So much work, no results!

Training Bodybuilding
1

As everyone can see, I’m a new poster here. I was inspired by the sign up to test out free stuff, and finally registered.

After fairly exhaustively reading john berardi, T-mag, and what some of the more intelligent posters on MH and various other forums have written, I shaped a diet and exercise plan. For a fifteen year old, I like to consider my diet fairly clean. I’m 5’6, 120 lbs or so, and get ~2800 calories a day. My main bitch here is that I don’t seem to have hardly any muscle definition, regardless of how hard I work to be eating the correct things at the right times. In the last couple days, the eating has sorta fallen apart on me, I had a slice of french bread two consecutive days. However, if you scroll back through my fitday account, you’ll see I maintain pretty clean eating.
Basically, this post is a summary of what I’m doing in hopes that you guys can pick out some flaws or gimme advice.
http://www.fitday.com/WebFit/PublicJournals.html?Owner=Lonelobo

Today I considered a massive cheat day, I ate half a bakery bagel and drank a small amount of… um… well, I had some bagel. I don’t eat partially hydrogenateds, I split my meals P+C and P+F, I drink the whey PWO and the casein before bed, but I’m not getting the abs or the chest like I want. I shoot for 300g protein a day, which is about 6g/kg LBM. I don’t eat high-GI carbs, the only carbs I eat are some fruits, vegetables, oatmeal, and whole wheat bread products.

My routine is basically a 4 day split, prone to overtraining.
Day 1: Chest/legs/abs (Flat BP-max 150, decline BP, incline DB press, DB fly, pushups or dips)/(Squats-Max upwards of 225 on a smith, deadlift, DB lunges, quad ext. and ham curls)(I use Christian Thribideau’s ab workout on this site)
Day 2: Shoulders/HIIT (Military press, twisting DB press, shrugs)(5 min warmup, 25 second sprint followed by 50 second jog on a precor elliptical, 3 min cooldown, total workout time is 33 minutes)
Day 3:Back/Arms/Abs (Seated row, 1 arm DB row, bent-over row, pullups)(Chinups, dips, BB curls, BB extensions, DB curls, DB skullcrushers)
Day 4: HIIT/Rest

I’ll get some photos up soon, I estimate my body fat at 10-12%, my mom (a doctor) says it’s much lower, I think she’s just saying that to get me to eat. I previously had an eating disorder, could this have affected my testosterone levels severely enough to throw this off? I guess I’m a young fifteen, no body hair except pubic, is my problem simply that I don’t have the T-levels to build muscle?

I have abs when I flex them, other than that, nothin. Improportionally large biceps, for God knows what reason, they’re like as thick as the rest of my arm, which isn’t really saying much.

Essentially, this turned into a long sorta whiny post begging for a miracle. Darn. Anyways, if anyone sees any major flaws in my routine that could be stopping me, please let me know. Maybe I need to eat more? Maybe I need to eat less?

“Real T-Men think that time between sets is for putting on more weight.”

2

Befor going to in depth into this I have a few extra ?'s for ya that will help us all help you more.

What rep/sets are you performing on your lifts?

This Whey PWO shake. Does it contain the high GI carbs you need?

This eating disorder. What type over/under?

Now a few quick comments.

You want to grow some massive amount of lbm and you consider a big cheat a Half a damn bagel. Come on, step up to the pump and eat some food.

In the first few hours PWO you should be cramming that pie hole. During this time you dont have to worry about gaining BF as much. The majority is going to go to building the LBM you so desire.

As far as your test levels. Man you are getting into the Iron game @ the right time. For the next 5-10 years you are set up to GROW to no end with hard work.

Very impressed with your nutrition, but dont take it to far. You gotta eat to GROW. Add in some REAL cheats. Once again load up that plate after training.

As far as your diet screwing up your test level. Probably not. I cant say though I dont know what type of eating disorder were talking about here. Yet!

Your training. How long have you been doing the same program. Do you change it up. Sets, reps, etc…

Hope that helped somewhat.

Come on back with some more info. and we’ll see what we can figure.

By the way, glad to see that there was no comment on what supplements can I, or should I take.

Phill

3

I have a couple quick observations for you.

  1. You did not state exactly what your goals are, it sounds like you are shooting for lean body mass gain, and trying to maintain a low BF%. It would be helpful to know this to give more specific advice

Training

I see a couple things with training.

