So I’m 17 years old, I’ve lifted on and off for about 2 years. I never really worked my legs but have a nice chest and back, I wanna get a really strong and jacked chest, back, shoulders, traps, biceps, triceps, and all muscles in my legs. I’ve got a huge metabolism and I never seem to gain much weight.
I eat a lot of food though. I wanna be really strong and big, I’m strong for my weight of 117 pounds, but I look like a twig and I’m really sick of people trying to push me around because I’ve always been so skinny… Can someone please help me with a workout plan that includes compound and isolation workouts?
I’d love to have a 4 day workout plan of Day 1: Legs. Day 2: Chest and triceps. Day 3: Shoulders and traps. Day 4: Back and biceps. I don’t have money for expensive equipment and all I have is some barbells with weights and dumbbells with weights and a pull up bar and a weighted vest I can put up to 40the lbs onto. I can’t even afford a bench for bench press so I have to do push ups instead. I can do rows and other exercises but I don’t have racks or lat pulldown machines or anything like that…
I also would love to know some foods that would help me gain weight quicker… I’m a lacrosse player and I did a huge amount of running at practice and over the span of about 1 and a half months of working out and lacrosse and another half a month of lacrosse I gained about 15 pounds, my largest gain ever… I wanna have some really big legs and huge upper body strength too…
What are workout routines and individual workouts and foods that everyone would suggest for me? I would love to find out asap, especially since I need to improve strength huge by spring for lacrosse season so I can get scouted and recruited possibly… Any help would be hugely appreciated… Thank you so much!
Read up about those, and pick one. Follow it to a tee.
Learn how to eat. You do not eat a lot of food. Eat a huge portion of meat or eggs, a serving of vegetables or fruit, and a complex carb source at every meal. Wash it down with a big glass of milk. Do this 3-4 times a day.
Weigh yourself every week or 2. If you are gaining weight, continue as normal. If you are not gaining weight, eat more. It’s not that complicated.
Chris did you read the whole post? He doesnt have any equipment basically, good luck following most of those to a tee without equipment.
OP go to a gym just get a damn membership, lift at your highschool, whatever just dont try to compromise programs to work with that little equipment its not worth it
I can’t drive home from school so I wouldn’t be able to lift there, and my family is short on money so gym is outta the question… I think I could probably just do floor press instead of bench press?!?
Monday
Deadlift 2x5
Standing Overhead Press (clean the weight to your shoulders) 5x5
Wednesday
Power Clean 5x3
Pull Ups 5xfailure
Friday
Bent Over Row 5x5
Standing Overhead Press (clean the weight to your shoulders) 5x5
You can do pushups any day you want, multiple times per week. As a warmup, you can clean a light weight to your shoulders, press it over your head and then bring it down in a squat position and squat it for one set of 20 reps. This obviosuly has to be done with a light weight.
Drink a gallon of milk a day + everyhting else you usually eat.
For what it’s worth, I did floor press before I got a rack. In my experience, this was not a very good exercise for building up the pecs. You don’t get a very full range of motion, and thus your pecs are not stretched at the bottom of the movement like you get with a bench.
Weighted pushups may be an acceptable option.
You can also do pushups with your hands raised, off the ground, and then you lower yourself to the ground. One way to do that is to use dumbbells as pushup handles.
These are some alternate ideas, but nothing will be comparable to an actual bench press.
I used to be able to do push ups with my feet on a chair and my hands on two other chairs and lower myself way below my hands. I may start doing those for push ups. But thanks everyone, so much, for the advice. I’m so happy I made an account on here. Its awesome what everyone does! I’m gonna take Brian’s advice!
if you have little equipment look up body weight culture dot com. or calizthenic kings on you tube. also i think its ross training dot com that has an article on working out without a gym. and don john is a big proponent of simple workouts with very little equipment. on that line of thinking so is most of the russian kettlebell community.
you could probably pick up a sand bag for cheap. 70lbs of greatness for a few bucks to throw around. call around tractor places and see if they have any old tires they want to get rid of. when i did that a got 3 of varying sizes and got them delivered. the guy wanted to pay me to take them. come to find out its expensive to get rid of the old tires.
if you can get a part time job then make DIY workout equipment sites and home depot your home away from home.
