Natural bodybuilding refers to bodybuilding without muscle enhancing drugs or anabolic substances. In other words natural athletes who choose to build their body with all-natural have to stick to a regimen of well structured bodybuilding diet along with some performance enhancing supplements like whey protein, creatine & l-glutamine. There are however other natural athletes who go all out ie they don't even use over the counter products to help them supplement their daily diets. Their nutrition consists solely on natural foods!

Natural bodybuilding is a very specific sport. There are national bodybuilding organisations that organize natural bodybuilding contests for men and women. For more information or if you are interested in entering a natural bodybuilding show please get yourself a copy of Natural Bodybuilding & Fitness magazine at your local newsagent. Some of these shows are drug tested and some are not. The choice on which one you compete is completely yours.

A natural bodybuilder must learn to build his body in the most precise way possible. Learning as much as possible about natural bodybuilding dieting, training, supplementation is essential if one is to successfully build a natural physique of national caliber.

One of the keys to a great natural body is persistence. I don't care how well you eat or how hard you train! If you do not have the necessary persistence to keep it up for months & years you will just be spinning your wheels with no results to speak of. Building natural muscle mass takes time - sometimes a lot of time! Always be patient and expect success through your nutrition, contest diet and training.

Along with persistence you need to set up some specific, clear cut goals for yourself. If you do not know what your goals are chances are you will not make significant progress in the gym. Short term goals set up every week are great for short term progress in the gym. For example you can set a goal of increasing your bench by 2 lbs in your next week's incline bench press session! Take these small goals and add them up over 6 months and they really make a big difference. Long term goals need to be set up as well. For example - "12 weeks from now my goal is to have lost 15 lbs or pure body fat and win my upcoming natural bodybuilding contest". You need to sonstantly remind yourself of your big goals in order to not lose track of the reasons you are training and dieting so hard. Reading your goals every day helps you stay on track, train harder and not cheat on your diet. Trust me! When you are carb depleted for 3 days and pizza is calling your name, a reminder of your goals is what puts you back in track.

Nutrition is probably half the battle to getting muscle to grow OR to burn body fat. A general guideline is to eat 12-13 calories per lb of body weight if you are trying to get ripped and 17-19 calories per lb if you are trying to gain muscle. 30% of your calories should come from protein, 50% from natural carbohydrates and 20% from healthy fats (olive oil, canola oil, flaxseed oil etc). Try to avoid sugars & processed foods at all costs. Most of all, make sure you get 1 gram of protein per lean pound of body weight per day no matter what! Hardcore weight training breaks down muscle fibers and it is absolutely necessary for our body to be able to recover from these hard workouts with the use of protein.

As far as working out is concerned, forget all you read in the most popular bodybuilding magazines in the market. The routines posted in most magazines by the "pros" will do absolutely nothing for you if you want to grow muscle naturally. Fact of the matter is, most people who start bodybuilding DO follow these routines blindly. They do the same thing week after week, expecting results but nothing ever happens. Sure they gain some strength in the beginning but plateaus soon hit them. They then decide to buy the next "magic pill or powder" in the market that will "jump start" their results. The result is a very rich supplement company and a very frustrated athlete. There is a large amount of information out there that is totally unsuitable for the majority of people who want to grow muscle naturally. My point is to educate yourself on how the body works before you start training haphazardly just because you read an article in a magazine. Stick to the basic exercises that have worked for years for most people and do NOT overtrain. Each muscle needs to be fully trained only once per week for muscle growth to occur. Ovetraining is the biggest single mistake most people do and is the reason why people quite bodybuilding & weight training.

Bottom line? You are either 100% natural or you aren't! There are no shortcuts and there are many obstacles. In the end however, you will be satisfied in knowing that you achieved results that are comparable to those of drug enhanced athletes, 100% naturally. Trust me, it's the best feeling in the world and it IS achievable. All you have to do is set goals, work hard, be consistent and have patience.

Copyright 2005 - Kostas Marangopoulos

Kostas Marangopoulos is a certified personal trainer, natural bodybuilder and owner of one of the best bodybuilsing websites & forums on the web, BodybuildingApplied.com. To get Kostas' free monthy bodybuilding diet & training secrets newsletter, please visit http://www.BodybuildingApplied.com