  1. You didn’t mention your mention any protocol for your program just exercises.
  2. I assume that you are a beginner, and even if you were not that is way too much work, you could likely cut your volume in 1/2 at least in number of exercises.
  3. I would ditch the smith squats.
  4. Depending on your geographic area(winter time in some places) you might want to re-consider the using the elliptical for your HIIT, and go ahead and go outside and do some sprint work, at park etc…

Nutrition:

I looked at your journal its kind of hard to make recommendation here without knowing your goals but I will give some general observations.

  1. Consider trying to get more vegetables into you plan, high in nutrients and fiber.
  2. Consider trying to get some EFA in your plan fish oils, flaxseed oil etc…
  3. There a couple other things I noticed, but I have a hard time making a recommendation without knowing your goals.

I am not a doctor but I would say that your previous eating disorder is probably playing a bit of a role. I would guess that you are in a healing process. So my recommendation is to stay the course you taking steps in the right directions.

Lastly, and most importantly try to get your mom to spring for paying for some coaching. I know John Berardi, Charles Staley, and John Davies all have distance coaching programs. I am member of Coach Staley program and the programs and follow up you get from the investment are execellent, as I am sure the others are as well. I know it has greatly assisted me and I coach too.

4

A 15 year old kid does NOT need to pay for a custom program made by a coach who train pro athletes! Jeez!

And maybe I missed this, but LoneLobo, how long have you been at this? Don’t expect instant gratification. Hey, you’re just 15. Eat right and train hard and you’ll be the envy of 99% of this board by 18. Don’t get in a rush.

5

Phill’s doing a good job keeping his rep. Good advice, allof it.

And Davo is right on the money. You gotta be at this a while before you see much change. Keep at it.

Billy

6

Thanks billy,

Just a few more things to add.

I took a look at your food log and gymrat is right. You dont eat any fibreous veggies. You should be getting some of these with damn near every meal. Look for dark green stuff.

All of what Davo said is right on the money. Nothing against coaches, but this guy is 15. He should be able to get decent to good gains on his own while learning better training habits. But hey, if you have the extra cash by all means go for it. It would greatly increase your learning curve.

Phill

7

At 15 your routine should consist of the following:

Squat (full brown eye getting pocked by the floor squat, not the 2 inch ROM you’ve been doing on the Smith, the smith machine has some uses, but at 15 you should only use it to hang your towel on)

EAT

Bench

EAT

Row

EAT

Deadlift

EAT, EAT, then EAT some more (when I say eat I mean real food such as eggs, red meat, brown rice oatmeal, etc. Save the f-ing half bagel for your little sister).

No slam intended, but at 120 lbs there ain’t nuthin’ to look ripped.

Your body needs fats to make hormones in order to grow.

8

Very good suggestions so far.

Yes, you are going to have to clarify on your goals a little bit. I hope they are to gain muscle mass. At 2800 cals and 300g protein, I think you are on track here, but you should clarify a little bit.

As for the people saying it’s not going to happen overnight, I know you meant well, but I am going to have to respectfully disagree. A fifteen yo kid has tremendous growth potential, raging hormones, and often, a lot of time on their hands…the kind of time you need to eat, sleep, and lift. Dude, if you eat and sleep enough, and lift really heavy, I truly believe you could pack on 40-50 lbs. before summer. I’m assuming a lot about your genetics when I say that, but I’ve seen it happen, and I think you need to set your goals high, anyway.

Anyway, getting to the real advice…

The biggest two things that stick out to me is the training and the past eating disorder.

First things first: We need to here more about this eating disorder. I’m going to take a guess and say you were anorexic. Not too many people end up 120 lbs. from eating too much…give us more info here. Also, how long has it been since you got over it?

As for training, you really didn’t give us much info at all. To be honest, from what you did give us, it dosn’t look all that good. I’d try Chad Waterbury’s ABBH program, or Christian Thibadeau’s OVT. A lot of people like those around here, and for good reason. ABBH has worked really well for me, and while I’ve never followed the full OVT program, I have used the underlying principal to bring up lagging bodyparts, and it got the results every time, in short order.

