For the past three years, I’ve spent so much time thinking and writing about natural skin and hair care, I’d forgotten how much I enjoy talking about fitness! So, thank you all for allowing me to share my love of ALL things related to health, fitness and exercise with you!!

When I was first introduced to bodybuilding I fell in love with it almost instantaneously. This was in 1985, at the peak of women’s bodybuilding AND the beginning of rampant anabolic steroid use. Professional female body builders were looking more like men and male bodybuilders were looking like greased up, freakishly overgrown anatomy charts. My training partner, a very kind man, to be sure, was a complete weight lifting MANIAC!  I’m grateful to him for pushing me to lift heavier and heavier weights: If it hadn’t been for him, I never would have learned how truly strong I was. I am not thankful to him, though, for my blown out knees (from performing squats with an excess of 200 pounds, using the worst form ever known to man or woman). I also sort of blame him for the surgery I had to have to repair my inguinal hernia… but, I digress.

My muscles responded exceedingly well to bodybuilding: they never grew very big, but they were dense, well defined and hard as steel. When I would try to encourage the female students in my exercise classes to incorporate weights into their workouts, they would almost always say they didn’t want to look like a man OR that they didn’t want muscles (side note: everyone already HAS muscles, but I understood what they meant).

I repeated the same thing to them over and over so many times, I was seriously considering setting the speech to music and making a record (this was long before CDs). Here are the lyrics (feel free to sing them): Bodybuilders must lift weights for several hours a day, multiple days a week in order to increase & maintain their physiques. Professional bodybuilders have to spend many hours a day in the gym because, well, that’s their job. The muscle size and definition that I was able to achieve when I was bodybuilding was the result of working out in the weight room six days a week, often two times a day. These lengthy workouts were possible because my job was at a health club that had a well equipped weight training room. I worked out early in the mornings and again in the afternoons, during the club’s slow, non-peak hours.

A “normal” weight training routine, i.e. working out with weights 3, 4 even 5 days a week will NOT cause your muscles to grow large. Generally speaking, women do not produce enough testosterone to develop visibly large muscles. Female bodybuilders with super large muscles are almost always injecting or ingesting steroids (testosterone) and, quite possibly, human growth hormone.

The photos of bodybuilders with very visible muscles and veins that you see in fitness magazines represent men and women who are preparing for bodybuilding competitions. They don’t look like that year round. When a body builder prepares for a competition, s/he must adhere to a VERY strict, nearly zero fat, diet for approximately 12 to 16 weeks.  During this preparation, the bodybuilder must also double the amount of time spent doing his/her normal aerobic (fat burning) workouts. These two things must be done to rid the body of as much subcutaneous fat (fat that resides directly underneath the skin and forms a layer over muscles) as possible so that on the day of the competition, the judges can see the bodybuilders well earned muscle definition. Since the combination of diet and exercise is so taxing on the body, most professional bodybuilders only enter one or two competitions a year. He or she will also participate in as many photo shoots as possible while in “competition” shape. It’s physically impossible, not to mention dangerous, for the body to maintain that state for long periods of time. During the off season, when a bodybuilder is not preparing for a competition, the definition of his or her muscles are nowhere near as visible. A bodybuilders workout during the off season are dedicated to maintaining and, hopefully increasing, muscle size.

I mentioned that I had been a competitive bodybuilder. I competed in two amateur “natural competitions”, which meant the participants were tested for drugs… which is kind of comical: The test was a polygraph exam, where dude asks you ONE question: “Excluding recreational drugs or those prescribed by your physician to treat an ailment, have you taken drugs for the purpose of enhancing or increasing the size of your muscles?”. The answer is, of course, “Uh, no”.  He smiles, and tells you that you’ve passed the test. At my first competition, the woman who ended up winning had biceps the size of my head, a waist the size of my calf and thighs that could easily pass for tree trunks: Rippled, bulging, pulsating tree trunks. SHE passed the drug test, too.

It’s been nearly 20 years since I’ve worked in a gym or health club, but I’ve never lost my love for exercising. I LOVE working out with free weights, so my regular workouts are done in my home gym (you’ll see photos and snippets of my workout as the 30 Day Challenge progresses).

