Intellectual Strongman

Bigger Stronger Leaner Beginners
1

Intellectual strongman… my goal.

It all started a year ago when this one girl said to me “Your too skinny. You’ll always be too skinny”, then four months ago I became consciously aware of myself, my life, my body, my mind and my God. I began to pray for guidance, instruction and strength; and I started doing pushups. Ten of them; every other day�?� and I was satisfied for about a week.

To date my routine has only included pushups, sit-ups and chin-ups when I have access to a bar. I work full time as a web-developer; so the only workout I get is in my fingers. Looking at life and others around me I realized that I need to take my workout to my next level; joining a gym and free weights. On x-mas I was given a set of “perfect pushup” accessories; and I suppose I feel more work being done with my shoulders and back than my arms (someone tell me if these are useful or useless)

My current routine is combining the perfect pushups and fingertip pushups (I don�??t do regular pushups) in the order of 100-200 every other day and 40-100 on the off days. I switch it according to how bored I am with doing the same thing; sometimes I do a couple sets with my feet on the back of a chair, or wide, or close etc.

Looking back I see how fast doing almost nothing has helped me grow; it’s given me an immense sense of motivation to reach and surpass my physical limits. In my mind it’s all about strength; I believe that I want to focus on my muscle endurance and creating new long muscle. From what I’ve just read I’ve found that I have an ectomorphic body type. I also know that I have a metabolism like a squirrel.

I’m not sure where to start; with such a massive amount of information I don�??t want to get stuck in the research stage. I also know that each time I�??ve joined a gym (read: company gym) the personal trainers got me on a program that to me was useless, gave me no motivation and essentially stopped the progress I should have been making. So I need to design my own program for my body; and becoming a member here is my starting point.

Today is Friday; pay-day. I’m going to join my local Gold’s Gym so that I have access to all the equipment that I don�??t know how to use yet. What I’m looking for is advice on where to start.

-I eat healthy and will be recording my food intake for a week to see how healthy I really eat.
-I go on drug screening next week; so my days of smoking substances are over. (cigarettes were never an issue)
-On my own accord I will be not drinking for 6 months while I spearhead my workout.
-Age: 20 / Weight: 175lbs / Height: 6'3"

Any comments, suggestions, ideas are welcome; as I am a complete beginner. I’m looking forward to hard, dedicated, burning, push myself over the edge workouts.

-ng217

2

Don’t take this the wrong way, but the best thing you can do is read the sticky’s at the top of this forum.

You want advice on where to start? Pick a beginner workout and stick with it for a couple of months. If you want a beginner workout, there’s one in the post by laura-lightning that you should follow for a while. I can’t remember it exactly, but it’s something like:

Workout A
A. Squats 15 x 2
B1. Lunges 15 x 2
B2. One arm elbow out dumbbell row 15 x 2
C1. Push-ups (if these are no problem, do explosive pushups) 15 x 2
C2. Swiss ball crunch 20 x 2

Workout B
A. Deadlift 15 x 2
B1. Step-ups 15 x 2
B2. 1 arm dumbbell overhead press 15 x 2
C1. Lat pull down (parallel grip) 15 x 2
C2. Reverse crunch 20 x 2

All exercises are done with 60 seconds rest between them, and full rest between supersets.

Credit where credit’s due, this is the beginners workout from The New Rules Of Lifting by Lou Schuler and Alywn Cosgrove (at least my interpretation of it, not entirely sure about supersetting the exercises, can’t seem to make my mind up)

3

Over the years, I’ve come to realize that one of the most erroneously used phrases in nutrition is someone saying they “eat healthy.”

Not just because you don’t live off Krispy Kreme and Jäger bombs means you eat healthy.

4

[quote]Contrl wrote:
Over the years, I’ve come to realize that one of the most erroneously used phrases in nutrition is someone saying they “eat healthy.”

Not just because you don’t live off Krispy Kreme and Jäger bombs means you eat healthy.[/quote]

A rule of thumb that I go by is: if it says it’s healthy on the label, it isn’t.

5

Be sure to eat enough, every 2.5 to 3 hours. Real food when you can, maybe protein powder and fish oil along the way. When you first start to workout is when you can make your fastest gains. But, if you do not eat enough your body will not grow and you will feel it as fatigue and soreness.

Roual’s advice is solid.

6

Read the sticky’s. Joining a gym is great, because you will not have a lot of progress doing just push-ups. You’ll just get good at doing push-ups.

Try these routines. Very basic, but that’s what you need right now. BTW, read the entire articles of both sites. Invaluable.

I’m currently using the first link, with great results.

7

I’m doing the 5x5 recommended by The DA above. It’s very motivational because you’re increasing the weights every workout. It will make you stronger and you’ll make steady strength gains on it. Just stick to the plan that you choose. Don’t get caught up in another plan being better for you. Some gym rats love one body part a day but I think that the 5x5 type of a few heavy compound lifts is the way to go.