Bodybuilding Sins That Cause Back Pain and Missed Workouts: Part 5

Welcome to article number five in our 5-part series "Bodybuilding Sins That Cause Back Pain and Missed Workouts". In this article we are going to cover some basic, yet powerful training principles that are often overlooked and are responsible for nearly all bodybuilding injuries?

If you missed any of the previous articles, you can view them using the links below.

Here's a breakdown of the articles to look for:

1. Article #1 - Choosing The WRONG Exercises
2. Article #2 - Training Variations for Pain Relief and Maximum Results
3. Article #3 - Targeted Stretching
4. Article #4 - Targeted Exercises
5. Article #5 - Rest, Recovery, and Injury Prevention

Article #5 - Rest, Recovery and Injury Prevention

Many of the injuries that bodybuilders suffer from could be easily prevented just by allowing the body enough time to rest?

While most bodybuilders dread hearing the word "rest", many fail to realize that there is far more to rest than just avoiding overtraining. When you perform a tough workout you not only stress that muscle or muscle group, you also place stress on the cardiovascular, neuromuscular and components of the immune system?

For example, many bodybuilders will train their chest 2-3 times a week and spend an hour or more performing dozens of exercises just for the pecs?

While this may sound ok to some, when you add in the stress of other workouts it can quickly add up to too much stress in one or more ways. I hear bodybuilders all the time say "I let my body rest by splitting up my workouts" and "I worked chest yesterday so today I'll train my back"? that's NOT rest!

When you train your back, your chest still gets worked, stressed and it also slows down your bodies ability to recover from stress and repair damage from previous workouts?

So don't kid yourself and think that you can train this way over the long term? it may take years or just a few weeks, but sooner or later your body will break down!

Let me give you a real life example from my experience?

I, like nearly every single bodybuilder out there, created muscle imbalance unknowingly by following the workouts recommended in all the books, magazines, etc?

I trained 4,5 and sometimes even 6 days a week and thought that I was resting enough by splitting my workouts? to make a long story short, after just a few years I had tendonitis in both triceps because I worked chest, tri's and shoulder too often, too intensely and didn't balance out my training?

I also had lower and middle back pain, knee problems and IT band tendonitis because my lower body workouts weren't balanced? I spent too much time doing heavy squatting, too often and neglected important muscles?

These injuries stayed with me for months, years and I still can have an occasional flare up if I don't stay consistent with a balanced training program. I was able to create all this damage by the age of 22? I am now 28 and will have to spend the rest of my life trying to prevent these old injuries from coming back and causing more pain and problems?

Don't do what I did! And if you already have, you better act fast and take a serious look at your training and your goals because if you don't, you will spend the rest of your life in pain and frustrated by all the injuries, big and small.

So here's my?

5-Step Formula for Quickly Eliminating and Preventing Aches, Pains and Injuries

Step 1. Rest and Recovery

The first thing you need to do is REST! And no, I don't mean take a day or two off? I mean no workouts for at least a week or more? you need to give your body a chance to reduce the inflammation before you can begin work on eliminating or correcting the cause of the problem. You may also want to use things like a heating pad, hot tub or massage to help reduce the inflammation and speed up the healing and recovery?

Step 2. Identify Muscle Imbalances

The next thing you need to do is find out which muscle imbalances have created your injury or are causing your pain and work towards correcting them? you can do this quickly and easily by performing physical assessments in which you are looking for strength and flexibility imbalances in all opposing muscle groups.

You can do these assessments yourself and they are covered in our Lose the Back Pain Video http://www.losethebackpain.com

Step 3. Increase Flexibility in Tight Muscles with Targeted Stretching

In order to correct a muscle imbalance, you need to increase the flexibility and range of motion in the muscles that are too tight and causing a problem.

As we discussed in the previous articles, you have got to know what muscles NEED to be stretched before you start stretching. General stretching may or may not help? it may even make things worse! You have got to target the right areas and the only way to ensure that you are, is to do assessments and find out.

Step 4. Strengthen Weak Muscles with Targeted Strength Exercises

The other major step in correcting muscle imbalances is to strength the weak muscles that are being overpowered by the strong and tight opposing muscle(s).

The same is also true for strengthening? you have to make sure that you choose the right exercises and the only way to know for sure is thru assessments? don't use guesswork when choosing exercises!