[quote]Tommiboyy wrote:
We’re not allowed to lift at lunch, I wish we were. And I’ve got about 90 pounds for the barbell. Why? Should I be doing Olympic lifts too?[/quote]
Well you’re gonna need like 200 more pounds man just for starters. Which sucks cuz weights are about a buck a pound. Maybe you can find some rusty old plates from someplace that’ll let you take em off their hands I dunno.
Could you perhaps find a training partner with the means to drive you home from your school gym? That’s what I would try to do.
Or how far exactly is the school? Is it within a reasonable bicycle distance?
[quote]Tommiboyy wrote:
We’re not allowed to lift at lunch, I wish we were. And I’ve got about 90 pounds for the barbell. Why? Should I be doing Olympic lifts too?[/quote]
Well you’re gonna need like 200 more pounds man just for starters. Which sucks cuz weights are about a buck a pound. Maybe you can find some rusty old plates from someplace that’ll let you take em off their hands I dunno.
Could you perhaps find a training partner with the means to drive you home from your school gym? That’s what I would try to do.[/quote]
x2. I’m sure you’re not the only one who lifts after school. I realize that there’s probably some amount of social awkwardness in asking… but it would be good for you to just ask around and see if anyone can give you a ride on a regular basis. Offer gas money in return.
As far as weights go, you can look on Craigslist to see if you can find plates. Also take a look if there’s a Play it Again Sports in your area. They usually sell used weights at 60-80 cents a pound. And I’m almost certain there’s a Walmart close by… they usually have some sort of ‘starter’ set. And Dick’s Sporting Goods sells plates individually, at around 95 cents a pound.
You’re going to want around 300lbs total (including the bar). A good starting setup is 2x45, 2x35, 2x25, 4x10, 4x5, 2x2.5. Yes, I know that only adds up to 290 with a 45lb bar, but it’s a good way to start out.
There’s nothing wrong with having too many 45s, or too many 10s. You can get away with skipping the 35s.
Just make sure you’re getting olympic sized plates if you have an olympic sized bar, and vice versa for a standard bar. However, I highly recommend doing everything with olympic sized stuff… get an olympic sized bar if that’s not what you have. (These can be found used on CL and at Play it Again Sports, also… $30-45 for a cheap but usable one)
I’ve been in your shoes. It sucks being small and feeling inferior to other kids. There are plenty of ways to work around your situation.
Like others have said, lift afterschool. Ask around and build a relationship with the coaches/gym teachers, which you probably have since you play lacrosse.
If you have money for internet, then you have money for a gym membership. The student memberships here in NY cost from 20-40 bucks a month. The internet bill that most families get around here are also 40 bucks.
Even if you can’t cut off your internet due to school use or other family uses, you can find a job locally and pay for the membership yourself. I’m sure if you went around your neighborhood, someone, even an old lady who needs her house or lawn cleaned up will pay you 50 bucks a month to do the chores. Even if they only pay you 20 and you need 50, that just means you need to work for more people.
Food is also going to punch more holes into your pocket. Especially the gallon of milk you’re probably going to need per day.
Use your home gym and calisthenics as a last resort. Do everything you can to get to a real gym first. And if all fails, it will be what you fall back on.
If you want this badly enough, you’ll find a way.
Also, you want big legs? I’ll probably sound repetitive saying this but, Starting Strength is the way to grow. Squatting 3 times a week does wonders.
None of the people who drive really workout at school, and the ones who do can’t bring anyone but family. I’m gonna try and get some weights from Craigslist sometime soon. You guys have helped me a lot! I’m gonna do squats and big calve exercises. For any isolation exercises I do should I do lighter weights?
Because I’ve read it takes a lot of reps to really get the biceps and triceps and calves to really get pumped up just from isolation workouts. Is that true? And no I can’t run or bike to school, its too far, I wish I could. I also heard that to get really good legs for running, which I would want, you should do a lot of endurance lifting because you use your legs a lot everyday.
Is this possibly true? What are the exercises that you all do to get large? I also want to get a bigger back. I have a nice one but I want it wider. Would barbell rows and pull ups and deadlifts really help to widen the back? I wish I really looked up on lifting before when I started. My biggest mistake was not doing any of the compound lifts. Mostly just isolation:/ but thank you so much everyone, I’m happy with all the info I’ve been getting on here, you guys are honestly the biggest help I’ve ever gotten for lifting!