A side benefit to using either of these programs is that once in a while, these guys will pop up around here, and if you sound relatively intelligent, you might be able to get a few questions answered right from them… They’re both very busy people, though, so don’t get all pissy because they didn’t answer your question.

As far as nutrition, you’re obviously pretty well read in that area, and if you’re really consuming the numbers that you are posting, you shouldn’t have much of a problem. I can’t overstate though, making sure you get lots of veggies, and EFA’s, and fish oils are very important. For health and for your physique.

Also, listen to Phill about the pw carbs and so forth. At your age, and if you really want to gain mass, this is what I’d do: as soon as you get home from the gym, you should go to town on a box of cereal, with a tall glass of milk and a few scoops of protein powder on the side. It sounds crazy, but this is the time to grow, and you’re at a very negative energy balance after training… You need to bring that up into the positive zone, fast, with carbs and protein.

Load up the bar, then load up your plate,
Ryan

9

I totally agree with Phill, and yes these guys do train pro athletes, yet that doesn’t mean that they have nothing to contribute to the “average trainee” otherwise what is the point of having these guys right articles general programs on here, granted the articles and programs are great but you can’t place a price on having a customized program and great follow up and feedback with a top notch professional. Also you will have an objective professional analysis of your progress, and to solve problems such as the one present.

In reality the investment made is fairly small. I realize he is 15 and should make good gains on his own all other things being equal, but as Phill says using a coach will increase his learning curve and that’s exactly why I recommended it. As far the money issue that why I said “if he could get his mother to spring for it”.

If it is a money issue then sign on for a month or two to get a good start. The insight and knowledge gained will be worth it in the long run

10

At 5’6" and 120lbs, you just don’t have enough lbm to have much size/shape/cuts, etc.

And 2800 calories is more along maintenance level for you. Like the others said, you gotta eat!

As for training, keep it basic, keep it simple. Use the big movements (squats, benches, rows, deadlifts, chins, overhead presses, curls, triceps extensions, etc) and hit them hard.

You should be able to accomplish your goals with 3-4 weight training workouts a week. EDT is a good training program along with some others (see below).

I, personally, like splitting body parts up into plans of movement like Ian King suggests and working aganoists/antagonists together.

Otherwise, I use a push/pull type of system (Renegade). I use three weight training days per week. I change training every three weeks along with minor changes with volume within each three-week program. This is something I picked up from Charles Staley and is also influenced by a few other strength coaches on T-mag. Here is an idea of the program and some sample exercises:

Day 1:
Hip dominant (stiff-legged deadlifts)
Quad dominant (dumbbell step ups)
Vertical pulling (dumbbell shrugs)
Vertical pushing (seated dumbbell presses)
Calves (standing calf raises)
Lower back (back extensions)
Abs

Day 2:
Horizontal pulling (dumbbell rows)
Horizontal pushing (dumbbell press)
Horizontal pulling (reverse dumbbell flye)
Horizontal pushing (dumbbell flye)
Biceps (EZ Bar curls)
Triceps (Seated overhead extensions)
Abs

Day 3:
Quad dominant (barbell hack squat)
Hip dominant (leg curls - yes, there is a reason why I’m using them for this section of the program)
Vertical pulling (v-grip chins)
Vertical pushing (dumbbell upright row)
Calves (seated calf raises)
Lower back (reverse hyper)
Abs

This particular workout is three weeks long and is more for hypertrophy. The next three weeks is for strength. Exercises and sets/reps change. The following three weeks is for Power/Explosive speed. Again, exercises change along with sets/reps. This way, I can change my training around, not get bored, make good gains, and stay fresh.

There are more details to it (volume within each program), but this is the jist of it. I use basic exerices, I hit all the bodyparts, and I make gains.

I do two High Octane Cardio workouts (a la Mike Mahler) using my kbell and some bodyweight exercises in between the above weight workouts.

So look this over, and be sure to check out the “Beginner’s Blast-Off” program and just eat!

Forget the damn bagels, and follow JB’s recommendations and feed your pie hole!

Nate Dogg

11

wow seems like a lot of people are trying to get the free supps this week.

two weeks ago the majority of the responses would have been “eat some god damn steak and stfu!”

12

You probably havent matured to the point where making gains are possible. This is a definite possibility.

