Bodybuilding exercises should include both your upper body and your lower body. Some are under the misunderstanding that bodybuilding only includes the abs and up.

When putting together a body building workout, it is vital you workout your legs and upper body.  There are three main muscles you want to focus on with your legs; your quadriceps, hamstrings and calves.  By working out these muscles, you will build strong and durable legs.

Luckily, many leg exercises will workout each of the three muscles.  Squats are great for building strong and powerful legs.  It involves you placing weight on a barbell and squatting down with the weight rested on your neck.  It is important you perform this with good technique.  Other exercises for your quadriceps include leg press, leg extensions, dumbbell lunges and dumbbell squats.

Moving along to your hamstrings, there are three great body building workouts you can do.  The first is lying leg curls in which you lye face down on a leg curl machine and lift up.  The other two exercises are stiff legged dead lifts and dumbbell stiff legged dead lifts.

The last of the muscles to include with your body building workout is your calves.  There are several exercises you can do to build up your calves giving you muscle for leaping abilities.  The most common exercises include standing calf raises, seated calf raises, leg press calf extensions, and standing one legged calf raises.  All calf raises consist of you simply standing on your toes and raising yourself using your calf muscles.

Putting together a quality body building workout for your legs is essential.  You want to have strong, powerful legs to support your upper-body.  Unfortunately, far too many bodybuilders focus solely on their upper-body.

Take these exercises and apply them to your workout regimen to build strong legs.  You can work your quadriceps into your bicep, tricep and shoulder workout day and place your calves and hamstrings with your back and chest workout day.  This makes for a perfect workout schedule.

Thirty years or so ago, Arnold Schwarzenegger was a champion body builder but there is far more to the sport of body building than simply trying to make your body look like his did back then.

Most people think that body building is about increasing your muscles to outrageous sizes. The truth is that there is a lot more to body building like strengthening your muscles and then building their tone to create a healthy looking body. It isn’t always about “getting ripped.” It is about increasing your health.

This article contains useful tips for people who are interested in starting their own body building workout routine. Remember: the key to body building is to get healthy first and to get stacked later.

Proper breathing is important. Breathing correctly is essential to a body building exercise routine. You should not hold your breath. You want to take in enough oxygen to keep your muscles healthy and happy. Use your diaphragm to help you breathe correctly instead of your lungs.

If you fill your lungs with air, your chest will expand and that makes it harder for you to work on the muscles in your chest. When you breathe with the diaphragm you are able to get the correct amount of oxygen without having your chest expand.

Set goals you know you can reach. Don’t try to go too far too fast. Choose goals that are reachable while staying healthy. Being able to see your goals actually happen can do wonders for your body building efforts and mindset.

When you meet your goals and succeed at your tasks then you can set your next goals. Setting goals by steps will help your focus and keep you from trying to take shortcuts that will risk your health. Don’t forget: you need to strengthen your muscles before you can build them. If you try to build up too quickly it will be easy to hurt yourself of feel helpless about being able to meet the goals you set for yourself.

Have regular meetings with your doctor. Your doctor will help you ensure that your muscles stay healthy while you get in the workouts that you need to get in. Not only will your doctor make sure that you aren’t overtaxing yourself, he’ll help you make sure that you are staying on track. A doctor can also help identify problems as they develop and keep them from getting out of hand. At the very least, you should see your doctor when you begin the sport to make sure that your approach to body building is correct.

Body building, as an activity, can be incredibly rewarding. It can help you increase your health. It keeps your body fit and in shape. It helps you build your endurance and stamina.

As you work to improve your strength and to build your muscles it is important that you take steps to stay healthy and to protect your muscles from being torn down too much. You will see a high level of success with your body building when you take steps to protect your health.

Most people never start an exercise plan because they believe that they don’t have enough time in the day to do a 30-60 minute workout. And they believe that it is not worth working out unless they can devote that 60 minutes time all at once. However you can break your workouts to shorter periods and also you can get an effective workout in just 10 minutes a day.

In our busy, fast-paced world, who can spare 30 to 60 minutes a day for working out?  You may be surprised by just how much of your day is “wasted” on non-essential activities that you could use for exercise – for most people it will be way more than 30 minutes.

Examples:  You spend 2 hours getting ready for work in the morning, taking more than 30 minutes to check  out what’s new in Facebook or Twitter, make and pack your lunch, and other activities that you could have done the night before and left room for a morning workout routine.  Then after work you finish eating dinner at 6:30pm and your favorite television show doesn’t start until 8:00pm – so you channel surf through mindless shows that you don’t care about for 1 1/2 hours – when you could have easily squeezed in a great workout!

I mention that only because “time” is such a relative term and most of us have a lot more time than we realize.

But okay – let’s assume that your day is packed full of very essential activities from the moment you awaken until the moment you fall asleep at night, and you truly cannot spare 30 minutes or more for exercise.  This article is going to share some easy ways to squeeze in 10 minutes or less of exercise several times a day, and all of those short bursts of activity are nearly as good as a full length workout.

1) Every time you use the restroom throughout the day, you could squeeze in 10 squats, lunges or jumping jacks.

2) You could park your car farther away from your workplace and stores, and walk there briskly for 5-10 minutes.

3) You could take the stairs instead of the elevator.

4) You could keep a small set of dumbells in your desk and do curls while you are on “hold” on the phone.

5) You could use your 10-15 minute work breaks to walk briskly around your workplace, either inside or outside.  Ditto for part of your lunch hour.

6) You could do stomach crunches or sit ups during television commercial breaks.

7) You could walk or march in place during commercials too.

You could do buttock clenches while standing at the sink washing dishes.

9) You could “bench press” your kids while playing in the backyard (only if they are small enough, of course – don’t try it with a teenager unless you’re really strong).

10) While shopping, if you see that the checkout lane is busy, you could keep walking around the store rather than standing in line for 10+ minutes.  When the lane dwindles down to just a few people, then get in line.

If you want to get a serious workout (and not just burn a few calories here and here) take a look at a program like Tony Horton’s 10 Minute Trainer – The Workout Program for the Busiest People – Click here With Tony’s program you’ll get a good workout in less time by super stacking your exercises so that you work out more than one area at a time and you get awesome results by compounding your workout time.

Whether you choose to do a few extra exercises here or there or devote 10 straight minutes you’ll be moving your body and that’s what counts.