This makes no sense!

[PsiCop]

Okay. I've been weight training for about 2 years now. I weighed myself 3 months ago and i weighed 146. now i weigh 134. However, about 3 months ago and before, i was obsessed about being skinny/fit, or whatever you wanna call it. I ate less and i would always try to eat "healthy" foods like subway and small servings of vegetables. I would also run about a mile every other day up until that time and then i stopped. You know how the press tries to make you believe that eating less will make you fit. Well, a few months ago, i wose up and now i eat substantially more. I'll eat plenty of carbohydrates the day before a workout and plenty of protein on all days. i drink a shake with 50 grams of protein per serving and eat some red meat alongside it on the days i do a workout. U could say im alternating. Also, since im not so obsessed about being thin, I'll eat more ice cream like snacks and whatnot if i feel like it and have already gotten my planned meals out of the way.

Herein lies the problem. Over the last three months, i've taken many measures to try and gain weight through all natural means. No tacky health food store diets or anything. Just some supplements, a good and full diet, and good old weight training. Think about it. I'm eating far more calories, carbs, protein and almost everything else. I stopped my cardiovascular workout, because that will generally tend to just burn off calories and keep u lean, albeit healthy, but i dont want lean; i want bigger. Okay, im taking in more and burning off less, but i magically lost 12 pounds in 3 months. I kept my weight training scedule about the same too. 3 times a week with 4 sets of 10-20 reps.(gradually moving up. once i get to 4X20, then ill increase the weight amount by 10 pounds) I also can't think of any other big changes. It makes no sense, i change my diet to healthily increase my weight and i see it fall quite drastically. Also for the record, im 5'9 and 16 1/2 yrs old, and my martial arts training has been about the same for 3 years, so im not getting that cardio workout more or less. Any insights?

[YODA]

3 times a week with 4 sets of 10-20 reps.(gradually moving up. once i get to 4X20, then ill increase the weight amount by 10 pounds)

Here lies your problem. You're weight training like a big man trying to trim down.

www.hardgainer.com

Read everything

If you can - buy this book...

http://www.hardgainer.com/beyondbrawn.html

[khafra]

I second that. More weight, lower reps. And don't fear the healthy fats, might even take some flax oil with your night time casein & soy.

[PsiCop]

I'm not going for muscular strength (3X8), or endurance (4X20). I'm trying to reach a happy middle so i can keep my flexibilty and still get stronger. I get what you're saying about the high reps being for a big man trying to trim down. Isn't there a happy middle though? To the point where you have strong muscles that can last a while without getting tired?

I've also read some other ideas from some websites saying that i need to just eat more calories period. Like you said Kahfra, maybe add some cooking oil or drench my vegetables in butter for added calories. I' suppose ill try the eating more thing but im not sure about the weight training. Strength wise it's worked for me so far. No complaints at all. I've been increasing at the same steady rate for over 2 years without slowing. So yes im much, much stronger than when i started, but my muscles arent much bigger at all. Maybe ill go 3-4 sets of 8-15 from now on. I guess im going to have to get out of my rut and try something new.

[YODA]

www.hardgainer.com

Read everything

If you can - buy this book...

http://www.hardgainer.com/beyondbrawn.html

Just 'cos the truth isn't what you want to hear doesn't stop it from being the truth.

[grandmaster mat]

how do i train for a martial arts body, i think im just training to get bigger, how do i train the fast twitch muscle things? as an example at the moment im lifting bout 30kgs and doing 4 sets of 10 reps, im 16 and 2 months old and 5'10/11", i think i weigh about 136-139 pounds

[grandmaster mat]

thats with barbell curls by the way

[PsiCop]

well for matial arts, you should do all around lifting. if u gonna work biceps, work triceps too cuz if u don't, then in a year your arms will look weird.

[grandmaster mat]

o yea i do all that too, flat bench press,forearm curls and so on but thats just an example

[r4bid]

eating more calories in general wont help you, you have to eat more calories from good nutricious sources. So forget about drenching your vegetibles in butter, it will just make you fat.

Low reps high weight will make you big if you eat enough, if you don't then you wont get big. As for lasting a long time, I do low reps and find my endurance to be quite fine as well as my flexability. Unless you train like a crazy person(for several years with steroids or very little cardio) you will not get big enough to impede your martial arts.
Take yoda's advice, he always seems to be right...

