature. It is unfortunate that most people often do not train their legs. If we do not train the muscles of our lower extremities then, not only we shall appear spider-legged, but also our entire body will stop growing large.


The intensity of training the muscles of our lower extremities will produce more growth hormones when we sleep and the overall muscular development will be stimulated. Our body shape will also be more balanced and therefore more attractive.