When I first started lifting it was just in my bedroom, I had a couple of dumbell handles, cast iron weights and an ez curl bar. I was always interested in moving more and more Weight but realised at the time that the sets and reps were what made me look better and I vainly
plucked away for years not really knowing what I was doing.
I had read the odd mens health or muscle and fitness magazine and had a go at the workouts they had set out but never really stuck to anything for any length of time.
The catalyst for change in my opinion early on was when I started to use a little book to keep track of everything I done. I took the odd posing pic I look back at now and laugh but If your aims are to change how you look that's how you track your progress it was my original aim but only for a short period now it's simply a bi-product of the strength I am continually trying to gain.
Obviously both strength training and bodybuilding are both done in the gym but that's kind of where the similarities stop,
If you have a bodybuilding background or are an aestethically driven gym goer you will no doubt have spend some time doing sets and reps a rigid routine of a warmup then 3-4 sets of 6-8 reps for each exercise.
The movements you will be used to in the gym are probably mostly isolation of One muscle at a time, one or two muscle groups per session.
The difference with strength training mainly lies with the warm ups and sets and reps but also the isolation movements in the gym while sometimes lift specifically utilised serve as more of a post compound movement exhaustion or a fault correction exercise for a particular compound movement.
Incase you didnt understand that last part I'll give an example you may be used to training your lats (ie lat pulldowns or rows or pullups) as a Main staple in your back training. However in strength training it would be used a supplementary movement to be performed after your working sets for your chosen compound movement that session. (I.e Deadlifts to aid with keeping your shoulders back and fight back rounding)
Your main lift layouts for strength training would be more like 12-20 reps with an empty bar, warmup slowly increasing the weight and reducing the reps till you are achieving single sets of 5-1 reps increasing in weight until the load becomes to much ( that's right if you are working towards a 1 rep max you will be doing multiple sets of singles and doubles) this is the main difference reduced reps increased loads.
With a powerlifting type "split" we will call it so you bodybuilders can relate. It would look something like
Mon- squat + supplementary exercises
Wed- bench or pressing + ''
Fri- deadlifts + "
HOPE THIS HELPS ANYONE TRYING TO MAKE THE CHANGES FROM A BODYBUILDING TYPE TRAINING TO A MORE STRENGTH BASED PROGRAM. :D
