I need words of inspiration please. I'm so weak right now, I have no muscle on my arms at all I'm like a girl(i'm 15 year old boy), I have no muscles on my arms and I can only lift the Olympic bar(45 pounds) and two 5 plates a total of only 55 pounds. I feel embarrassed at the gym I feel like a girl when I see these guys with nice muscles and are lifting a lot and me I have no muscle and weak arms and can only do 5 reps of 3 sets before my arms can't do anymore. What age did you start lifting and what did you lift when you started? did you feel weak? how long did it take to get muscles and start lifting more?
MrPanda72 - don't compare yourself to everyone else at this point.
ReplyDeleteYou are just starting in a very low position in terms of strength.
To get started buy or borrow a book on body building. I tried doing it willy-nilly. It got me no where. You could also hurt yourself, if you just do whatever everyone is doing. Do the homework first. I suggest using the book I read. It is called Men's Health - Hard Body Plan. If you do it willy-nilly, you are definitely not going to get anywhere and quickly give up cuz you have no idea what you are doing. Heck any book will do, but I really liked the book I got.
It helps to be with a friend who wants to do it too so you can get each other to go and become a routine. It is about the discipline. Keep a log of your progress so you can see what is going on and you don't have to keep it all in your head.
With weight training how much weight you are lifting depends on your body's capability and stressing it just enough to grow. If you lift too much, you can tear something, then guess what? You are out for weeks while you heal, so do it right to begin with. Don't be concerned about how much others are lifting.
I saddly stopped lifting cuz of school and just don't really have the time to do it. Moving away and in a new country kinda broke the routine. It sucks.
Don't expect result to come right away, but it will come eventually.
I agree with the chicky below my entry. It can mess with your growth. You probably need to get your puberty going.. Puberty will help build up your body by itself.
To keep the messing with the growth part under control you should do the more reps with less weight scheme as to the less reps more weight program. :)
armed with a :) - I'm not a guy, I'm a 14 y/o girl but I think I can help. Most of the guys I know started lifting in the 7th or 8th grade. So you're not that far behind everyone. And I heard that lifting to young could stunt growth. I wouldn't worry about it unless you're already very short. See a lot of the guys in 7th or 8th grads were like 5'9-6'2 so it's not like they would be midgets if they stopped growing. And you're not like a girl, don't say that. I have trouble lifting two 10 pound weights. Like I could maybe do ten reps. So you're definitely stronger than a girl. I used to be super weak and couldn't do any push ups. But I needed to be stronger for gymnastics. So I started doing just 5 pushups a day. I know that's like nothing to a guy but I really couldn't do it. Each week I'd increase it by an amount I felt was appropriate. Now I can do about 30 and then they get really crappy. But I'd say it took me about 3 weeks or a month to notice a huge difference. I recommend you try something similar with lifting, increase each week. And don't skip at all. Skipping just one or two days sometimes would mess me up for the entire week, consistency is key.
ReplyDeletePlease answer mine?
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AtOIFpuMTNVZDd7NhcTvDtcM_dw4;_ylv=3?qid=20111115011440AAVjJHy
Richard - Hi. I started lifting in my mid-20s, probably 23 or 24. I began with power cleans, squats, deadlift, press, row... I didn't really know what I was doing, my workouts were badly planned and my form was awful but I was still better off lifting than not. I don't have the figures to hand but I can tell you I bought my own barbell, a cheapo one with 50kg (there's 2.2 lb in a kg for your info, so that's about 120lb) and if I put all the plates on the bar I could hardly move it. I was proud when I got my deadlift up to 70kg. It took me a while, about a year I think. But I was doing everything wrong. Here's how to do it right:
ReplyDeleteYour workout should contain at least a pushing and a pulling movement, plus squats and some core work, and ideally a little cardio and flexibility. Weights aren't nessesarily the best way to do this. I sold my barbell a year or two ago (when I did my max deadlift was about 165kg) and I just do bodyweight stuff now. I'm stronger and heavier than I've ever been.
Useful books:
Building the gymnastic body, by Coach Sommers
From the Ground Up, by Dan Johns
Convict Conditioning, by Paul Wade
Enter the Kettlebell, by Pavel Tsatsouline
All these have some macho crap attached (except for Sommers' book) and all of them reckon theyre the be all and end all. Try some of each, don't hurt yourself and keep working at it.
Good luck.