An important step is deciding just which of your muscles you want to train. All you may want is a little extra power in the arms or legs, a little less fat on the stomach or a bit more width on the shoulders. Or you may want to loose that stomach altogether, or tone up to be fit and strong. Which ever important area(s) you choose to develop the most, you must ensure they receive the most exercise attention in order to grow quickly - so it becomes important to identify these areas separately.
Sometimes you may need extra upper body strength to perform a chosen task or sport; so if this is the case, there is little point developing your lower body to any great degree. Likewise, if you need large legs for sprinting or other sport, then the upper body needs relatively little growth.
The more areas you can identify to train, the more time you will need when performing your workouts, and the more varied they will have to be. This also effects what time you allocate to each exercise and body part. As discussed in a later section, you must allocate time to each body part in order for it to grow. It is also important to separate your body parts into groups and train these groups individually, maybe over a period of days, to maximise your effort. For example, if you needed to develop the whole body you may place the arms, pecks and upper body into one group, the back and abdominals in a second group and the hips and legs into a third group. You could then devote a different day to each of your groups to concentrate your efforts in a particular area. Alternatively, you may wish to exercise the whole body in one long period, which may or may not be beneficial for you.
Finally, it is worth noting that to achieve the best overall performance when participating in your chosen sport or task, you will need to develop not just the muscles you think you will need, but also the muscles which help these muscles to perform. For example, if you wanted to lift heavier objects, you would need to build not just your biceps, triceps and deltoids, but also your back, pecks and neck muscles too. These secondary muscles help your arms pick up objects and without these the task will become much harder.
| Exercise: Why not white down all the areas you would like to train, noting the muscles around them, and then placing them into groups. I.e: upper body/lower body, arms/legs/back/front. Then you will know which areas to work on. |
