How to Deal with a Body Building Injury

You will have to learn how to deal with a body building injury if you are going to make significant physical changes to your body.  To achieve this you will have to work hard and it will take effort, organization and commitment.  The quality of the exercise you do is more important than the quantity and no matter how careful you are, the chances are that at some point you will suffer a body building injury.

If you injure yourself, you need to give your body time to heal.  Exercising when you are injured will compound the problem and the stress you are putting your body under may do further damage.  Forget about training for the moment.  Fill your time with something else.  Distract yourself.  You do not want to obsess about getting back to the gym.  You must wait until your body has time to heal properly.

If you spend all your time thinking about getting back to your body building routine, then you’re not really relaxing.  When you get back in there, your training will be less effective because you have been stressing about not working out.  What you will do is to take the first sign that you’re feeling better as a green light to start training again and it is likely that this will be too early and you will have a set back.  Be patient!  As keen as you are to get back to it, you must wait until your body is fully ready, otherwise you may do more damage to yourself.  At the same time, any workouts that you are doing will be less effective.

If you have to do something physical, keep it low key.  Consider the nature of your body building injury.  Swimming is often a great choice of alternative exercise because the water supports your body ensuring that there is no stress on your muscles.  You could also consider Yoga or any other gentle stretching system.  Or perhaps there are lots of jobs around the home that you have been putting off.  If you undertake a little light gardening or decorating it will distract your mind and it will please your partner.  It doesn’t really matter what you do, so long as you can distract yourself from working out and give your body the recovery time it needs.

Bodybuilding and Alcohol

The Effects of Alcohol on Building Muscle Mass

You’ve been out for a few drinks with the lads and it’s come to their notice that you’ve been putting on a few pounds.  You’re developing a gut and it looks like you’ve eaten all the pies.  You decide that today is when you’re going to start building muscle mass and losing fat.  But, does bodybuilding and alcohol go together?  Will you still be able to enjoy a drink or two?

There’s a good reason why today may not be a good day to start.  Alcohol and body building do not mix.  That doesn’t mean to say that you have to give up drinking completely.  It just means that you need to regulate your drinking and plan your weightlifting exercise training sessions at times when you will not have alcohol in your system.  If you are going to drink, you should do it in moderation and not straight after a muscle mass workout session.

Alcohol has a specific effect on muscles.  It doesn’t reduce them but it prevents the muscles from getting the necessary support from the body which help them to recover from small tears and pulls.  The blood system carries oxygen and other natural resources to the muscles to fix injuries.  If the blood contains alcohol (which is a toxin) this system becomes less efficient.  Oxygen carriage is impeded so that you take longer to recover and your training, therefore, becomes less effective.  If you are returning to weight training without having totally recovered, you are more likely to injure yourself.

These small tears often occur without your even noticing.  The body, given the right conditions, is constantly repairing itself.  Alcohol in the system upsets the balance and will slow down the recovery process.  If you are going to have a drink, plan it just as you would plan your exercise regime.  For example, if you have a block of three days off in a row, day 2 is the best time to go for a drink or two so that you do not mix bodybuilding and alcohol.

Take a Break from Your Muscle Mass Workout Programme

For many bodybuilders, getting into the gym and working up a sweat can be the highlight of the week. Your time in the gym gives you time to clear your mind, a time to re-focus on the important things, an opportunity to forget about work and all it entails.   However, you do need to take a break from your muscle mass workout programme every so often.

Your weightlifting exercises are doing your body good; you’re using up fat, you’re building up muscle mass and you’re making your body into a more efficient working machine.  To be effective, however, you must consider pacing yourself properly.  It’s easy to overdo it, and if you don’t take proper breaks and rest periods, your exercise workout will be inefficient and you will not be building muscle mass as quickly as you would like. 

The benefits of regular exercise are obvious.  You feel better, you look better, your body works more efficiently and you live longer, but it is important to make sure that your exercise regime includes time to have a break and relax.  Working flat out can be very detrimental to your health, especially at the outset of a training programme.  You can ‘burn yourself out’, both physically and mentally, so be prepared to be aware of how your body feels and make sure that you have regular relaxation breaks to allow your body to recover.  Overdoing exercise can do you more harm than not exercising at all. 

If you make the mistake of letting your exercise take over your life, you are missing out on all the other things that you need to be happy and healthy.  It’s like having a balanced diet.  We all get a lot of pleasure out of eating fatty foods, but you can’t live off them for a long time without them having an adverse effect. 

When the body is relaxed and happy it releases chemicals which help to maintain a good mental balance.  Without this mental wellbeing, an exercise regime will do you no good.  If you feel mentally unsettled, frustrated or angry, you won’t feel the benefit.  It’s to do with thinking of the body and mind as a whole.  They both need to be working efficiently for you to feel good and to enjoy life.