Whether for beginners or professional bodybuilders, the eight elements of bodybuilding training are the key elements to determine whether the training is effective and crucial to success or failure. We should have a clear understanding and pay enough attention to it.

The eight elements refer to 1, Part 2, action 3, number of groups 4, times 5, weight 6, group interval 7, speed 8 and frequency. The following is a brief description.

1. Location

It refers to the muscle part to be trained in an exercise. For beginners, the concept of position is rough and general. Such as pectoralis, dorsalis, biceps, etc. For professional athletes, the concept of position (meaning) should be more detailed and accurate. For example, the upper edge, lower edge, middle fasciculus, outer edge, inner edge, lower outer corner and lower inner corner of the pectoralis major muscle.

2. Action

It refers to the use of several exercises when training a certain muscle group. For beginners, it is enough to do 1-2 exercises for each part at a time. For athletes, sometimes there are as many as 6-8 training actions in a certain part.

3. Number of groups

In bodybuilding training, the number of groups of each action varies from 1 or 2 groups to 7 or 8 groups, or even more than a dozen groups. It depends on the training stage, purpose and level. Generally speaking, beginners do 1-4 groups for each action, and middle and high level athletes and bodybuilders do 4-6 groups / action.

4. Times

It refers to the number of repetitions that a group of exercises can complete when it is exhausted. (also called effective times) generally, less than 4 times is a small number of times, which is mainly used to improve strength. 5-15 times are medium times, which can be used to increase muscle volume and circumference. More than 16 times are multiple times, which are mostly used to improve muscle separation, fineness and fat reduction.

5. Weight

It refers to the weight used in training (according to different movements, it is usually different from the actual resistance load on the muscle). If the maximum weight (the weight that can be lifted once with full strength) is taken as the reference, more than 85% of the maximum weight is the large weight; 65%-80% is medium weight; Weight below 65% is small weight. Training with medium and large weights can increase strength and muscle circumference. Training with medium and small weights can improve the clarity, separation and fineness of muscles and reduce some fat.

6. Group interval

This is a less valued but very important element. It refers to the rest time between the previous group and the next group of exercises. This time is actually an indefinite amount, not 30 seconds or 1 minute. In actual training, it should depend on your age, the size of the muscle group you are training and your physical condition at that time. It is usually referred to by heart rate. When the heart rate recovers to 50-60% of the limit heart rate (220- my age), the next group of training can be started. (of course, when the body is normal) usually, the short interval is about 20-40 seconds, the medium interval is about 1 minute, and the longer interval is more than 1.5 minutes.

7. Speed

It refers to the speed of practicing movements (including the whole process of taking off and landing). Generally, the explosive speed of each action below 1 second is fast, about 1-2 seconds is medium, and more than 3 seconds is slow. Bodybuilding training generally adopts uniform, slow and medium speed. It is wrong to make use of all kinds of pendulum movements of inertia and free fall movements when doing exercises.

8. Frequency

Practice frequency is the number of times a week. According to different training levels, the frequency of practice is different. Generally, beginners can practice 3 times a week, middle-level practitioners can practice 3-4 times a week, and high-level athletes can practice every day or even 2 times a day in the season. But for a certain muscle group, the training frequency should not be too frequent, and the higher the level, the less the weekly training times. Because the experiment shows that after a strenuous large amount of exercise training, the body function will be at a declining level in 2-3 days, return to the original level in 3-5 days, and over recovery will occur in 5-8 days! So many high-level elite athletes use the method of training each muscle group only once a week for routine training.