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putting on muscle questions
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Ok I have a few questions about putting on more muscles, I am short 16 and weigh 8stone.. I have just started attending a gym and I was wondering if I start doing a lot of weights will it affect my height, and stop me from growing as tall as I would if I wasn’t doing weights.
Also I no I will need to eat to put on the muscle, but what foods do I eat? Do I eat before or after the gym?
Also how often is 2much workout, can I go everyday? Or not? How long do I need to leave my muscles to rest? And if im trying to get more muscley and I do weights at the gym, then go on a running machine is this ok? Or will I burn off most of what ive been trying to work for???
Please help
Also I no I will need to eat to put on the muscle, but what foods do I eat? Do I eat before or after the gym?
Also how often is 2much workout, can I go everyday? Or not? How long do I need to leave my muscles to rest? And if im trying to get more muscley and I do weights at the gym, then go on a running machine is this ok? Or will I burn off most of what ive been trying to work for???
Please help
Post edited by JustV on
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You will still be growing, but the body is more able to cope with the added stress better than at younger ages. You should still be careful as always about how much weight you are using and that your are using the correct techniques. But if done correctly, you shouldn't stop growing height wise before you otherwise would.
Ok as for the nutrition:
Ok, a fair chunk of your food intake should be in the form of carbohydrates. Preferably these should have a low GI (Glycemic Index) like pasta or oats, rather than sugars.
You should also eat a largish amount of protein, as well as being needed to gain mass, it is needed to repair and maintain tissue. This should be ideally from things such as scrambled eggs, bacon (with fat removed and grilled not fried), tuna fish, Chicken (grilled again - so that the fat can drain away), or in the form of protein shakes - mmm tasty
The shakes I tend to drink are made as:
Crack 3-2 eggs into a glass, couple of scoops of whey powder, couple of scoops of semi skimmed milk powder and topped up with semi skimmed milk. Then stir, shut your eyes and drink as quickly as possible
Large amounts of vegetables - People never eat enough, you need the vitamins and minerals to help keep your body and muscles in fine tune.
Fat - Every one needs some in their intake, you should have some mixed in with your food, so you don't need to look at eating it specifically, just don't obsess about fat free everything, just eat lean meat and that should cut it down enough. ON A SIDENOTE - special fat free foods (like processed meals) should generally be avoided, as they contain so much artificial crap, that you're generally better off avoiding them and eating the normal stuff in moderation
I would also Take vitamin pills, and Cod liver oil capsules daily.
Post workout you want to digest more carbohydrates with a relatively high to medium GI, to restore levels of glycogen in the muscles. This can be done by eating sweet foods and drinking the second energy drink (isotonic) described later in the 2 hours after training (e.g. on the way home)
Then after an hour or 2 have a medium sized meal of something like a couple of slabs of roast chicken, a plate of pasta lots of broccoli and sweet corn and a light sprinkling of cheese.
During training look to drink a Hypotonic drink. Forget anything like Lucosade, this will work better, and is infinitely cheaper:
20 - 40g sucrose (sugar)
1L warm water (dissolves better)
1 - 1.5g (1/4 tea spoon) salt
splash of sugar free/ low calorie squash for flavouring (optional, just find one with as little crap in it as possible)
A hypotonic drink has a relatively low osmality, (having fewer particles than the bodies fluids) making it absorbed into the blood stream faster than water.
After training drink an Isotonic drink, which has a similar osmality to the body's fluids, making it absorbed a little slower, but having more nutrients on the plus side, replenishing carbohydrate levels faster. Recipe is the same as the first, just with double the amount of sugar.
If you don't want to make two separate drinks, just go for a slightly stronger hypotonic drink (around 50g sugar), and bring along something like honey or chocolate flapjacks to eat afterwards.
On to training methods:
Don't work out every day, as your body needs to rest and to rebuild tissue, as you break it down while exercising. For starting off try to workout 3-4 times a week for example:
Monday Upper body and arms:
Bicep curls
Pec deck
Military press
Bench press
Lat pulldown
Ab crunches etc.
Tuesday Rest
Still eat
Wednesday Lower body and legs:
Squats
Leg raises
Leg abduction
Leg adduction
Lunges
Calf raises
Seated leg curl
Friday Upper body and arms:
As above
Saturday Lower body and legs:
As above
Sunday Rest
Still eat
Try to do 3 sets of around 5-10 repetitions with a 2-minute break in between each set for each exercise. The above exercises are examples, and can be changed depending on what you want to do, and on the facilities at your gym.
Running machines etc:
You’ll be fine using them, in fact you should be using them! Part of every training session should be a good warm up and warm down.
At the beginning of your training session go for a gentle 5 minute warm up jog or row. Start of nice and easy and work up to a medium intensity to get your aerobic energy systems up and running. Then spend 10 minutes going through a set of stretches, holding each stretch for around a count of 8. After your workout you should then go for a gentle jog/row working down to a low intensity to start calming down the body. Then another set of stretches. This should be done at any training session. I used to run for another half an hour on top at the end of one session a week (the upper body one, and as long as there wasn’t a lower body leg session the next day) You could do this (on the Monday in the above example), or on the Saturday you could change the lower body workout to a lower intensity one, and have a large aerobic workout, or you could even get rid of the second lower body workout completely, and just do running on the Saturday.
If you have any questions give us a buzz, and Alessandro or I will be over before you can say “fitness freaks”
Alistair
He asked about using gyms.....
so I talkeld about using gyms.....
swimming is good, but more usefull as an extension of gym work rather than on it's own when it comes to bulking up.
if i keep up a routine like that how long will it be before i start to see the effects?
I also have free weights at home, do you think i should be useing them some days aswell?
I see...well your the one who knows about this kinda thing
You can use them aswell, But remember to keep your rest days clear, as your body needs to rest and rebuild itself. They would mainly be used to make up for days when you couldn't go to the gym. Either that or if you were to get rid of one of the lower body days, you could re-arrange the schedule and fit in another light day for using weights. On your rest days, you may wish to do a few LIGHT exercises, like gentle pressups etc, but be carefull not to push it at all - don't go anywhere near to the point where you can't do any more, just 10 or so to wake you up.
It's can be very good for fitness but the amount of hard swimming training needed to get bigger is far beyond most people.