13

P-Dog, that’d be mine: EAT MORE FOOD. :wink:

But I looked at this guy’s routine. Here it is, followed by my recomendations:

Why not just LEGS on this day? Also, ditch the DB flies and choose either decline or incline on a chest day - not both. As for legs. Why squats on a smith? Perform regular full squats, ditch the DB lunges, and quad ext. Also, have you ever tried, front squats and good mornings? You could alternate regular squatting day with a front squat/GM’s day.

I would NOT recommend HIIT following a training session. Perform it seperately. I prefer heavy shrugs, so they’re usually my first exercise in a session. I alternate shrugs with push presses. You can do this: alternate shrugs with our military press. Go heavy, and if you do this, you may ditch the DB press.

[quote] Day 3:Back/Arms/Abs (Seated row, 1 arm DB row, bent-over row, pullups)(Chinups, dips, BB curls, BB extensions, DB curls, DB skullcrushers)
Day 4: HIIT/Rest [/quote]

Have you ever tried BB rows? Or deadlifts? Perform either and ditch the seated row and 1arm db row. You already performed dips on your chest day. Don’t do them here. Skip arm work. If you noticed, I’m directing you to the “Big Three”: bench, squats and deadlifts. Plus, you’re doing WAY too much bb curls for muscles that are working whenever you work your back. They get plenty of work. Skullcrushers can also be performed during chest work. Not here.

A sample back day: deadlifts, pullups. Really. Keep it simple, heavy; especially when the goal is to grow. So you need to hit it hard, heavy and then go home and eat/rest/recover.

Also, perform HIIT only on your day 4, if anything.

14

Wow. An outpouring of help. My compliments to everyone. Sorry, went to sleep after posting, left all you guys hanging. Umm… my eating disorder was an anorexic thing, I was on the XC team @ school eating 1600 calories a day, “Non-fat everything, because that way I’ll lose weight!” DOH! Momo retarded. Did this for like… 6-7 months. :frowning:

I’m upping my calorie intake, my lifting programs are still sorta based around sports as baseball season is coming up, but I think I can make one take priority. Also, I use the smith machine in my weights course at school, because it’s the only thing they have to squat on there. Yes, people do curl in it, all the time. But I do squat at home, I have a powerrack setup with barbells, EZ Curl, DBs up to 45, dips, chins, etc. Free bar I can squat like 160-175 I think, never maxed out.

I’m not positive about my body fat percentage yet, so I wanted to figure that out before I bulked. Berardi’s site recommends like 3300 calories to bulk, to eat that much, I think I would need way more supplementation.

PWO I mix my whey with gatorade because I’m poor, I’m looking to save up to buy some Surge.

I’m enjoying Mr. Thribideau’s abs program, I would definitely consider another of his programs. It’s just that mine got its base from my school weight training course, where I lift in addition to lifting at home. I usually get in two workouts a day, which is why my workouts are split like that. I can do chest at school then legs at home, or vice versa. The teacher insists that we lift when we’re in class every day… so I’m not sure what to do about that.

Lol, I do have a lot of time on my hands. My initial problem was overtraining. Picture BP and flies supersetted until you can’t even manage 10 reps on the bar, mixed with over a thousand decline bench situps. Seriously, I did them in sets of 200 with a 25 lb plate, for hours. I’m currently trying to hold off on that, and try not to have a single session go more than 45-50 minutes. I understand the things about cortisol/cortison levels, so I watch that. After WO, I usually drink a PWO and wait a half hour or so before going back to do my ab exercises. That then takes about 1/2 hour, I take another PWO (they’re fairly small, i.e. 1/2 cup gatorade 1/2 scoop whey) and then eat dinner about an hour later.

If there are any questions I haven’t addressed, please respond. I’ll get pictures up soon, probably monday.

15

Ah, missed a post or two. Umm… in reference to the vegetables comment- I eat a lot of salad, but it’s usually fairly simple, i.e. lots of lettuce with maybe some bell peppers, celery, cucumbers, occasionally sliced carrots. I get tired of putting in 2 cups lettuce and fitday coming up with 2 calories, so most of the time, I neglect to enter that. I’ll try and get more green beans, broccoli, etc. in there.

Also, I get concerned about back problems w/ lifting as my mom blew out a disk in her back, so I’m always tentative about high weight BO rows, deadlift, GMs, etc.

