Welcome to article number 2 in our series "Bodybuilding Sins That Cause Back Pain and Missed Workouts". In this article we are going to talk about how bodybuilders tend to create massive muscle imbalances and what you can do to not be one of them.

If you missed the first article, you can read it by clicking on the link below.

Here's a breakdown of the articles to look for:

1. Article #1 - Choosing The WRONG Exercises

2. Article #2 - Training Variations for Pain Relief and Maximum Results

3. Article #3 - Targeted Stretching

4. Article #4 - Targeted Exercises

5. Article #5 - Rest, Recovery, and Injury Prevention

Article #2 - Training Variations for Pain Relief and Maximum Results

Bodybuilders are a stubborn bunch? almost as bad as runners! And they tend to follow the "HERD" doing whatever exercises and routines the "pros" are doing…

Now, if your goal is to be as big as possible and you are not at all concerned with your health and fitness, don't even bother this article? this article is for bodybuilders who ARE concerned about their health and want to be big, strong, powerful, and agile? if that's you, read on?

The reason so many bodybuilders suffer from so many different injuries is because there are several things the "pros" don't tell you?

First off, the articles that you see in all the muscle mags aren't even written by the "pros"? and the workout routines they recommend are always extreme and often not even used by the "pro" who supposedly wrote because their main goal is to sell magazines? not give you the real deal on bodybuilding.

If you are serious about bodybuilding and want to achieve your true peak, you need to stay injury free? and that's just about impossible if you train they way most bodybuilders do.

There are several key strategies that you can use right now to not only eliminate any aches, pains and injuries you currently have, but also keep from creating more muscle imbalances in the future.

Strategy #1 - Target the Weaklings!

No, we don't mean the exercises you think your weak at, or even the muscles you think are underdeveloped? what we mean is the muscles that are weak in relation to the opposing muscle group.

For example, in the first article we talked about why the Leg Extension is not a great exercise and why it's responsible for so many cases of knee, hip, and back pain? and the reason is, most people, especially bodybuilders, are already over developed and stronger in the quadriceps? and usually have a significant imbalance between the quadriceps and hamstrings.

Another reason bodybuilders tend to develop so many severe muscle imbalances is because they emphasize the front of the body more than the back? a great example of this is what we call "The T-shirt Muscle Workout" and it usually consists of dozens of sets of chest and biceps?

you know what we mean? in just one workout you do flat bench, incline, decline, pec deck, dumbbell fly, cable cross overs? and then for biceps you've got barbell curls, dumbbell curls, preacher curls, cable curls, machine curls, and the list goes on?

So instead of emphasizing the muscles that are already strong, why not really hit those weak and under worked muscles like: neck, upper back, shoulder rotators, hamstrings, glutes, hip rotators, lower abs, and shins.

These areas tend to be weak, tight, out of balance with their opposing muscles, prone to muscle strains and pulls and most importantly, these imbalances lead to major injuries and conditions like back pain, knee pain, rotator cuff tears, tendonitis and others.

All of these conditions are caused by muscle imbalances and will NOT go away unless you work towards correcting the imbalances? and the only way to know for sure which imbalances are causing your pain or injury is to do a series of physical assessments like the ones covered in our "Lose the Back Pain Video".

Strategy #2 - Experiment!

Here's a personal challenge for you: Replace at least 1 of your normal weekly workouts with something totally different like combat martial arts, kettle bell training, functional training, or even strongman style exercises.

For example, instead of doing your super heavy, 3 inch partial rep leg presses, try a single leg squat? and if that's easy, try adding weight! Or instead dozens of sets of shoulder presses and lateral raises, see if you can do 1 handstand push-up.

Those are just a few examples? do yourself a favor and experiment with other types of exercises. You can find hundreds of different types of training styles by taking classes, reading books, watching videos, surfing the web, hire a personal trainer, etc.

We aren't asking you to give up your traditional workouts? but just cross-train a bit so you not only work towards a balanced body but also towards a stronger, more powerful and usable strength. Again, what good is muscle if you can't use it!

Strategy #3 - Switch It Up!

Another great way to minimize the number of missed workouts due to injuries is to vary the exercises that you do for each muscle group. For example, if you always do barbell squats try rotating in other exercises like single-leg leg presses, trap-bar dead-lifts, d-bell squats, etc.