[YODA]

forearm curls?

Ye gods it gets worse!

What next? Side bends with 2k pink plastic dumbels?

[Sgt_Major]

forearm curls?

Ye gods it gets worse!

What next? Side bends with 2k pink plastic dumbels?

Phew! Im ok, Mine are yellow! :D

[Freeform]

Phew! Im ok, Mine are yellow! :D

Pinkie in or out ;)

:D

[Sgt_Major]

Out everytime! ;)


Oh you mean my pinkie finger? lol

[Freeform]

Oh you mean my pinkie finger? lol

Yes, why what were you thinking off.............. :eek:

:D

[Sgt_Major]

I thought you meant my "pinkie" .... you know ;) as in:

















http://icarito.tercera.cl/verano/2002/monitos/img/pinky.gif


:D

[harhar]

You might want to try 6-10 rep range for plain size. Anything over 10 is cardio. Try 10X10 russian style if you can handle the volume. Or 10 sets of 3 for great size AND strength gains.

heres the research behind 10x3 http://t-nation.com/readTopic.do;jsessionid=F9101FA7673E7CEACFB66BDDAB B63792.titan?id=547470

[Freeform]

Heh heh he @ SP :D

[Sgt_Major]

I LOVED that show........ :D

[Ad McG]

I second the call for beyond brawn. A simple change in your workout will make a complete difference, you already have everything else in order.

[ninjamonkey]

I'm not going for muscular strength (3X8), or endurance (4X20). I'm trying to reach a happy middle so i can keep my flexibilty and still get stronger. I get what you're saying about the high reps being for a big man trying to trim down. Isn't there a happy middle though? To the point where you have strong muscles that can last a while without getting tired?


I don't know what you're going for. You say you want to get bigger, but you don't want to get stronger? The way I understand this situation is that you want a little bit bigger muscles and still have muscular endurance? Well, you should train for hypertrophy and strength then. Keep your reps at about 10 and your sets at about 3. The thing is there is no happy little middle, at least not with the amount of reps you do. If you do inbetween 20 and 8 reps (14 reps) you'll be doing majorly endurance anyway. What you're going to have to do, if you want to keep your endurance, is alternatively train for endurance every now and again. Although, as a MA, what kind of fights are you training for, they don't usually last long enough for muscular endurance to come into play.

I've also read some other ideas from some websites saying that i need to just eat more calories period. Like you said Kahfra, maybe add some cooking oil or drench my vegetables in butter for added calories. I' suppose ill try the eating more thing but im not sure about the weight training. Strength wise it's worked for me so far. No complaints at all. I've been increasing at the same steady rate for over 2 years without slowing. So yes im much, much stronger than when i started, but my muscles arent much bigger at all. Maybe ill go 3-4 sets of 8-15 from now on. I guess im going to have to get out of my rut and try something new.

Yes you need to intake more calories, but it helps if you intake it from good nutritious sources, intaking a lot of margarine/butter for example for your calories, you'll just be eating saturated fat/trans fat, and your body won't be able to do anything with it but store fat.
You should be sure about the weight training. Your strength will have been increasing due to neural adaptations that your body has made, not from muscle growth. You're only sixteen, you've still got a lot of years of releasing testosterone to develop muscles. Truth is at sixteen you really shouldn't be getting huge muscles. But don't worry, at your age with your experience of weights you've got a head start ahead of a lot of people, just start training for hypertrophy and strength (alternatively)

Cheers, (damn I lecture like an old man)

[Ad McG]

If you do inbetween 20 and 8 reps (14 reps) you'll be doing majorly endurance anyway.

Not any kind of transferable endurance. You need to work strength endurance by doing multiple sets of a reasonably high % of your 1RM, and only taking short rest breaks of say a minute between sets.

[Radok]

If you want to get strong, but still have endurance, the solution is simple. Just follow a powerlifting or O lifting routine, and do some high rep bodyweight exercises afterward.

[GhostOfYourMind]

Deadlift, Squat, Bench, Chins, and Dips. Those'll put meat on you. Experiment with reps and sets. Some people respond to 5x5, some respond well to 3-4 reps 10 sets; some do better with 12 reps and 2 or 3 sets. Try to keep the reps and sets in check though; don't go overboard and do 5x20 or something, that's asking to overtrain and burn out. So far I've been doing EDT for 2 weeks, and it's been putting on some muscle, and my endurance for lifting is going up slightly as is my strength a bit. Definitely read hardgainer stuff and from all the stuff I've read up on about Beyond Brawn, it's a GOOD book. I wanna get it for myself.:D

[Sgt_Major]

ummmm, guys.........


