Bodybuilding in College: It Can Be Done!

Transitioning from high school to college is difficult for most people, but bodybuilders may find that being away from their home gym and kitchen is extra tough. The first week or so may be a little intimidating, but bodybuilders can stay successful in college with high levels of dedication and motivation. When you enter college, set your goals for the year and try to motivate yourself to stick to your workout and diet plans.

College meal plans vary, but nothing about college food is good for a bodybuilder. Many colleges offer plans that include three meals a day at most, but your diet will probably call for more meals each day of smaller amounts of food. Don't load up at the cafeteria if that's not what you are used to doing! Instead, invest in a small refrigerator for your dorm room. Set aside some extra money each week for food, and schedule your classes so that you have enough time to eat. Most professors don't mind if you carry a snack to class, so if you must take a class that's during your normal mealtime, have some energy bars or protein shakes on hand as a back up plan. When you do eat in the cafeteria, make healthy meal choices. It's ok to splurge on one or two rewards, such as pizza or ice cream every week, but in general, stick to the foods you would normally eat at home-eggs, grilled chicken, bran cereals, salads, cottage cheese, and the like-even if there's a buffet of other things available.

One of the first things you should do when you get to college is explore the gym and weight facilities. Note the hours of operation-most schools are aware that students have busy schedules, so your gyms will probably open early in the morning and still be open late at night, but get a copy of the schedule so you never have to question the times. If the gym is too small or inconvenient for you schedule-wise, check out the gyms in town to see if any would better suit your needs. Students even get discount memberships at some places.

Lastly, be conscious of your other habits. Continue to get enough sleep even with your new workload, and be aware that activities such as smoking will only have an adverse effect on your health. A big part of college for many students is drinking, and you will probably be faced with this as well. If you are just bodybuilding for the sake of looking and feeling good, a few beers every week won't hurt you as long as you are responsible, but drinking is out of the question for competitive bodybuilders. Not only will it pack on the fat, but drinking will also cause you to lower your levels of testosterone and become dehydrated. Volunteer to be the designated driver instead, and you will find that it is easy to fit in while still maintaining your healthy lifestyle.

Tom Ambrozewicz is one of the pioneers in using breakthrough audio technology on his web sites. You can read, you can listen to professional narrator reading to you or having MP3 files download and train in gym while you listen. You can check all bodybuilding tips at Ask-How.info now

Bodybuilding on the Go: Tips for Travelers

Face it-not everyone has the opportunity to devote 100% of his or her life to bodybuilding. Most people also have a career and family in their lives, which leads to lots of travel between business trips and family vacations. Even if you are in that small percentage of people who can be a full-time bodybuilder, you may want to travel for competition reasons. It's hard to stick to your diet and train during travel, but with a little extra work, you can continue to stay toned even if you travel of a regular basis.

Before you leave, hit the gym. Chances are that wherever you are staying, they do not have a weight room, or they will have limited equipment and irregular operating hours. Cardiovascular exercise is easy to do in most travel situations, but make sure you do an intense weight training session the day before or day that you leave. That way, some of your vacation time will be over your normal resting days anyway. When you get to your destination, check out the gym availability at your hotel.

Eating right during travel is probably going to be your biggest concern. If you're on vacation, its OK to splurge a little, but try to avoid eating excessive junk food and stick to your diet plan as much as possible. When going on long flights, remember that the little package of pretzels or peanuts they give you on the airplane is probably not going to be enough to hold you over until you land, especially since you should be used to eating small meals every few hours. Eat a slightly larger meal than normal right before you leave, and take some snacks with you. Good carry-ons include granola bars, dried fruit, and protein bars or shakes. Also bring your own water-you're likely to get one small glass of juice or water on the plane, but after that, you'll have to pay for whatever you need. Once you arrive, plan enough time to eat another slightly larger meal if necessary.

While on vacation, be smart. Scope out the nearest grocery market and stock up on healthy food options, especially if your hotel room has a microwave and refrigerator. When you go out to eat, remember to do everything in moderation. Cheating a little is fine, but try to stick to baked foods instead of fried foods. You're a bodybuilder, so you know what foods are good for you-stick to the plan and counteract any poor eating habits with extra cardiovascular workouts, such as running in the mornings before you begin your day's activities. By doing this, you can travel without sacrificing the months of hard work you've put in at the gym.

Tom Ambrozewicz is one of the pioneers in using breakthrough audio technology on his web sites. You can read, you can listen to professional narrator reading to you or having MP3 files download and train in gym while you listen. You can check all bodybuilding tips at Ask-How.info now.

Bodybuilding Periodization: Bodybuilding Workouts without Bodybuilding Pain

Periodization is a very popular word in the bodybuilding and powerlifting worlds. It seems that every day we see an article promising us great gains through the use of this or that periodization scheme. We have old school linear periodization. We have new school Russian waved periodization, for example, by Boris Sheiko or Pavel Tsatsouline. We have Westside Barbell?s conjugate periodization. Well, get ready, because now we have yet another form of periodization: Pain Periodization.

What is Pain Periodization? Is it some new hardcore bodybuilding method? Is it the latest fitness fad? Is it some leftover practice of the Marquis de Sade? Is it a new reality game show? That would be three nos. It is simply a common sense way to schedule productive bodybuilding exercises that might otherwise be discarded. Read on and I?ll explain, but first let me illustrate the problem we are trying to overcome.

