Many of you who have embarked on a bodybuilding program recently have emailed me about your muscle soreness and whether that is normal or not.

Muscle soreness is a normal part of the recovery process that begins once you finish your bodybuilding workouts.  Muscle soreness is more pronounced at the beginning of your bodybuilding journey since your muscles are not used at all to lifting weights.  That is the reason why it is of utmost importance that you use the right beginning bodybuilding routine.  By doing so, you avoid getting injured or excessively sore.

There are various types of soreness that you need to be aware of.  The key thing is to be able to distinguish between good muscle soreness, which is the one that indicates you had a good workout, and injury type soreness.  For learning how to differentiate between soreness types, please take a look at my Types of Muscle Soreness article, where not only will you learn about the different types of muscle soreness, but also how to minimize them.

With so much emphasis being placed on what foods to eat and exercises to perform, a topic that does not get discussed very often is the one of food seasonings. At one time or the other, we have all indulged in some type of food that has been loaded with seasoning to make it taste great! The question now remains, are these seasonings good or bad for you?

In Are Food Seasonings Sabotaging Your Fitness Goals?, fitness expert Anthony Alayon discusses this topic and eliminates the confusion behind it.

The triceps pushdowns are an excellent bodybuilding exercise to work the triceps. With different cable attachments you can focus on different parts of the triceps.

For example, an overhand grip on a straight bar attachment will stimulate all three heads of the triceps equally.  Using a rope attachment however will emphasize the outer head of the triceps.  Finally, a reverse grip on a straight bar or a single handle will emphasize the inner long head of the triceps.

One thing that I love about this exercise is the constant tension that the cables place on the triceps. Performed properly, this exercise will help you to stimulate new growth on the triceps.

In order to know what the proper execution of this exercise is, please take a look at my Triceps Pushdowns Exercise Description.  For a good triceps routine that makes use of this exercise, you can check out Lee Labrada's Bodybuilding Triceps Routine.

Most people drop their New Year Resolution to get in shape within 4 weeks. However, this does not need to be your case.

The secret to keeping your New Year Resolutions has everything to do with having the right mind set and using proper goal setting techniques. With the wrong mind set and without goal setting techniques it is very easy to drop your bodybuilding plan and go back to old habits.

However, when you combine the right mind set with the correct goal setting techniques the sky is the limit! Here are some resources that I'd like you to take a look at in order to ensure that this year you reach your bodybuilding goals!

• The Mindset of a Successful Bodybuilder 
• The Power of Goal Setting
• The Importance of Intentions and Goals for Achieving Results Out of Your Bodybuilding Program
• Ten Bodybuilding Rules That Will Help You To Achieve Bodybuilding Success