Conclusion

Remember, the key to eliminating injuries and preventing future ones is to identify what areas you need to target. In the next two articles we'll be discussing in detail, how to address various injuries like back, hip, knee, and shoulder pain with targeted exercises and stretches. In the meantime, be sure to read thru all of our detailed articles and if you have questions, please post them in our discussion forum.

Article by Jesse Cannone, CFT, CPRS, CSPN and Steve Hefferon, CMT, CPRS of http://www.losethebackpain.com. If you've got back pain or sciatic pain, you've gotta check out their video.

Welcome to article number five in our 5-part series "Bodybuilding Sins That Cause Back Pain and Missed Workouts". In this article we are going to cover some basic, yet powerful training principles that are often overlooked and are responsible for nearly all bodybuilding injuries?

If you missed any of the previous articles, you can view them using the links below.

Here's a breakdown of the articles to look for:

1. Article #1 - Choosing The WRONG Exercises 2. Article #2 - Training Variations for Pain Relief and Maximum Results 3. Article #3 - Targeted Stretching 4. Article #4 - Targeted Exercises 5. Article #5 - Rest, Recovery, and Injury Prevention

Article #5 - Rest, Recovery and Injury Prevention

Many of the injuries that bodybuilders suffer from could be easily prevented just by allowing the body enough time to rest?

While most bodybuilders dread hearing the word "rest", many fail to realize that there is far more to rest than just avoiding overtraining. When you perform a tough workout you not only stress that muscle or muscle group, you also place stress on the cardiovascular, neuromuscular and components of the immune system?

For example, many bodybuilders will train their chest 2-3 times a week and spend an hour or more performing dozens of exercises just for the pecs?

While this may sound ok to some, when you add in the stress of other workouts it can quickly add up to too much stress in one or more ways. I hear bodybuilders all the time say "I let my body rest by splitting up my workouts" and "I worked chest yesterday so today I'll train my back"? that's NOT rest!

When you train your back, your chest still gets worked, stressed and it also slows down your bodies ability to recover from stress and repair damage from previous workouts?

So don't kid yourself and think that you can train this way over the long term? it may take years or just a few weeks, but sooner or later your body will break down!

Let me give you a real life example from my experience?

I, like nearly every single bodybuilder out there, created muscle imbalance unknowingly by following the workouts recommended in all the books, magazines, etc?

I trained 4,5 and sometimes even 6 days a week and thought that I was resting enough by splitting my workouts? to make a long story short, after just a few years I had tendonitis in both triceps because I worked chest, tri's and shoulder too often, too intensely and didn't balance out my training?

I also had lower and middle back pain, knee problems and IT band tendonitis because my lower body workouts weren't balanced? I spent too much time doing heavy squatting, too often and neglected important muscles?

These injuries stayed with me for months, years and I still can have an occasional flare up if I don't stay consistent with a balanced training program. I was able to create all this damage by the age of 22? I am now 28 and will have to spend the rest of my life trying to prevent these old injuries from coming back and causing more pain and problems?

Don't do what I did! And if you already have, you better act fast and take a serious look at your training and your goals because if you don't, you will spend the rest of your life in pain and frustrated by all the injuries, big and small.

So here's my?

5-Step Formula for Quickly Eliminating and Preventing Aches, Pains and Injuries

Step 1. Rest and Recovery

The first thing you need to do is REST! And no, I don't mean take a day or two off? I mean no workouts for at least a week or more? you need to give your body a chance to reduce the inflammation before you can begin work on eliminating or correcting the cause of the problem. You may also want to use things like a heating pad, hot tub or massage to help reduce the inflammation and speed up the healing and recovery?

Step 2. Identify Muscle Imbalances

The next thing you need to do is find out which muscle imbalances have created your injury or are causing your pain and work towards correcting them? you can do this quickly and easily by performing physical assessments in which you are looking for strength and flexibility imbalances in all opposing muscle groups.

You can do these assessments yourself and they are covered in our Lose the Back Pain Video Tip! Another cause of lower back pain for runners is the thought that running is about going forward, okay of course it is, but it doesn't require you to ?push' forward to do it. Running is really about passing a force into the ground and using the hip, knee and ankle joints to translate that into a forward motion.