Copyright 2005 Konstantinos Marangopoulos

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.

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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