The Complete Guide to Bodybuilding: Everything You Need to Know

Cast aside preconceptions of juiced-up gym bros with veins for days – when you strip it right back, bodybuilding is about just that: building your body.

Just ask IFBB pro champ and USN sports nutrition ambassador, Ryan Terry. Not only did the labourer-turned-lifter win the Arnold Classic in 2017, he was also the highest placed Brit in Mr Olympia, so the competitive bodybuilder knows a thing or two about muscle mass.

“The majority of people think bodybuilders are ‘mass monsters’, and generally not very healthy-looking people,” Terry explains. “But it’s really anyone who is trying to build or sculpt their body.”

If you want to get serious about bodybuilding, you’ll need to navigate your nutrition and training with military precision. Your regime will differ wildly if you’re gunning for gains (bulking) vs shredding fat (cutting) 12 weeks out from a competition. Needless to say, there’s not much room for a Friday night pint in either of these.

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, this is going to be tough, but it's achievable. Here’s everything a beginner needs to know about natural bodybuilding, including the good, the bad, and the old-school.

Bodybuilding Training Splits

A question nearly every beginner asks: how many hours of training should you average a week to become bigger and more defined? The answer is this: it really depends on your training splits.

There are a number of ways, however, you can tackle them – for example, splitting them by upper and lower body exercises or focusing on push and pull motions – and then even more ways of scheduling them: every other day, four days on three days off, and so on.

Generally speaking, the best routine is the one that fits in with your life. If Arnie’s notoriously hardcore double-split (six times per week, twice a day) doesn’t really tie in with your schedule, guess what? You're unlikely to stick at it.

Terry follows the old-school bodybuilding mentality of isolating each muscle group (back, shoulders, chest, legs and arms) on a five-day cycle. If he’s trying to grow a certain muscle group, he’ll introduce a second workout on the sixth day.

Each of Terry’s workouts lasts between 60 and 90 minutes – “any longer and you're either not pushing yourself hard enough or you're talking too much” – and he makes the most of each session by targeting different parts of each muscle.

The Best Bodybuilding Workouts

There are a few essential bodybuilding exercises to focus on if you’re after serious bulk. The staple compound lifts – things like squats, deadlifts, shoulder press, bench press – are vital in any routine worth its salt. If you’re starting from scratch, try this simple but effective training split to begin with...

The Bodybuilder's Back Workout for Beginners

Wide grip pull-down
3 sets of 12 reps
Grip the bar with shoulder-width palms facing away and your arms fully extended above your head. Do not lean back as you pull the bar to the top of your chest and hold it there for two seconds. Control the bar as it pulls itself back to the start position, aiming for a three second ascent with no pause at the top of the movement.