Bodybuilding vs. Wrestling

Yesterday I coached a friend of mine at his first bodybuilding competition.  I had no idea what the heck I was doing, but he asked me to be his coach so I did.  I had never seen a bodybuilding competition before and it was an interesting learning experience.  It's cool to see how ripped someone can be, but I don't agree with quite everything they do.  For starters, you have to lose, and cut, a lot of weight.  Humans don't naturally look like those models you see in muscle magazines.  In order to see an insane amount of striations in your muscles, you have to cut some water weight.  Often times guys will cramp up while they're on stage flexing because they're so depleted of electrolytes and fluids.  The faces of even some of the best guys yesterday looked somewhat gaunt when they weighed in.  Plus, many bodybuilders have to regain lost strength after such a drastic weight loss.

Another aspect where I have a different opinion is in the training style.  Many bodybuilders spend over an hour per day hitting the weights as many as six days a week.  If you're a wrestler, you also need to devote some of your energy to wrestling practices and conditioning sessions.  You're strength training should be brief in time but very intense, and you should be hitting the large muscle groups and using compound movements.  Instead of doing bicep curls, you should do pullups, lat pulldowns, or any type of row, so that you hit your biceps and back.  Rather than chest flys, try doing dips, bench press, or good ol' pushups.  In place of leg curls or leg extensions, nothing beats squats and dead lifts, especially a hard set of 20 reps.  The list goes on and on, but in short, I'd prefer you to work your body as one larger unit rather than isolating the beach muscles.

However, always remember that you should find something that works for you - something that gets you motivated to work out and stick to it.  I'd much rather have you work out like a bodybuilder than not at all.  With that being said,

Get to work,
Jeff