Workout for a 15 year old martial arts legend wannabee!

Hi I am 15 years old, I am a black belt in ITF TKD and Judo, but I need the body to compliment my skill!

I am 5 ft 10 inches and weigh 9 stone 3 pounds. Not much. I am a cross between an ectomorph and a mesomorph (body type). I am very serious about my martial arts and want to be the best I can be.

I want a body like Bruce Lee, not bulky but defined rock hard muscles. Bruce was only 5 ft 7 inches and weighed 7 stone 7 pounds!!!! and he was very, very, very strong and fast. He also had a very low body fat percentage.

http://surbrook.devermore.net/adaptionshkaction/mrlee.jpg

Is the reason he didnt look like Arnold Schwarzenegger because his body type is different and because he was chinese? I am a white english kid am curious.

http://www.kulturistika.com/gallery/1142353481_arnold.jpg


I want to lower my body fat and pack on rock hard muscle!

Here is a my workout I began a month ago:

Monday:

Dynamic Stretches

Static Active Stretches

Total Body Workout:

Abs:

60 crunches

20 knee raises

20 oblique v raises each side

20 back extensions

60 seconds bridge, 5 seconds rest then repeat

Core exercises:

60 squats, 2 5kg dumbells

20 press-ups

20 deltoid raises

12 lat pull downs,

12 Tricep kickbacks, 2 5kg dumbells

45 seconds back against wall in sitting position

20 bicep curls 2 5kg dumbell weights

24 leg curls holding 5kg dumbell between feet

and then i do isometric stretches and relaxed stretches

Tuesday

dynamic stretches

static active stretches

30 minute brisk walk

relaxed stretches

Wednesday:

Same as Monday

Thursday

same as tuesday

Friday:

Same as monday but repeat ab exercises twice

Saturday

dynamic stretches

static active stretches

ab exercises

relaxed stretching

Sunday:

Day off!


any suggestions to change? thanks
btw I do eat healthily

 

Thank you for providing your height and weight etc.

I think before you continue with this sort of regime you need to consider how much you may yet have to grow. You are likely to be a bit taller than both your parents with good nutrition and if you are still quite short of this mark I would advise against heavy weights while your bones are still growing. Too heavy a weight during major growth spurts can bend your bones.

Another factor you need to consider is your image. Yes, it would be good to look as toned as Bruce Lee but there are dangers inherent in this. Many young people have similarly toned physiques because they are growing fast and being active and thus are often not consuming enough calories and nutrients to keep up. Training hard while growing and not eating enough calories can cause problems that you may not feel but will damage your body and limit your growth (and putting this as politely as possible this could affect any and every organ in your body and some you might not want to have a slowed growth spurt on).

There are quite a few threads that look at diet and nutrition and weighlifting on this forum, so check them out. But be careful. Everyone likes to look good and be fit, but don't push too hard too soon. Good luck with it.

 

btw my dad is six foot 1, my mum 5 foot 7. both grandads 5ft 8 and grandmothers 5ft 7.

But all my uncles all over 6ft so I've got about 3 inches in me left!
Sorry but i do not understand what u sed about Bruce Lee image being bad?

btw surely high reps of 2 5kg dumbells is not too heavy for my age?

 

not true.

taekwonguy. it's cool if you want to look like bruce lee right now. that'll probably change as you get older. what you need to do is ditch the routine you've got right now and go find a gym. no excuses, you need a gym. learn how to squat, deadlift, and bench press. if you can't do at least that much, then you won't get anywhere near your fitness goals.

 

why wouldn't I?

 

I agree with Skrom that you should seek advice from a gym when you do a weight based fitness regime, but as a former Fitness Instructor with the British (Drug Free) Powerlifting Association I stand by my comments that heavy weight training too early can damage the bone shape. There are too many people who work in gyms who are ignorant about teenage physiology and I've seen a number of people damage themselves by piling on too much muscle too young and then wonder why their posture is rubbish and they can't fully extend their arms and legs. Maybe you did it Skrom and it didn't damage you (that you are aware of) but you are not taekwondoguy.

My advice is to talk to your PE teachers at school and your doctor and follow their advice before you do any heavy weights, no matter what they say at the gym (remember that most gym and fitness instructors want you to use their facilities because you pay for them). There is nothing wrong with wanting to look like Bruce Lee, so long as you aren't starving yourself while you do it. The dumb-bell weights you are using sound fine.

 

You need Weight to build muscle. I'm not saying its the only thing to do with Weightlifting (theres other factors such as time under tension, form, speed etc), but the weight you're lifting is a very important factor. (I dont know how many times I've said this over the past week) You need to enduce enough Trauma to your Muscles for the muscle fibers to adapt and grow, the only way you'll do this is by using heavy Weights to really stress your Muscles and to use good form, I'd also suggest slow movements, some people work with high frequency but I have not seen much evidence yet to compare both types.

So yeah, 5kg is going to do absolutely crap all apart from train endurance, which you may still need to do if you compete or you simply want more endurance. You can increase your weight and do fewer reps and sets but it doesn't work the other way around when you use a light weight but just do ton's of reps and sets.

As for sets, I personally do 3 sets of 3-4 reps of the heaviest weight possible and that works for me, most people go with 3 sets of 6-8 or 8-10 sets of 3, theres lots of variations and you have to find what works for you.

