Need Help Bulking and Overcoming Platau

Hey guys, basically I need tips and suggestions on bulking up i’m a 15 year old freshmen and I weigh 155 lbs. and have a home gym that has the basic dumbells 5-50 and a bench and treadmill, elliptical, and plate weights from 5-45s, as well as a pull-up bar and a squat tower.

Here is my normal workout (PLEASE CRITQUE):
10 minute jog on treadmill warmup (medium jog close to a run)
incline dumbbell press 40x12, 45x10, 50x7
regular dumbbell press 40x12, 45x10, 50x8
decline dumbbell press 40x12, 45x10, 50x10
incline bench press 135x10, 170x8, 190x6
regular bench press 135x10, 170x8, 190x6
decline bench press 170x10, 190x8, 210x6
under grip pull ups (maximum W/ just body weight)
reverse grip pull ups (maximum W/ just body weight)
decline push ups x 25
prayer curls 75x12, 95x10, 110x8
squats 135x12, 190x10,220x8,250x(maximum cranking them out)
(then after that I normally get on the bench and put on like 225 and go for it then if it get that ill go for 255 and just go on and on until I burn out)

bench max: 255
squat max: 270
curl max: 120

I try to do that around three times a week (Monday, Wedensday, Saturday) and on the in-between days I have basketball pratice so I do alot of cardio.

I’m trying to bulk up and get more power in my legs because within the last 5 months i’ve just started working them with squats and for the upcoming football season I’m going to go for running back instead of corner. I eat ALOT of food and try to watch what I eat but considering how much I eat its degrading that I can’t put on weight partly because of my high metabolism.
If you guys have ANY tips or suggestions please feel free to help.

Thank you,
Alex

eat more. you’re not eating enough given your weekly caloric output and “high metabolism”.

follow an established program like WS4SB.

Define “eat lots”.

Post what you ate today.

yeah you should find a program not ‘do all bench variations and half the back work and a lil legs 3 times aweek’

you have plenty of equipment to follow a program just as suggested above, also EAT! the only way to bulk is to eat more than you burn and gain weight. End of story.

Sounds like you have all the equipment you need to get the training done. Those are some nice numbers for 15yr old @ 155lbs. I’m going to assume that basketball is ‘In Season’ and as such competitive play should always be the priority. The workout you posted has more volume than I would suggest during periods of competitive play and as others have mentioned it is heavily weighted towards pressing movements at the expense of balance. You deserve a great deal of credit for your effort, however you could get more ‘bang for your buck’ if you balanced the session. [ex. 1 horizontal pressing movement, 1 horizontal rowing movement, 1 vertical pressing movement, 1 vertical pulling movement, side delt raise, shrug, 1 tricep extension, 1 bicep curl, etc.] **I think you are to the point that you could make two different routines and rotate them. It is fine to work hard ‘In Season’ but the point is maintaining top level game play.

The thing we say to ourselves carry a great deal of weight. When you say “…partly because of my fast metabolism.” You are providing yourself a pre-fab explination/excuse for failing to gain. You should know better than that. It’s going to be difficult with your schedule, you may have to plan better than the other guy, it can be done. If others have done it, so can you.

You’re in high school and you’re active. It’s not called bulking, it’s called growing.

Eat a ton of good, dense food all the time.

[quote]BlueCollarTr8n wrote:
Sounds like you have all the equipment you need to get the training done. Those are some nice numbers for 15yr old @ 155lbs. I’m going to assume that basketball is ‘In Season’ and as such competitive play should always be the priority. The workout you posted has more volume than I would suggest during periods of competitive play and as others have mentioned it is heavily weighted towards pressing movements at the expense of balance. You deserve a great deal of credit for your effort, however you could get more ‘bang for your buck’ if you balanced the session. [ex. 1 horizontal pressing movement, 1 horizontal rowing movement, 1 vertical pressing movement, 1 vertical pulling movement, side delt raise, shrug, 1 tricep extension, 1 bicep curl, etc.] **I think you are to the point that you could make two different routines and rotate them. It is fine to work hard ‘In Season’ but the point is maintaining top level game play.

The thing we say to ourselves carry a great deal of weight. When you say “…partly because of my fast metabolism.” You are providing yourself a pre-fab explination/excuse for failing to gain. You should know better than that. It’s going to be difficult with your schedule, you may have to plan better than the other guy, it can be done. If others have done it, so can you. [/quote]

Thanks alot for the help, so I should do just regular benchpressing with the barbells, do dumbell rows, side delt raises (like with 20’s my delts are really weak), shrugs, tricep extensions, and prayer curls or should I do standing barbell curls? and Yes, football is my main sport that I love the most but I just play the other sports on the offseason for the competition (and of course to be with my buddies). Also, I’m going to start writing down what I eat everyday and i’ll post what I eat tommorow on here as well. Thank you so much for your time.

