I’m 15, been training under a year, started at 123lbs. Currently 150lbs. What are my weak points in this shot? I feel like my forearms dwarf my biceps and triceps and my thickness isn’t on par with width and detail. Thoughts and advice?
Your back and delts look great to me, Noah.
Nice job young man.
Bring up biceps. And it’s a little hard to tell in this pose, but maybe also bring up tris.
Let me tag a couple of more experienced people here. @BrickHead, @robstein.
I really appreciate it!
You have some really thick spinal erectors there. Do you train a lot of DLs?
Also, putting up a relaxed front (obscure your face or crop it out) and relaxed back will give people a better idea of where you are.
I train deadlifts similar to the way a powerlifter would. My main ham/glute work is sldl for example.
I don’t see any glaring weaknesses. You look like you’re a torso-dominant guy whose arms might be a tad behind his torso. Your back looks very good for someone your age, and from the first picture I can see your pecs are probably are probably good too.
Looking good there! Good lats already. What is your training program like? How much direct arm work do you do?
I’m sure you’re tired of hearing this, but honestly at your age, talking about weak points is not warranted. You’re making great progress at a young age. Keep training the way you are and eating right, and once you’ve had a few years under your belt and if you’re considering stepping on stage eventually, revisit this topic.
Thanks for the advice and feedback! Recently I’ve been training with a lot of powerlifting in mind. I’m doing an upper/lower split. I do one high volume and one high intensity day. I do my deadlifts on lower body days and rack pulls above the knee on upper body days. A typical high volume upper body day would be something along the lines of 3x8 bench, 2x10 ohp, 3x8 barbell row, 3x12 lat pull down, 3x10 close grip bench and then 3x12-15 cable push down superset with hammer curls
Very solid plan. You could certainly keep following this path and eventually branch off into a different type of split. Or, you could always add a direct arm day once a week in there if you want to. Again, just to emphasize, at your age there’s no reason to get caught up in small details. The plan you’re on now is clearly working well for you, keep it up and enjoy the life style
Damn that back is well developed for someone your age. I hate saying “for your age” but at 15 all I wanted to do was play Xbox and fap. I wish I was this motivated at your age!
I’ve heard that bro splits aren’t ideal because 2x per week muscle protein synthesis is better. I can only work out consistently 4x per week so I can only really do a 2 day split if I want 2x per week muscle protein synthesis. I might make a separate thread about this. What do you think about this?
Common “broscience,” and I’ve never understood why they’re called “brosplits.” Any bodybuilder or physique athlete who has stepped on stage very likely trains standard split, one body part per week, unless maybe there’s a specific body part they like to train twice a week. The main aspect is to adjust your training for your frequency. If you’re hitting something twice a week, you can’t hit it as hard or with as many working sets as you would once a week, you won’t be able to recover. If you’re hitting something once a week, hit it hard and recover throughout the week. Once we start spitting out protein synthesis and such overanalyzed terminology, we ignore the undeniable anecdotal data that every competitive physique athlete trains with standard splits. Sure, there might be a few who don’t, but the vast, vast majority train this way.
If 4x a week is what you’ve got, you could certainly do:
-Chest, tris
-Back, bis
-Quads, hams, calves
-delts, abs, accessories
Or something like that. If you like your current training split, keep up with it and don’t feel you have to change. But, hitting something once per week is standard, and optimal, as long as you work hard enough to get bigger and stronger as you recover over the course of the week.
Hi Noah.
This is off topic a bit but I saw your thread asking about cracking your back, and it made me think of this.
For a young lifter, I can’t emphasize this enough. So many of us have some shoulder injury. It’s THE most important thing that you want to avoid, in my opinion. If something will shorten your lifting career, it’s most likely to be a shoulder injury. You will frequently see people at the gym - experienced lifters - making these mistakes.
His entire channel is very good. An ounce of prevention, and all of that.
Best,
Puff
Edited for clarity.
Greatly appreciated.