Before you directly hope into working out or rather a category of workout, you first need to decide your body goals. By goals I mean you need to decide your purpose of joining the gym. It’s the body you want to have, your category of lifting. If you want to be a power-lifter that’s one category, the model body is another category, and competition fitness is another. If you are joining gym just to lose weight or to increase your fitness levels, it’s a category too!
Once you have done that, there are a few things you need to have before you take off to the gym. If you are ready with everything, you could directly go to the gym, but don’t start lifting yet. You first need to open your body on Day 1 – At the Gym. Most people in rush to get the body goals to have a wrong approach right from the start.
The Model Body
Most of the people who join the gym fit into one very dominant and overrated category. The Model Body. Lean, ripped muscle with a lot of cuts and defining features with rocky abs. Even though there’s a lot of muscle size and shape, this type of muscle is mostly cosmetic. That means even though the physique seems to have a lot of strength, there isn’t.
Of course, your strength and fitness level are going to be more than an ordinary 9-to-5 guy or a beginner at the gym, but that won’t be much. Most of the muscle here is meant to look good. There’s a lot of muscle mass, but lesser muscle density. The fat percentage is about 8-14 percentage in this category. Overall, someone with smaller muscle size but higher muscle density is going to have much more strength than you, but you would look hotter.
There are supplements to increase the blood flow into your muscles. The increased ‘water’ density make your muscle look much bigger, firmer and well-defined. In reality, your muscle size actually didn’t grow much it just got puffed and spongy. We’ll get into detail when we talk about supplements.
The Power Lifter
This is the second most dominant category. A power-lifter as the name suggests has much higher power at lifting capacity than any other body type. The muscle size will not increase greatly until a few years. However, muscle density is going to be really high. Your body won’t look so big for quite a few years but your weighing scale number would.
A powerlifter does not focus on the appearance or size of the muscle but the density instead. A normal lifter focuses on slow and steady movements and perfect posture. A power lifter’s workout is more jerky. It intends to make the body tougher and inclines the muscle more towards strength than shape.
A key thing about a power lifter’s workout is that they intend to surprise their bodies more. While most builders have a fixed routine, weight, set and reps, a powerlifter reshuffles everything every week. Though an ideal fat percentage for this type of body is about 12-15%, most powerlifters have between 20-24% of fat. Fat does make the body sloppy but also makes less prone to joint or tissue damage.
Stamina Builder – Athletes
Athletes need more stamina and lean muscle. Lean muscle is similar to what power-lifters make. Muscles with high density, but only the fat percentage goes way low. The ideal athletic fat is about 6-8%. Most athletes that we see in sprint races are in this range.
The workout of a stamina builder is quite like the power-lifters. Only that there’s a lot more cardio and burn activity involved. A few miles of running and swimming along with a very strict protein diet is what a stamina builder follows.
The Casual Lifter
If you are in the gym with thought to reduce or gain some weight or tone your body, you will fall in this category. The casual lifters don’t have a very strict diet like every other category does. It is more of a ‘let’s bring a change in life’ type of thing compared to other categories. There is a little bit of diet, but it mostly focuses on the calorie count.
Most of the lifters in this category try to get into one of the above categories but that’s not possible without a diet and routine. So, if you are from this category and want to move up the ladder you need to be dedicated. Fixed routines won’t help either, you need to challenge your muscles with something new every day or at least on a monthly basis.
The ones who stay here are mostly have been up the ladder or just need their bodies toned. Actresses, actors, models that don’t do shirtless scenes, or aren’t featured on an action movie poster fall here. 6 – 10 months of dedication or a year and a half of grinding is all it will take to become the champ here.
Okay, Bros and Broettes, remember it’s always 80% diet and 20% workout. Enjoy a fit and healthy life and follow Cannot Cardio for more fitness posts! And Remember to Stay Awesome!
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