Step 5. Monitor and Modify Your Program

The key to long term pain relief and injury prevention is to consistently monitor your progress and adjust your program? for example, as you work on correcting and preventing muscle imbalances the strength and flexibility of your muscles will change and therefore, you must then re-assess and change your program and workouts accordingly.

You will typically see changes in your strength, flexibility and bio-mechanics in as little as 2-4 weeks so I recommend that you re-assess yourself at least every 4-6 weeks.

So there you have it? 5 simple steps that you can take right now to work on eliminating any pain or injuries you currently have AND make sure you never create any new ones to deal with in the future.

Following these steps will not only help you eliminate aches, pains and injuries and it will also allow you to train more intensely and productively to get you the results you want.

Hope you enjoyed and benefited from this article series and we look forward to hearing of your success.

Article courtesy of Jesse Cannone of http://www.losethebackpain.com. Find out exactly what's causing your back pain and injuries and the steps you need to take to quickly get rid of your pain and become injury free.

---

Beach Body Abs

With the return of warm weather in the spring, thoughts... Read More

Successful Body Building Routine

There are some major key parts to a successful body... Read More

Power Mass Training for Building Muscle Mass

Many people believe you need to train with a variety... Read More

Muscle On The Brain

"A six-week cycle's gonna cost ya $170, lady -- you... Read More

Increase Your Training Intensity - Training To Failure

You can only build muscle tissue if you can generate... Read More

Targeting Those Trouble Spots

Wouldn't it be great if you could get rid of... Read More

How to Weight Train for Maximum Muscle Gain

Weight training involves the use of equipment that enables variable... Read More

Know Your Muscles - The Shoulders And Arms

Becoming familiar with the muscles that make up your body... Read More

Weight Lifting 101

WHY WEIGHT LIFTING?What's the one thing that you can do... Read More

Burning Fat

The more muscle a person has, the greater their metabolism... Read More

Debunking the Top Ab Myths

Ab training has been done to death but it's time... Read More

Body Part Isolation vs. Complex Movements in Strength Training - Build Real Muscle Instead of Fake!

Working as a fitness professional, there is one type of... Read More

Four Powerful Tricks for Successful Lucid Dreaming

By definition, Lucid Dreaming means "conscious awareness during the dream... Read More

Key Elements for a Bigger Bench Press

Proper positioning on a weight bench to maximize leverageKeep the... Read More

Exercise The Right Way - The Hammer Curl

Other articles in this series looked at a number of... Read More

Know Your Muscles - The Chest And Upper Back

Becoming familiar with the muscles that make up your body... Read More

Complete Pec Training Tips

Put these pec techniques to use and develop that full,... Read More

How to Gain Weight and Build More Muscle!

For many thin guys around the world, gaining weight without... Read More

Dumbbell Exercises That Suit Beginners

The aim for beginners to weight training must be to... Read More

Exercise The Right Way - The Back Squat

Other articles in this series looked at a number of... Read More

Most Amazing (and Ridiculously Simple) Trick For Stiff-Legged Deadlifts You Will Ever Read In Your L

The stiff-legged deadlift is one of the best exercises you... Read More

How to Gain Weight and Build More Muscle Mass

In the health, fitness, and nutrition world, achieving optimal or... Read More

Bodybuilding Benefits - The Price for Confidence!

Success came to me at an early age. However, it... Read More

Gaining Muscle Mass

This article will discuss how to gain weight naturally muscle... Read More

How Stretching Can Explode Your Muscle Growth

When you think about gaining muscle, stretching is probably not... Read More

The Default Rep Range

I had an hour long conversation with Pavel Tsatsouline on... Read More

10 Tips: How to Get in Shape without Sweating

Tip #1: The *Brazilian move*.The good thing about this move... Read More

What Causes Muscle Growth?

In order for muscles to grow, three things are required:... Read More

Bodybuilding Sins That Cause Back Pain and Missed Workouts: Part 3

Welcome to article number 2 in our series "Bodybuilding Sins... Read More

The Importance Of Sets In Your Muscle Building Program

In an earlier article we looked at how repetitions contribute... Read More

Make Sure To Rest For Muscle Growth

One of the best pieces of exercise advice is to... Read More

How To Gain Weight

Until I started following a routine to eat, my gains... Read More

Focus on Both Consistency and Variability in Your Workouts for the Best Results

In one of my recent articles, I spoke about the... Read More