Last, but definitely not the least, your nutrition. You are what you eat! Get enough protein. Get enough carbs, fats and other nutrients to support your body. The question is what is enough. If you are really serious about working out and is training hard then you need to consume about 1-2 gms of protein per pound of your body weight. Again, this is applicable only if you are training hard and lifting heavy. If you are looking to bulk up, then you need to eat a calorie surplus; meaning more carbs and fats. If you are trying to cut down, then eat at a calorie deficit. Try to make sure that your diet contains as much raw food as you can think of. Besides that, cook as much as you can and avoid processed/canned foods as much as possible. Have a cheat meal every week to keep yourself in the game and to not feel like you are punishing yourself.
Use a split system. If you have never trained with weights, or have taken a significant break from weights, I do not recommend training at maximum intensity right away. Training to failure during the first crucial work outs will result in tremendous muscle soreness and you may never return. Start slowly by doing a full-body work out consisting of three or four sets of lighter weights for every major muscle group. After the first couple weeks, you can increase your intensity and move onto a split system. An example of a three-day split might be:
JDB, great tip on cardio before weights. Having trained in a boxing gym for years, this is exactly how I would start each training session, even if I was going to focus on weights that day. Use to start off, 3-4 rounds on jump rope in the ring, alternating between fast high knees and then slowing it down. It was all continuous for about 10-12 minutes. Would then continue w basic calisthenics (mountain climbers, bw squats, burpees, etc.) for another 3-4 rounds. This was all done w boxing timer running in background. Would finish “warm-up” w some kind of pull-up/chin-up, dips, and hanging abdominal work. Then it was time for weights. This just overall improved my general conditioning/movement and never felt that my strength diminished when doing this. Actually, felt stronger due to increased blood flow.

Choose your favourite cardio exercises like spinning, outdoor biking, running, hill sprints, or swimming, whatever it is, hit it hard. Literally! Experts advise to perform HIIT, high-intensity interval training, to burn fat in a time-efficient manner. A 3-to-1 rest-to-work ratio is effective. It means you can, for example, go hard as you can on a hill sprint for 30 seconds, walk or jog back down the slope for 90 seconds, and repeat four times for an intense 10-minute training session.
Most skinny guys dramatically overestimate how much they're actually consuming. You're going to need hard numbers to make sure you stay on track. You don't need to go crazy and count every macronutrient as if you were dieting, but you do need to roughly measure portion sizes, track overall calories, and at least account for everything you do or don't eat.
Eat plenty of carbs. Although a high-protein diet is a must for bodybuilding, you should not eschew carbs altogether, as your body needs carbohydrates to build and process energy. Instead, make sure you are eating carbs wisely; a doughnut and a bowl of quinoa are not equals. When implementing carbs, aim for whole-grain, high-quality carbohydrates, including grains such as quinoa, brown rice, oats, and barley.[12]

You can’t know where you’re going without knowing where you are. So before you conduct any sort of diet overhaul, take a look at the number of calories you currently consume on a day-to-day basis. Apps like MyFitnessPal make this exceedingly easy to do. Your daily caloric intake might surprise you! And once you know how many calories you devour each day, figure out how many calories you ought to be consuming using the Mifflin St. Jeor equation.
Without further ado, here are some of the best 10 training tips you'll ever hear, aggregated by myself from my experience working closely with many practiced health and fitness experts. These tips come from long time bodybuilding coaches, knowledgeable conditioning experts, registered dietitians, physical therapists, experienced personal trainers, and elite multisport coaches, and are good bits of wisdom to keep in your back pocket no matter what your sport or goals.

If you're using a resistance band, keep in mind that one band might not cut it for your entire body. Different muscles have different strengths, so you may want to buy two different resistance bands in different thickness, which determines how difficult they'll be to use. In general, if you're able to complete 8 reps of an exercise using a band, you'll want to select another that provides a greater amount of resistance. 
Rather than hide the glaring weakness, he famously cut off the lower half of his pants and wore shorts to constantly remind himself of his weakness and redouble his efforts to bring them up. He trained calves more frequently, early in his workouts when he was fresh, and sometimes between sets for larger body parts, a strategy that helped him claim the world's biggest bodybuilding title.

Action: Starting in an upright position (without locking out your knees), contract your quadriceps muscles and slowly lower into a squat position. Once you reach the bottom movement (where your upper legs are just below parallel to the platform), press the sled back to the top without “locking out” and repeat the movement. Make sure to keep your abdominal muscles tight and your lower back planted firmly against the rear padding to avoid a back injury.
When you start resistance training, most of your initial increase in strength is due to a phenomenon called neural adaptation. This means that the nerves servicing the muscles change their behaviour. The nerves are thought to fire more frequently (prompting increased muscle contraction) and more motor units are recruited to perform the contraction (a motor unit is the nerve cell and its associated muscle fibres). This means you become stronger, but the muscles remain the same size – you’ve hit the plateau.
The bench press or dumbbell bench-press is performed while lying face up on a bench, by pushing a weight away from the chest. This is a compound exercise that also involves the triceps and the front deltoids, also recruits the upper and lower back muscles, and traps. The bench press is the king of all upper body exercises and is one of the most popular chest exercises in the world. It is the final exercise in 'The big 3'.

