I vividly remember my first day in a gym, it was a backyard gym. We were inspired by movie stars, wrestlers and to a certain extent sports persons like Paul Ince who played for Manchester United, Inter Milan, Liverpool and the English national team.
We went on to read Flex magazines; hence understanding bodybuilding deeper.
I will argue until cows come home that Ultimate Warrior, the wrestler developed his physique using basic muscle development principles. He may have not developed a physique that ticks most of the boxes of a competitive bodybuilder but the fact remains, that he had a training routine and ate in a certain way.
Readers must appreciate that not everyone is going to look like Ronnie Coleman Innocent Choga or Givemore Marume or Tarirai Chirume or Andrew Hudson but everyone who wishes to and has the work ethic and discipline will look like a bodybuilder.
It is also important to note that bodybuilding will be more interesting if your programming is designed sustainably. I have seen bodybuilders, competitive and non-competitive, who have failed to at least sustain a look that resembles health, fitness and decent muscularity. We need to address that in future articles.
Bodybuilding is like building a house. The factors which inform the design, architecture, time to build, resources required, and size of a house are stand size, soil type and the participants in the whole process. Similarly, in bodybuilding issues like phenotype, one’s focus, resource availability and guidance/knowledge will affect muscle and physique development efficiency.
There are three main classes of phenotypes which are ectomorph, endomorph and mesomorph. There are situations where one may be in between for example ecto-mesomorph and meso-endomorph. Phenotypes are an important factor when designing a system, one must follow to develop and sustain a physique that he/she desires. Having said that, the first two important things are to know your body type and the physique you intend to achieve and sustain.
In our next articles, we will interrogate phenotypes and programming which suits each body type visa vis the target but let me hasten to say that the key process in muscle development is hypertrophy and it’s important to create an environment which allows hypertrophy.
Quiet Shangai is a member of the IFBB Africa Congress and National Federation of Zimbabwe Bodybuilding and Fitness Secretary General. He can be contacted at quietshangai@gmail.com
