Your warm up may consist of 3-4 parts: cardio to increase body temperature, stretching to prevent injury, calisthenics, and exercises.

Start by doing some cardio to raise your body temperature. For 5-10 minutes, run on a treadmill. Or for those who are bodybuilding at home, take a run around the block.

Once your body is warm, do some stretching. This helps prevent injury during your workout. Focus your stretching on the area of your body that you are planning on working that day.

For example, if you are working on your upper body, some stretches for your shoulder you might try are:

- Pectoral/deltoid stretch – lift your arms straight behind you until you feel a pull (Keep chin up and torso straight)

- Triceps stretch – cross one arm across the front of your body, pull elbow with other hand

- Overhead triceps stretch – raise one arm over head, pull elbow with other hand

Be sure to do both stretches that try to measure/extend your range of motion such as the triceps stretch, as well as stretches that can contract and then relax your muscle. Also, be careful not to overstretch – stretch just enough that your muscles don’t feel tight.

You could also choose to do some calisthenics, to warm up different muscle groups and get them prepared to work, and to give your body more of a total body workout before you begin focusing on a certain muscle group. You can try the following:

- Push ups

- Lunges (with small weights in hands, and feet shoulder width apart, step forward with one leg, bending knee)

- Body squats (without weights)

- Chin ups

Once you’ve warmed your body and stretched, you may want to get started right away on your first set. Don’t. Finish your warm up by heading over to the machine you are going to use, and doing a few reps with gradually increasing weight.

For example, if you are planning to bench press 225 today, start by pressing 100 seven to nine times, then increase the weight in increments of 50 – 75 while decreasing the reps (50 x nine, 100 x eight, 150 x six and so on) until you reach your target weight. Once you’ve reached your workout weight, start your first set.

A warm up allows your body to adjust to your workout. This will make your bodybuilding session more effective, as well as preventing injury to your joints.

Here are some tips to help you keep motivated and self-disciplined:

- Stick with your workout. Don’t give up. Have a reason for motivation, a reason to complete your training regimen for the day. The best workout is useless unless you have a reason to do it and a great attitude when completing your workout.

- Set a personal plan for yourself with outlined goals listed in writing. Post this where you can see it everyday, or even while you’re working out. This will remind you why you started and why you’re not going to give up.

Muscle overload is the essential building of muscle tissue. You should make sure your weights increase from workout to workout at a gradual pace. If you never changed your weights, your muscles would never get any bigger.

Some of your goals should include, but not be limited to, (a) use heavier weights, (b) use the same number of weights but increase the amount of reps and sets, (c) use the same weights but perform your exercises in a faster time interval.

- Don’t keep switching your exercises. You want to be able to measure your progress, and the only way to do this is by sticking to the same routine each week. DO change your daily routine, but not your weekly routine. Know what to expect to do for the day, and stick with it. Regularity and consistency help you stay mentally motivated and help you see progression in the way of results.

- Measure your results! You can become frustrated if you never see your hard work show off, and it may be little measurements at first, but that’s a lot when you see it as a fact. Many people make the mistake of using the bathroom scale to measure results. Muscle does weigh more than fat, but this is the wrong way to measure results when bodybuilding.

Know your body fat percentage. There are many gadgets on the market today that help in measuring your body fat. Some of the latest technology includes a handheld scanner that is highly accurate in measuring your body fat ratio.

- Set reasonable goals. The biggest let down for people is setting goals that are unattainable.

For those living in an apartment, there may not be space for a bench. In this case, you can still get a decent workout in using just a pair of adjustable dumbbells. You can get the fixed weight dumbbells, but you’ll need several different weights in order to work everything, and that defeats the purpose of taking up as little space as possible.

With just a pair of dumbbells and a bit of floor space, you can do bicep curls, shoulder presses, tricep extensions, lunges, squats and rows. These work many muscle groups. While you may not be able to lift as hard as you could within a proper gym, you can still build muscle tone. The chest can be worked with the old faithful of exercises, the pushup. And the abs generally do not require any fancy equipment anyways.

With a bit more money and a higher budget you should invest in a bench and a barbell. Now you can start working your chest harder. A bench also allows you to do dumbbell fly, and pull-overs. Make sure you select a sturdy enough bench to support your weight and the weight that you are lifting.

Another useful (and cheap) piece of equipment is the chin-up bar. By installing this into a crossbeam or door frame, you can focus on some of those activities that work the muscles that are harder to push with just a bench.

Finally, it is possible to blow thousands of dollars on multi-station pulley equipment or the types of things you see on infomercials. Honestly, you will get far more bang for your buck with the simple bench. If you want to work hard enough to require that much equipment, you will be better off joining a gym.

Perhaps the biggest difficulty with working out from home is maintaining the discipline required. It is far too easy to get distracted in your own house. If this is what you need to do, then you will want to have a set time that you can workout everyday. Exercise without the TV on, unless you are watching some kind of workout program, in order to reduce distractions.

The advantage of the gym is that you are surrounded by people who are there for the same reason. Thus, you can use their efforts to push yourself harder and accomplish more. There is also the added benefit of the better level of safety involved when there is someone else present.