Muscle Building Help and Questions

[RedBaron]

Long story short, I am 125 Pounds, approximately 6 feet tall, and I am sick of being relatively weak and not having a lot of muscle (pain to work on my car, move heavy stuff, etc). I am 17 years old, so I am relatively new to building muscle. I was wondering if you guys could give me any pointers, tips, exercises, references to books/websites? Thanks in advance!

[legion]

Eat lean protein. Get on a workout regimen that works for you. Listen to your body and know when to back off and when to push it. I know far too many people that injure themselves but trying too much too soon.

[stomachmonkey]

Spend some cash up front and get a personal trainer for a while. There's working out resulting in either great or mediocre results, working out and hurting yourself and learning how to work out safely and get the best results.

Stay away from the juice unless you want to attract chicks with a nice bod then have them laugh at your peanut size nads.

[Embraer]

Good rule of thumb is eating 1 gram of lean protein for each pound of body weight that you want to weigh, per day. Give yourself plenty of time to recoup after a good workout. alternate cardio with strength training. When I was in college, I lifted every other day (not more than 45 minutes at a time...but it was intense), with biking everyday. (not sprints, but anerobic observed trials riding).

I'm 5'8". in about a year I went from 150 pounds to 190 pounds. 46 inch chest, 30 inch waist, just around 6% body fat.

[TechnoViking]

Good news is you're still young. Maybe just a late bloomer. +1 on the lean protein. Don't get fat trying to get buff (BTDT).

I recommend Mens Health magazine. Lots of good nutrition and exercise info. If you can afford the personal trainer, do it. If not, get a buddy who's been lifting for a while.

A workout partner is ideal as you can motivate each other and spot on the heavier lifts, too.

Most important, if you're just a skinny bastard like me, stick with it, even if you go through phases where it seems like you're not progressing. I wish I had done more when I was your age.

It's a lot tougher at 39, trust me

[Rob Channell]

I enjoyed listening to Jillian Michaels' radio show when it was on. If you can find the podcasts somewhere there is some good info in them.

I subscribe to the theory that she spoke of regarding weight loss and gain. If you take in less calories than you burn, you will lose weight and if you take in more calories than you burn you will gain weight. So to gain weight you need to take in more calories than you use.

The next requirement was to build muscle so you'll need to make sure your intake has enough of the nutrients that the body can use to build muscle. Eat plenty of lean meat and focus on a good quality and quantity of the other foods you eat. Focus less on the preprocessed stuff and fast food type crap and more on a balance of whole grains, veggies and complex carbs to go with the meat. Make sure you are eating enough calories to fill your body's base metabolic needs as well as the extra workouts. My officemate has a heart rate monitor that measures calories burned during a workout. Doing his P90X workouts burns between 800-1000 calories per day extra over the 2500 he needs to maintain his weight. He is losing weight eating well over 3000 calories per day.

I am not an expert, just someone that has been reading and listening to other experts for a year or so.

stomachmonkey's suggestion to get a personal trainer for a while might work well. Make sure you get one that understands nutrition and diet needs as well as the workout programs and proper form for exercises, etc. Keep us posted as to how well it works for you.

[serge944]

You came to the wrong place.

Nutrition - Bodybuilding.com Forums

P90X is a good start for newbies so that you can learn how to strength train. You can refine your workout once you have a foundation.

[m21sniper]

Take some human growth hormone like everyone in hollywood does.

In the army infantry we did pushups/situps/crunches/running. No weights at all. I did not have an ounce of fat on me, and was hard as a rock from head to toe.

[Geronimo '74]

Eat proteine but do not forget to eat carbohydrates ( pasta, oatmeal,..., not sugars).
Muscle mass is gained by eating and working out. If you only eat proteine you will not have enough energy to train hard.
Muscle mass is not made of salads and proteins. Eat, and eat a lot! But know what you eat and regularly check you body fat percentage. If you gain weight and overall bodyfat percentage stays the same, you're gaining muscle!
There are a lot of nutrition supplements available, protein shakes, gainers, look into that an determine what you need.
Do not expect to gain 10lbs a month, you'll see a noticable difference in shape and mass only after a few months of regular training (min 3 times a week, better to train 4 or 5 days a week, but don't over do it, your body needs rest and time to grow)
Train all you muscles, also the ones that you find difficult and hard.
Get a training buddy.
Do your exercises correctly and don't cheat!

This is a very good site and will give a lot of info. ExRx (Exercise Prescription) on the Net

[911Rob]

Grab the book, Body for Life.
It has a great excercise and diet regime that works very well.

"Discipline" is the answer and BTW, we were all skinny and weak at 17; dont sweat it too much, be happy with what you got; nobody but you really cares anyway.

Now I'm nearing 50, my dream weight was when I was 40 and its been that way since I turned 30. I can't emphasis enough; look in the mirror and be happy with who you are, your looks really dont matter all that much anyway (at least on PPOT)

Good luck charles

[DanielDudley]

Gyms are great, because everybody is there to work out, and you will too. +1 on the trainer, it will help you get in the habit.

