[quote]jtrinsey wrote:
To the original poster,
There is a good thread in the “physique and performance photos” section called “gotta train photos” by a guy called gottatrain. He’s at 5’7" and only 147# but he’s ripped and looks much bigger. Put his chest development next to yours and he looks 50 pounds heavier. I assume that is the type of physique you’d like to have. In his thread he says that he was as heavy as 190 pounds while bulking. The only way you can get that really “cut” physique is to be significantly heavier than the weight you are at, then diet down to a lower weight. I can empathize with your situation because I felt the same way for a lot of my life. I’m only 18 right now, but during high school I was terrified of losing my precious abs, so much so that I never put any muscle on! Trust me, skinny dudes are a dime a dozen, if you want to be a better athlete or turn the girls’ heads at the beach, you’ve got to get stronger- no if ands or buts about it!
You seem like a pretty cool kid because you’ve taken all this criticsm very well. I’ll try to lay out what’s worked for me. While I have nowhere near the physique some other guys on here, I think I can give you some advice because I was at a very similar situation to you not long ago, with the exception of the incredibly stretchy nipples.
1.) EAT! For natually skinny teenagers, this is THE most important thing. I try to eat 5 times a day. I always eat breakfast, usually oatmeal but sometimes if I’m in a really hurry I just eat some canned chicken or tuna and a Kashi bar. The point is that you have to have something with some carbs and a little protein. I’ll also have two more snacks throughout the day that are similar to this. The other two meals (breakfast and dinner) are my two main meals. At these meals I literally eat until I’m almost sick- then I try to eat a little more! Settle for no less than 80g of protein in these two meals (that’ll be about 3 chicken breasts, 3 decent-sized burgers, a bigass portion of roast beef, etc.). A protein shake before you go to sleep is a great way to get in a little extra protein as well, it’s not neccessary but it helps.
2.) Lift heavy. Here’s a quick program off the top of my head:
Day 1
Dumbell Bench
Bentover Rows
Deadlifts
Day 2
Push Press
Chin-Ups (palms towards you)
Full Oly-Style Squats
Day 3
Close-Grip Bench
Chest-Supported or Seated Cable Rows
Deadlifts on a small (4-8") box
Day 4
Dumbell Military Press
Pull-Ups (palms away from you)
Bulgarian Split Squats
Obviously you don’t have to follow that exact program, but do you see what I’m getting at here? Pick the lifts where you can move some weight and that are compound movements. My opinion is, if you are doing more than 4 exercises in one day, you aren’t going hard enough on the ones that you’ve done. A little ab work at the end of those workouts would be fine, but the best ab workouts are deadlifts, squats, military press and chin-ups. If you do a set of heavy deadlifts and don’t feel it in the abs, you’re doing something wrong!
When I went through high school I didn’t have a clue what I was doing and I got almost no improvement. I got to college and my strength coach (I play a varsity sport) hooked me onto T-Nation and got me on a program where I’m eating right and lifting heavy. In the 5 months I’ve been here I’ve added 15-20 pounds while staying at about the same bodyfat (maybe 1-2% higher at the most). I haven’t worried about being skinny, and yet my ab definition is better than ever. I am starting to look less than a starving Somalian kid and more like a guy that actually works out.
You seem like a good kid so I don’t want to see you waste your time in high school like I did. Good luck man.[/quote]
Great Post, kid, take this advise and you’ll be fine