We all know that there are exercises that we both love and hate. For example, skullcrushers are one of the best triceps moves for getting those huge guns. Unfortunately, some of us also get nasty elbow pain after a few weeks of skullcrushers. It?s the same with presses behind the neck. Some of us swear by them for their ability to build cannonball delts. Some of us swear at them for their ability to produce rotator cuff pain. We all love the bench press, but not all of us can handle the shoulder strain the bench press can produce. Luckily, there is an answer. It?s called Pain Periodization. Let?s break it down.

Pain Periodization is a method of planning our workouts so that we can use our favorite exercises without letting the pain get out of hand. We use the exercise for a certain preplanned period, and then move on to something else. As James Brown would say, we ?hit it and quit it.? Let?s look at some examples.

For shoulder size, we might like the behind neck press. But after four or five weeks, the rotator cuff is so sore that it takes a month to heal. We have forsaken the behind neck press altogether and instead used machine shoulder presses. We?d like to do behind neck presses, but we can?t afford the pain and possible down time. By using Pain Periodization, we can have our cake and eat it too. We can start using our favorite shoulder exercise again and still retain shoulder health.

Here is an example 8-week workout plan using Pain Periodization.

? Weeks 1-2 Behind Neck Press

? Weeks 3-4 Machine Press

? Weeks 5-6 Behind Neck Press

? Week 7 Machine Press

? Week 8 Prehab/Rehab

In the above example, we used the behind neck press for 2 weeks only, then went to the machine press which we find easier on the rotator cuff. We don?t just keep using the behind neck press until our shoulder health is wrecked. In effect, we ?hit it and quit it.? In the second 4-week period, again we use the behind neck press for 2 weeks followed by the machine press. Also shown is an optional week of rehab or ?prehab? during which time we drop all heavy overhead pressing and focus on rotator cuff work and stretching. This one-week rehab phase can work wonders for our shoulder health.

Let?s look at another example using the bench press. We all want that big bench press, but we don?t want a blown rotator cuff. We can use Pain Periodization to allow us to work the bench press without wrecking our delts. Like this:

? Weeks 1-3 Bench Press

? Week 4 Machine Bench

? Weeks 4-6 Bench Press

? Week 7 Machine Bench

? Week 8 Rehab/Prehab

Are we getting the picture here? In both of these examples, the ?painful? exercise was alternated with an exercise that we find to be easier on the body. The examples were slightly different, but the main idea is the same. The pain producing exercises were used only for a short period, and then we switched exercises before the pain had a chance to accumulate. In essence, we ?hit it and quit it.? Try Pain Periodization. It may be just what you need to resurrect some of those forsaken exercises.

Randy Williams is an online personal trainer with 24 years of weightlifting experience. Please visit my blog at http://massactionheroes.com/ and sign up for my free newsletter and receive a 2-part free report on bread and butter bodybuilding set methods. Inquire about online personal training by emailing me at Randy@massactionheroes.com

Building A Home Gym

Due to your busy daily schedule, the time you once devoted to visit the gym has become so limited that actually now prevents you from enjoying a "real" hour of workout without thinking of the million things you have to take care of. Thus, some of your friends decided to create a home gym in an effort to balance work and family responsibilities and manage to stay fit at the same time. But before screaming "That's it!" and bursting out the door to shop till you literally drop, since you have not been using your muscles for a while now, you should better consider the following:

- Goals: The first thing you need to do is to determine your fitness goals. Before selecting which equipment will better serve your particular case it is necessary for you to conclude on what do you want to get out from your home exercising facility. Do you wish to maintain your fitness level or increase it? Do you want to burn more calories and add muscle tone or boost your energy? Moreover, upon deciding on your actual fitness goals you have to estimate which are your objectives; which muscle groups you want to train first.

- Budget: The crucial cost related question comes second, because upon deciding on your fitness goals and objectives you have to determine how much money you have currently available for your house gym project. Keep in mind that a usual price range is between $ 300 and $ 1,000 per equipment and in case you are aiming to buy the best there is, you should at least double those prices.

- Area: Prior to any purchase, you have to decide how much space are you willing to allocate for your home gym. Does the whole basement seem a good idea, or do you have a spare room you use currently to put laundry which can fit your purposes perfectly? Decide on which area of your house is going to be hosting all the equipment you will later carry in and measure its exact dimensions.

- Fitness Machines: In order to meet the previously determined fitness goals and after deciding upon the available budget, you have to go shopping. A variety of fitness stores can supply you with the equipment you will need to train that set of muscles you want, but before accepting an offer try first to look around and check what you can discover. A store might be selling off, a department might have an extremely good deal on a couple of machines, or your neighbor might be interested in selling his treadmill. Check, ask and test the equipment you are considering of buying. After all, you are about to spend a small fortune.

- Expert's Opinion: Ask, listen and write down the opinion of people much more experienced than you. Also it is always better to purchase the equipment you will be using from a fitness specialty store. You are entitled a guarantee and you can choose from a greater variety of machines. Moreover, these types of specialty stores employ professional trainers most of the times, who know what to advice you and why.

- Knowledge: Research and learn. Try to improve your knowledge on safety issues and exercising risks. Read all those equipment directions before attempting to use them and follow them!

Jonathon Hardcastle writes articles on many topics including Fitness, Food, and Boating