Duration More Important Than Weight: Bodybuilding Is Just Jogging With Ever Heavier Dumbbells
Above all, it is not jogging, unless you are moving non stop, at least for an hour.
In the world of muscle building, you jog slowly, and at first with the lightest of dumbbells.
Though the main rule is, not so light that you can jog with more, and never so heavy that the dumbbells will fore you to stop.
You can thin k of it as the Bodybuilding Engine, the point is not to stop, but also not lift too light.
This is great at first, because you can just go jogging outside, but eventually, at 15 pounds per hand or so, you have to go to a gym.
Gyms are tough, they are always hot, they are noisy and distracting.
But a total of 30 pounds, is too dangerous to be jogging with, so you have to start twisting and turning in a gym.
It is not necessarily much slower, but it more like dancing, jogging is over at that weight.
You must resist the urge to begin lifting heavy weights, because you are not yet ready to lift them for long enough to adapt.
Begin with dumbbells only, and start in the beginning of the rack with a mix, of 3 and 5 pound dumbbells.
Curl your biceps until you feel tired, then without rest, switch to lifting the same dumbbells above your head.
When when you feel you need rest, switch to lift in-front with palms down.
And when you get tired here, return to bicep curls, because as your biceps will now be ready for more.
Continue this cycle of switching to different muscle groups, and sometimes dropping to lighter dumbbells to get even more rest.
Lift for as long as you can, slowly moving your body, to the beat of music, which turns dumbbells into a pleasant full body exercise.
This is a broader range of standing dumbbell exercises, it is different from jogging, but it is just as powerful.
And unlike jogging that became dangerous for your spine, here you can keep on going.
At 25lb per hand, you will drop to slow Country Music, at about 95 beats per minute, but then you extend your stay.
I work out for 5 days a week, three hours per day, and I would consider 25 per hand to be my final weight.
It is important to understand, that lifting 25 pounds for a minute, doers not really do much, other than cut of your circulation.
You have to start with 5 pounds per hand, for an hour, and slowly make your way up, building up strength and endurance.
If you start with 25 pounds, you will only be able to lift for 30 seconds, not three hours.
And there is no path here to expand that 30 seconds to three hours, 25 pounds is just too much, to reliably keep adding seconds to.
In other words, people lifting 25 pounds for three hours, didn’t get there by starting with 25 pounds for 30 seconds.
They go there, by lifting 5 pounds, per hand, for one hour, then 7.5 pounds for two and later three hours.
And they kept going, incrementing by no more than 2.5 pounds, slowly reaching, 10, 12.5, 15, 17.5, 20, 22.5 and finally 25 pounds.
It may take several years, you may need 2.5 pound wrist weights, as often gyms increment dumbbells by 5lb, which is too much.
But you will see results weekly, or bi-weekly, when you allow your muscles slowly adapt to gently increasing weights.
They grow very fast, so fast in fact, that you become aware.
That they will probably atrophy, just as fast when you stop.
So you may eventually focus on an endurance based athletic routine, rather than just keep adding bigger and bigger muscles.
The diet that keeps you returning to the gym reliably, is just vegetable juice and trail mix – hiker food.