As promised, here some more details for the goals in our challenge:

• Increase your overall strength, including the strength and efficiency of your heart: This will happen by using (or working up to using) hand held weights with my DVD. As you progress, you will find that the DVD workout gets easier and easier. When you no longer feel challenged by the exercises, it’s time to increase the amount of weight (dumbbells) you are using. If you’re having scary thoughts about a home full of dumbbells of various sizes, fear not. The DVD workout combines cardiovascular work with strength training, so we do various resistance exercises for extended periods of time: You will not be able to use excessively heavy dumbbells… it just won’t be possible. Trust me.  As the weight of the dumbbells you’re using increases, you’ll see that it will take your body longer and longer to grow accustomed to them. For example, it may take you 2 weeks to “graduate” from 1 to 2 pound dumbbells, 4 weeks to graduate from 2 to 3 pound dumbbells and then 2 or three months to graduate from 3 to 4 pound dumbbells.  As your muscle strength increases, all sorts of wonderful things will happen. One of these things is that your heart, without question the hardest working muscle of all, will be forced to work harder because it will have to pump more blood throughout your body during your workout and long after your workout has ended. A strong heart is a happy heart!

• Increase your endurance and stamina: The increase in your hearts efficiency will lead to an improvement of your overall cardiovascular (circulatory system) health.  If you’ve ever had to run for a bus, train or to get to an appointment you’re late for, you already know how truly awesome a properly functioning cardiovascular system can be. Improving your hearts efficiency has long term benefits, too. Again, you already know the benefits of aerobic exercise, so I am not going to list them now. During the 30 Day Challenge, we’re putting what you already know into ACTION. YIPPEE!!

• Increase your body’s flexibility: Pliable muscles are happy muscles. Imagine, if you will, that your muscles are a piece of… taffy. If you pull the taffy while it’s at room temperature and it will tear. If you place that same taffy in between your palms for a few seconds to warm it up, you will then be able to stretch it easily without it tearing it. Your muscles work the same way. In my DVD workout, once we have raised the temperature of the muscles through exercise, we will stretch and lengthen them. This will increase the flexibility of each muscle and in so doing, greatly reduce your chances of injuries and post workout soreness. Increased flexibility has a host of other benefits as well: I will address as many of them as possible throughout the 30 Day Challenge.

There’s an awesome phenomenon called “muscle memory” that occurs after exercising consistently for a few years. Once your body has become accustomed to being physically fit, it will remember it. If something unfortunate or unforeseen should occur and you’re unable to exercise for an extended period of time (surgery, an injury, etc.), when you resume your normal exercise regimen, your muscles will remember how they felt when they were in peak form: It will not take you very long to get back in shape, because that’s the state that your muscles remember being in. Isn’t that fabulous?? This is one of the reasons that women who are physically fit can “snap back” into shape so soon after giving birth.

Finally, one word about post workout soreness: It’s gonna happen. There.  I said it. You must allow a 48 hour period of recuperation in between workouts because your muscles strengthen and firm AFTER your workout, not DURING it. If you don’t allow for this recuperative period, you will not gain any true benefit from your workout and you’ll eventually hurt yourself, because your muscles will sort of go on strike by either tearing, or cramping so severely you will be unable to exercise. This is their way of saying to you “Hey! Buddy… can you give me a break here?”

Are you asking yourself “Wait a minute! Didn’t she say she used to workout six days a week?!? What a liar!”  Yes, I did write that a few chapters ago. At that time, I was working out A LOT and it was simply impossible to do exercises for my entire body in one session, so I split my routine up, much as I do nowadays: In the old days my workout looked like this:

Days 1 & 4: One: Biceps and Back. Days 2 & 5: Triceps and Chest. Days 3 & 6: Legs and Shoulders. Day 7: Rest

With the schedule above, each muscle group had a chance to recuperate while I was busy working on another one. I didn’t invent this workout schedule. It’s one of several that I learned over the years and it’s quite common.

Here is your homework assignment: Please get yourself some ADJUSTABLE dumbbells OR a set of vinyl coated dumbbells, ranging from 1 to 5 pounds. I would also like for you to get a set of ADJUSTABLE ankle weights. These are the kind you can slip little metal rods (usually 1/2 a pound each) into to increase the weight. If you have trouble finding them, let me know. Most likely, you will be able to find them on Amazon or at Target, Walmart, etc..

If you haven’t noticed by now, I can sort of ramble on. If you have any questions, please… ask away! I’ll try to keep my answer short, brief and to the point and if I don’t know the answer, I will find it.

Don’t forget: Set your alarm clock back by seven more minutes before going to bed tonight!

Kindest regards,

Brendita

PS Don’t forget, if you need my workout DVD, please use discount code 30DayChallenge through 1 October 2009, midnight Eastern Standard Time and you will receive 30% off the price of the DVD.