There are a number of articles and books for the experienced bodybuilder, but few are written for children, teens and other beginners. This paper is dedicated to them and focused on risks, advantages and disadvantages of this sport.

The first thing we mention are steroids. They are the real thing for a bodybuilder who is willing to sacrifice their body and health to be big and muscled. And you can be the biggest and strongest in your school, but at what cost? One of the bad things will happen is a reduction of testicles. They also cause many problems with internal organs, and long and irregular use leads to very serious consequences and in some cases death. Our advice is that you never use steroids. Stay away from them! To those stubborn I recommend to read on the Internet, or ask more experienced bodybuilders and then judge for yourself.

One of the concerns about lifting weights is that your growth gets reduced (slow or stop). I must say that none of the extensive studies have proved that lifting weights improves or slows the growth. But if during the training you do too many things too quickly – physical problems will appear, regardless of age.

The most important things when working with children are:
Monitoring,
Techniques of exercise,
Lightweight, low weight and
A large number of repetitions (12, 15 or even 20).

Teenagers can gradually increase the weight to 10 repeats in the series.

We believe that you will not develop any muscles if you are not motivated in the right way. Children who are forced by parents or ambitious coaches should not train because they are often stale, and their failures leads to major disappointments.

Serious, young athletes with realistic goals, parents who support them, and quality coaches are the future of this sport.

Focus on the weights during training. Lately we are seeing a number of different devices that look very attractive. Council is that children use weights because they allow better movement and more efficient execution of exercises.

What kind of training program to take and where to start?

It all depends on your age and current condition.

Teens:

If you are overweight begin with a cardio exercises and light weights. Walk 5-10 minutes, play sports as much as possible. Weight of weights should be enough for about 15 repetitions. Break between series is around one minute and do 2-3 sets of exercises and do 3 times a week.

As a normally developed teenager you need a little more intense training. As a beginner you do 3 times a week, 10 repetitions per series, 4 sets of exercises. Work 3-4 exercises per muscle group. When you become more experienced you can do separate exercises for each muscle group.

Here’s an example:

Monday: Legs
Tuesday: Chest and back
Wednesday: Arm and shoulder
Thursday: Legs
Friday: Chest and back
Saturday: Arm and shoulder
Sunday: Home

This program includes break between certain groups of muscles which is very important. We do not recommend training the same muscle groups at intervals of less than 48 hours.

When it comes to food, maintain a ratio of protein and carbohydrates, about 50:50 and do not starve yourself. It does not help, on the contrary achieves the opposite effect. In the absence of energy, a body converts all ingested food into body fat to make sure body can stay longer without new food.

Stick to small weights with high repeats. Do basic exercises, one to two per group of muscles, use the full series. (It may seem too inert and slow, but this way of training prepares you for further efforts to introduce the techniques and exercises, and of course, reduces the possibility of injury to a minimum).

One very important thing that many people neglect to learn is to set goals. You will probably not end up like Arnold Schwarzenegger, you must understand that before training. Set your goals lower, and when realized, set the new goals. This way you quickly come to a result and become satisfied with it.

Visible results come after about 6 weeks, and the increase of power is felt after 3-4 weeks, depending on person to person.

Now a word or two about the general increase in muscle.

Many people ask “How it all work?”, “Why lifting heavy weights causes muscle growth?” And the like.

Lifting weights actually create micro-cracks in muscle fibbers and actually destroys muscles. When the body restores gap creates more tissue than it was before. It adapts to stress that you have introduced. Therefore, the process of renewal and regeneration of muscles is very important. It depends on how you rest and sleep, as well as from dietary habits.

Important principles when choosing or starting fitness training program

During my years as a personal trainer in my gym, my team and I encounter quite a few highly motivated and determined training’s beginners. These new training were expecting that now with new program it will give them the magic that will change their bodies.

I found myself explaining many trainees that there is no secret training programs, you just need to keep several important principles in the training program, it is more important how you do the exercise, than what exercise to do.

Appropriate training program

Note that you are not professional athletes, the training program should be adapt to you and not the opposite. Before you begin the program set yourself realistic expectations of how many times a week are you willing to devote to training and how long each time.

Your answer must match not only for tomorrow or the next day or another month or two, but another year or 10 years, lifetime. The key word is perseverance, so you must found the right conditions that would cause you to persist in physical activity for a lifetime.

Listen to your body and adjust the initial training program to your starting level. I met quite a few highly motivated trainees that had to stop training all together after few months of training due to injuries resulting from overdoing the workout.

Good training program must include a gradual raising in the effort level

No matter what level of fitness you are, to feel the change you need to make a change, if you or your goal is to lose weight and you start to plan going five miles at a steady pace each day, at the beginning of the program you will see a change, but after month or two you would not understand why you continue to walk five miles a day and not see any change.

You always need to do more than what you have done to date in order to see the changes. For example: change of walking time, changing pace, change weight in strength training, change number of sets you are doing and more. You need to make a change all the time. The change should be gradual so that it is not too fast or you might get hurt, and not too slow or you will not see results.

Monitor and track your training program

Tracking and managing your workout allows you to monitor your training program and ensure that the changes you make will always be greater. If you will not write how many miles you walked, what was the walking pace or rate of heartbeat or how many exercise sets and in how much weight you did, you will not be able to draw any conclusion regarding the continuation of training and it’s effectiveness.

Rest in exercise program

Remember the body needs rest to build itself. Exercise is a way to create stress on our bodies. Stress is a stimulus that the body needs to change itself, but our bodies need the rest to build itself and improve its current situation. If you do not rest, you will increase the risk of injury increases.

How you perform the exercises it’s what counts not the program!!