OK so I’m a 16 year old male. I’m looking to get in a little better shape, toning my abs and getting better arm strength and such. I’m not fat by any means, my BMI is completely healthy and whatnot (i’m aware this isnt an exact tool.) I have limited access to a weight room (at school tuesdays and thursdays for about 40 minutes) and free access to a treadmill. I was thinking I would work out with weights whenever I got the chance, and run and do sit-ups and pushups every afternoon. Should this be connected with a diet or not? Does anyone have any advice on what kind of workout I should be doing for best results (doesn’t have to be too quick, but hopefully somewhat fast)? Thanks a ton.
I’ll get back to you with specifics tomorrow, but yeah, you need a diet of some kind if you want to improve your definition.
Since your time in the weight room is so limited, I think it’s important to concentrate on bodyweight exercises. If you can buy a chin-up bar and find someplace to do dips, you’ll have a good setup.
Here’s a good one that you can do with only chairs: while you hold on to the seat of a chair (arms at your sides if you have to chair, more-or-less behind your back with one), rest your feet on the seat of a chair. You should be positioned in such a way that when you bend your arms your ass will lower to the floor. If you’re really strong, you can always take two chair (or for each arm) and keep your legs out in front of you while dipping.
40 minutes twice per week is a pretty good spread, particularly if you add another day (say, on Saturday) for body weight stuff, like pushups, chins and dips. Run on the other days.
Other than that, I’ll just give my standard advice:
Go here. Read the entire site. Ignore the stuff about it being for women–most of the advice on it applies equally regardless of gender. Pick one of the beginner’s full-body workouts (maybe tack a set or two of curls on the end of it), watch what you eat and you should make some pretty serious gains after a month or two.
Honestly, at your age, if you eat enough, you can do just about anything exercise-wise and grow like a weed. Just get exercise and make sure you get plenty of protein and water (1 gram of protein per pound of lean body weight per day and drink more water than you think you need).
Give us some idea of what you’re doing in the weight room while you’re on here.
The running part is good as long as you don’t overdo it.
Keep in mind that bodyweight training (situps, pushups, etc) is more or less equivalent to weightlifting–you don’t need to do it every day. In fact, if you train the same muscles daily, you’ll cut into your muscle gains–you want to give each muscle group 2 or 3 days to heal up after you hit them. Whether this means you do legs one day, upper body the next and then legs the day after that or if you just do full body every two or three days is entirely up to you.
Don’t worry if that means you spend some days sitting on your ass and watching tv–in my opinion, a lot of people who lift weights spend too much damn time in the gym anyway. For example, I’m only in the gym 4 days a week (upper/lower, rest, upper/lower, weekend), 40 minutes at a time and I’m seeing pretty impressive results. As the saying goes, you don’t get stronger in the gym, you get stronger when you’re resting.
Uh, anyway, back to what I asked earlier–make a note of what you’re doing in the weight room and either ultrafilter or another one us will be along shortly to nitpick the routine to death.
Well even when I get to the weightroom it’s hectic because theres 40 odd people in there so I don’t get to always do what I want, but today I did:
Benching, 75 pounds: 10 reps 4 sets
The thing with the bar that you pull down and go back up when you’re sitting down, 100 pounds: 10 reps two sets
Sitting down leg extension, 100 pounds: 10 reps two sets
Stairmaster like thing: 20 floors
Squats (not sure the pounds): 10 reps 1 set (I had never done it before)
The thing where you raise your arms up and pull them back down when they are spread apart, 50 pounds: 10 reps 1 set
Thats about it I think other than some miscelanious stuff.
I find that push-ups are really hard though. Is that bad?
If you’re benching 75 lbs. for 10 reps, and you weigh…say, twice that, then yeah, pushups might be hard.
Here’s the reason why I think you should avoid the weightroom for now: The most important thing you can have in your training is a well-designed plan that you can consistently execute. The weightroom’s hectic, and your time is very limited, so you can either a) come up with a very complicated plan with all kinds of contingencies, or b) find a low-equipment workout that you can do consistently.