The original post is almost 2yrs old ............. I just re-birthed it to get in a joke ont he pink dumbbells :D

[NaughtyKnight]

Get some HEAVY WEIGHT and go hard my son. Whats this 20rep crap??

If you look at the strongmen of old, they were "smaller" than the traditional bodybuilders today. With that said, they were about 30000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 times stronger. This is all down to COMPOUND exercises, say it again with me COMPOUND. Using as much of your body in one movement as possible.

After a good strength workout I feel amazing. I feel so strong the next day aswell. Its great when someone asks you to move something heavy for them, and you lift it and run with it like its nothing. :D

Here is what I do from memory, its written down at the gym.

1. Incline Press
2. Weighted Dips
3. Weighted Chinups
4. Dumbell Row.
5. Military Press (standing, leave the sitting down crap to the girls)
6. Squats

Here is my advice for your workout plan. Go to your gym and get a personal instructor for 2 hours. 1 to give you a fitness assesment, where he (or better she :D) will measure your vo2 max and your size, and go over your goals. The second is for your instructor to design a program to get you to the goals you are after. professional help is often neglected when giving advice on this forum.

[Ad McG]

Knightcommander - Try googling 20 rep squats to find out what it's all about.

[cavallin]

5. Military Press (standing, leave the sitting down crap to the girls)


:woo: :mad:

heeheehee u bad man!!!!!!!!

[Knight_Errant]

how do i train for a martial arts body, i think im just training to get bigger, how do i train the fast twitch muscle things? as an example at the moment im lifting bout 30kgs and doing 4 sets of 10 reps, im 16 and 2 months old and 5'10/11", i think i weigh about 136-139 pounds
Heavier weight- MUCH heavier weight. This is going to mean fewer reps. At the moment, you're training like somebody who's trying to lose weight and maintain strength. Get rid of the silly isolation exercises and do big, compound lifts like squats, bench presses and deadlifts. Some explosive movements are a good idea for martial arts too- but not before you have a good amount of low-velocity strength.

[tom pain]

The original post is almost 2yrs old ............. I just re-birthed it to get in a joke ont he pink dumbbells :D

I wonder if the original poster has made much progress in those two years then?

[NaughtyKnight]

Knightcommander - Try googling 20 rep squats to find out what it's all about.

The 20rep squat is one of my fav exercises. I have thrown up after them and I have almost fainted from screaming and sucking in so much air.

When I was talking about not doing 20reps, it was in regard to the other exercises, such as military press and the like.

[batfink]

I used to weight train a lot when I was younger, I could lift like you wouldn't believe, but I wasn't any bigger. I looked weird though, my mum's new washing machine (or dryer or something) was delivered by 2 guys struggling to get it off the van, but they weren't very helpful, so skinny me (6ft, 140lbs, hiding behind a lamp-post!) said I would get it in the house for her. I just picked it up and walked off with it on my own, despite the fact that I could hardly get my arms round it! :D It was quite comical. I'm nothing like that now (did it training to join the Armed Forces) though. I ended up overtraining and learnt the hard way to slow down. In short, I think if you keep training, then when your body decides its time to fill out, you will put the weight on anyway. Bear in mind, as a teenager your metabolism is super-quick, and energy levels are right up there as well. Just don't overdo it.

[NaughtyKnight]

Here lies your problem. You're weight training like a big man trying to trim down.

www.hardgainer.com

Read everything

If you can - buy this book...

http://www.hardgainer.com/beyondbrawn.html

Cheers for the link Yoda. I just ordered the Beyond Brawn book, and the Ultimate Q&A book part 1. It came with 2 free books, I got Guide to Big Arms and ultimate Q&A part 2.

I have to wait 2-3 weeks for it to arrive :cry:, bloody Australia, why does it have to be so far away from everywhere.

[jabcrosshook]

forearm curls?

Ye gods it gets worse!

They aren;t bad if you have small/thin forearms!!!

What next? Side bends with 2k pink plastic dumbels?

How about with blue ones? I've been doing these for a few weeks now. Yet to see any results. :woo: