A friend of mine showed up at the gym today. He is aged 15 and has very limited training experience with the goal of gaining mass and strength. He asked my advice and I’m going to outline what I told him with the intention of running it by you guys to see if the routine I’ve given him is suitable, and also to check if I’ve missed anything.
Monday- Squats 5x5
Leg Extensions 3x8-12
SLDLs 3x8-12
Leg Curls 3x8-12
I realize there’s not much volume…and that it’s not very inspiring but the guy is keen to progress on the big 4 and doesn’t want to just do 5x5 as he doesn’t want to neglect isolation work and regret it down the road however he isn’t too concerned by calves at this point. Sets are straight for simplicity.
I advised him to eat good quality food till he is full i.e. eat a lot but don’t use it as an excuse to eat shit constantly. Keep the protein at around 1g per lb of BW or more and eat less carbs on days he isn’t training and instead getting more of his macro breakdown from fats and protein.Begin by shooting for around 3000 calories a day and bump it up as needed. He asked about protein shakes, creatine etc and I advised him that for now he ought to spend his money more on food than supplements. Obviously, standard whey could be beneficial and I mentioned that but stressed that he needn’t go overboard. Finally, I told him to get a good amount of rest and to focus on logging his weights and trying to beat them each time whether that be by number of reps or work weight and most importantly to lift with intensity.
Sorry about the novel. I understand there are already stickies for this sort of thing but I’m just keen to know what I’ve missed out and what the more clued-in guys can add to it.
Seems solid enough. Might actually be more volume than a completely untrained lifter can deal with at first. Start him off really light (less than he is capable of) and add weight consistently. That will greatly reduce the chance of outrunning his recovery ability until it gets a chance to ramp up.
[quote]Jakon wrote:
A friend of mine showed up at the gym today. He is aged 15 and has very limited training experience with the goal of gaining mass and strength.[/quote]
I’m very much in favor of establishing a base level of strength, conditioning, and coordination with a bodyweight-only routine before progressing to free weights.
Three days a week
Squat 2x15 (No weight, keep both feet flat on the floor.)
Push-up 2x15 (On your toes, go until the chest almost touches the floor.)
Lunge 2x15 (Alternate legs, 1 rep left/1 rep right.)
Neutral-grip pull-up 2x15 (assisted if necessary. Could be substituted with inverted rows.)
Plank 2x15-count (Hold the top part of a push-up, on the toes, arms straight, keep the whole body straight. Count to 15.)
Burpee/squat thrust 2x15
Once it’s easy for him to get through that from start to finish, he should be good to go with the plan you listed.
How tall is he and what does he currently weigh? Is he a chubby kid or on the skinnier side?
Also, “3,000 calories a day” implies that he knows how to find, track, and record his calories for each meal. Is he going to use a smartphone app (some people like Lose It, I think Livestrong has one. There have been a few threads here about them) or just write down his foods in a daily journal. In other words, how is he going to know whether or not he’s reaching that goal? Kids, for the most part, are dumb. You can’t always assume they’re going to keep accurate records.
One of the most important things with kids and weight training is to avoid muscular failure. That’s when injuries and long-term problems can occur. He should not be grinding reps, struggling to finish the set, or fail mid-rep.
Point taken, Chris - I appreciate the advice. I’ll give him a copy of the routine you suggested and try and convince him that it’ll benefit him in the long run… but that’ll be easier said than done! After training for a while, and having no coaching experience of my own, you assume that people will be able to handle the same routines and take the nutrition as seriously as you do, however, as you pointed out, this isn’t always the case: particularly if the guy is new to training and pretty young.
As for the calories aspect he is on the skinnier side, I’d hazard a guess at no more than 60kg, perhaps less. He’s about 5ft6. With this in mind, how far off the mark do you think I am with my suggestion?
Again, because I’m used to writing things down and know approximately my macros day to day, meal to meal I assumed he’d start breaking things down the same way. He’s not much of a technology-orientated guy, which is unusual for kids these days, so I doubt he’d have much use for an app but I could point it out all the same - he’ll probably stick with whatever is easiest.
[quote]Jakon wrote:
As for the calories aspect he is on the skinnier side, I’d hazard a guess at no more than 60kg, perhaps less. He’s about 5ft6. With this in mind, how far off the mark do you think I am with my suggestion?[/quote]
If you think he might not track the actual numbers accurately, ballpark it. Use some Dan John principles and tell him to get three meals (egg, meat, fish, or poultry-based) plus 2-4 snacks everyday, and have two meals and a snack before training.
At his size, he doesn’t need to eat like a pre-contest bodybuilder, so if he tells you he’s eating egg whites instead of whole eggs or he’s avoiding carbs, smack him. As long as he focuses on having “good” food more often than “junk”, he’s fine if he grabs some soda or a candy bar sometimes.