A ‘huge’ (no pun intended) part of bodybuilding for beginners is nutrition. Most of us start lifting weights to get bigger, aka to gain more muscle. But you’re not going to do that without food.

Your goal with bodybuilding is to build and shape your muscles. You will be lifting heavy weights and compound movements to gain mass, which we’ll go over in detail later. But you’ll also be using exercises and techniques that will pump more blood into your muscles during your workouts. This gives you the best of both worlds!

Strength athletes rely almost exclusively on the barbell, while bodybuilders tend to work with dumbbells a bit more often (though this isn’t a hard-and-fast rule). Free weights allow you to focus on the meat and potatoes of progressive overload; slowly adding weight to an exercise over time.

The landscape of a good bodybuilding routine requires various elements in the proper proportion and orientation. Train hard in the right rep ranges. Select exercises that work well for your body specifically. Rest long enough to recover, but not too much longer than that.