Skrom is also pretty much correct, you need a Gym with the right equipment to do core exercises like Squats, Deadlifts, Bench presses, Rows, Dips and whatever else. Also remember inbetween full body workouts you need rest, and as for cardio its wise to do 30 mins to an hour of Running or whatever else everyday.

Sure it's nice to aim for a Bruce Lee figure but really it is unlikely. You would have to be experienced and dedicated with the Gym and more importantly with nutrition. You need to take in enough Calories, Protein and Vitamins/minerals to grow properly.

The problem is, when you're 15 and at a young age its difficult to build up a fuller figure. For males your body continues to grow and broaden until about 21. When I trained at 15 I bearly noticed any difference apart from strength and better muscle definition, it's only now at 16 and 6 months that I'm starting to bulk out, but thats also because I've learn't a lot and did my research. So basically you'll start to notice significant changes within the first 6 months to a year (IF you do everything correctly), but it will be years before you get anywhere near the figure of Bruce Lee, and you might not even end up hitting your target at all, who knows.

But yeah, to be blunt and put everything in a moderatly offensive nutshell, the routine is crap, ditch it, do some research on T-nation and on this forum, get some advice and help, visit a Gym, familiarise yourself and build an entirely new exercise and nutrition routine which you must stick to.

That's all the advice I can give and it's the same advice I would of gave to myself when I stared training at 15, and I'm about 16 1/2 years old now.

 

The only way you could build Muscle with 5kg Dumbells is if you did curls with your Fingers.

Although it really depends. At 15 its hard to tell someones strength, I know kid's who could lift triple that but I also know others who would be feeling the pain after 15 reps with a 5kg dumbell, but I'm just using bicep curls as an example here, they might work for some things but you need more weights for different exercises without question.

 

As you say, it depends upon his exisitng strength. But 5Kg can be good for some triceps and trapezius exercises if a little light for the biceps. Horses for courses.

 

I'd say with 5KG until he gets stronger he could probably do:

Wrist curls
Lateral Dumbell raises for Deltoids
Overhead Tricep exercises
Possibly some Pectoral Flies

Other then that, he needs a Gym.

 

Being 5ft 10 and weighing only 9.3 stone, it sounds like you are quite skinny or slight. I'm a bit confused because I thought that all that Judo training would bulk you up and make you bigger, like weight and muscle wise.

 

well i am actually pretty strong and bruce lee weighed 7 and a half stone!

 

I think that's crazy, 7 and a half? Then he's BMI would only be around 16.8 which is underweight for he's height. It doesn't seem right with all that muscle how could he weigh so little?

 

judo doesn't make you bigger, it's just that judo attracts big guys

i suppose it could, if you really piled much more weight than you could handle and managed to damage your growth plates. of course, doing that will damage you in some way or another no matter how old you are.

the only reason i can see to keep younger people away from weights is that some may not be mature enough to know how to lift with good form and not injure themselves or others.

calling yourself a former fitness instructor doesn't help your credibility much, by the way. when's the last time you did any research on this subject? as far as i know, very few people defend your point of view these days.

he had an unhealthy level of bodyfat. that's why. also, he had extremely weak legs...all his muscle was in his upper body apparently.

 

he could hold a 75kg barbell out in front of him self arms locked for 30 seconds! could cycle 10 miles in 45 minutes and could do 2 finger press ups with one arm and he weighed 7 and a half stone!!!!!

even better his quickest movements was 500ths of a second punching out from his hands by his side!

He is surley the ultimate martial artist!

Apparently his sidekicks felt like being hit by a car!

 

QUIT NUTRIDING. it's annoying.

 

Bruce Lee, by todays standards of fitness is not incredibly impressive. His training methods are today considered, by people with knowhow, to be terribly outdated, sometimes useless, and at times down right dangerous.

No doubt he was an impressive martial artist. No doubt he was strong, fast, and had amazing technique, but listen to reason.

Find a gym. Deadlift. Squat. Bench. Row. Eat. Repeat.

You will NOT stunt your growth.

When jumping, you exert around seven times your own bodyweight upon your bone structure. Obviously, your not going to squat that much. If jumping doesn't stunt your growth, squating won't either.

 

LMAO!

 

wots LMAO ?

 

Well I can scan in the certificate if you like. I only got the fitness instructor award because the BPA only award Gym instructors to people who push weights as their main sport (as to those who use them as a support tool). Putting down other people's opinions without backing up your viewpoint doesn't mean much either.

I last did formal research on physical training 4 years ago when I qualified as an Obstacle Course Instructor with the Army at STANTA (which I am about to renew hence suffer the course - this time at Browndown - all over again), but I keep up to date through reading and as I work alongside secondary school PE teachers several times a week I check on their policies and the reasons behind them.

At a guess taekwondoguy has got about 5 - 8 inches to grow. He is light and needs to accustom his body to weight gradually. My personal advice would be to stick to weights where he can do 3 - 4 sets of 10 reps for the next year, increasing his load each week; eating for bulk and then progressing to heavier weights with shorter reps if he wants. It all depends upon whether his main growth has begun to slow down and he is about to increase gradually or whether he is still going to sprout another few inches in a few months.