Tyler English - Mens Health Natural Bodybuilding Bible: A Complete 24-Week Program For Sculpting Muscles That Show

R EMEMBER THE FIRST time you stood in front of the bathroom mirror and made a muscle? You were probably 9 or 10, wondering if you would ever get as big as your older brother or cousin. Your biceps looked pretty puny at the time. But you knew they had potentialyou had potentialto get bigger and stronger.

So you started doing pushups and curling your brothers dumbbells. Maybe you hung a poster of Arnold Schwarzenegger or Lou Ferrigno in your garage for motivation. You probably turned a lined notebook into a workout log and started recording repetitions and sets and, go ahead admit it, the size of your arms and chest measured with a tape. (We all did that.) And through all this effort you learned a grand lesson: that hard work and dedication to a goal paid off in spades. And the payoff didnt just come in the form of bigger biceps.

Some people believe bodybuilding is for the insecure or narcissistic, but thats a narrow view.

Anyone who has tried to build muscle and strength knows this. The sport of bodybuilding brings with it a rewarding experience that can provide the bodybuilder with a vast array of benefits beyond the sense of accomplishment that comes from winning the recognition of peers through competition. Natural bodybuilding delivers incredible health benefits regardless of whether you decide to compete against others or just challenge yourself.

I encourage you to try competition. Competing in a bodybuilding event takes a serious commitment. When done correctly, it can have a profound life-altering effect. It has in my life, as youll learn in the first chapter. Ive had the pleasure of meeting some amazing people, many of whom I now call dear friends, who define the true essence of the sport of natural bodybuilding and make it such an awesome and inspiring lifestyle.

From my experience and from the experience of many others, here are some of the ways bodybuilding can benefit you that go far beyond impressing that 9-year-old kid looking back at you in the mirror:

Youve heard the expression Give it 110 percent. When a person makes the decision to compete in a bodybuilding competition, he or she is doing just that. There are no shortcuts, no quick fixes. When you make the decision to compete in bodybuilding, you are flipping on a switch inside your body that signals its time to get serious. It fosters a mental clarity and focus of purpose that will flood into all other aspects of your life.

One of the first things I tell a prospective physique competitorman or woman, figure competitor or bodybuilderis that he or she needs to be 100 percent ready to make the mental connection and to do what it takes to compete. Its a decision that will help shape every aspect of your life and determine the body and health benefits you receive.

The human body was meant to be active every day. It was designed for work. Building lean muscle, burning body fat, and pushing your body to the limitin the gym and outside of itare what make the physical aspect of bodybuilding so unique.

We are not only training to train, or training to lose body fat, or training to look better. No, we are training to bring our bodies to a point at which they rival the ancient Greece sculpturesthe images of the Greek gods, the embodiments of perfection.

We may want the ultimate lean, conditioned, and muscular bodybut its the physical effort that will get us there.

Bodybuilding is about the physical body, the physical mind, and the physical spiritthe improvement of each can have its own benefit for the bodybuilder.

Why do diets fail?

Its not the diet or the food that fails. Nine times out of 10 its the person who gives up. The person simply lacks the discipline and commitment to see it through to the end. Its not that it is always the individuals faulthe or she might have been set up for failure from the beginning by the wrong plan or family life situation, time restraints, and the list goes on. This is not a criticism of the weakness of people who fall off their fitness and diet plans; its just a fact of human nature. The only way to overcome it is through this X factor: discipline and commitment.

The bodybuilder must make a commitment to discipline. There is no other way. The ability to make an amazing commitment may be the reason that many bodybuilders are stereotyped as type A personalities. A successful bodybuilder will always have discipline and will always understand the true meaning of commitment.

Much of the world is facing a frightening epidemic of obesity and the diseases triggered by sedentary lifestyles. For most of these people the goal is simply to improve their health. For a bodybuilder, the goal is optimization.

The human body is a work of art that when given the correct guidance can become an amazing real-life sculpture. Bodybuilding provides the physical element like no other sport out there. You are judged on your ability to present a physique that you have sculpted for others to see and ultimately reward.

Nothing else offers the same blank canvas on which to create that your body can provide. Your muscles are there, ready to be shaped and fine-tuned into the exact form you wish to achieve. Just think of the sense of accomplishment that youll feel when you present a physique that you have brought to its ultimate potential.

Aesthetics are what make up a well-balanced bodybuilder. Bodybuilders such as Frank Zaneof the sports golden erabrought to the stage a very aesthetically pleasing physique at only 170 pounds. A bodybuilders ability to present a symmetrical, conditioned, muscular physique will make him aesthetically pleasing to the human eyeespecially when shirtless. This is something people drawn to bodybuilding training want to achieve even if they have no intention of ever competing. They appreciate the confidence that developing a strong and fit body of symmetrical muscle gives them when wearing a bathing suit at the beach or a business suit in the boardroom.

They say that 80 percent of weight-loss success comes from nutrition. In bodybuilding, nutrition is closer to 90 percent of the game of sculpting the best body possible. Most weight-loss attempts fail. In bodybuilding you cannot fail your diet and expect to achieve your goal. The food you consume impacts how your body responds to training. The proper nutritional plan is what will separate you from those who move through the process with no structure. Imagine what your physique would look like if you were to commit to a strict diet for a minimum of 12 weeks or even a maximum of 24 weeks. Your physique would reach a level youve never seen before. Guaranteed. Thats what this book will help you to do.

We humans thrive on competition. Developing a physique to showcase is a competition in its own righteven before you step onstage wearing posing trunks. Bodybuilding brings out a new level of competitive spirit. For some, its about finding a way to reenergize their lives with the kind of competition they first experienced as high school athletes. For others, its about creating a competition within themselves to test self-discipline and measure self-improvement. No matter the level of competition, bodybuilding brings out the best of the competitor in each of us. And that sense of drive and purpose often carries over to other aspects of lifebusiness, relationships, and charitable causes.