In the presence of good nutrition, a novel training stimulus forces the muscle fibers to rebuild themselves and grow stronger and thicker than before. But the impact of the stimulus begins to fade over time as the body adapts, so you have to continue increasing the overload in some way or you simply won't make any further adaptations. You can add more weight, do more reps, or decrease your rest intervals to continue making further gains.
The above routine is useful as discussed, and should be used for the first month, to allow the development of good form, rep performance and getting a feel for what exercise works what muscles. By the start of the second month, you should use a split routine, this will allow you to train harder and to use more exercises, and this type of routine enhances recovery significantly.
progressive overload principle – to continue to gain benefits, strength training activities need to be done to the point where it’s hard for you to do another repetition. The aim is to use an appropriate weight or resistant force that will challenge you, while maintaining good technique. Also, regular adjustments to the training variables, such as frequency, duration, exercises for each muscle group, number of exercises for each muscle group, sets and repetitions, help to make sure you progress and improve

Set small attainable goals. If you've never lifted weights before, trained at very high intensities or followed a strict diet plan, then going from where you are now to a female bodybuilder is a long road. It will be tough, but see that as a challenge rather than a disadvantage. Set both outcome-based goals such as adding half a pound of muscle a week or competing in a local show in six months. Aim for behavioral goals such as making it to the gym five times per week or sticking to your diet for an entire fortnight.

Note the flexibility here. If you're an experienced casual lifter starting an organized program, you may be able to kick off with 3 X 12 from the beginning. If you are new to weights and have some fitness issues, you should start with one set and progress slowly. Doing only 1 set of 9 exercises will not take too long, perhaps only 30 minutes with warmup included. Doing an extra 20 minutes or more of cardio before or after weights would be time well spent at this stage. Once you reach full stretch in the program, aerobic training may be better done before weights or at a separate session.

The focus when doing this exercise should be on activating the hamstrings. Your feet should be shoulder-width apart with your legs straight throughout the movement. This forces the brunt of the work to be done by the hamstrings. You are going to effectively hit the hamstrings, glutes and back with this exercise. The straight leg deadlift has helped build many ironclad physiques.

The third and final phase of the “25% Stronger” program helps you max out your strength levels by gradually decreasing the volume of your workouts while increasing the amount of weight you move. You’ll begin the last phase at the top end of the strength range (seven reps). Each week, you’ll perform fewer sets and reps - five of five, four of four and finally the last week in which you perform three sets of three - so your body is fresh for the final tests in Week 13.

For example, I had some nagging tendinitis in my brachioradialis (forearm muscle) and doing hammer curls was unbearable. So, I swapped those in for standing alternating dumbbell curls, preacher curls, and standing cambered bar reverse curls with light weight. For shoulders, I have a slight tear in my left shoulder and when it's aggravated, I avoid all pressing movements all together. Focus on side/front laterals and rear delt movements. As for knees, not allowing my knees to come out pass my toes on squats takes the pressure of the part of my knee that gets sore. Also, a few minutes on the Stairmaster Stepmill is a good way to get the knee joint warmed up and ready for work. 
It can be hard to know where to start when beginning strength training. There are countless exercises you can do, some of which work some muscles, but not others. There are safety concerns to beware of, a wide variety of sometimes confusing equipment to help you in your efforts, and so on. With some familiarity of the basics of getting started with strength training, actually doing so can become far less daunting, and you can begin to craft a routine that is targeted toward helping you achieve your personal goals.
Perform 2 sets of each exercise for 10-12 reps and rest 1 minute in between sets. Move up to 3 sets after 4 weeks. At 2 sets per exercise the routine lasts 45 minutes if you rest 1 minute in between sets. At 3 sets it lasts 60 minutes. Do cardio on the days off (20-30 minutes) and also do abs (4 sets of Leg Raises and swiss ball crunches for 15-40 reps).
Shave or wax all your body hair regularly. It's the part that's maybe the most awkward to talk about, but bodybuilders like to keep anything out of the way of those bulging muscles. That means scheduling regular body-waxing, especially before contests. You don't need to do it all the time, but you want to keep up the temple, it's usually common to shave your body a few times a month to keep things under control, then get full a full wax before you perform.
There are some things on here that you can do from home if you own the equipment, such as I do, but there are some things you cannot do without going to a gym… because who really owns a Leg press in their home? That is why there are alternatives to almost ANY exercises such as using resistance bands instead of cables for the cable curls, etc. Tweak the program to best suit your needs!
What can a bodybuilder do to break a plateau? Advanced bodybuilding training techniques are applied on an occasional basis to introduce variety into the bodybuilding routine in order to further stimulate muscle growth. The purpose of such bodybuilding techniques is to take the muscle beyond the point of failure. Muscular failure is the point in which performing another repetition in good form becomes impossible and also the point that stimulates the muscle to grow. Most of these advanced bodybuilding training techniques should only be used sparingly; do not use them on every workout or else you risk overtraining and/or injury. Supersets, tri-sets, and giant-sets, however, are the exception to this rule and can be used on every workout.