Do yourself a favor and lower the weight on the squats and hit parallel depth, you’ll thank me later. EVERY high school kid working out on their own always squats crazy high. Every. Single. One. and it won’t do a damn thing for you.

so with all that work, are you getting a decent return on your training efforts? If these are the weights you are using, what did you start with? Are you progressing with the load?
You always use these rep ranges?
There is a shit ton of movement redundancy there. Simplify your routine.

do overhaed press too, make sure you have full range of motion on all exercises.
food is very important - post what you ate the past 5 days

[quote]jp_dubya wrote:
so with all that work, are you getting a decent return on your training efforts? If these are the weights you are using, what did you start with? Are you progressing with the load?
You always use these rep ranges?
There is a shit ton of movement redundancy there. Simplify your routine. [/quote]

I’m not getting out of it what I want I feel like with all the work I do I should be getting alot better results…I don’t care so much as to how I look I just want bulkness and strength i’ve been looking at the WS4SB workout and it looks like it would help me out alot by using heavy weights with low reps to get that bulknss and strength instead of the endurance and “define” body you get with high reps low weight. Also, I started last year and I remember the first time I stepped foot in a weight room it was horrible…I could only bench the bar with 5’s on it…then I used the pyramid method and got the weight up to what it is now over the last year. As far as progression, slowly VERY slowly…we only have dumbells 5-50 and I use the 50’s on every dumbell bench workout I do so with WS4SB I could do the flat barbell bench and use heavy weight low leps and see if that increases my strength faster.

[quote]ebomb5522 wrote:
You’re in high school and you’re active. It’s not called bulking, it’s called growing.

Eat a ton of good, dense food all the time. [/quote]

[quote]waylanderxx wrote:
Do yourself a favor and lower the weight on the squats and hit parallel depth, you’ll thank me later. EVERY high school kid working out on their own always squats crazy high. Every. Single. One. and it won’t do a damn thing for you.[/quote]

^THESE

Make sure you are working deadlifts, squats, bench press, and military press. Learn perfect form for all of these, and use it every time- you might have to lower weights for some or all of them to start. Check out the exercise library on here, it’s got tons of solid videos on form.

Go read the threads in the beginners forum.

The top threads of the page.

[quote]waylanderxx wrote:
Do yourself a favor and lower the weight on the squats and hit parallel depth, you’ll thank me later. EVERY high school kid working out on their own always squats crazy high. Every. Single. One. and it won’t do a damn thing for you.[/quote]

I second that advice. It was the first thing I thought of when I saw your numbers compared to your ago and weight.

Back off on some of the pressing movements and replace them with some rows, deads or lunges.

And again, food, time and consistency are your best friends.

[quote]JFG wrote:
Define “eat lots”.

Post what you ate today.[/quote]

And yea, either learn what proper form is or stop lying about your numbers. Im not sure which the case is.

These numbers just don’t add up.

[quote]bigmac73nh wrote:

[quote]ebomb5522 wrote:
You’re in high school and you’re active. It’s not called bulking, it’s called growing.

Eat a ton of good, dense food all the time. [/quote]

[quote]waylanderxx wrote:
Do yourself a favor and lower the weight on the squats and hit parallel depth, you’ll thank me later. EVERY high school kid working out on their own always squats crazy high. Every. Single. One. and it won’t do a damn thing for you.[/quote]

^THESE

Make sure you are working deadlifts, squats, bench press, and military press. Learn perfect form for all of these, and use it every time- you might have to lower weights for some or all of them to start. Check out the exercise library on here, it’s got tons of solid videos on form.[/quote]

All the above.

Most of us were skinny high schoolers at one point, who fooled ourselves into thinking that we ate “tons”. Until you are consistently gaining weight in the gym and on the scale, then you are not eating enough.

Keep the food up and keep the focus on the big 4 movements as posted above and you will be LIGHTYEARS ahead of your classmates.

Dayum that shizs bangin yo, too advanced for beginner forum I C

What I ate today (school day) so snacking isnt something I can do :/.
Breakfast: a pretty big bowl of gronola ceral and apple
snack: an apple
lunch: 2 pieces of vegatable pizza, bottle of water, cinnamon bun
dinner: 2 itallian sausages, 2 bottles of water, bannana and peanut-butter
snack: 3 packets of oatmeal with milk