That said, pulldowns (you should be able to figure out which one this is) and bench presses are a bad combination for your shoulders. If you’re going to bench, do barbell rows as well.
Do you have any spare cash? If you go to garage sales and swap meets, you should be able to find a bench and weights for perhaps $50 (you can get the weights for $100 new). If that’s hard money, perhaps you can find a friend to go in for half. Which is a good idea anyway, because then you have a workout partner.
Then you’re pretty much self-contained. You won’t be relying on those two short days at the school gym.
You can do a lot more with weights than you can with just bodyweight exercises.
Set up a schedule and stick to it. slortar’s is good: upper body/lower body/rest/upper/lower/rest/rest. I do upper/lower/cardio/rest (doesn’t synchronize with the week). Doing the treadmill 2-4 days a week is good as well.
Weights will make you bigger and stronger. Cardio (such as the treadmill) will burn calories, making you lose weight/give you tone, (in conjunction with good diet). Cardio is also good for your heart and gives you endurance.
Keep records of what you lift. Pick some number of sets and reps, say like you did in your last workout, 3 sets of ten reps each. If you can do the full 3 sets of ten reps, move up in weight; presumably you won’t be able to complete the full 3 sets of ten. Stay at that weight until you can complete them, then move up again.
The number of reps and sets is a whole discussion in itself. I like 3 sets, 10 reps, then 8 reps, then 6 reps, each time going up 10 pounds. But there are plenty of opinions out there, most probably more valuable than mine.
On the last set, do as many as you can. That last one is the most important, so really push yourself to do just one more.
If you want to improve your upper body strength you have to work out the “5” major muscle groups. Chest-Back-Shoulders-Biceps-Triceps.
Most excercises will fit into one of these groupings. Pushups=chest, curls=biceps, overhead press=shoulders, rows=back, dips=triceps.
Then there are ab and back excercises.
I would suggest when you get some time to take a small notepad and go to a Barnes and Noble and look through some of the excercise books and take some notes. “Body for Life” has some workout routines, nutrition info, and lots of fact vs. myth info. “Idiots guide to weight training” is also good. It shows a lot of excercises and exactly which muscles are used for them.
Cardio (running) is good for weight loss and conditioning. However, you can turn weight training sessions into cardio sessions if you keep a stopwatch with you and time yourself.
My routine consists of:
Chest: 12 reps, rest one minute add 10 lbs, 10 reps, rest one minute add 10 lbs, 8 reps, rest one minute add 10 lbs, 6 reps, rest one minute subtract 10 lbs, 12 reps, no rest, different chest excercise, 12 reps
Rest 2 minutes
Shoulders: Same as chest
Rest 2 minutes
Back: Same again
Rest 2 minutes
(repeat for biceps and triceps)
On days between weight training I do my cardio (20 minutes, vigorous) and abs and back.
If you keep that routine up, Hampshire, you’re going to have shoulder problems in the future. You may already. When you stand neutral with your arms at your sides, do your palms face towards each other or slightly back? The further back, the worse off you are.
Chest first all the time. The perfect routine for someone with no tendency towards shoulder problems has an equal split between chest first and upper back first.
It’s better that way. Personally, I don’t think that any routine that’s broken down by muscles rather than movements is all that good, but if you’re just training to look better and you’re happy with the results you’re getting, I wouldn’t worry all that much.
A hint regarding sit-ups: make sure you’re not tucking your feet under something. If you have your feet under something, you’re working out your hip flexors and quads as well as your abs, but there is less of a workout on your stomach muscles.
You should have your feet free to work your stomach muscles the most. It will make the sit-ups much harder too!
Another hint to make sit-ups harder is to make sure you keep your shoulders and head off the floor for the whole time.
Oh, BTW, I’m biased, but a fun way to build strength and get toned is through gymnastics. Maybe see if there is an appropriate class in your area. It’s heaps of fun, and you get a great whole body workout. Your flexibility will improve too, which is another indicator of fitness. Besides, who doesn’t want to learn flips?!
