I recenlty left this Blog post on an awesome Blog called www.FitnessBlackBook.com  - It's got some really great content. Please check it out!

Hey Rusty, Great Job with your Blog. I do really like your approach to fitness and it's very similar to the approach I have taken for the last 20 years or so. I am the author of the international best selling fitness book series entitled, "Body Sculpting Bibles". I am blessed to have been able to help over a million people reach their fitness goals and I love seeing other experts doing the same. I got into the fitness realm by accident really. I grew up fat and went through all of the pitfalls that we've all heard/read about time and time again; bullied, ridiculed, exiled, etc.

 

I wasn’t any smarter than the guy next to me and didn’t perform well in school. It wasn’t until I discovered fitness, that I found passion for life and cultivated my calling to truly help people. I saw that you had a couple of threads discussing how your site differentiated from typical bodybuilding sites and so, I thought I could bring some added value to your site, by discussing my personal distinction between Bodybuilding & Body Sculpting. Hope that’s ok with you and your following. 


Speaking for myself, I never had a desire to become a bodybuilder and although I'm pretty jacked (6ft, 230 and about 10% body fat), I still DO NOT consider myself a bodybuilder. I personally think bodybuilding is great and I totally admire the incredibly hard work of those who choose to take it to advanced levels; competition and what not.

 

I however look at myself as a Body Sculptor. The distinction that I make between Bodybuilder & Body Sculptor is: Bodybuilding to me, is about putting on as much muscle as possible, while getting body fat levels as low as possible and creating symmetry amongst all of your major muscle groups.

The bodybuilder’s ultimate goal is to compete for recognition. It could be either personal or professional recognition.

 

The biggest thing I take from bodybuilding is the training model they often have in place. It’s a foundation principle that is severely lacking in the fitness world and provides a powerful tool to help you reach a planned goal/outcome. Most bodybuilders follow a direct plan of action, a map if you will. This map lays out all of the specifics of each workout, down to the precise exercise they will be performing, the numbers of sets, reps, rest between sets, times under muscular tension, the total training duration and much, much more!

 

Educated bodybuilders know at any given point, how far away they are from reaching their goals. Bodybuilders are naturally engrained with these powerful goal setting tools, as they must constantly monitor their results to make sure they're on track along the way. This same methodology can and should be used by Body Sculptors!  

 

Body Sculpting in my humble opinion is more about primarily shedding excess body fat and adding about 10-25 pounds of muscle. Like you said earlier Rusty, it’s that "Hollywood" look.


The difficult thing for the average person trying to get in shape is that they often do not have a direct plan of action at hand or specific goals to follow.

That’s like me telling you to get in your car and drive from New York to California, without using a map or having any inkling of geography. If I asked you to jump in your car right now and just start driving, wouldn't you ask me where you'll be driving to?

Hey, you may just enjoy driving, and that's fine, but to be most productive, you'd probably ask me where your destination will be.  If you don't know where you want to go, why the heck would you waste time driving and take the highly probable risk of getting lost? The same principle applies to walking in the gym and winging your workout.

 

Most people in the gym have almost no idea why they're doing what they're doing and are basically driving to destination “no where”. Like a road trip, it will be in your best interest to first decide what your destination is and than map out the directions to get there as quickly as possible.

When you're driving on your road trip, you know at any given point throughout that trip, where you are and you know what, it sets your mind at ease. Luckily, technology like GPS has made things like road trips very easy for us. You can easily acquire this same type of guidance when you have before you, a training map or as I refer to it, a direct plan of (workout) action.

 

Most fitness enthusiasts don't effectively monitor their results throughout their fitness journey. You see people in the gym everyday, training blindly, as they make up their workout as they go. This is almost a complete waste of time. I say “almost”, because something is better than nothing, right?

 

When I first began writing fitness books about a decade ago, I wasn’t sure how readers would respond to workouts that included such detail. Over the years, I have found that it’s the most effective way for people to reach their goals. Just like you should think twice about conducting business without a business plan, the same holds true for fitness.

 

I wish all of you the greatest success and look incredibly forward to chiming in on some of Rusty’s other awesome posts!

 

Keep Going!

 

James Villepigue CSCS