You've been surfing Bodybuilding.com for weeks, looking at the incredible transformations that other people have experienced and the plans that got them there. Now, you think it might be your turn. You've been peeking into training systems like LiveFit and Kris Gethin's Hardcore Daily Trainer, and thinking a lot about time: Is 12 weeks as long as it sounds? Is it long enough to make a genuine change?

It’s all very well having the latest accessories and the nicest car; but is it really necessary? At one point you need to ask yourself; If I keep spending will I have something to live off when I get older? The fact is the earlier you start saving the longer you have to accrue interest on your money, and this additional interest could prove to come in handy when you are in your senior years.
You may do Day 1 on Mon/Thur, Day 2 on Tue/Fri and Day 3 on Wed/Sat for maximum results with 20-30 minutes of cardio either first thing in the morning or right after the workout on Mon/Wed/Fri. Otherwise, you can also benefit from doing Day 1 on Mon, Day 2 on Wed and Day 3 on Fri with cardio on the days off. Choose 2 exercises for each muscle and perform 5 sets/exercise. Keep reps between 10-15 for 3 weeks and 6-8 for the next 3 using different exercises. Rest 1 min between sets.
Isolation exercises are movements which target only one muscle group at a time, movements such as preacher curl, side raises, dumbbell flyes, etc. These exercises do not benefit beginners because isolation exercises are usually meant to further define a muscle, which can be pointless if you do not have any muscle to define, therefore it is important to do compound movements.
However, I am not stupid and I know that most moms just do not have that extra time to make it to the gym everyday-this is why I created my very own and affordable 12 week home workout program that uses barely ANY equipment! Instead, the program uses your bodyweight and one pair of dumbbells. It is absolutely perfect for busy mommies who want to workout when baby is asleep, for when it is super cold or super hot ouside, or just want to workout in the comfort of their own home.
Processed and fried foods will be going bye-bye as part of your bodybuilding program. You'll need five or six small meals each day with lean protein to repair muscles, carbs to fuel your workouts and healthy fats to satisfy hunger. Lebo advises that you create meal plans for your week. Rest your muscles a full 48 hours before working the same muscle group and get plenty of sleep.
As you have hopefully passed beyond the need to throw obscene amounts of weight around, it's important to realize that not only will you get better results from training by feel, but you will also tend to put less pressure on your joints. Don't get me wrong, it's still crucial to train to failure in the six to eight rep range using compound lifts. Those types of lifts are important, but they are not the focal point of every routine. Use intensity-building techniques such as rest pauses or dropsets, to recruit more muscle fibers. 

As a result, the Old School bodybuilding meant relying on the basic movements using primarily barbells and dumbbells to develop their physiques. This lack of variety turned out to be a blessing in disguise as the free weights helped to build greater muscle mass and strength compared to the more sophisticated equipment that was yet to come. Barbells and dumbbells required to body to utilize greater coordination and balance in order to perform the movements. The result was increased strength and size, much more pronounced than when machines are used.
It is quite difficult to achieve competitive success without proper supplementation. For example, you could easily replenish your carbs on an Ironman course with white bread and Fig Newtons, but you'd have to carry a backpack full of the stuff to ensure your calorie intake was adequate. It's much easier to supplement with a carb/sodium replacement gel.

You should also remember to eat a lot of varied fruits, veggies and fiber-rich carbs that won’t compromise your workout. Eat as many green, red and yellow colored veggies to get the highest and balanced amount of nutrition possible. It’s not also wrong to eat sodium-filled snacks once in a while. Never forget to consume the right amount salt. Under-consuming salt could pose a problem.
Site enhancement oil, often called "santol" or "synthol" (no relation to the Synthol mouthwash brand), refers to oils injected into muscles to increase the size or change the shape. Some bodybuilders, particularly at the professional level, inject their muscles with such mixtures to mimic the appearance of developed muscle where it may otherwise be disproportionate or lagging.[54] This is known as "fluffing".[55][56] Synthol is 85% oil, 7.5% lidocaine, and 7.5% alcohol.[55] It is not restricted, and many brands are available on the Internet.[57] The use of injected oil to enhance muscle appearance is common among bodybuilders,[58][59] despite the fact that synthol can cause pulmonary embolisms, nerve damage, infections, sclerosing lipogranuloma,[60] stroke,[55] and the formation of oil-filled granulomas, cysts or ulcers in the muscle.[59][61][62] Rare cases might require surgical intervention to avoid further damage to the muscle and/or to prevent loss of life.[63]
For every person who lifts weights these days, it seems there are two who have a podcast about it. There are more bodybuilding tips promising greater strength and muscle than ever before, and along with them a ton of confusion; one buffed-up Instagrammer says lifting heavy will get you swole, while a well-known fitness personality has claimed in recent years that two 30-minute workouts per week netted him 34 pounds of muscle in a month.