Alright, my goal is to gain muscle and lose fat(very original).
I weigh 190 at 5’11"-6’ and haven’t worked out for about a month. My 1rm for the bench was 250, I could squat 275 about 5reps, I could freshly do about 20 pullups (and 10reps of 200 on the lat machine). i haven’t recently had a bfp test, but I’m looking to you for some preliminary advice.
Strength gains and mass gains are a must, and I am willing to change my diet if you can reccomend something practical for a 17 y/o who works 28hrs a week, takes 12 credits at college, and attends high schools (i.e. I am busy).
Hi,
Don’t think this will help you much with the mass gain, but my best advice would be to start biking. This will be very good for losing weight, it’s good for you in almost every way, except building big muscles, but you’ll still be very strong.
Road biking, or mountain biking, just set a goal ( a certain distance to achieve ) and do it every day, or every other day whatever you want. I can’t really think of any better activity to get in really good shape, except swimming.
Anyway, sorry this doesn’t really help you much with the mass gain, but no one elses have given you any responses yet, and it’s the best I’ve got. From the sound of it, you don’t seem to have much time to dedicate to serious body building.
Consider bodyweight exercises, which will aid in flexibility, save your joints and encourage “functional strength” (that is, developing, by means of one exercise, multiple muscle groups rather than only one for most weighted exercises). The current purveyor of this is Matt Furey, who comes from a long line of wrestlers, so his techniques are aimed at increasing those sorts of traits (endurance, flexibility, explosive strength, etc.). He’s actually started cribbing from some of the old-time strongmen and wrestlers, (Jowett, Farmer Burns, Karl Gotch, The Great Gama), which, if you dig around on the internet a little, you can find most of the stuff for free. As the exercises tend to work a greater range of muscles, you can get by with shorter workouts than your typical weight-training station rotations.
If you have a chance (weekends?), get yourself down to a martial arts dojo, or boxing/wrestling gym. I packed on a ton of muscle and strength in a very short time while shootwrestling. Both boxing and wrestling are typically more intensive than most beginning martial art courses, so you’ll notice benefits quickly.
As for diet, the current trend seems to be “if it’s man-made, forget it.”
Also, do some searching around the various forums, there’ve been quite a few good threads on this.
First things first: It is extremely difficult to lose fat and gain muscle at the same time. You have to get everything pretty much exactly right, or it just ain’t gonna happen. So you need to pick one goal and stick with it.
Second thing: The same workout routine can be used for bulking (gaining muscle) or cutting (losing fat) depending on your diet. That suggests that you need to have your diet pretty well together to get what you want.
So that brings up a question–what is your primary goal?
Couple points:[ol][li]Maintaining flexibility is just a matter of going through the full range of motion on a given exercise. There’s nothing special about bodyweight exercises versus good weighted exercises. Furthermore, I can hit pretty much every muscle in my body with 6 different exercises (squats, deadlifts, chin ups, dips, bench presses, and rows). That’s pretty economical, wouldn’t you say?[]There’s actually been a revival of some of the old-time strength training methods recently, and it makes sense, cause those guys were strong, and in good shape otherwise.[]Lastly, functional strength generally refers to how well your central nervous system can recruit muscle fibers for a task. It’s contrasted[/li]with structural strength, which refers to how much muscle you have, and how strong the various fibers are.[/ol]
[QUOTE=ultrafilter]
Couple points:[list=1][li]Maintaining flexibility is just a matter of going through the full range of motion on a given exercise. [/li][/quote]
True, although the bodyweight exercises tend to go through fuller range of motions than weighted exercises (i.e. Furey’s “Royal Court” - Hindu Pushups, Hindu Squats and the Bridge). Tell me that you have a weight-based exercise to strengthen/increase flexibility in your back (bridge) or hip flexibility (leg scissor sweeps). I’m playing devil’s advocate to someone who thinks that exercises with weights (free or machine) are the only way to go. From your list below, we see you’ve got some bodyweight exercises in there too. Most of the people I get into disucssions with about this have the tendency to think that unless they do it at the gym (and none of those awful yoga or pilates classes!), it’s not real exercise.
Bodyweight exercises tend to be extremely high reps, work through a fuller range of motion, put less stress on the joints, help the joints by virtue of higher reps (releasing synovial fluid), engage more muscle groups and promote both fast and slow-twitch muscle fibers.
I agree.
[quoute][li]There’s actually been a revival of some of the old-time strength training methods recently, and it makes sense, cause those guys were strong, and in good shape otherwise.[/quote][/li]
That’s what I was getting at.
OK.
Here’s a description of some of the bodyweight exercises and their benefits. Increase muscle, blow off fat, etc.
We’re getting pretty far off the course of the OP here, but all of the exercises I listed are supposed to be done through the full range of motion–i.e., as far as you can move the joints in question. What can promote better flexibility than that?
btw, there are a lot of people who question the wisdom of doing any exercises that curve your spine.
Read this, paying close attention to the section on structural training. How does it differ from your bodyweight programs?
Bodyweight programs are good for hypertrophy programs, but you can do that with weights too. And you definitely need weights for a limit strength program. Weighted chins and dips also have a place in training.
Yep–marketing. Do you really think he’s going to tell you that there’s nothing special about them, except for the cost, even if that is true?
Don’t get me wrong–bodyweight exercises are not a bad alternative to weighted exercises in some situations. But they’re no panacea.
If you like to spend a lot of money for little results, sure. Stick to the vitamins, minerals, and essential oils. Glucosamine for joint health is a must.
[QUOTE=ultrafilter]
We’re getting pretty far off the course of the OP here, but all of the exercises I listed are supposed to be done through the full range of motion–i.e., as far as you can move the joints in question. What can promote better flexibility than that?
[quote]
Perhaps we should clarify: as far as the joints in question could theoretically be moved provided that one has optimal flexibility, or as far as one who is exercising can move them? I’ve seen plenty of weight lifters who can’t even hold their forearms at anything resembling “straight,” even if they tried, as their antagonist muscles are not properly balanced. I think we can agree that a traditional bicep curl will work the muscle through the entire range of motion.
Agreed, there are also people who find that doing exercises like the bridge forward and wrestler’s) helps their hip and upper-body flexibility, promote circulation and eliminates back pain while strenghtening the back and the legs and breath control. There are proper ways to do this of course, and ways that it should definitely not be done. That said, it’s also not for everyone (at least not at first).
I’ve heard plenty of stories and read some literature about how awful military presses are for the spine, so I would say that, as with any exercise, the key to not hurting onesself is certainly a matter of technique and knowing one’s limits. If one’s got a bad back, this may be something to try, but slowly, just as if one has bad knees, your deadlifts might not be worth putting into your routine.
I’ve taken the quotes from the article you link to out of order of their appearances. Furey’s Furey’s contention follows your Testosterone Magazine’s: namely that functional strength is knowing how to use your strength (quote from COMBAT CONDITIONING page 117):
Give the bodyweight stuff a try, you may like them, you may not. If so, good, if not, drop them. I’ve gotten better results with the bodyweight than weighted. I personally find that they keep my attention more and I can get a better variety of workouts than what I had in the high school gym or the admittedly puny collection of weights I bought at home.
Like I said, there are plenty of other places to get the same information. Someone I talked to said that they found a lot of the same stuff in Bruce Lee’s books (Lee, it’s known cribbed from many other sources).
I’ve never used anything more than multivitamins, so I can’t comment, but from my research, I agree.