I do my HIIT a couple hours after my weights workout, too. Additionally, I usually do 3-4 sets of an exercise, varying the weights.
For example: In BP, I start out with a warmup of about 100x10, then 125x8, 135x5, 140x3, 145x2, 150x1, then take it back down to 130x6-7. Note that pretty much all of those are to failure. Generally, I do a warmup, then increase weight.

Smith squat reason mentioned, I do real squats as well. However, I workout by myself, so I have trouble going to 1RM, afraid of getting into something I can’t get out of.

16

Ok.

Yes your diet could have your hormones a little screwed up, but if so I see no reasone it wont reecover.

Nothing wrong with your gatorade whey mix. Surge is great stuff but you gotta take what you can afford.

Take Patricia’s advice. The big three should be the base to your w/o. Hit it hard and heavy, then go eat. Use a whole scoop of each gatorade/whey. Also seperat the HIIT. Just do evrything Patricia said.

? How many days do you lift @ school. If possible save leg day for home so you can get in the squats and deads. Or work out a split that you can work with. This depends on the days @ school.

Goldie could also be correct in that you may not be @ a level yet to expect the great gains. Not to say you shouldnt lift, but you may experience better gains in the next few years when T levels sky rocket than you are currently.

By the way just to say it again. Eat. Add some veggies. Get you fats.

Phill

Your getting some great advice all around

17

Yeah, I realize everyone’s advice is great. Thanks for the help. We are required to lift 5 days a week at school. The teacher doesn’t allow for rest days or anything of that nature, even a light day, so I’m sorta stuck there. You can only do so many forearm curls before the teacher notices… :slight_smile:

When you say hit it hard and heavy, how many sets/reps are you talking about? Like focus my entire workout on that one exercise for the day, or do like a warmup set then 3 sets of my max, or what?

On a sidenote about nutriition: On my rest days, I like to split my meals so I’m P+C early in the day, and P+F later in the day. Is that a good idea? Also, in P+F meals, I have a certain brand of tortilla that has 11g carbs, but 8g are from fiber. JB says about 10g carbs per P+F meal. How does fiber effect total carbs? Would that allow one tortilla, or three (3x3=9g)?

18

I"m going to assume when you say “lettuce” you mean Iceberg lettuce. If that’s the case: ditch it. Completely. There is NO nutrient benefits in lettuce. You may as well suck air. Eat spinach or even something like Romaine.

IMO, you should be eating plenty of red meat, chicken, turkey, etc. And not be worrying about your veggies. You should be worried about not consuming more overall calories. You’re a growing boy. You need to be eating.

And if you’re so worried about overtraining and know that you have a tendency to do this, why do you continue to do this? And what does your mom blowing her disk have to do with your training? When you follow good form, there’s a good chance you’ll never ever experience an injury. Uh, after traiing for like 20+ years and following good form, I’ve yet to experience any injury in the gym.

You should be performing a 3-day (1 on/1 off) of training with emphasis on the big three primary compounds. Take advantage of the natural hormones in your body at your age: train hard/heavy and eat accordingly.

19

BTW, you shouldn’t be training to failure.

20

So then what do you mean by training hard, if not to failure? Give me an example set/rep setup so I understand what you mean.

Also, I did indeed mean Romaine lettuce. My parents are both doctors, mom is a diabetic, so I was fairly health/nutrition conscious to begin with, and my whole anorexic thing sorta intensified that. We don’t eat iceberg lettuce, ever. Also, my fitday claims that an entire cup of romaine lettuce has like 2 calories, so I simply stopped entering it.

Also, you’re curious as to why I overtrain. Being anorexic isn’t one of those things that goes away, and while I try to fight it, there’s an irrational fear of getting fat that consumes me. It must be like trying to stay sober when you’re an alcoholic, you’re constantly afraid of your stomach suddenly bulging out, or being unable to stop eating cake, etc. I have nightmares where I can’t stop eating. Seriously.

I’m taking your advice to heart. In my shoulder workout today, I tried some BB shrugs. What’s an acceptable weight/reps for that? I started out with just the bar because I wasn’t sure, then moved up to 35lb plates on each side, could still do 20-30 reps fairly easily. How much weight should I be using? I also supersetted almost all my exercises, in a push/pull format. Good for me!