When it comes to bodybuilding, particularly among new lifters, bigger is almost always better. However, if you want to be a complete bodybuilder and make the best possible gains without destroying your waistline or symmetry, it’s often necessary to introduce a level of balance and equilibrium which may not be synonymous with common bodybuilding practices. Here are a few situations where bigger is not always better.

Body parts
When you’re initially trying to add muscle to your body, you probably aren’t all that concerned with keeping an eye on which parts are growing faster than others. The first 2 or 3 years of bodybuilding should be devoted to lifting using a full-body split routine in which you dedicate full effort to each body part with the goal of gaining as much muscle as possible. Once you’ve been training for a few years and you’re ready to enter a show, however, you’ll reach a point where you have to step back and determine which muscle groups are strong (or too strong!) and which are just a tad weak. If you realize your arms are out of proportion with your chest and shoulders, you need to scale back their training. It might hurt your ego, but “winning” last place in a local bodybuilding show because you dwarf your own chest and shoulders will be even rougher on the ego!

Diet
Sure, you could add 1000 calories to your daily diet. You’d probably pack on 15 pounds in the first month. But how much of that weight would actually be muscle? On the other hand, adding only 500 calories per day would result in a gain of 7 or 8 pounds over that first month. There’s a good chance that the weight you add would be made up of more muscle, if you gain less weight. Many bodybuilders like to go ‘all out’ on bulk dieting, which is what their bodies may need. At the same time, going 1000, 1500, or even 2000 calories over their daily caloric need could result in them losing every trace of muscularity and ending up a shapeless bulker.

Poundage
For great pectorals, you want to bench as much weight as humanly possible, right? Yes and no. To some extent, lifting more weight is quite the desirable goal. The more you lift, the bigger you will become. Your muscles have to grow to adapt to a changing workload. On the other hand, you must be careful not to go overboard with measuring numbers, and remember that a great deal of muscle growth comes from the wonderful formula of “Flex + poundage”. Yes, the poundage you move matters. But what also matters is the concentration you are able to attain during each repetition. Moving a weight of 300 pounds is impressive. Moving that same 300 pounds with a deliberate motion, while flexing every inch of the way, is much more impressive – if your goal is indeed to grow new muscle. You still stimulate muscle fibers when you go all-out heavy, but you stimulate much more of them when you lift in a controlled manner and flex throughout the movement.

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