The activity of body building has to be entered into carefully as I do with all my personal training clients. Over stressing the body to begin with by too much training or weight or bad form easily leads to injury, or overdeveloping one muscle in favour of another can lead to bad postural defects. So start at the beginning, don't attempt to rush your progress and enjoy the journey.

Body building takes years and can't be hurried. Build a strong base from which to work on and it will serve you well- rush it and you'll soon make mistakes over train and gain injuries and lack of strength gains will soon follow.

Muscle grows through tiny micro tears that happen during training. As new muscle is laid down to repair this muscle it grows back bigger and stronger- so don't forget rest is as important as the training period.

You should be getting at least 8 hours sleep a night or your body doesn't have the time to regenerate and so you can over train and become ill as a result. As a beginner paradoxically you can train the same body part 3 times per week whilst when you move on to the advanced stage of training this is reduced to once a week why? Because as a beginner you will not be using as many sets exercises or kilo's to completely knacker out the muscle, the exercises and sets will be few and the poundage manageable.

Rep Range

To begin with keep the rep range between 6-12 - at a weight that you a failing on your last rep in this range. This is the optimal range for muscle growth. To begin with during the anatomical adaptation phase keep the reps to 10, but as you progress to the split routine phase we can begin to vary this a bit which I'll go into more in this section.Rest Period

Between each set you should leave at least 1 minute for correct recovery of the muscle. If you try to train before this your muscle will not have recovered enough to make the most of the following set and so you will not be able to lift as much weight, inhibiting muscle growth. Without going to deeply into the physiology of the energy systems involved in weight training, the main energy system you will be using predominantly in this type of weight training is the creatine phosphate system. Basically put when creatine phosphate is broken down in the muscle it helps you synthesise another substance called A.T.P which in turn is broken down to release energy. For full recovery of creatine back into the muscles this takes around 1 minute -1.5 mins and so this is the period of rest recommended between sets. Be strict with yourself and when you 60 - 90 seconds is up get back on with it.

Training Journal

I strongly suggest that from the start you keep a training journal and record down for each set how many reps and what weight you managed to lift. This way you can quickly refer to it the following session and keep on adding small increments of weight at the next session or shoot for that extra rep per set. For instance if you've noted down in your last session you managed to bench 60kg for 10 reps add another.5 kg disc either side and go for 61kg for 10 reps. Or try for that extra rep and get 11 reps this time. Keep pushing back the boundaries of what you can do in very small steps- this is the way to success. I also like to keep a journal myself of circumference measurements of different body parts such as waist chest and bicos and thighs to keep an eye on how I'm progressing. This I do once per month.

Anatomical Adaptation phase

For the first 2- 3 months you should follow this stage of training. The idea is to really learn the technique of each exercise -not about shifting massive amount of weight- that will come later along the line.

As a beginner your body will respond to the smallest of stimulus so you don't need to go really heavy. Concentrate on the form of each exercise- the joint angles and position of your body etc and really keep your mind on the muscle being worked. I can't stress enough how important this is you must establish what is known as 'the mind muscle' connection.

Really feel the muscle stretch and contract with each motion and keep the stress on the muscle you are targeting don't start lifting so much weight to begin with you are just concentrating on shifting the weight not targeting the muscle being worked. If you do this most of the stress will go onto the joints and other stabilising muscles and your growth will slow to a halt.

You should find it hard at this stage to complete the last rep (always maintaining good form) but not impossible. If you establish this mind muscle connection now as you progress it will be instinctual and the stress as you lift heavier and heavier will automatically be on the targeted muscle leading to new growth. As a beginner you should be training with weights 3 times per week perhaps Monday Wednesday and Friday and following the same routine throughout each day. Again the importance here is learning technique not swinging around heavier weights than you can handle. You should take as long on this phase as you feel is necessary to master the techniques - I would suggest a minimum of three months and a maximum of 9. Don't be tempted to skip to quickly past this stage or you'll be creating an unstable base and ruining yourself as a result- get the most from hard work you spend lifting. I train all my bodybuilding clients in Manchester this way- if you follow these simple steps you'll be on your way to success.