The most important thing in body building for starters is to carry out compound exercises using the right form doubled with the right diet. I can’t stress this enough, and to work up in weight incrementally.

You can probably lift more than the weight you should begin with, but the key is to do the exercises consistently.

For true body building success, you must stick to the program and not over-train; beginners should be disciplined and not be disappointed with the lack of immediate results.

Building and strengthening the muscles requires compound exercises, by the time you have a acquired the muscle power that you want, then you can start performing isolation exercises.

Compound exercises are ones in which at least two joints are used to do the exercise movement, so for chest & triceps, you’ll want to do DIPS or BENCH PRESS, for lats and biceps you’ll want to do PULLUPS or LAT BAR PULL DOWN, for legs… it’s SQUATS and then DEADLIFT (which also hits your lower back).

For your shoulder & triceps, you’ll wan to do MILITARY PRESS, CLEAN & JERKS or SQUAT PRESSES.

CALF WORK, because of the unique nature of that muscle group, requires the intensity of CALF RAISES & DONKEY PRESSES which only work one joint, so they tend to be an isolation exercise.

When you have decided on what exercise types would comprise your workouts, it is time to move on in determining how many repetitions and sets would be needed.

It’s suggested that beginning bodybuilders, for the first two weeks do light weights and high reps to get your muscles primed for the growth phase, so you want to start with 1 or 2 sets and work your way up to 4 or 5 sets of 12 to 15 reps (this includes your warm-up sets).

Then you’ll want to swap out exercises, so if you’ve been doing WEIGHTED DIPS it’s time for BENCH PRESS, and you’ll want to raise the weight maybe 15 or 20% and do less sets and less reps (say 2 or 3 sets of 6 to 8 reps), stay on this course for two weeks, then it’s it time to bring the weight back down and do 4 or 5 sets of 10 to 12 reps for one week, then you can jump up in weight from the heavy phase, but do less reps and sets.

The key element here is to a) switch up the routine so your body has to constantly adapt b) build strength and mass by alternating what intensity of weights you pump. What this adds up to is one set of heavy exercises per week with other days comprised of light yet repetitive actions that would best burn fat while increasing your power and stamina.
Once you’ve been on the compound exercise cycle for about 6 weeks, you can start to slowly work in isolation exercises, these are exercises that use one joint to move the weight.

For example, do the barbell or PREACHER CURL, instead DUMBBELL CURLS. You want to do the FRENCH PRESS instead of ONE-ARM TRICEP PRESSES, LEG EXTENSIONS instead of LEG PRESSES, and so on. After getting the form and structure that you want, adapting more unusual exercises won’t be a problem. Although it’s nearly impossible to do “spot work,” you can eke out specific gains by alternating your routine and the reps/sets combinations.

For instance, when doing EZ-BAR BICEP CURLS, instead of doing 4 or 5 sets of 12 to 15 reps, do two sets of 21s; 21s for BICEP CURLS are when you do 7 reps of vertical to 90 degrees, then 7 reps of 90 degrees to the full contraction, and then finally 7 reps of the full motion… all without a break. That’s a burn that you won’t forget, and it’s a great way to shock you muscles if you’ve reach a plateau.

At the start, you might find it hard to follow, however note that the discipline to continue makes or breaks body building program.

Also, getting more than enough rest and eating right, actually eating more than ever have before.

Your diet is the most important thing whether you’re first starting out or a seasoned pro. The right diet will play a major part in your improvement; however a bad diet will undermine the effects of the workout.

Let me leave you with one more thought. According to some of the best trainers, lifting weight should only be done after mastering bodyweight exercises.

For that reason, you may want to start out doing bodyweight exercises.