[VINMAN]

Originally Posted by 911rob

grab the book, body for life.
It has a great excercise and diet regime that works very well.

+1

I'll give you a copy If you want.

[David]

That was me at 17, well maybe a little taller and heavier. No matter what I did I couldn't gain weight. Even as a freshman in college with an all you can eat meal plan and time to workout I couldn't gain a pound.

Now at 42yo, 6'3" and 180 lbs I'm happy that I'm naturally skinny

[benp911]

Most gyms give you a free training session when you join. Use this to your advantage and have a program written up for you. Be careful bc the free training session is also a sales pitch for more training.

[mdmiller911]

That was me.

Buy the books "Practical Programming for Strength Training" and "Starting Strength" Both by Lon Kilgore and Mark Rippetoe. Not your run-of-the-mill barnes and noble books. Buy from Amazon. IMHO, these will be your best investments. To sum up their training philosophy(at least in the novice stage), work your whole body 2x or 3x per week and forget about isolation exercises, especially curls! When you perform compound exercises, ex: squats, deadlifts, bench....a wide variety of things happen in your body such as greater hormonal responses and greater neuromuscular responses. This book explains what happens when you lift and how you should lift correctly. I could go on but i'll let you read the book.

Starting Strength is a guide to doing these compound exercises PROPERLY. Get a trainer until you learn to do them correctly because injury WILL happen if you do them wrong. For example, squats do not hurt your knees if you do it properly!

My last bit of advice is that it does not come easy. You need to work hard and dedication. Dont expect results overnight or even in the first 2 weeks. Any book that lays claim to easy gains is full of *****. But the best part about the practical programming method is that you are only in the gym 2 or 3 times per week for 45 min per workout and see more gains than someone in the gym 5days a week for 1.5 hrs +.

Here was my sample workout that I did for 6 months (until I moved to the intermediate stage)and saw incredible gains in overall strength. Its also outlined in the book.

Workout I - Squat, Bench, Dead lifts, Pullups, pushups
Workout II - Squat, Push Press, Dead lifts, chinups
alternate workouts and DONT LIFT SORE

PM me if you want more info. I'll be more than happy to help!

Mike

[Tobra]

All of the above, and get a work out partner to help you stick with it.

[cbush]

As a guy with your build, but 30 years later, I have just started seriously lifting weights. I never thought it would make much difference, but it does! I agree with the idea of getting a personal trainer for a while, but if you can't, just watch people at the gym and ask questions. Face the fact that you are not going to ever look like a body builder, but if you work hard, and keep at it, you will build muscle, be happy with the way you look, and get very strong!
Good initiative, go for it!

[The Gaijin]

For building muscle - lifting weights is the way to go. The the usual gym thing is too boring and time consuming for me. I have been very happy with CrossFit. They have very few machines and have an intensive "workout of the day".

Lots of running (no jogging), headstand push-ups, pull ups, free weights - stuff like that. It is set up more like a dojo than a usual gym and has excellent coaches.

They have a few locations in CT.

[BRPORSCHE]

I wish I had your problem. At 18 I was 180 lbs. Now three years later I am a plump 235 lbs. It SUCKS!

Definitely get a work out partner. At your size you will see everyone working out with much more weight then you can handle. Stick to the machines at first and then move onto free weights. If you try to even bench press 135 your gonna have A LOT of difficulty trying to get the bar off your chest, or worse off your throat. Try to find a spotter that has atleast some experience in the gym. You don't want to tweak a muscle the wrong way. You won't feel it now, but my lower back gives me a lot of trouble if I am bent over for too long.

STRETCH STRETCH STRETCH!

[Jeff Higgins]

You sound like me at your age. I was a 6'0", 160-170 pound soccer player and bike racer at 17. I later decided I was tired of being skinny. My roommate at that time was a fairly serious lifter, so he took me under his wing and got me started. By the time I was 25, I was pushing 240 pounds with about 10% body fat. I guess I discovered I was only so "skinny" because of all of the aerobic work I was getting.

I kept lifting pretty darn heavy well into my late 30's. Then it happened - I injured my low back doing heavy squats. I'm 49 now, and it's still not the same. It's actually bad enough to preclude the aerobic workouts I used to do, the running and riding. So, now I feel kind of stuck. The weight I added through heavy lifting won't just go away. I pine for the days I was that skinny kid. It would have been easier to keep the weight off today if I hadn't worked so hard to add it in the first place. Plus, I likely would have kept up the aerobic work, and would have been far less likely to injure myself.

I guess that's my way of saying "be careful what you wish for...". The physique you have today will be a far better one to carry later into life than a larger, more muscular one. Added weight will come soon enough. And a little secret for you - the women that are worth being with see muscle-bound goons as, well, - muscle-bound goons. They are not impressed. The ones that are impressed are worth avoiding. Guys lift to impress other guys, really.